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Now THIS is walking down the correct path. Could you tell from my screen name?
1st Law of Thermodynamics: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. From a purely physics standpoint, if we look at the earth as a closed system, there is only one usable external source of energy - the sun, in it's many, many forms. Wind energy, solar thermal, solar electric, hydro, ethanol, nuclear, and yes, petroleum fuels all ultimately are energy received from the sun. Everything else is just shuffling the cards.
Harnessing, maximizing and storing the only external source of energy we have is what we need to focus on. Thanks for the post.
This is another reason why the oil cartel is going to get crushed, and probably sooner rather than later.
PHEVs and biofuels. If we even try, we will easily see our way to a cleaner and more prosperous future, seamlessly, without major recessions or calamities. We can eliminate the use of fossil fuels for 90 percent of transportation. It game over nearly now for the fossil boys.
The only problem is after the cartel is broken, oil prices will tumble like ten-pins. We have to put a gas tax on, and a stiffy, or we go back to Lincoln Continentals longer than semis again.
Love this solar stuff. I wish everybody in this industry that best of luck, and look forward to someday soon outfitting my factory with the full get-up, so I sell rather than buy electricity.
BenjamineCole, prices won't tumble like ten-pens if OPEC collapses. Producing flat out we are barely supplying the world's energy needs, and not discovering enough fossil fuel to replace the oil produced. And demand keeps growing all over the world.
But I agree with you on the gas tax, and the great potential of photoelectric. Since we import about 60% of our oil and we want to discourage the use of imports, a stiff tariff would have the same effect while encouraging domestic production of energy. It could be made polliticialy palletable by calling it a national energy security initiative and dedicating the proceeds to building the infrsstucture to make alternative energy practicable.
OilmanBob-
Well, check out world fossil consumption figures. Demand was up 3.1 percent in 2004, then 1.8 percent in 2005, then 0.9 percent in 2006, according to EIA (at their website). And new technologies are just being implemented now. Higher MPG cars just now entering the US fleet of cars and trucks. I predict permanently declining demand for fossil crude in this price regime. US demand was down last year.
The average marginal cost of production a barrel of oil in 2003 was $3.57 a barrel, according to the EIA. Yet demand is falling already. It is true, at this price point, OPEC can cut production and make plenty of money, and in fact they say they are cutting production, willfully.
Peak Oilers know the real facts, and that is that OPEC is lying, to keep oil prices artificially low, and hide the truth that they are running out of oil to pump. Somehow this particular conspiracy theory doesn't make sense to me, and I like conspiracy theories.
I wonder if hedge funds, having gone long, have not planted a PR campaign to the effect that oil supplies are tight. The hedgies have billions of dollars at their disposal, and could hire websites and commentators at will. If you were long a few billion, would you not try to color the perception of oil scarcity?
The nomenclature of the oil world is increasingly hysterical.
You would not guess that fossil oil demand is nearly stagnant if not declining, and fossil crude prices well down from last summer's peak. Yet those are the facts, on a global basis.
But, hey, let's get on with the post-fossil world, I say the sooner the better, as a patriot and environmentalist. With PHEVs and biofuels, solar power plants and a thousand other steps big and small, I have little doubt we can get to a cleaner and more prosperous future. We are already headed in the right direction.
BenjamineCole, I certainly hope you are right about oil supplies, however, I don't believe it. The main reason is that Exxon, Shell,Conoco-Phillips ,Sunoco and Total are all investing billions in the Alberta Tar Sands and Four Corners Kerogen shales in the Green River formation(so-called oil shale). A little bit of arithmetic shows these sources cost $100,000.00 per barrel per day of level production in capital costs, plus another $20-$30 in production costs per barrel of synthetic crude. That's excluding transportation and refining costs.
While many nasty things can be said about big oil, they are not fools. If the world were'nt running out of cheap oil this would not make economic sense-who drills a million dollar well for 10 bbls./day of production? I've been in oil and gas exploration since 1976, believe me, those numbers don't fly because the flow rate must be good enough to pay the well out within 30 months and have a total return on investment of at least 4:1 to justify a new well in a development situation. Two years and 6:1 in a wildcat.
Of course the majors have different economics, they treasure a steady flow to keep their refinery and chemical operations working. But, watch what they do, not what they say.
As far as hedge funds being behind the peak oil folks, contact me, I'm very easily bribed!
All joking aside, the problem with any conspiracy is that most people can't keep their mouths shut. It's human nature. And especially the types that make up hedge fund cowboys-when they were all natural gas players at Enron, Dynegy and El Paso they all rolled over. But, this isn't glamerous or prooveable, just the truth. My personal psychological theory about "conspiracy theories" is that they are actually a form of denial, people are denying that real events are out of control so they blame a conspiracy, the Elders of Zion, the Illuminati, the Masons, the devil, Communists, The Government suppressing Aliens,Big Oil and OPEC.
...so they blame a conspiracy, the Elders of Zion, the Illuminati, the Masons, the devil, Communists, The Government suppressing Aliens,Big Oil and OPEC
I think Peak Oil conspiracy was started by the Amish.
:-)
Could be. My great-great grandfather was Amish, born in Lancaster County and left home in the turmoil after the Civil War to homestead in Nebraska.
I think it was the buggy whip manafacturers are behind it all.
The TREC vision is probably PART of the right path.
But before I point out the difficulties, let me nitpick at your list: nuclear (and geothermal resulting from nuclear decay), whether fusion or fission has little to do with energy from the sun nor with the 1st Law of Thermodynamics - rather with E=mc2.
I have been following the TREC-Program for a while. I must admit, I get very excited at the idea.
BUT:
1. If it ain't going to happen in Spain, Portugal, Sicily, Crete, Israel etc.. first, it ain't going to happen. The infrastructure needs to be developed in these EU/EU-friendly areas first, before the African wet dreams can even nearly be realized.
2. A corrolary to that: TREC is silently advocating (probably unconciously!) European colonialism of N. Africa. "Let the US invade Iraq, we're going for Algeria!" If the N. Africans aren't offering it themselves, why should the Europeans think they can force it (yes, investment)? I'm much more positive about such a project outside Phoenix, for instance, or a Mexican/US joint venture than EUMENA..
3. It's a centralitic, complicated solution to our energy needs. The idea shouldn't really be to build the most complicated replacement to our FF world. Simplify!!! Complex structures implode much more fantastically.
4. Sending the energy across the Med. will be the biggest obstacle. Just like with the hydrogen economy, storage/shipment is an almost unsolvable hurdle. I've been thinking about simpler (more costly?) solutions - compressed air came up the other day while reading about the car being run on it (www.theaircar.com). Surely better than batteries..
5. And this list was only off the top of my head.
Greetings from Munich!
Dom
---
My grandfather pumped oil with an engine-house,
my father pumped oil with a 20 lb. electric motor,
can't I just pump it online?
Maybe not. There is currently a project in the plans to build a tunnel under the Mediterranean between Gibraltar and Morocco. I read about this quite recently. A Swiss company was awarded a contract to develop a detailed concept for such a tunnel.
Electricity could be shipped across the Mediterranean using that tunnel.
Well, I guess they did build the other Chunnel across (under) la Manche, now didn't they?
But I don't think the real Problem is where to lay the power cable, but more the fact that the cable needs to be thousands of klicks long to get to the consumer.
Italy buys most of its e- from across the Alps (French nuclear mostly). That's another reason to begin in So. Italy / Sicily - Producing for the "local" market. If it works there (and once the infrastructures have been built up), then the Africans can be tapped..
There is a choice of one of two problems with long transmission lines. If you choose DC of a high voltage, you have to convert it back to AC at the other end. Imagine trying to convert a million volts of DC to house current.
The other choice is alternating current. Easy to step-down the voltage with transformers, but those long lines actually serve as an antenna of high impedance. A lot of the power will be lost as it turns into radio waves at the low frequency. The powerplant is effectively made into a transmitter! As you step up the voltage, you more closely match the impedance of the antenna impedance of the transmission likes. The wavelength of 60HZ is like 3,100 miles. As transmission lines approach a quarter-wavelength, it becomes more and more like an antenna, resulting in lost power radiating into space.
For really long transmission lines, you would need something like coaxial cable - a power pipeline. But that is not without lossiness due to stray capacitance between the wire and the pipe. And higher voltage means a better match between the the powerplant's output impedance and the impedance of that stray capacitance.
As it stands, our own grid loses about half the power from resistance of the wire and the RF loss described above. The majority of the loss is the resistance loss.
What a crappy choice.
Petrol prices high enough yet? Just wait!
As it stands, our own grid loses about half the power from resistance of the wire and the RF loss described above. The majority of the loss is the resistance loss.
Uh, what? Contemporary AC grids have an average loss of about 7-8% between the power plant and end user.
Yes, you can ... but only snake-oil.
And what is the EROEI of snake oil?-)
--
My grandfather pumped oil with an engine-house,
my father pumped oil with a 20 lb. electric motor,
can't I just pump it online?
They EROEI of snake oil approaches infinity!
Actually, much oil is pumped online. Pipelines are monitored in real time over the internet. Lots of remote locations are monitored online, and the adjustments in flow rates of offshore wells handled online. If Chevron and Devon decide to complete the deepwater Eocene Jack discovery, all the production equipment will have to be remote controlled for both installation and production. Refineries are the same, lots of monitors and controls. Pretty soon the whole world will be controlled by a dozen guys in Mumbai with pocket protectors!
Portugal has GE (I think) building a 11MW collector.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5056012.stm
Spain has 11MW in Seville up and running.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6616651.stm
France has a parabolic collector operating in the Pyrenees.
http://explorer.altopix.com/map/vcczsy/Solar_Furnace_at_Odeillo_Font-Rom...
Sicily is beginning what looks like a 5MW array.
http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy_regions/sicily/2007/current-affairs/ital...
The North African pipe dreams are more likely to happen because where they are oil importers, they can model what happens when a barrel goes over $100, and they can't invade other countries for their fix.
2. Colonialism: The only part of N. Africa that HASN'T been under effective colonial control for the past 50 years has been Libya. We have control, we're not ceding it, we may as well use it.
3. Energy dissipation over distance: I should think replacing FF demand in N. Africa with solar should be cheaper than trying to route the electricity across the Med.
Well, there is obviously hope, although I wouldn't call 3 objects more than just a beginning..
But you're right, it might just be worth it to build the platfoms for the north Africans - you're assuming they're willing to pay first world prices, right?
Nuclear from the sun???? How much U235 and U238 does the Earth recieve from the sun every day???