I would like to know what it would be? Warp drive?
And where would you get energy and materials to realize that technology?
I would like to know what it would be? Warp drive?
And where would you get energy and materials to realize that technology?You're missing the point then. We're talking about about agricultural waste such as turkey guts and animal offal that currently is usually getting thrown away in a landfill and certainly not eaten. The grain also already been expended whether the turkey guts are sent through the Thermal Depolymerization process or not. This agricultural waste produced by the US alone can equal 4 billion barrels of oil and/or its natural gas equivalent in energy per year. The technology also turns our waste currently going to landfills into an asset, and we might actually start digging up old landfill to put items through the thermal depolymerization process. This will potentially allow us to meet all our oil and gas needs. (While there might be a longterm issue once we run low on trash and would face an energy crunch again, this gives us time to work on other sources such as viable Nuclear Fusion powerplanets.)Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
^
I've read about TD, and I've come to the conclusion it will only be a bit player, much like "alternative" oils like shale, sands, and kerogen. It sounds nice, but it is not unsustainable (600 million tons of turkey guts?! wow!, the amount of grain needed to feed that would be enormous).
The problem is scale. If we had a sustainable population, like around 2 billion world wide, then this technology would be all we would really need to offset declines from elsewhere. Right now, it is a proverbial drop in the bucket (or 5 if you wish
According to info on their website it takes about a year to build a plant. Future planets they are currently talking about building will be able to produce 1,000 barrels of oil per day, and they think individual planets capable of producing 5,000 barrels of oil per day would be profitable. Even at current oil prices and their current cost structure, the planets are already quite commercially viable. They were would become an extremely profitable proposition if oil prices went up somewhat more. According to the company's website it take about a year to build one TDP plant.
http://www.changingworldtech.com/index.asp
However they plan on eventually licensing the technology and allowing other companies to build plants, which could lead to the massive building of plants at once in a severe energy crisis. The government could also offer financial assitence in building these planets. Given the various sources of waste produced all over the world, these plants could be placed all over the place as well..
This article was written at the end of 2003 and mentions how oil is being produced and sold to a nearby powerplant.
http://www.helenair.com/articl...iness/e01120703_03.txt
There have been a bunch of news articles since then, but alot of them are taken off publicly acessible portions of the online newspaper eventually.
There is a recent one from this month, but it doesn't actually give many new details about how things are going, with one possible exception.
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/18/18953/1.html
The plant's capacity is 500 barrels per day, and 80% of that is 400 barrels per day. For awhile they were down to 200 barrels per day due to complains about smell issues causing them to have to periodicly shut the plant down and try to fix things, but it looks like they are ironing out those problems now.
Edit: I just fixed a significant typo.
No you are missing the point.
The fact is that a single TD plant produces only 200-500 barrels of oil a day. Assuming 1,000 barrels is the net efficency attainable for a TD plant you would need:
1. 4 billion barrels / 365 = 11 mbd per day. (current imports by the US, growing at a rate of 2-3% a year)
2. 11mbd / 1,000 barrels per plant per day = 11,000 new plants.
3. 11,000 new plants being brought on in a year (as you proposed) will be
11,000/365 = 30 plants brought in a year.
I think it will be more likely that they will be built over 5 years which brings it down to 6 a day, which I forsee is doable. However, this still doesn't solve the problem.
Eventually however, you will run out of landfills and agricultural wastes will not be able to keep up with demand. Remember, depletion, modeled after an ideal curve by the Hubbart model, is conservatively 2-5%. Assuming an average of 3% decline, we will be losing .03 x 30 billion barrels a year (which seems will be the peak, we are currently mining about 27 bpy), which amounts to 900 million barrels per year for the first year alone, next year, you will lose 27bpy x .03 which equals 810 million barrels per year. Two years after the peak, we will have lost (810 + 900 million barrels per year)/365 which equals about a 4.5 million barrel per day decline. When you put it in this perspective, it becomes pretty clear that TD will never make up decline. You would need thousands of plants across the country to process wastes, and that number will have to exponetially increase at the same rate of decline. If production peaks higher, say at 45 billion barrels a year (which is 123 million barrels of oil per day), then the decline will be even higher. For example, two year caculations will be:
.03 x 45 bpy = 1.35 bpy decline
.03 x (45-1.35) = 1.3095 bpy decline.
1.35bpy + 1.3095bpy / 365 = 7,286,301mbd loss. This is close to what the US imports yearly (we import about 12 mbd).
This is of course assuming 3% steady decline and an ideal state (which never exists ). If there has been secondary recovery at major fields and ill practices on declining fields, we could see decline rates of up to 15%.
With TD, we can't convert fast enough to save our economy. Landfills are a one time deal with that sort of material. We could set up a closed loop system (inputs = outputs from another facility/branch) but that will be a smaller number than what will be needed. After exhausting all of the landfills, we will have to rely on wastes being generated at a finite rate which will be smaller than the endowment in landfills. Additionally, TD plants exhaust a ton of CO2 (which can be used in the process but also leaves as waste) and produce other not so happy chemicals.
A sustainable society would be great, because we would able to do all sorts of things to offset decline due to the smaller scale and nature of problems. As it stands, I doubt if we can offset depletion with enough alternatives to maintain business as usual. Remember, we aren't at the edge of electricity production, which oil is rarely used for. Oil is a transportation fuel first and foremost. The alternatives are few and far apart. Biodiesal is great, but again not ratchatable up to a scale that is meaningful, hydrogen is not for reasons I have stated before, and electricity is too diffuse to be usable right now. Retrofitting and producing 50 million cars a year in America (a very large and probably insurmontable task, seeing as how we need to make changes now), it will take at least 6-8 years to retrofit every car. A more probable number is 500,000 cars, which will take 60 years. Side by side usage of biodiesal and electricity will require at least a few trillion dollars of infrastructure remodeling, for engines to be compatiable, for the biodiesal to be made (algae farms, oily plant plantations, workers, farmers, harvesters, refining, delivery, concentrating, different blends for different regions in the US, delivery systems of the fuel such as diesal stations, and competetive fuel matching and the same follows for TD plants simultaneously, however much of the work is already done because you get light crude outta the plant). This will all take at least a few decades to ratchet up production to levels that will be able to be competetive with oil. And what happens when TD/Biodiesal/other become limiting? We will be discussing the same problem with a different name when that time comes. So long as we have a culture of unrestricted, uncontrolled growth, something will always become limiting.
EDIT : Your source has to be wrong, 300-400 barrels a month is laughable (10 barrels a day?). I can get that much out of the soil by randomly digging deep enough. My caculations are based upon a 1,000 barrel per day mean for all plants because some will produce more and some less, however, the avg. point I placed may be low or high, I simply picked a median number that looked safe to me.
The fact is that a single TD plant produces only 200-500 barrels of oil a day. Assuming 1,000 barrels is the net efficency attainable for a TD plant you would need:
1. 4 billion barrels / 365 = 11 mbd per day. (current imports by the US, growing at a rate of 2-3% a year)
2. 11mbd / 1,000 barrels per plant per day = 11,000 new plants.
3. 11,000 new plants being brought on in a year (as you proposed) will be
11,000/365 = 30 plants brought in a year.
I think it will be more likely that they will be built over 5 years which brings it down to 6 a day, which I forsee is doable. However, this still doesn't solve the problem.
Eventually however, you will run out of landfills and agricultural wastes will not be able to keep up with demand. Remember, depletion, modeled after an ideal curve by the Hubbart model, is conservatively 2-5%. Assuming an average of 3% decline, we will be losing .03 x 30 billion barrels a year (which seems will be the peak, we are currently mining about 27 bpy), which amounts to 900 million barrels per year for the first year alone, next year, you will lose 27bpy x .03 which equals 810 million barrels per year. Two years after the peak, we will have lost (810 + 900 million barrels per year)/365 which equals about a 4.5 million barrel per day decline. When you put it in this perspective, it becomes pretty clear that TD will never make up decline. You would need thousands of plants across the country to process wastes, and that number will have to exponetially increase at the same rate of decline. If production peaks higher, say at 45 billion barrels a year (which is 123 million barrels of oil per day), then the decline will be even higher. For example, two year caculations will be:
.03 x 45 bpy = 1.35 bpy decline
.03 x (45-1.35) = 1.3095 bpy decline.
1.35bpy + 1.3095bpy / 365 = 7,286,301mbd loss. This is close to what the US imports yearly (we import about 12 mbd).
This is of course assuming 3% steady decline and an ideal state (which never exists
). If there has been secondary recovery at major fields and ill practices on declining fields, we could see decline rates of up to 15%.With TD, we can't convert fast enough to save our economy. Landfills are a one time deal with that sort of material. We could set up a closed loop system (inputs = outputs from another facility/branch) but that will be a smaller number than what will be needed. After exhausting all of the landfills, we will have to rely on wastes being generated at a finite rate which will be smaller than the endowment in landfills. Additionally, TD plants exhaust a ton of CO2 (which can be used in the process but also leaves as waste) and produce other not so happy chemicals.
A sustainable society would be great, because we would able to do all sorts of things to offset decline due to the smaller scale and nature of problems. As it stands, I doubt if we can offset depletion with enough alternatives to maintain business as usual. Remember, we aren't at the edge of electricity production, which oil is rarely used for. Oil is a transportation fuel first and foremost. The alternatives are few and far apart. Biodiesal is great, but again not ratchatable up to a scale that is meaningful, hydrogen is not for reasons I have stated before, and electricity is too diffuse to be usable right now. Retrofitting and producing 50 million cars a year in America (a very large and probably insurmontable task, seeing as how we need to make changes now), it will take at least 6-8 years to retrofit every car. A more probable number is 500,000 cars, which will take 60 years. Side by side usage of biodiesal and electricity will require at least a few trillion dollars of infrastructure remodeling, for engines to be compatiable, for the biodiesal to be made (algae farms, oily plant plantations, workers, farmers, harvesters, refining, delivery, concentrating, different blends for different regions in the US, delivery systems of the fuel such as diesal stations, and competetive fuel matching and the same follows for TD plants simultaneously, however much of the work is already done because you get light crude outta the plant). This will all take at least a few decades to ratchet up production to levels that will be able to be competetive with oil. And what happens when TD/Biodiesal/other become limiting? We will be discussing the same problem with a different name when that time comes. So long as we have a culture of unrestricted, uncontrolled growth, something will always become limiting.
EDIT : Your source has to be wrong, 300-400 barrels a month is laughable (10 barrels a day?). I can get that much out of the soil by randomly digging deep enough. My caculations are based upon a 1,000 barrel per day mean for all plants because some will produce more and some less, however, the avg. point I placed may be low or high, I simply picked a median number that looked safe to me.
Thousands of plants all over the country is easily sustainable once they start getting built and raking in money. There is a reason the Discovery article was talking about the number they were. The one thing I'll have to check to see when you think peak oil is going to hit. A point worth noting is that is TDP plants get going before then, they take the date when peak oil hits out further. Your claim that TDP plants emit a ton of CO2 is highly misleading, the CO2 is turned into useful end products by the process. Landfills are a onetime deal but can last quite some time, and our constant flow of new garbage is a continued source. Another enourmous non-renenewable source is that the process can be used to convert dirty coal and oil shale into clean burning oil in gas, which can further extend the point until we hit an energy crunch. (See this link for a listing of items which can potentially go through TDP)Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
No you are missing the point.
The fact is that a single TD plant produces only 200-500 barrels of oil a day. Assuming 1,000 barrels is the net efficency attainable for a TD plant you would need:
1. 4 billion barrels / 365 = 11 mbd per day. (current imports by the US, growing at a rate of 2-3% a year)
2. 11mbd / 1,000 barrels per plant per day = 11,000 new plants.
Eventually however, you will run out of landfills and agricultural wastes will not be able to keep up with demand. Remember, depletion, modeled after an ideal curve by the Hubbart model, is conservatively 2-5%. Assuming an average of 3% decline, we will be losing .03 x 30 billion barrels a year (which seems will be the peak, we are currently mining about 27 bpy), which amounts to 900 million barrels per year for the first year alone, next year, you will lose 27bpy x .03 which equals 810 million barrels per year. Two years after the peak, we will have lost (810 + 900 million barrels per year)/365 which equals about a 4.5 million barrel per day decline. When you put it in this perspective, it becomes pretty clear that TD will never make up decline. You would need thousands of plants across the country to process wastes, and that number will have to exponetially increase at the same rate of decline. If production peaks higher, say at 45 billion barrels a year (which is 123 million barrels of oil per day), then the decline will be even higher. For example, two year caculations will be
.03 x 45 bpy = 1.35 bpy decline
.03 x (45-1.35) = 1.3095 bpy decline.
1.35bpy + 1.3095bpy / 365 = 7,286,301mbd loss. This is double of what the US imports yearly.
This is of course assuming 3% steady decline and an ideal state (which never exists
With TD, we can't convert fast enough to save our economy. Landfills are a one time deal with that sort of material. We could set up a closed loop system (inputs = outputs from another facility/branch) but that will be a smaller number than what will be needed. After exhausting all of the landfills, we will have to rely on wastes being generated at a finite rate which will be smaller than the endowment in landfills. Additionally, TD plants exhaust a ton of CO2 (which can be used in the process but also leaves as waste) and produce other not so happy chemicals.
A sustainable society would be great, because we would able to do all sorts of things to offset decline due to the smaller scale and nature of problems. As it stands, I doubt if we can offset depletion with enough alternatives to maintain business as usual. Remember, we aren't at the edge of electricity production, which oil is rarely used for. Oil is a transportation fuel first and foremost. The alternatives are few and far apart. Biodiesal is great, but again not ratchatable up to a scale that is meaningful, hydrogen is not for reasons I have stated before, and electricity is too diffuse to be usable right now. Retrofitting and producing 50 million cars a year in America (a very large and probably insurmontable task, seeing as how we need to make changes now), it will take at least 6-8 years to retrofit every car. A more probable number is 500,000 cars, which will take 60 years. Side by side usage of biodiesal and electricity will require at least a few trillion dollars of infrastructure remodeling, for engines to be compatiable, for the biodiesal to be made (algae farms, oily plant plantations, workers, farmers, harvesters, refining, delivery, concentrating, different blends for different regions in the US, delivery systems of the fuel such as diesal stations, and competetive fuel matching and the same follows for TD plants simultaneously, however much of the work is already done because you get light crude outta the plant). This will all take at least a few decades to ratchet up production to levels that will be able to be competetive with oil. And what happens when TD/Biodiesal/other become limiting? We will be discussing the same problem with a different name when that time comes. So long as we have a culture of unrestricted, uncontrolled growth, something will always become limiting.
EDIT : Your source has to be wrong, 300-400 barrels a month is laughable (10 barrels a day?). I can get that much out of the soil by randomly digging deep enough. My caculations are based upon a 1,000 barrel per day mean for all plants because some will produce more and some less, however, the avg. point I placed may be low or high, I simply picked a median number that looked safe to me.
http://www.changingworldtech.com/where/industries.asp
This gives us alot of time to work on alternative energy sources.
Note, I made a significant typo when writting out my information, the correct number is 400 barrels of oil per day, not month.
Did you simply ignore my caculations? You would need ~4-7,000 new plants a year every year to offset decline. And building new TD plants will require oil, as construction vehicles, not to mention materials themselves (like asphalt and concrete) need oil to function.
This isn't economics, money is irrevelant here, this is about physical limits. You can't process more fuel than what industry gives you as waste. If industry produces the equivalent of 3mbd of TD products then no matter how many TD plants you have, you will only be able to produce 3mbd, assuming everything goes into the TD. Landfills are like oil wells, you can tap it and produce from it, but once its gone, it's gone. Simply because the items that go into landfills also can be used to fuel TD plants.
In the grand scheme of things, 200,000 barrels (equivalent to 200 plants, not a trivial task considering that we only have 1 such plant) is practically nothing.
As for the date of peak, it varies depending on the source. From current events, it looks more and more likely that 2007 or 2008 is going ot be the peak oil date. For one thing, no mega projects (500 million barrel fields) are coming online in 2007/2008. Those fields have the ability to produce 100,000 barrels a day (yes I know I contradicted myself sort of, a mega field used to be characterized by its ability to produce 1mbd or more). The USGS places a peak date at 2032 which the industry basically laughs at. They incorporate non-technical factors, which is engineer speak for making sh!t up. They place OUR at 3 trillion barrels, while industry places it at 1.8 - 2.6 TB with a confidence interval of 95%. We have 6mbd of additional production coming online during 2005, however, total oil production is only going to go up by about 3mbd. The rest is simply offsetting decline. We are not too far unfortunately if current indications are to be believed.
TD plants will ameroliate the situation but they will not solve it.
This isn't economics, money is irrevelant here, this is about physical limits. You can't process more fuel than what industry gives you as waste. If industry produces the equivalent of 3mbd of TD products then no matter how many TD plants you have, you will only be able to produce 3mbd, assuming everything goes into the TD. Landfills are like oil wells, you can tap it and produce from it, but once its gone, it's gone. Simply because the items that go into landfills also can be used to fuel TD plants.
In the grand scheme of things, 200,000 barrels (equivalent to 200 plants, not a trivial task considering that we only have 1 such plant) is practically nothing.
As for the date of peak, it varies depending on the source. From current events, it looks more and more likely that 2007 or 2008 is going ot be the peak oil date. For one thing, no mega projects (500 million barrel fields) are coming online in 2007/2008. Those fields have the ability to produce 100,000 barrels a day (yes I know I contradicted myself sort of, a mega field used to be characterized by its ability to produce 1mbd or more). The USGS places a peak date at 2032 which the industry basically laughs at. They incorporate non-technical factors, which is engineer speak for making sh!t up. They place OUR at 3 trillion barrels, while industry places it at 1.8 - 2.6 TB with a confidence interval of 95%. We have 6mbd of additional production coming online during 2005, however, total oil production is only going to go up by about 3mbd. The rest is simply offsetting decline. We are not too far unfortunately if current indications are to be believed.
TD plants will ameroliate the situation but they will not solve it.
Uh, that kind of plant building actually should be doable if its profitable. There is a huge amount of construction capability in the United States and there is nothing all that increadibly special about these plants. There are a huge number of sources of agricultural waste alone, in different locations all across this country. That's where the 4 billion barrels of oil per year number comes from.
Your peak oil claims of 2007/2008 are absurdly alarmist. If that did happen we'd be in major trouble, but I'm certainly not losing any sleep over it. (I consider myself an enviromentalist to boot.) There is simply too much of a pattern of everyone assuming we've found all the oil out there which has not been shown to be the case, and sources such as oil sands are currently being exploited for oil.
Except that industry leaders (including the President of ExxonMobil) have stated that we have found 90% of all the oil. And it should be noted that outside of the Middle East, world total production peaked in 1997. The real and final peak can't be that far off. Also, many of the reserves (but probably not all) of the stated reserves in OPEC countries are suspect. 8 of the 11 countries boosted their stated reserves by an average of 110%, with ranges from 80% to 197%. For example, in 1987, Saudi Arabia moved reserve estimates up from 140 billion barrels to 260 billion barrels. Saudi Arabia also passed a law basically saying that oil reserves are a state secret and oil reserves will not decline. While they produced about 30 billion barrels last decade, their reserve figure actually went up from 260.3 to 260.9 billion barrels. Amazing what arbitary laws will do huh?
Oil discovery follows a bell curve, which looks pretty nice considering that this is the real world.
http://dieoff.org/page177.htm
^
This is a nice paper done by John Laherrere (a geologist). Look for sources like Walter Younquist, Colin Campbell, and Matthew Simmons.
http://wwwistp.murdoch.edu.au/...4discoverandprodn.html
^
There is graph near the top of the page. Basically, we are asking industry to produce another peak decade like 1960s and 1970s. Unfortunately, geology puts limits on what we can find. We aren't finding the oil that is supposedly out there.
Oil sands, shales and kerogen are sources of unconventional oil. Alberta tar sands are the most publicized project. Unfortunately, they have plans to produce 2mbd by 2010 (or is it 2020). Whatever the number is, it won't be enough to offset decline by any significant amount. Basically, with most oil in rocks, we have to form the oil that the earth takes millions of years to do. We smash the rocks up, liquefy the mixture and then extract the oil. Alberta has seriously considered placing a NUCLEAR reactor on site to provide the heat and energy needed. It is for this reason that we won't be able to ratchet up production to a level meaningful post-peak.
I'd also be wary of public relations speak concerning what TD can produce. As there is only 1 plant operating, strong domestic incentive to reduce foreign imports and readily available fuel source, there should be the question why isn't this being exploited. Can you link to me how many TD plants are planned for the next 10 years? Those numbers seem outrageously optimistic, designed to latch and sell TD plant designs to others. I am willing to wager that the ultimate number will be much much less.
For a picture of the type of equipment they use to obtain and process kerogen (tar sands) go to www.stripmine.com --> machines --> big muskie. Absolutely stunning IMO.
Oil discovery follows a bell curve, which looks pretty nice considering that this is the real world.
http://dieoff.org/page177.htm
^
This is a nice paper done by John Laherrere (a geologist). Look for sources like Walter Younquist, Colin Campbell, and Matthew Simmons.
http://wwwistp.murdoch.edu.au/...4discoverandprodn.html
^
There is graph near the top of the page. Basically, we are asking industry to produce another peak decade like 1960s and 1970s. Unfortunately, geology puts limits on what we can find. We aren't finding the oil that is supposedly out there.
Oil sands, shales and kerogen are sources of unconventional oil. Alberta tar sands are the most publicized project. Unfortunately, they have plans to produce 2mbd by 2010 (or is it 2020). Whatever the number is, it won't be enough to offset decline by any significant amount. Basically, with most oil in rocks, we have to form the oil that the earth takes millions of years to do. We smash the rocks up, liquefy the mixture and then extract the oil. Alberta has seriously considered placing a NUCLEAR reactor on site to provide the heat and energy needed. It is for this reason that we won't be able to ratchet up production to a level meaningful post-peak.
I'd also be wary of public relations speak concerning what TD can produce. As there is only 1 plant operating, strong domestic incentive to reduce foreign imports and readily available fuel source, there should be the question why isn't this being exploited. Can you link to me how many TD plants are planned for the next 10 years? Those numbers seem outrageously optimistic, designed to latch and sell TD plant designs to others. I am willing to wager that the ultimate number will be much much less.
For a picture of the type of equipment they use to obtain and process kerogen (tar sands) go to www.stripmine.com --> machines --> big muskie. Absolutely stunning IMO.
The answer is that the first one is ironing out a bunch of the bugs, oncee this is done building more becomes far more attractive. Most of the links I've seen focus on about the next 5 or so plants and where they are likely to be built, longer term plans are a little less clear. Basicly you're talking about a technology which wasn't viable commercially untill recent technological breakthroughs at Changing World Technology. The point about the commercial viability of the plants is worth making here. If oil prices are at 50$ a barrel and the thermal depolymerization process hits its near term goal of being able to make oil for 10$ a barrel, the company can make 7.3 million dollars per year, and make back the plant's construction costs within 3 years after which they start raking in the money. (The actual profits may be somewhat higher if the oil production costs given in the article don't account for the additional commercially sellable products produced through the process along with the fact that the company should be able to charge companies to dispose of their waste for them given there would otherwise be waste disposal costs the company would have to pay.) This in conjuntion of plenty of large agriculatural waste sources should start leading to a boom in plant construction.
Originally posted by: Trianon
I would like to know what it would be? Warp drive?
Nuclear fission. We've made some pretty sweet advancements in nuclear power in the last little while. Once the public aversion to it dies down, it will hopefully become the primary power supply. It's a much more sustainable source (with regards to environmental impact as well as world reserves) than oil and certainly coal.
Anyone have any numbers for cost/power produced ($/kW or something) for different energy supplies? I wonder how much more expensive it is than oil or coal.
Actually, 500 barrels per day. But I know you meant that.
Yeah, from reading the Carthage, MO newspaper online, the oder problems appear to be under control. One article in another MO newspaper earlier this year stated that the plant was turning a profit. Additionally, the facility has achieved the 500 barrel per day target on many occasions.
If the government would commit more incentives, or perhaps if oil prices climb again, we might see some growth in this industry.
Haven't seen any cars or other vehicles or even schematics based on nuclear fission principle. I work for aerospace supplier and all projects we bid on until 2015 are still based on conventional internal combustion technology. I don't see any shifts towards sustainable energy anywhere. Also what good is nuclear fission if we run out of consumables? Even to run a nuclear fission reactor you need millions of gaskets, tubes, whatever else based on petrochemicals, and then you also need tooling for tooling
I became aware of Peak Oil about a year ago, and discussed it with many of my friends, I have MS in Electrical Engineering, many of them have have advanced degrees in other areas of technology(biochem, physics, etc) . After all discussions I regret to say I have a POV similar to Omar's we really overextended our resource base and in the future will have to dramatically cut back population and revise our energy use or we'll plunge into Mad Max type of deal.Is everyone simply ignoring my caculations?
charrison, most links state that 1,000 barrels per day is about the limit the plant can do. Look at the caculations. It will show why TD plants will never be more than an ameroliate.
charrison, most links state that 1,000 barrels per day is about the limit the plant can do. Look at the caculations. It will show why TD plants will never be more than an ameroliate.
Asuming they bring, optimistically, 200 of these plants online, that would be 200,000 barrels a day, or probably enough to run transportation trains, not to mention that we would not need to transport oil anymore, since these would be distributed roughly with population and with agriculutre, the two main places that a train would have to travel.
Gordon Freeman is unpatriotic.
nuclear fission: uranium lies on the same demand/supply curve
however they're building a $20 billion fusion reactor in japan i think, hopefully some miracle will come out of that
nuclear fission: uranium lies on the same demand/supply curve
however they're building a $20 billion fusion reactor in japan i think, hopefully some miracle will come out of that
hahahhah Gordon Freeman is the greatest man alive.
Fission are red herrings in the discussion of oil. They solve no problems regarding oil. You can't use nuclear power for transportation (unless you bring in electric cars, and those failed unfortunately). Hell, we are building new plants simply to offset decline. Instead, we are building natural gas and coal plants because they are much easier and the resource base is much larger. And nuclear power plants provide almost no relief with respect to oil. In fact, it would probably increase demand as you would need to build materials (which have oil components), provide transportation to all the workers, provide fuel for construction vehicles, and use solvents and such to produce materials to build the plants.
Fusion is a different story, simply because of the scale of energy. Limitless fuel, all you need is simple salt water, incredible amounts of energy and competitive in an energy sense. Fusion would solve most every problem except those due to land overusage and such. But as an energy source, fusion is probably my last hope for a business-as-usual society.
Fission are red herrings in the discussion of oil. They solve no problems regarding oil. You can't use nuclear power for transportation (unless you bring in electric cars, and those failed unfortunately). Hell, we are building new plants simply to offset decline. Instead, we are building natural gas and coal plants because they are much easier and the resource base is much larger. And nuclear power plants provide almost no relief with respect to oil. In fact, it would probably increase demand as you would need to build materials (which have oil components), provide transportation to all the workers, provide fuel for construction vehicles, and use solvents and such to produce materials to build the plants.
Fusion is a different story, simply because of the scale of energy. Limitless fuel, all you need is simple salt water, incredible amounts of energy and competitive in an energy sense. Fusion would solve most every problem
except those due to land overusage and such. But as an energy source, fusion is probably my last hope for a business-as-usual society.supposedly Siemens is developing solar panels that cost 5% of todays (the equvalent of being 2000% efficient). they said it would take 2 years (its been 1 yr and haven't heard anything since)
also, wind power is competitive at $30/barrel oil, yet barely any money is being invested in wind power in US (a few hundred million vs tens of billions for oil exploration)
however wind and sun don't make plastic. petro/plastic is a keystone of our society, our grocery and pharmacies are filled with it. it is required to make many medicines.
USGS is ridiculous in saying that in 2025 oil will be $35/barrel and that US consumption will be 2% less than today, while global consumption will have soared 50%.
we've used 1 trillion barrels of oil with 700 billion known left plus 350 billion in probably recoverable, and another 1 trillion in highly unrecoverable (cost $100-$200/barrel to extract)
also, wind power is competitive at $30/barrel oil, yet barely any money is being invested in wind power in US (a few hundred million vs tens of billions for oil exploration)
however wind and sun don't make plastic. petro/plastic is a keystone of our society, our grocery and pharmacies are filled with it. it is required to make many medicines.
USGS is ridiculous in saying that in 2025 oil will be $35/barrel and that US consumption will be 2% less than today, while global consumption will have soared 50%.
we've used 1 trillion barrels of oil with 700 billion known left plus 350 billion in probably recoverable, and another 1 trillion in highly unrecoverable (cost $100-$200/barrel to extract)
Originally posted by: 0marTheZealot
hahahhah Gordon Freeman is the greatest man alive.
Fission are red herrings in the discussion of oil. They solve no problems regarding oil. You can't use nuclear power for transportation (unless you bring in electric cars, and those failed unfortunately). Hell, we are building new plants simply to offset decline. Instead, we are building natural gas and coal plants because they are much easier and the resource base is much larger. And nuclear power plants provide almost no relief with respect to oil. In fact, it would probably increase demand as you would need to build materials (which have oil components), provide transportation to all the workers, provide fuel for construction vehicles, and use solvents and such to produce materials to build the plants.
Fusion is a different story, simply because of the scale of energy. Limitless fuel, all you need is simple salt water, incredible amounts of energy and competitive in an energy sense. Fusion would solve most every problem
Electric-magnatic railroads would be feasable in the long term.
Also, using oil components and increasing demend is not bad, as long as it is used for constuctive long term improvements. After all, we are going to run out of oil eventually, we might as wel make good use out of it.
While mass transportation is a lofty ideal, in America, most of the population has shunned it. Instead, the car culture utterly dominates
The problem with alternatives is scale. I don't see many TD plants being built to ready ourselves for a decline in oil. In fact, I haven't heard of a single plant being made after the Carthage one. I don't see algal farms propping up to fuel biodiesal. These things take time to make, on the order of decades. The difference between a pessimist and an optimist is 10 - 20 years (2010 vs 2020/2030). That isn't much time, considering political and prior establishment inertia, political lack of will when not faced with a problem, and lack of governmental funds to help the transition. I simply don't see it.
The problem with alternatives is scale. I don't see many TD plants being built to ready ourselves for a decline in oil. In fact, I haven't heard of a single plant being made after the Carthage one. I don't see algal farms propping up to fuel biodiesal. These things take time to make, on the order of decades. The difference between a pessimist and an optimist is 10 - 20 years (2010 vs 2020/2030). That isn't much time, considering political and prior establishment inertia, political lack of will when not faced with a problem, and lack of governmental funds to help the transition. I simply don't see it.
The beauty of Capitalism is that when a solution is needed to a problem there are plenty of incentives to achieve it. When oil supplies run low, prices will increase, as this occurs, alternatives will become mainstream.
It is real simple economics. It is also why Capitalism is a success - because it is flexible to market conditions. Sure the current gas stations and oil companies may not like it, but even they will evolve. Look at many companies today that have almost nothing to do with their original products or lines, or those that have evolved over the years into multiple products or lines. Problems solve themselves when there is financial gain.
It is real simple economics. It is also why Capitalism is a success - because it is flexible to market conditions. Sure the current gas stations and oil companies may not like it, but even they will evolve. Look at many companies today that have almost nothing to do with their original products or lines, or those that have evolved over the years into multiple products or lines. Problems solve themselves when there is financial gain.
That, and local governments vote against wind power because of the "view".
Elected leaders vow to block wind farm - MA
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