Is an oil free future even possible with current and forseeable future technology?

[Hayabusa Rider]

I've actually done my research. You can talk about efficiency all you want, but until you understand what it is actually measuring and how to know what is actually GOOD efficiency you are just misunderstanding statistics.
The problem is almost all other engines are even less efficient in total.
Oil is a superb energy storage medium.
IC engines are very good at utilizing it.
Nothing else we can build even comes close (for everyday useage)

Which is why basic research into alternatives is necessary. Oil has a lot of nice qualities, but too much of it comes from politically unstable regions and soon other nations are going to climb to US standards of living. That means relative scarcities and all that goes with that.

If a significant proportion of energy on average came from sources near where it would be consumed then we'd have less problem scaling up energy sharing networks, increased costs of infrastructure, and the like while reserving nuclear, coal and oil where considerable power is needed.

By using site appropriate means of production and storage the whole system becomes more robust and efficient. What we lack is the "how" to best do that.

It's a task which requires considerable thought and investment, but mostly because of the scale required. There is no fundamental discovery in physics which is required.

 

[Hacp]

Because it won't meet worldwide energy needs in the relatively near future, driving up the cost of everything and leading to a Depression like we've never seen unless some other means of producing energy is found before that happens.

Only an idiot waits to slam on the brakes once he runs into the wall.

We have plenty of oil and coal for the next 100 years. After we're done with fossil fuels, we can move on to nuclear power.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

We have plenty of oil and coal for the next 100 years. After we're done with fossil fuels, we can move on to nuclear power.

Which is less and less accessible and does not take into account the power consumption increases of countries like India and China.

That results in increased demand with problematic supplies. That in turn raises the cost of energy production, transportation and industry in general.

Are you prepared for a world economy which not only inflates in costs but does so at an increasing rate?

If you are good, but no one else is.

You simply don't burn every scrap before moving on, and if you were to look at projected increases in energy needs you'd understand that "waiting until we are done" with one resource means having to replace it with many many times that which we are consuming.

If a business waited until it ran out of cash before it decided it needed to make a profit it would certainly go bust. Likewise if we decide to wait until we need a whole lot of power and now to do something significant we deserve everything we get, and boy we'll get it.

 

[Hacp]

Which is less and less accessible and does not take into account the power consumption increases of countries like India and China.

That results in increased demand with problematic supplies. That in turn raises the cost of energy production, transportation and industry in general.

Are you prepared for a world economy which not only inflates in costs but does so at an increasing rate?

If you are good, but no one else is.

You simply don't burn every scrap before moving on, and if you were to look at projected increases in energy needs you'd understand that "waiting until we are done" with one resource means having to replace it with many many times that which we are consuming.

If a business waited until it ran out of cash before it decided it needed to make a profit it would certainly go bust. Likewise if we decide to wait until we need a whole lot of power and now to do something significant we deserve everything we get, and boy we'll get it.

Well as prices rise, naturally other forms of energy become more attractive won't it? If oil rises to 150, then solar/wind becomes attractive enough to pay for itself right?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Well as prices rise, naturally other forms of energy become more attractive won't it? If oil rises to 150, then solar/wind becomes attractive enough to pay for itself right?

At some point having horses turn millstones becomes attractive. The point isn't to wait until the cost of energy is so incredibly expensive that the economy is destroyed, but to find ways to make large amounts of energy economically friendly. That requires R&D which is how we got this far as a technological society to begin with. We spend more on advertising and legal patent sniping these days. We could always have waited until the markets demanded an atomic bomb before beginning work on one, but I suggest that wouldn't have been a wise choice.

 

[Elias824]

We have plenty of oil and coal for the next 100 years. After we're done with fossil fuels, we can move on to nuclear power.

Nuclear powered cars?

 

[ericlp]

Well, USA can for example stop using on average twice as much oil per person compared to EU (its easy to do - just create tax of 3$ per gallon ).

It also wouldnt hurt USA to create good mass transport system like what we have in EU.

Yeah and you would see 50 CC Mopeds that get 99 MPG start selling like hot cakes!

I say more like a $5.00 tax! That would send it up to about 7.70 a gallon. I think it would be wonderful! I'd love to see the people squirm and try to bitch and moan why the can't drive their hummers or caddilacs that get 12 MPG.

I think we should just do it now!

 

[Hacp]

Nuclear powered cars?

Well electric motors are pretty efficient. Only problem is getting the electricity, which is not very efficient .

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Yeah and you would see 50 CC Mopeds that get 99 MPG start selling like hot cakes!

I say more like a $5.00 tax! That would send it up to about 7.70 a gallon. I think it would be wonderful! I'd love to see the people squirm and try to bitch and moan why the can't drive their hummers or caddilacs that get 12 MPG.

I think we should just do it now!

Yep!
And we'd see the cost of your food double perhaps. Hey, we could even put the farmers out of business. And don't forget having transportation, industry and services inflate in prices astronomically.

Then you could get that warm and fuzzy feeling when you are laid off because too few have money to spend on anything but the basics and maybe not as much as that.

Yes we could have significant double digit unemployment and inflation coupled with general misery all around.

Chaos, Panic, Disorder- Yes my work here is done.

 

[bfdd]

I've actually done my research. You can talk about efficiency all you want, but until you understand what it is actually measuring and how to know what is actually GOOD efficiency you are just misunderstanding statistics.
The problem is almost all other engines are even less efficient in total.
Oil is a superb energy storage medium.
IC engines are very good at utilizing it.
Nothing else we can build even comes close (for everyday useage)

... Of the energy stored in gasoline we are using about 20-30% of that. That's what I mean by efficiency. If you believe otherwise you are mistaken.

To the dude about California, I never said it was great I said we have it and I'm pretty sure I can go from Long Beach to Pasadena relatively easy just on public transit.

 

[Hacp]

... Of the energy stored in gasoline we are using about 20-30% of that. That's what I mean by efficiency. If you believe otherwise you are mistaken.

To the dude about California, I never said it was great I said we have it and I'm pretty sure I can go from Long Beach to Pasadena relatively easy just on public transit.

Thats pretty fucking good if you ask me.

 

[duragezic]

Not oil free, but even to reduce use for gasoline would be huge. Replace gas engines with electric, and build more nuclear power plants for power generation. Granted, large vehicles like big rigs, and jet fuel, might not be easily convertible but just converting the average passenger vehicle to electric would be HUGE.

And the technology for this is not that out of reach. If we had been working on nuclear power plants more in the past few decades, we'd be well on our way. The tech for electric cars is pretty close.

 

[DougoMan]

hi my name is Xellos2099 and I am an idiot.

 

[Daedalus685]

First of all... An electric motor has over 90% power efficiency (store bought standard nema mount 125hp will usually be rated at 95%).. those spouting about IC are not even in the ballpark..

The best IC engine ever produced approaches 50% thermal efficiency, the average in a car (stop and go) is below 20%... That is to say that the majority of the heat produced is not used in the work, most of our cars are rather chemically efficient in that they do not exhaust combustibles.

We need oil for lubrication and I am not aware of an entirely oil free alternative yet. Though this will change eventually, the folks in fluid sealing at work are often experimenting with ultra low friction coatings that don't require a traditional lubricant, things like graphene have remarkably low friction but are of course a carbon molecule that would likely have to come from coal of some sort. However, once we stop burning the stuff we would have far more than we would ever need already mine out of the ground. Once the technology exists to process the stuff recycling of products would be trivial... but I wouldn't expect nano machines that can do that sort of thing for a few decades (unless you are ray kurzwiel and expect the first in a decade).

Power production without burning things is trivially easy. Solar augmented by hydro, wind, and a strongly centralized power such as nuclear (laser triggered fusion eventually, fusion based on recycled waste and thorium would give us plenty for the next century) would be the best short term bet. Eventuality we would require to use nothing but solar power if we wish to exist on the planet for many thousands of years more.

Battery technology is in such a state that 90% of commuters would not notice the change over from gas. We are a few (10 maybe) years away from battery technology by means of new capacitor tech and any one of the variety of fast charging ultra high voltage systems in the works allowing the total range (range will be close very soon) and time to charge exceeds what we get with gasoline.

As far as getting things around our grid is set up for peak production now. There would be minor augmentation needed but provided decentralized power was pushed one could charge their car with solar power over night (I know.... that sounds crazy.. but one would have a second battery array that charges while you are at work, then charges the car while you sleep at no cost to the grid) without crashing even the current power distribution.

Anything but electrical is silly as no finite resource is extinguished in its transport, we also have a system currently set up to move it around. Hydrogen fuel is rather clean and very efficient in many ways but requires the destruction of our water supply to make it. Not something that I could ever recommend until it were almost guaranteed that all of it was recombined in combustion or a fuel cell. Restructuring our distribution to hydrogen would require a massive investment above and beyond augmentation of our electrical grid.

Few understand just how much extra power we waste at night in most places across NA. Reactors don't go idle, the turbines simply slow down destroying the efficiency of the reactor (what was a GWatt of thermal power producing 1Gwatt of electrical might drop to half the electrical power at the same thermal budget.) There are many other aspects that bring about inefficiency. In fact because of the desire to keep loads elevated up until a few years ago OPG provided free street light power to many places just to increase the resistance of the grid. There are a lot of folk that would be very happy if the grid could be managed to reduce the divide between peak and low, which properly managed transportation would go a long way towards.



So technically.. no there is no reason we still burn oil. Economically though? We would be bankrupt if we tried to switch by the end of the year... It could be doe without anyone but big oil and the odd folks that are forced into new work noticing over 5 or 10 years though... if the will was there (which it should be as we likely don't have enough oil for my grand kids regardless of what we do)...

 

[sandorski]

"Oil Free" is usually regarding as an Energy source and specifically for Transportation. The answer to that is, Yes We Can.

 

[Daedalus685]

To put it in perspective. AECL usually quotes the peak thermal efficiency of a CANDU 6 around 30%-35%. Almost all of the losses are in the reactor and heat exchangers, the actual generator converts the vast majority of the physical work to electrical power.

The Gen IV and V reactor design proposals are looking at getting closer to 50%.

The best solar panels are 30% tops.. with the vast majority of those we ever see being less than 10%.

 

[Hacp]

First of all... An electric motor has over 90% power efficiency (store bought standard nema mount 125hp will usually be rated at 95%).. those spouting about IC are not even in the ballpark..

Ok you're talking about two different things here. What are you trying to say?

ICs are pretty dam good for energy efficiency when burning oil. Oil is cheaper and more efficient to produce than solar. You tout solar and wind but those are all more expensive than oil.

Now Nuclear is a good option and we should use it but nuclear "efficiency" isn't all that great either. It is cost effective however so we should use it.

Again, we should use what is cost effective, not what is "energy efficient".

 

[Daedalus685]

Ok you're talking about two different things here. What are you trying to say?

ICs are pretty dam good for energy efficiency when burning oil. Oil is cheaper and more efficient to produce than solar. You tout solar and wind but those are all more expensive than oil.

Now Nuclear is a good option and we should use it but nuclear "efficiency" isn't all that great either. It is cost effective however so we should use it.

Again, we should use what is cost effective, not what is "energy efficient".

Efficiency is one of the largest motivations to cost....

My values are entirely correct.. the efficiency of deriving mechanical power from a battery as opposed to a tank of gas is 95% vs 20% or so...

Though I must admit I'd love to see your IC that burns oil get higher efficiency than 5% or so.... Combustion is terribly inefficient anyway, even if I assume you meant gasoline.

As for the rest of the post.. you are not making any sense when you talk about cost and efficiency and compare oil to solar... one is stored energy the other is not and bounded by quantum efficiency. The storage efficiency of our solar is FAR FAR greater than that of the oil.

Nuclear is also not at all "cheep"... it just happens that we require centralized power production at the moment. To do it well is ridiculously expensive.

 

[Daedalus685]

Again, we should use what is cost effective, not what is "energy efficient".

To address this directly..

Thinking like that will eventually cause us to die, utterly. Fore thought is required for something as complicated as our energy production. What is cheapest now is not going to be what is best in a year, or 5, or 100.

At what point is capitol investment important for future savings? For someone who touts nuclear you should be well aware of the huge capitol investment it provides... What is the difference between spending several billion on a reactor in the hopes of getting that much money out of it over a decade (but more likely 30 years) and spending money now to allow solar (or whatever) to power us into the next century cleanly?

Environmental impact can't be overlooked in cost either. How much is saving today worth at the cost of trillions later on cleaning up, health effects, being generally extinct, etc. ?

 

[Hacp]

Efficiency is one of the largest motivations to cost....

My values are entirely correct.. the efficiency of deriving mechanical power from a battery as opposed to a tank of gas is 95% vs 20% or so...

And where do you get that electricity? Does it spawn from thin air? No, you make it. The whole "efficiency" debate is pointless if you compare two different fuel sources. Sure, it is useful if you compare the same fuel source, but to compare different fuels, you need to use cost.

 

[Perknose]

One of the funnier clips from a very funny show.

If you haven't seen, watch it all the way through. The ending is freaking priceless!

 

[Daedalus685]

And where do you get that electricity? Does it spawn from thin air? No, you make it. The whole "efficiency" debate is pointless if you compare two different fuel sources. Sure, it is useful if you compare the same fuel source, but to compare different fuels, you need to use cost.

Sigh, you don't understand...


You are comparing a fuel, which is processed from a source, to a fuel that is processed from a source...

I have given examples of the efficiency at the end user.

I am a physicist.. we all compare efficiency. It is perfectly valid to compare different fuels as that is how us scientists judge what is or is not better. It is as far from pointless as remembering to breath.

Electricity is a means created from oil, gas, solar, and so on. It is far more efficient to the end user than any combustion could possibly be. It is open for improvement in the first steps. But how efficient is the refining of oil? Oil doe snot magically end up in my car, just as electricity does not magically come out of the air.

 

[Hacp]

Sigh, you don't understand...


You are comparing a fuel, which is processed from a source, to a fuel that is processed from a source...

I have given examples of the efficiency at the end user.

I am a physicist.. we all compare efficiency. It is perfectly valid to compare different fuels as that is how us scientists judge what is or is not better. It is as far from pointless as remembering to breath.

Electricity is a means created from oil, gas, solar, and so on. It is far more efficient to the end user than any combustion could possibly be. It is open for improvement in the first steps. But how efficient is the refining of oil? Oil doe snot magically end up in my car, just as electricity does not magically come out of the air.

Again, where do you get the electricity? From wind? How efficient is wind? It is not free is it? No you need to build the wind plants. Even then, you only harvest a certain amount of wind the earth produces. How about solar? You need to make the solar cells. Even then, you can't harvest all of the sun's power.

Do you understand what I'm saying? There is no way to compare efficiency between fuels because efficiency doesn't matter in this case.

If I had magic pellets that was .0001% efficient but still cost 50% less to produce the same amount of work as gasoline, would I still use the pellets? Of course!

 

[StageLeft]

No, although domestic production I am sure could cover fertilizers and plastics and all that as long as actual energy was from elsewhere.

 

[shortylickens]

Kick our oil habit? WHY? Oil is cheap and efficient. Has that suddenly become a bad thing?

Well, its arguably the cause of many wars of the 20th and 21st century (since the industrial revolution) and also the cause of most of the really bad environmental disasters the world has known. And even when things are just fine it still generates loads of pollution during normal use. And it takes millions of years for the planet to produce so once we use it up, thats it.
Eventually we will have to find something new, and it makes sense to start looking ASAP. The most successful civilizations are the ones who look to the future.

EDIT:
As far as how much oil we use: We really need to make it more efficient. Hybrid card are a step in the right direction, but frankly the Prius is the only one to get it right, and its a piece of junk. By constrast the Hybrid Highlander, (which is a nice vehicle), only gets 28 miles per gallon vs. 24 for the standard model. Thats really not good enough to justify the extra 6 grand on the price tag. We need to make ALL cars much more efficient, especially the big redneck rigs and delivery trucks.