Read Latest Entries..: (Post #25) by MusicOnly on Feb 6 2007, 06:36 PM. (Line Breaks Removed)
I guess we will be forced to find another ways to power up our cars. In my country they are currently developing diesel from oil used for cooking in restaurants. They say that any diesel car can use this but they didnt put it on public gas stations. the only one who can use it is anyone who works in that factory. They plan to use this diesel for public transportation but they dont know will it wor... read more.
I'm no expert on energy issues. What basic knowledge I have stems from my doing tons upon tons of research just to ensure that I beat someone else in a school debate on the subject. But that planted enough of a foundation for me to stay interested and read further and to sound reasonably informed about this issue. So I will be throwing my hat into the ring that has been started here about "what will happen", and hopefully I have one of the more interesting takes on it.
First, the major pressure from this issue is going to be within our lifetime and depending on different predictions, perhaps even within the decade. The problems with oil shortages are real and really frightening, and for some of the doomsday scenarios, you should google the term "peak oil".
Peak Oil is not when oil runs out. It's when oil production begins to slow down. Every economy in the world is based on growth. More population, more companies, more cars, more oil. We are still pumping out more oil and pumping it out faster to accommodate all these expansions. But, we will hit a peak in oil production, called "peak oil". Some say this will happen around 2030, some say 2008, some say it is already here, but most seem to agree it is at least a few decades off.
But the problems don't start when we run out of oil. They start when we reach Peak Oil. As the economy continues to expand, more power is needed and more cars hit the road. But suddenly, there is less oil available to meet rising demands. You know the rules of supply and demand, so it should be easy to see that after peak oil, the price of gas, oil, gas-based electricity, etc. will skyrocket.
Because oil touches virtually every facet of our economy, all sectors and all goods will have much higher prices and everything is going to get much harder economically. Most every product has a transportation cost factored into its price and all those prices will go way up, our economy will slow and things will get awful.
Unless, that is, our American politicians invoke some drastic changes to the way our economy (our cars and our power plants) generate power-- revolutionary and within the next 6 ... days. Honestly it would have to happen immediately or else it's already very late. But I doubt we are actually going to invoke any major changes until we've actually directly felt the effects.
But when that happens, we will be compelled to invoke changes and they will. With cars, there wont be one simple answer. There will actually be a combination of different types of fuel that cars will be running on that will all take up their own percentage of the cars on the road. Some will be biodiesel. But we could never power all cars on biodiesel because there simply isn't enough farmland. That which exists is needed for food and depending on the crop we use to get the oil (probably various but most likely soy), we probably wouldn't have enough acerage in the entire united states of america to power our cars. I say "probably" because I tried to do this calculation myself, and there is a very good chance I was off. But still, even if we converted half to 80% of all of our country over to farming for biodiesel, there just wouldn't be enough.
What's more, this would create problems around the world because if third world countries see a stronger market for their crops as fuel than as food they may be compelled to sell it instead of offer it to their own populace. Maybe. But those would probably be rare and isolated scenarios.
So biodiesel will be developed but it will only produce a small fraction of our cars.
Also, we are obviously going to still have to use oil in our next generation of cars, but mpg standards on regular cars will be way more strict and they will have to pollute much much less than they presently do. There will need to be laws requiring that only a certain amount can be sold that have low mileages and that as years go on less and less will be allowed. These, though much more expensive because of insane fuel costs, will still be one of the major cornerstones of the car fleet, even as it gets factored out of existence.
There will also be hydrogen powered (fuel cell) cars. But there will be even less of these then biodiesel because they would be extremely inconvenient. Hydrogen atoms are small (small as they get!) and can leak straight through perfectly airtight containers.
People fantasize about a hydrogen economy but realizing one would take a major major, major overhaul to our existing infrastructure. We can't put hydrogen in the old underground oil and gas pipelines stretching across our country without replacing tons of existing oil equipment. Presumably things like pressure gages, computer systems, and other materials used for oil would have to be replaced.
Also, per unit volume, hydrogen packs less power than oil or gas. A hydrogen fuel tank on a car would be many many times larger than a gas tank for the same distance, unless you were keeping the hydrogen stored at several thousand psi or as liquid hydrogen, then (if I remember correctly) it's closer to 2x the size for a tank, but that is unrealistically expensive and insane. Paying to keep hydrogen at such high pressure or at such low temperatures is just that much more expensive. Per unit weight hydrogen is great. The same weight of gasoline holds much less punch than the same weight hydrogen. But our economy functions by volume. By gallons of gas, by barrels of oil. Practically, the size of our fuel tanks, transportation and management of a fuel all primarily revolve around the volume of it and not the weight of it.
Adding to that, if we are to use giant fuel trucks to deliver hydrogen around the country like we do gas, we would need 20 times the amount of fuel trucks on the road to maintain everything.
All hydrogen would have to be created (where would you harvest it? It's the most simple element there is so it always mixes with something else). Around the world today, most hydrogen is produced by breaking down a fossil fuel, a hydrocarbon with hydrogen inside it like coal, oil, etc. 96% percent of hydrogen is produced by fossil fuels in the present day, and so having hydrogen cars wouldn't help us get off of oil. At least, that is the talking point everyone like to use, but if we transitioned over to hydrogen obviously that would change. The most famous example is electrolysis, where you basically fry water with electricity and it breaks the water back into hydrogen and oxygen. Obviously, there would be new plants that would do this and separate out the hydrogen and then send it around our country. Unless it gets produced right at the station where people would fill up with hydrogen. Then the car would just do the opposite combine the hydrogen back with oxygen to make water + electricity, which allows the car to run.
But for a while at least, these will be weak cars (can only go so far), and it will be inconvenient to get the fuel. And it would take a massive amount of electricity just to produce all this hydrogen (something on the level of doubling the amount of power plants in the country just for the hydrogen cars alone, if they were to power the car fleet). Where will this electricity come from? But still, the hydrogen fuel cell car will have to be a reality, but it will be a small portion of our cars.
Probably the single largest contingent of cars are going to be hybrid cars, which will run mostly on electricity or biodiesel or hydrogen (still electric), but there will be gas when it is needed. If our consumers would stop being idiots and demand 300 horsepower cars, a lot less gas would be necessary and hybrid cars would have an easier time becoming widespread. They are already here today, they have the muscle when needed but will rely mostly on electricity and drastically reduce the need for oil. Even though they use gas they will be a major, major contingent of the nation's car fleet and will greatly help reduce demand and ease the pain of high costs of oil.
Then there is the straight up pure electric car. Not a fuel cell car, but just a battery powered car. On many levels these will suck. They have weak engines and can only like 93 miles on one "load" of electricity. Not much but it's actually more than millions of people need to drive in a day. They will take hours to recharge so if you forgot to plug it in (yes, plug it in) overnight, you are out of luck the next morning. Batteries would have to be entirely replaced about every 20,000 miles and we would have to find creative ways to drive less. But they will not use fossil fuels and once the cars penetrate the market (which they will) they will become about the same price as any other car, but with a much, much, oh-so-much cheaper bill when it comes to fueling up. They will actually be a huge help though, much more than biodiesel.
But the electricity has to come from somewhere, whether we just use it for electrolysis for fuel cells or for straight battery powered electric cars. Nuclear power will have to be phased out entirely. If you factored government subsidies, waste management, plant maintenance back into the cost of nuclear power it would actually be very high. Nuclear power is not our future, no inexpensive solution for removing waste exists (but the fears that the plant will blow up are an exaggeration, they are very safe despite what people will tell you). Also for political reasons, if we are smart, we aren't going to use nuclear power. Nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons are brother and sister, and from one technology, the other technology can and will be accessed.
Also, for the towering destruction of pollution caused by Coal Plants (also a fossil fuel which we will run out of in 200 years, a long time but shorter than we think), Coal will be out. So no coal, no oil and no nuclear for our power plants. What, then? Natural renewable sources. The strongest of these will likely be wind which is abundant and already penetrating the electricity market present day and expanding at a ridiculous pace (the industry grows by an insane 33% a year). Wind is going to catch up on its own accord, even without the urgent intervention that will be needed, so it should develop more quickly than solar power. But there will be plenty of each on a massive scale.
Also, geothermal energy (drilling down in the earth for undergrount heat), on the western half of our country around California and Nevada and several over places, is already used as a viable power source, and there is tons of it. Hawaii, which already gets 25% of all its power from geothermal thanks to the volcanic activity could expand further. Geothermal, wind, and solar will all produce the new electricity which will be the backbone of the car industry.
So, what saves us from the oil shortage? A combination of a few things happening at once. But the short answer would be: electricity.
Thats my view, and if you look at sources to check me on my assertions, you should see that most every claim above is backed up by a source which you can find on the internet.
Have you forgotten ethanol? Corn makes excellent gas, as a matter of fact brazil has converted most of their cars and stations into ethanol. Its pretty enviroment friendly and its about just as effeisiant as oil. You can still reach high speeds and runs cars perfectly. Just fermant the corn oil into ethanol and it will run a car perfectly...and from what i understand its fairly cheap just a little time consuming..i think it would be the best way to go
Have you forgotten ethanol? Corn makes excellent gas, as a matter of fact brazil has converted most of their cars and stations into ethanol. Its pretty enviroment friendly and its about just as effeisiant as oil. You can still reach high speeds and runs cars perfectly. Just fermant the corn oil into ethanol and it will run a car perfectly...and from what i understand its fairly cheap just a little time consuming..i think it would be the best way to go
First I should note that ethanol only produces slightly less CO2 than natural gas, and involves hazardous chemicals which get into the surrounding environment besides. So there is an argument to be made that ethanol's environmental impact is equal to or worse than that of natural gas.
Ethanol is only even talked about because it, uniquely enough, has a lobbying industry and a bit of a too-intimate relationship with all those dirty things we associate with the political underworld. The largest ethanol producer (whose name escapes me EDIT:Name is ADM) gets more than 33% of its income from government grants/purchases/other money.
Also, ethanol is very natural gas intensive to make. Natural gas is used to heat the mashed corn used to make ethanol and to dry the distillers grains co product. Rising gas costs have been shown to have a huge impact on ethanol profitability. And, perhaps most importantly of all, some studies are claiming that ethanol, on the whole, even if profitable does not yield a net gain in energy. That is, supposing ethanol fuel were used to power every part of the ethanol production, you would actually lose more ethanol than you would produce! There are serious questions around it and the talk in newspapers and politics seems to have more to do with an ethanol/corn lobbying presence than it's legitimacy.
Lastly, an ethanol supply has the same issues biodiesel has- we would not have nearly enough farmland to use it viably. If every acre of corn in this country were used solely for ethanol, at best we could produce 12% of our nations fuel. I'll actually leave a link for this: http://www.physorg.com/news71833070.html
There were other reasons relating to efficiency (apparently people notice MPG drops on their cars when they use ethanol) but there was a web of reasons for why I left ethanol out. I had some notes on ethanol.. if I can find them I'll post a bit more.
Yeah this is a really good subject and i wish people would pay more attention to the growing fact that there is not an unlimited supply of oil in the world and the fight for it is getting worse and worse. I have heard rumors that people have made cars that get over 150 mpg, and when they show their ideas to the car companies they get their patent bought out by the oil companies and their ideas hidden so the oil industry can keep making money. This is all just rumors but i can come to think that its actually quite believable, our country will do anything to become powerful and wealthy even if it hurts the people and the environment doing so.
Well first off there are so many other things that you can use to fuel cars. Ethanol which is from corn. And if you are from Indiana you should know that we have plenty of that. But if there were no other sources to fuel cars, i guess panic and world mayhem would break loose. Cause everybody would have to get off their lazy @$$'s and walk or ride a bike. lol. I basically walk everywhere i go, if im going to a friends house i walk. But if im going to a store that is far away or to visit relatives far away then of course i use a car. but i prefer to walk cause its good for you and keeps you in shape.
i saw we start using horses again like the old times and cahriots! and plus, it will not do any damage to earth, it wont mess up our planet and we'll get some good weather for once. but im sure some scientists are probbably going to come up with some kind of new oil.
I'm no expert on energy issues. What basic knowledge I have stems from my doing tons upon tons of research just to ensure that I beat someone else in a school debate on the subject. But that planted enough of a foundation for me to stay interested and read further and to sound reasonably informed about this issue. So I will be throwing my hat into the ring that has been started here about "what will happen", and hopefully I have one of the more interesting takes on it.
First, the major pressure from this issue is going to be within our lifetime and depending on different predictions, perhaps even within the decade. The problems with oil shortages are real and really frightening, and for some of the doomsday scenarios, you should google the term "peak oil".
Some rather interesting reading comes when you add the word "myth" to the above search.
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Peak Oil is not when oil runs out. It's when oil production begins to slow down. Every economy in the world is based on growth. More population, more companies, more cars, more oil. We are still pumping out more oil and pumping it out faster to accommodate all these expansions. But, we will hit a peak in oil production, called "peak oil". Some say this will happen around 2030, some say 2008, some say it is already here, but most seem to agree it is at least a few decades off.
But the problems don't start when we run out of oil. They start when we reach Peak Oil. As the economy continues to expand, more power is needed and more cars hit the road. But suddenly, there is less oil available to meet rising demands. You know the rules of supply and demand, so it should be easy to see that after peak oil, the price of gas, oil, gas-based electricity, etc. will skyrocket.
The rule of supply and demand doesn't appear to be valid here as our country's petroleum reserves are at historic highs, last year there were no serious hurricanes, our demand is low, yet gas is still very very high, especially in the northwest US. If supply/demand isn't setting prices, what is? The fact no new refineries have been built in over a decade doesn't help but dig a little deeper...
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Because oil touches virtually every facet of our economy, all sectors and all goods will have much higher prices and everything is going to get much harder economically. Most every product has a transportation cost factored into its price and all those prices will go way up, our economy will slow and things will get awful.
Unless, that is, our American politicians invoke some drastic changes to the way our economy (our cars and our power plants) generate power-- revolutionary and within the next 6 ... days. Honestly it would have to happen immediately or else it's already very late. But I doubt we are actually going to invoke any major changes until we've actually directly felt the effects.
Don't hold your breath. Politicians aren't known for doing what's best for the people, they're hired to work for the global corporations.
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But when that happens, we will be compelled to invoke changes and they will. With cars, there wont be one simple answer. There will actually be a combination of different types of fuel that cars will be running on that will all take up their own percentage of the cars on the road. Some will be biodiesel. But we could never power all cars on biodiesel because there simply isn't enough farmland. That which exists is needed for food and depending on the crop we use to get the oil (probably various but most likely soy), we probably wouldn't have enough acerage in the entire united states of america to power our cars. I say "probably" because I tried to do this calculation myself, and there is a very good chance I was off. But still, even if we converted half to 80% of all of our country over to farming for biodiesel, there just wouldn't be enough.
Complicated issue, but when or if the farming of hemp is legalized again, it'll help solve the bio-diesel problem. The hemp seed is, I believe, over 95% oil, the plant needs little or no fertilizer and grows pretty much anywhere with irrigation, and it can be used for clothing, paper, and a myriad of other things on top of oil from its seeds.
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What's more, this would create problems around the world because if third world countries see a stronger market for their crops as fuel than as food they may be compelled to sell it instead of offer it to their own populace. Maybe. But those would probably be rare and isolated scenarios.
Don't bank on it. Have you seen the price of corn lately? Hope you don't like corn, because you won't be able to afford it pretty soon.
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So biodiesel will be developed but it will only produce a small fraction of our cars.
Bio-diesel is many many years away from being a viable fuel (100%) replacement due to it's high pour point. The fuel gels(freezes), depending upon the type of oil used, at very high temps (up to about 43 degrees F if memory serves) and for those of us who don't live in the tropics, that'd shut us down in the winter. That's why, in the northern latitudes in the winter, a 5-10% mix is as high as we can go. In the summer we can run B100 (100% biodiesel) but we're back to the old problem of burning nasty dirty mineral diesel in the cooler months. If the EPA would let up a little, diesel cars are where the future should lie. Many of them will go twice or more as far as a similar gasoline car on one gallon of fuel!
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Also, we are obviously going to still have to use oil in our next generation of cars, but mpg standards on regular cars will be way more strict and they will have to pollute much much less than they presently do. There will need to be laws requiring that only a certain amount can be sold that have low mileages and that as years go on less and less will be allowed. These, though much more expensive because of insane fuel costs, will still be one of the major cornerstones of the car fleet, even as it gets factored out of existence.
There isn't much less they can pollute at this point. In some cities the air coming out of the tailpipe of a new car is actually cleaner and better to breathe than the air the car sucks in to its air filter!
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There will also be hydrogen powered (fuel cell) cars. But there will be even less of these then biodiesel because they would be extremely inconvenient. Hydrogen atoms are small (small as they get!) and can leak straight through perfectly airtight containers.
Have you seen Honda's home fuel cell charging station? http://www.world.honda.com/FuelCell/HomeEnergyStation/ Pretty cool, huh? Put up a medium sized solar array on your roof and drive this little cutie to work and back every day. While you're at it, say goodbye to those annoying power outages. Honda's fuel cell powers not only your car, but your whole house as well! God I love that company.
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People fantasize about a hydrogen economy but realizing one would take a major major, major overhaul to our existing infrastructure. We can't put hydrogen in the old underground oil and gas pipelines stretching across our country without replacing tons of existing oil equipment. Presumably things like pressure gages, computer systems, and other materials used for oil would have to be replaced.
Also, per unit volume, hydrogen packs less power than oil or gas. A hydrogen fuel tank on a car would be many many times larger than a gas tank for the same distance, unless you were keeping the hydrogen stored at several thousand psi or as liquid hydrogen, then (if I remember correctly) it's closer to 2x the size for a tank, but that is unrealistically expensive and insane. Paying to keep hydrogen at such high pressure or at such low temperatures is just that much more expensive. Per unit weight hydrogen is great. The same weight of gasoline holds much less punch than the same weight hydrogen. But our economy functions by volume. By gallons of gas, by barrels of oil. Practically, the size of our fuel tanks, transportation and management of a fuel all primarily revolve around the volume of it and not the weight of it.
Adding to that, if we are to use giant fuel trucks to deliver hydrogen around the country like we do gas, we would need 20 times the amount of fuel trucks on the road to maintain everything.
All hydrogen would have to be created (where would you harvest it? It's the most simple element there is so it always mixes with something else). Around the world today, most hydrogen is produced by breaking down a fossil fuel, a hydrocarbon with hydrogen inside it like coal, oil, etc. 96% percent of hydrogen is produced by fossil fuels in the present day, and so having hydrogen cars wouldn't help us get off of oil. At least, that is the talking point everyone like to use, but if we transitioned over to hydrogen obviously that would change. The most famous example is electrolysis, where you basically fry water with electricity and it breaks the water back into hydrogen and oxygen. Obviously, there would be new plants that would do this and separate out the hydrogen and then send it around our country. Unless it gets produced right at the station where people would fill up with hydrogen. Then the car would just do the opposite combine the hydrogen back with oxygen to make water + electricity, which allows the car to run.
But for a while at least, these will be weak cars (can only go so far), and it will be inconvenient to get the fuel. And it would take a massive amount of electricity just to produce all this hydrogen (something on the level of doubling the amount of power plants in the country just for the hydrogen cars alone, if they were to power the car fleet). Where will this electricity come from? But still, the hydrogen fuel cell car will have to be a reality, but it will be a small portion of our cars.
Probably the single largest contingent of cars are going to be hybrid cars, which will run mostly on electricity or biodiesel or hydrogen (still electric), but there will be gas when it is needed. If our consumers would stop being idiots and demand 300 horsepower cars, a lot less gas would be necessary and hybrid cars would have an easier time becoming widespread. They are already here today, they have the muscle when needed but will rely mostly on electricity and drastically reduce the need for oil. Even though they use gas they will be a major, major contingent of the nation's car fleet and will greatly help reduce demand and ease the pain of high costs of oil.
It's human nature to enjoy the thrill of raw power. I doubt you'll see any change in that aspect of humanity any time soon.
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Then there is the straight up pure electric car. Not a fuel cell car, but just a battery powered car. On many levels these will suck. They have weak engines and can only like 93 miles on one "load" of electricity. Not much but it's actually more than millions of people need to drive in a day. They will take [b]hours[/b] to recharge so if you forgot to plug it in (yes, plug it in) overnight, you are out of luck the next morning. Batteries would have to be entirely [b]replaced[/b] about every 20,000 miles and we would have to find creative ways to drive less. But they will not use fossil fuels and once the cars penetrate the market (which they will) they will become about the same price as any other car, but with a much, much, oh-so-much cheaper bill when it comes to fueling up. They will actually be a huge help though, much more than biodiesel.
You seem to fail to realize that "fuel cells" are, in fact, just fancy batteries with no limit on their usable lifespan. You can recharge most batteries a hundred to a thousand times. You can recharge a fuel-cell (H2) an unlimited number of times. That's a simplistic explaination, for more detail do a search. I did: http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/env...nfuelcells.html There are more and none of them I've read is 100% accurate, but you'll get a good idea if you read at least that one. Also, electric cars consume massive amounts of fossile fuels. Unless you produce electricity from the air, sun, or water/gravity.
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But the electricity has to come from somewhere, whether we just use it for electrolysis for fuel cells or for straight battery powered electric cars. Nuclear power will have to be phased out entirely. If you factored government subsidies, waste management, plant maintenance back into the cost of nuclear power it would actually be very high. Nuclear power is not our future, no inexpensive solution for removing waste exists (but the fears that the plant will blow up are an exaggeration, they are very safe despite what people will tell you). Also for political reasons, if we are smart, we aren't going to use nuclear power. Nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons are brother and sister, and from one technology, the other technology can and will be accessed.
I'm not ready just yet to give up on nuclear energy. Don't dismiss it so easily. Technology in this field is advancing rapidly and I believe in the near future there'll be discovered a way to easily erase all the spent plutonium or uranium rods thus removing one of the three main things that make electricity produced in this way unattractive: Expense of the power plant, disposal of the radioactive waste, and potential for an accident or terrorist attack ala Chernobyl. Also, research continues on fusion which involves no waste and it won't always be just another good idea with no solution. Addendum: Actually the latest method of disposal for depleted uranium is to incorporate it into projectiles and litter the middle east and Africa with it causing massive radiation poisoning of our troops and the planet.
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Also, for the towering destruction of pollution caused by Coal Plants (also a fossil fuel which we will run out of in 200 years, a long time but shorter than we think), Coal will be out. So no coal, no oil and no nuclear for our power plants. What, then? Natural renewable sources. The strongest of these will likely be wind which is abundant and already penetrating the electricity market present day and expanding at a ridiculous pace (the industry grows by an insane 33% a year). Wind is going to catch up on its own accord, even without the urgent intervention that will be needed, so it should develop more quickly than solar power. But there will be plenty of each on a massive scale.
Also, geothermal energy (drilling down in the earth for undergrount heat), on the western half of our country around California and Nevada and several over places, is already used as a viable power source, and there is tons of it. Hawaii, which already gets 25% of all its power from geothermal thanks to the volcanic activity could expand further. Geothermal, wind, and solar will all produce the new electricity which will be the backbone of the car industry.
Geothermal energy is really big in northern NV, but it'll probably never be a major source of power. I look forward to the day it's commonly incorporated in the building of rural homes to help save energy.
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So, what saves us from the oil shortage? A combination of a few things happening at once. But the short answer would be: electricity.
Thats my view, and if you look at sources to check me on my assertions, you should see that most every claim above is backed up by a source which you can find on the internet.
An overall well thought-out and nicely researched topic so I'm not going to tear it apart, mostly because I'm feeling lazy, but not because your arguments are bullet-proof. I just want to take exception to a few things and anything else, you've made a choice which side of the debate to stand based on widely available knowledge, but is it the truth? No, I'm not asking you if you're lying, I just noticed that some of your "facts" have "counter-facts" available out there as well. First off, oil is one of the most politicized issues out there, so be careful not to buy the propaganda about "peak oil". Consider that "peak oil" (that point at which all the easy-to-get sweet light crude is exhausted) might be a myth or urban legend. Consider the possibility that what you think you know about oil coming from dinosaurs (organic decayed material i.e. "fossil fuel") is false. It's actually mineral-based, not organic according to some sources including the Russian study at gasresources.net/. Consider that if an oil well dries up, all you have to do is let it sit for ten years and come back and turn the pumps back on and voila! Texas Tea, Black Gold... The wells refill themselves (many sources for this easily searchable). Impossible? Well, let's just say Shell and Exxon BP and others don't want you to know about their dirty little secrets. They wouldn't be able to rake in massive record breaking profits if you didn't believe they were past "peak oil" and all the worlds oil was locked up in shale or prohibitively expensive to extract.
Notice from truefusion:
There's a limit as to how many QUOTE bbcodes you can use. Once you reach the limit of 10, please use CODE bbecodes. Thanks.
You've only tried to answer a small part of the question... What will happen with the cars when the oil runs out? But I'm sure there will be far greater problems then having a car on oil when there is no oil left in the world. Everything we have today is made (at least partially) out of oil...Everything that has plastic in it, even food it made out of oil. I think you only need the fingers from one hand to count the parts of industry that don't need oil to function. Things will change when we will run out of oil... And it's not only cars, even the most basic stuff will have to change... So cars maybe just the beginning, our whole life style will have to change, to adapt to a world without oil. I've heard that in 40 years will run of out of oil... That may happen even faster. I think it will be a disaster for world's economy specially for the countries that relay on oil as their main source of income. Richer countries like Dubai have realized that when the oil runs out they will have a serious money trouble... That is why some of them are turning their eyes on tourism. Anyway the oil problem is far larger then we can possibly imagine. Fuel Cell cars, hybrid cars are very possible. But you can't power a whole industry on electricity alone... Electricity simple does not provide enough power to keep machines running and that is not because you can't produce so much power but because you can't transport that much in an effective way. Besides even if an effective alternative to oil is found, a few decades will pass before the whole industry will be able to adapt and make the switch. Not to mention the money that will have to be invested... So you see our life will be so much different when the oil runs out. I'm afraid it won't be a very peaceful transition from a oil based global economy to something else. Tides will turn for those countries that ruled the world by controlling the oil flow... like the USA. Just a few days ago Bush said in it's speech that America needs to double it's oil reserve. I'm sure the crisis will end with a new world order. The world, in my opinion, is going to have a very wild ride once the oil runs out.
Im not an expert on energy resources and their usage, therefore my views on this matter are simple. Basically, i think when oil runs out, we'll either mainly use nuclear energy or solar energy. The best thing about nuclear energy is that it is extremely efficient. The down side is it produces a hazardous waste, which eventually will take up alot of space. The more likely alternative energy resource is solar energy. Although it doesn't have the effiency of nuclear energy, it is much more safe to use.
I know what i said was very vague and this topic can be discussed in muhc wider detail, but thats all i know on the topic.
Hmm... you're assuming that oil cannot be manually produced of course when you say "what will happen when there's no more oil?" Most probably governments will try some desperate attempt to create it synthetically while switching to any other hydrocarbon sources they can find. And if THAT doesn't provide a ready solution, we'd probably fall into a temporary Dark Age leaving countries like Brazil (which I hear uses mostly ethanol grown from its own fields) and the OPEC countries which will have hoarded their last resources still properly functioning.
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So cars maybe just the beginning, our whole life style will have to change, to adapt to a world without oil.
I think that change is already underway. In the past few years, we've seen the rise of hybrid cars to markets - sure few people buy them, but the number's surely growing each year - and the lack of infinite oil has already entered the public mind. I think it's safe to say that we're just expecting a lifestyle change.
But on the good side, Exxon-Mobil will finally have shot its profits to the abyss.
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Besides even if an effective alternative to oil is found, a few decades will pass before the whole industry will be able to adapt and make the switch. Not to mention the money that will have to be invested...
Actually, I think we tend to surprise ourselves when we're desperate. I mean, hey, if we went from splitting the atom to making the A-bomb in 13 years, how fast do you think finding a relatively efficient new source of energy will be? Not to mention how much money each nation would put into new energy and vehicle/industry-modification/replacement programs. I'd say it'd be around 8 years MAX to replace all these automobiles and industries so they could use the new energy source.
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Consider the possibility that what you think you know about oil coming from dinosaurs (organic decayed material ie. "fossile fuel") is false. It's actually mineral-based, not organic. Consider that if an oil well dries up, all you have to do is let it sit for ten years and come back and turn the pumps back on and voila! Texas Tea, Black Gold... The wells refill themselves.
Woah... wait, what's your source for this? And if it is actually mineral based, there surely are a limited number of these types of minerals in some areas, so it can't keep refilling every 10 years, right?
I guess we will be forced to find another ways to power up our cars. In my country they are currently developing diesel from oil used for cooking in restaurants. They say that any diesel car can use this but they didnt put it on public gas stations. the only one who can use it is anyone who works in that factory. They plan to use this diesel for public transportation but they dont know will it work because buses are very old. if we ran out of oil we ll face the national problem! So the best way to prevent problem is to invest money in finding alternative sources which will change oil.
This is more than a little silly. I was quoting you, not because I believed one whit of what you were saying, I was mocking your doubt of theories. Of course a theory can still be meritable, I never said it couldn't, you did. And the points you bring up as you argue against your own quotes are fairly good points. Your points happen to reinforce the validity of Hubbert's Peak, also a theory, which you doubted for the same reasons that you now want me to believe the Russians.
It is a good point that an oil producer in Russia endorses those theories. Just like it's a good point that the U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. congress believes in peak oil. If I said "oh those russians aren't trustworthy because they used to be commies and etc. etc." would you take it seriously? I hope not. But that's exactly what you said about our United States congress. But I can say that one theory is more accepted in the mainstream science community and that one is more dubious and obscure.
"A guys personal website" was actually using info quoted from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a fact mentioned on the page I link to for anyone to read, so nice try. And I told you specifically what every graph was measuring, so you could have easily doubled checked if you doubted what I was saying. If I linktothesources, it's only going through the motions. Surely you still believe that our global reserve estimates rising for some reason, right?
So if you have something substantive to say, I'll be happy to respond, but if you were honest you might at least acknowledge the several cases of hypocrisy on your part, but you won't. So it is likely that I am done here.
It seems to me that research from the guys you mentioned often makes use of charts and graphs.
That whole study had all of four graphs that were immediately backed up with the date presented. You used five graphs in your rebuttals on some obscure forum without giving sources (and some guy's personal website, now defunct, doesn't count nor lend credibility) for the numbers used to create them.
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And in their own research, they consider their work a theory that they are still developing.
According to Oxford American Dictionary the definition of a law is: "A statement of fact, deduced from observation, to the effect that a particular natural or scientific phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions are present: the second law of thermodynamics." A theory from the same source is: "A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, esp. one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained: Darwin's theory of evolution."
What's your point? Do you expect them to lie and say their studies' results are irrefutable / incontrovertible with no challenge from the greater scientific community? If you're insinuating that because the theory posited is "fringe" or unaccepted for whatever reason in the west then I'd simply ask how, if their theory is false, have they (Russia/U.S.S.R.) come from the brink to being the world's largest oil producer. Perhaps they're on to something over there in Siberia... No no no. I guess you know more than they do which explains why you're wasting hours of your time convincing me that I'm just an arrogant, fat, unemployed, bored know-it-all who's out to get you and your ego to make himself feel better about his cursed life. Oh, wait! I know. You're some rich oil exec working for BP and you've got some poor intern working for you and you've charged him with the task of defeating every little argument, making sure not even one forum in the whole internet has one of those "peak oil myth wackos" getting away with anything. Maybe you've got a room full of college grads earning their stripes scouring the internet posting the agenda everywhere they can. Yeah. That must be it.
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Interestingly enough, Hubbert has correctly predicted several phenomina around the world with his theory and all oil wells follow the bell curve in output he predicted they would, just like global discovery of new wells follows the curve he predicted it would. The Russians, by contrast, have had little direct research to accompany their theory.
Are you suggesting a simple bell curve was the result of research? Specifically the Hubbert curve? You'll have to show me all the research that Hubbert did to obtain this, one of the simplist of graphs in the world of graphing.
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Now there was someone in this thread who was very suspicious of theories, and of graphs and charts, but I'll let that person speak on their own behalf. Maybe I should take that person's advice and distrust your Russian sources?
I have more to add to this, and I will on the other computer tomorrow because it's got all the sources up on it and it's much more reliable when it comes to successfully making posts on this forum...
Strike that. I had to get on the Mac just to post this. Good thing I've got another computer to back me up. I doubt too many other people do. Anyway, I ran across a compelling article that brings something to light I haven't discussed here yet. So I'm going to quote the first two paragraphs to lure the audience in and they can then link to it:
"On June 21 [2004], the Los Angeles Times ran a story that the ever-growing 'Peak Oil' crowd seems to have missed. The article concerned the Shell oil refinery in Bakersfield, California that is scheduled to be shut down on October 1 -- despite the fact that the state of California (and the nation as a whole) is already woefully lacking in refinery capacity.
Now why do you suppose that Shell would want to close a perfectly good oil refinery? It can't be because there is no market for the goods produced there, since that obviously isn't the case. And it isn't due to a lack of raw materials, since the refinery sits, as the Times noted, atop "prolific oil fields." The Scotsman recently explained just how prolific those fields are:"
The article can be found here: http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr64.html Scroll down a few paragraphs to the centered stars and read from there, though what's above the stars is interesting too. I guess supply and demand are responsible for the current price gouging at the pump. Haven't really heard this argument used in the media though. Funny how, when you close refineries down, even when they're extremely profitable, you'll make an even greater profit from the remaining refineries. It's good to be the king [of oil].
It seems to me that research from the guys you mentioned often makes use of charts and graphs. And in their own research, they consider their work a theory that they are still developing. Interestingly enough, Hubbert has correctly predicted several phenomina around the world with his theory and all oil wells follow the bell curve in output he predicted they would, just like global discovery of new wells follows the curve he predicted it would. The russians, by contrast, have had little direct research to accompany their theory.
Now there was someone in this thread who was very suspicious of theories, and of graphs and charts, but I'll let that person speak on their own behalf.
QUOTE(Watermonkey @ Jan 30 2007, 07:24 PM)
And a theory for anyone who doesn't know is: "A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained." According to Oxford American Dictionary. While a "Law" is an entirely other animal: "A statement of fact, deduced from observation, to the effect that a particular natural or scientific phenomenon if certain conditions are present: The second law of thermodynamics. Why do I bring this up? Because any schmuck can have theories, but a theory can be disproved, usually without too much effort, and when enough scrutiny has assailed said theory and it can stand up to the rigors of repeated experimentation it may then become law. Even Einstein still has theories that haven't yet stood the test of the scientific community i.e. Theory of Relativity. An honest resercher/scientist wouldn't be afraid of exposing their theories to the scrutiny of the scientific community let alone a meager forum like this one.
QUOTE(Watermonkey @ Jan 31 2007, 03:20 AM)
BTW: An economics professor once told me (and my class) that statistics lie. I'm not impressed with graphs and charts; they mean nothing to me because they're used to selectively promote some numbers from some source but not other numbers from other sources. Statistics are used to promote lies, often with success. The only way to disprove peak-oil is the same way to prove it: Wait. Only time will tell, but we can look back in time to see that it's not bloody likely due to the fact it's been promoted before. We can also look at where this theory is emanating from and consider a potential conflict of interest. It's like saying that maybe gun control will stop violence, but not likely because it's never worked in all the past events where citizens were disarmed then slaughtered. But let's try it again. This time will be different. I'm not willing to take that chance. I understand that peak-oil won't end with genocide, but the debate is the same: ignoring past experiences while trying to predict future events. I'm sure someone important once said, "Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it." I'm sure you know who said that. The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. Someone else said that, don't recall who.
Maybe I should take that person's advice and distrust your Russian sources?
I've paid more attention to this topic in the media of late while I was unable to post here and frustrated from the posts that disappeared and I listened to a guy this morning on GCN talking all the party line garbage we've seen here. That guy, Harry Braun http://www.harrybraunshow.com/, made a lot of sense, though, on another level and that is oil is destroying the planet's air, water, and all that. I've got asthma and this disease is epidemic in children today and I think it's due to burning all these hydrocarbon fuels mucking up the air. So what's the harm in spreading the lie that oil is near its end? In this case, since there really is no harm, I've decided that the means do in fact justify the ends. So go ahead and repeat the lie. Repeat it often enough that people believe it. You can ignore the facts such as studies like these conducted by:
J. F. Kenney, (JFK@alum.MIT.edu) Gas Resources Corporation, 11811 North Parkway, fl. 5, Houston, TX 77060, Houston, U.S.A. Russian Academy of Sciences - Joint Institute of Earth Physics, Bolshaya Gruzinskaya 10, 123.810 Moscow, Russia;
Vladimir A. Kutcherov Russian State University of Oil and Gas, Leninski prospect 65, 117917 Moscow, Russia.
Nikolai A. Bendeliani, Vladimir A. Alekseev Russian Academy of Sciences - Institute for High Pressure Physics, 142092 Troitsk, Moscow Region, Russia.
The study can be found here along with another study and lots of interesting information: http://www.gasresources.net/
Don't let your opponents see things like that though. We need to get off our addiction to oil and on to a H2/wind/solar economy. While I believe that would be very cool, I also believe they would never let the masses make our own energy. If they can't put a meter on it and charge us for it, they'll do everything in their power to make sure we can't have it. And the way our government is set up, they'll always have the power. We need to form a democracy and move away from this representative republic or something where the majority of the people determine the fate of our nation. So, I suppose this is pretty much the end of the argument for me unless something more interesting is brought forth by Glenstein or one of the other readers of the thread.
Awesome topic, btw. One of these days I'll have to start something like this one. Keep others posting here and if there's anything more I can add I will.
