Totally off topic but curious what other ww'ers here know and think about the "peak oil" thing. I'm reading a book, "The Long Emergency" that paints a very grim picture of the future after the era of cheap oil. Seems finding decent lumber will be the least of our worries. Maybe I should be learning those hand tool skills after all! I know there is a wide spectrum of folks here and would like to hear some opinions on it.
Cheers! Dukester
Plant an apple tree.
Since you asked for thoughts, I'll toss out a few, in mostly random order... We're using oil a LOT faster than it's being formed, therefore oil (or coal, or nat gas, or any carbon-based fuel source and their derivatives) will only get rarer and more expensive. Therefore, we should strive to conserve what we do use, and use alternatives when possible. The only continual input of energy to this planet is sunlight. Oil etc is stored energy from sunlight that hit the earth many many years ago, and though it's the easiest way to get energy right now, it obviously won't last forever at today's rate of use. I've seen conflicting data on exactly when we will (or did) reach a peak in oil production, but unless we do something drastic, we will eventually run out, or far more likely, oil will get far more expensive than alternatives. I don't think it will be a sudden point causing a societal crash, but probably more of a gradual increase in prices and a distinct shift to alternative energy sources. I've heard various and conflicting opinions on how grim the future will be after oil gets too expensive to be practial, what will happen to our industrialized societies, etc. One quote I've heard suggests that just as the stone age didn't end for lack of stone, the oil age won't end for lack of oil. At the moment, more sustainable alternatives (i.e. energy comes more directly from the sun) include biomass, geothermal, passive solar for heating, wind, hydro (rivers or wave/tidal systems), and direct solar (photovoltaic). Nuclear has it's own set of pros and cons, which I think are somewhat distinct from the rest of that list. There are lots of conflicts on which of those are the best/most efficient/most practical, but we'll need to move away from oil somehow. Many of us (including NY and several other states) now have the option of buying electricity from "green" sources, which is an excellent and easy way to offset our use of oil without making sacrifices other than a few cents per kilowatt hour. Another thing to think about in terms of practical everyday conservation choices is food - it takes a lot more grain to make a pound of beef than a pound of chicken, and a lot more grain to make a pound of chicken than a pound of veggies/bread/etc. All that grain requires land, planting, pesticides, fertilizers, irrigation, harvesting, transportation, and all the oil needed to run all those processes. I'm not a strict vegetarian, but we need to remember that our food choices have an affect on the earth too. Overall, I'd say the most significant things for individuals to consider in terms of oil conservation are personal transportation and home appliances/heating - there are a variety of ways to conserve in each of those areas, some easy and some requiring more sacrifices. As for woodworkers, the amount of wood used in most of our projects and the amount of electricity used for most of our tools is probably pretty insignificant compared to the amount of energy used by our vehicles or air conditioners or furnaces. I love hand tools, but energy conservation isn't a primary consideration when making a purchase or creating a project. Phew - sorry that got long-winded. Thanks for the post - whatever gets people thinking is a step in the right direction. Andy
I'm old enough to remember the same groups predicting the end of petroleum by 1980/90/2000 .
When oil hits $60/bbl, someone (not the US, of course) will begin hydrogenating carbon stored as coal. When the lights dim, we'll build some nuclear plants.
Those same people that predict peak oil in 2013 are the same people that predicted peak oil in 1995, and 1985, and 1975.....
Not all carbon-based fuel sources need get rarer. (Think cellulosic ethanol.)
--jeff
Don't forget wind power. Of course, environmentalists are now against wind power now that it's becoming viable in certain parts of the country. Birds sometimes fly into them, they take up land, etc. Same thing happened with hydroelectric power. Environmentalists where all gung ho, now claim that it interferes with Salmon. I'm sure it would happen with Solar if we had acres and acres of solar panels. Some habitat would be destroyed.
Hydrogen, when burned, produces water vapor, which in turn can be changed back into hydrogen.
At which time the alernatives will take over, and people will buy products that use them since it will be cheaper to operate. The market will work.
Absolutely.
While that may be true, don't forget to add "how many people get to eat" into whatever equation you're coming up with. That's not exactly a trivial thing.
Doesn't anyone remember the 70s. There was an oil shortage, long line-ups at the pumps, prices climbed from 25 cents per gallon up to over a dollar, causing problems for gas stations that didn't have that third digit on the pumps. Oil companies cried the blues that they needed to be able to drill in the gulf of Mexico. They got approval, and suddenly there was lots of gas, oil and other oil products (within a short time span, but not long enough to explore and drill new wells), but the price NEVER went back down. Now we are getting the same stories about shortages while the oil companies are breaking records for profits on every quarter. It smacks of an excuse to charge as much as possible for the oil to boost profits and management bonuses even higher.
Then there are the "hidden" oil wells. I worked for a gas utility that owned a drilling company that was looking for natural gas under lake Erie, south of Ontario, Canada and north of New York and Pennsylvania states. They found lots of natural gas, but also found a reasonable amount of oil. Regulations required that all oil wells be capped under Lake Erie. These wells sit there with no oil being extracted. How many other hidden oil wells are there throughout North America?
Indeed.
Distributed PV is ok since it can occupy existing roof space. Tidal / wave generation systems aren't bad since the energy density available is so high that they don't need to occupy large areas. Nuclear is also a good option since while it is not "renewable", it is safe, compact, efficient, long lasting and unlike fossil fuels pumping pollution into the atmosphere every day, the waste is compact and can be readily returned to underground where it originally came from.
Hydrogen is essentially an energy storage medium, not an energy source. You need to find a power source to power the hydrogen production first.
Pete C.
I normally don't respond to too many OT threads but come on! We have been hearing about running out of oil by; in the 60s' it was predicted to be in the 80s' - in the 70s' it was predicted to be in the 90s' - in the 90s' it was predicted to be in the 2010' - Now the just announced a 200 year supply found in Canada!??!
We as a society will provide a new technolociagal method for replacing oil long before it runs out. JMHO Back to making sawdust!
Dave
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I was listening to an interview of an Exxon exec on a talk radio station a couple of days ago. He was trying to make people think that Exxon does not have a lot to do with oil compared to the rest of the oil companies. He indicated that Exxon only pumps 3% of all oil out of the ground. That may very well be true. What he did not say was how much oil that Exxon actually comes into contact with and sells. Anyway, he said that with "today's" technology we can extract 3 trillion barrels of oil from existing sources. More with more advanced technology. Then he said, to put this into perspective, from the beginning when drilling for oil started many years ago the world has consumed 1 trillion barrels of oil. Basically, with today's technology, we have only extracted
1/4 of the available oil. Seems to me that the price of oil should stabilize.
What are you saying here? My neighbor is for the 3rd time overseeing the construction of a hydrogen producing facility in South East Texas. This being the 3rd that he has worked on I suspect that a power source for producing hydrogen has been accomplished.
| > You need to find a power source to power the hydrogen production first. | | What are you saying here? My neighbor is for the 3rd time overseeing the | construction of a hydrogen producing facility in South East Texas. This | being the 3rd that he has worked on I suspect that a power source for | producing hydrogen has been accomplished.
I think he's alluding to the fact that it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than can be recovered when it's used as fuel.
The point is that hydrogen isn't a source of "free" energy. It's a way of storing (most of) the energy used to produce it.
We need to be careful what we wish for. If we had a fundamental breakthrough that made "free" energy available to all, the absolutely certain result would be extinction of all life on the planet.
-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA
I see. thanks.
snip
Well I don't see your logic there unless you are referring to the second coming, but I do believe that if it happened all of a sudden that the world economy would be totally devastated, which could lead to the extinction of all life on the planet. ;~)
Also, ;~) big oil would never let "free energy " happen.
Maybe not intentionally, but if they don't heavily buy into the technology for free energy, it *will* happen sooner than later unless some natural or manmade catastrophe destroys the bulk of humanity.
Nope. The only two common ways to produce hydrogen that I'm aware of are to process it our of nat gas or electrolysis to separate it from water. With nat gas you are still relying on a processed fossil fuel and from water requires large amounts of electricity to produce the hydrogen and has low efficiency.
Perhaps electrolysis of hydrogen might be a reasonable thing to do to recover / store some excess power generation from off peak times or intermittent sources like wind or solar. For production of hydrogen as an energy carrier for use in say vehicles about the only practical sources of the energy are nuclear or tidal / wave power.
Pete C.
Actually "Big Oil" is doing their part to facilitate the developement of alternative energy sources by raising their prices. Kind of like what Comcast is doing to facilitate me getting a satellite dish...
Well consider the marketing. If they can convince you oil is running out, then you will be more accepting of their high prices. In USA it has already been established that oil is abundant, its gasoline thats not.
Anyway, the oil companies sure seem to have *every* media outlet on their side. If the price of oil raises, media is more than happy to fill in some non-sensical justification and pass it to the public as fact. No unlike stock analyst that talk in firm voices using strong words and thing that adds firmness and strength to their guesswork...
I suspect that big oil will let some one else come up with the technology and then buy that company and put the patents and knowledge into file 13.
The production facilities are in the middle of one of the largest oil refining areas in the country. They are indeed producing and going to produce hydrogen as a finished product. Perhaps not at a lesser cost than simply refining oil into gasoline but it is happening. There are fleets of vehicles using hydrogen currently. IIRC BMW is scheduled to offer an engine that will run on gasoline or hydrogen. I'll see if the company my neighbor works for has a web site with any pertinent information regarding the project that they are working on in the Texas City area.
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