And now for something that actually matters

Ajnag

Oil in the ground becomes unusable when the energy cost of recovery outstrips the energy obtained. This is nothing to do with money. If it costs a barrel of oil to produce a barrel of oil then we have run out.

We are quite a long way from that however, at present its something like one to a hundred or so(cant say for sure tho). Also as the price of oil increase's it becomes more viable to start extracting oil from sources that were not as viable in the past. Total were recently talking of using a nuclear power plant to provide energy for removing oil from tar sands in canada. The exact outcome is in no way cut and dried.

Capt'n Midnight

bonkey wrote:

In relation to fission, uranium is far from the only source which can be used in reactors, unless you limit yourself to 1950s technology. There is no real shortage of fissile material.

Interesting
The only other naturally occuring element that is fssile is Thorium. India are moving to Thorium since it is more abundant than Uranium http://www.uic.com.au/nip67.htm

As for oil - If the US cut back on big cars or we stopped using RyanAir..

atilladehun

This is a bit off topic....

Suppose, as humans, we had to choose a new fuel, knowning what we do now about all the different types. Its obvious were going to have to do this soon, for a number of reasons, environment, economics and stocks of oil. Lets pretend that the oil isn't at the stage its at now though and we have a clean slate with the environment. Demand however remains high and we as educated balanced people have to decide which fuels to use.

There are disadvantages to everysingle energy source so what will we choose. eg oil pollution, greed. biofuel huge amounts of land needed etc. Hydrogen (not available yet, may never be, but if it was would we use it?). Wind, wind farms? wind on every house. Is it practicle just to get everyone to do this at once? etc etc. Nuclear?????????

We'd probably end up choosing a mix, right? what mix, and what would be powering what?

I'm Fairly interested in the whole green issues and plan to change my house and life accordingly but theres nothing wrong with a little hypothetical debate every now and then.

Keyzer

Why can't we just develop engines like the DeLorean in Back to the Future 2 that run on coca cola and banana skins etc.

Added bonus would be when I tell my boss that I was late for work because the flux capacitor in my car was broken, I could actually be telling the truth...

On a serious note, Biogas is the way forward....
All we need is lots of dead cows poo, make ethanol out of it and bobs your uncle. Sure Temple Bar is full of cows on a sat night ....

Capt'n Midnight

atilladehun wrote:

There are disadvantages to everysingle energy source so what will we choose. eg oil pollution, greed. biofuel huge amounts of land needed etc. Hydrogen (not available yet, may never be, but if it was would we use it?). Wind, wind farms? wind on every house. Is it practicle just to get everyone to do this at once? etc etc. Nuclear?????????

Where to start ??

Hydrogen is not a primary fuel, it is a delivery / storage system. Think of it like electricty except it's a little easier to store.

Changing over fuels - petrol land vehicles will run on hydrogen , methane ( methane hydrates on ocean floor) , methanol , alcohol, esters , and hydrolysed chickens. Diesel engines will run on rape seed oil and coal dust emulsified in water (once they are up to temperature)

Private windfarms - will a home wind generator save the energy it took to make it (similar argument on solar panels)

China are by the worlds largest users of cement - this uses a lot energy and a lot of CO2 maybe we should ask them to stop.

http://disarm.igc.org/vonhippel.htm - material containing more than 12% U233 could be used to make a simple bomb. U233 can be made from Thorium, more common than natural Uranium and India are starting to look at this material.

samb

yes, this is a very interesting and important issue. There is plenty of oil left but it is too expensive to extract, it is not always in big pools metres underground as in Iraq. In Canada much of it is within rock. if you drill down you will only get oil very near the hole seeping in, the rock is not porous enough. You need to blow the cr*p out of it to get at it.

I think we need to look at nuclear again in this country. It is feared by the general public but there have been great improvements in safety.

turbine?

I dont think nuclear is the way to go. Nuclear waste is the major problem with Nuclear electricity generation. What do you do with it and where do you put it?
Apart from that Nuclear is a relaible and high capacity electricity generation system.
Engineering costs may be high compared with other technologies, but the power output is greater. I don't know if they balance out?

xonencentral

How about we build one massive nuclear plant on the moon and run an umbilical cord to earth with the power. (actually, wasn't this the theme in one of the Highlander movies ?)

We could blast all the nuclear waste into the sun to get rid of it and we could all go on holidays to costa del moon at the same time.

Or we could leave the waste on the moon and it might even glow brighter so we could have daylight at night as well and the FF/PD governemnt could make us work around the clock and grow the economy/foreign companies even bigger so we could waste even more money on infrastructure, and the nuclear plant on the moon would probably be a monopoly owned by ESB and AAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHH.

turbine?

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha:) you would need a universal joint on the umbilical cord so the whole lot doesn't go into a big tangle:eek:

simu

democrates wrote:

We'll see manual labour coming back to the farm, so what. We'll see horse and cart bringing produce to the market, so what.

Frankly I look forward to exercise on a bike and my sister always wanted a pony.

Hmmm... this could be so. In a few generations' time, people might look back at this age as an era of mad, unbridled decadence. However, a life of manual labour is not as much fun as it might sound.

Energy questions aside, the problem of finding substitutes for oil in the manufacture of all the stuff we need is prickly to say the least. I read a newspaper feature a few months back where a person tried to go without using any oil-based products for a week - a lot harder than it might seem at first thought.

o_O

a5y

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

China are by the worlds largest users of cement - this uses a lot energy and a lot of CO2 maybe we should ask them to stop.

I somehow doubt that will happen.

Ultimatly it's a bit rich for any industrialised nation (nation, continent, hemisphere whichever :rolleyes: ) to ask China to discontinue, and in any case, they aren't going to.

I think the best thing we can do right now is place levies on energy inefficent product and use the raised br€ad to subsidize stuff like energy effecient lightbulbs. Imagine the difference it would make if suddenly overnight the cheapest products we could buy were the most energy effecient ones?!

I'm not saying this will solve the problem, but reducing the amount of energy we use will surely help, right?

(Sorry if my grammar & spelling is appalling, I've had insomnia all week )

turbine?

In relation to cement being CO2 intensive there is a good article on www.localplanet.ie about it. It appears that cement has an undeserved reputation for being environmentally unsound. The article states that, through 8 independent life cycle analysis studies, cement came out as at least the equal to timber framing and in some cases, especially in an Irish context, better than the alternatives of timber or steel.

BrianD3

I only just found this interesting thread. I was just thinking about this topic when looking at news coverage of people panic buying fuel in response to the fire in England today. Personally I agree with the doomsday scenario - obviously every aspect of modern western civilisation is hugely dependent on energy. Everything from food production, health, transport, sanitation, law and order and everything else. Huge question marks and issues with every one of the alternative energy sources proposed and I cannot see any of them (or a combination of all of them) coming close to replacing oil.

So what's going to happen? I envisage a complete breakdon of society, with people reverting to "caveman mentality" and "survival of the fittest" A chaotic dog eat dog world where individuals fight for survival and nations are at war with each other. The sort of thing that makes bird flu pandemics, foot and mouth, global warming, Asian Tsunamis, Hurricane Katrinas etc. seem completely insignificant.

democrates

BrianD3 wrote:

I only just found this interesting thread. I was just thinking about this topic when looking at news coverage of people panic buying fuel in response to the fire in England today. Personally I agree with the doomsday scenario - obviously every aspect of modern western civilisation is hugely dependent on energy. Everything from food production, health, transport, sanitation, law and order and everything else. Huge question marks and issues with every one of the alternative energy sources proposed and I cannot see any of them (or a combination of all of them) coming close to replacing oil.

So what's going to happen? I envisage a complete breakdon of society, with people reverting to "caveman mentality" and "survival of the fittest" A chaotic dog eat dog world where individuals fight for survival and nations are at war with each other. The sort of thing that makes bird flu pandemics, foot and mouth, global warming, Asian Tsunamis, Hurricane Katrinas etc. seem completely insignificant.

I disagree.

Oil is pervasive because it's been there in cheap abundance, that doesn't equal long term dependance. It's not going to be switched off worldwide overnight.

There are alternatives and as oil dwindles you'll see gas and coal (vast reserves left that can also generate hydrogen for fuel cells) electricity generation on the rise again along with eco-energy. Even if that supply tightens the ordinary motorist would be priced/legislated off the road (better for the environment and more efficient for society) leaving plenty for agriculture, security etc., with manual labour (6.4 Billion of us and rising, and don't forget horses and oxen) making a comeback. And if that's still not enough nuclear power will sadly proliferate.

We'll do whatever is necessary to survive, yea thrive. Yes we'll learn lessons the hard way and millions more will die needlessly, but we will survive. I don't think we need to organise ourselves into local militia to police our communities just yet.

Besides, aspects of your scenario are already here. Capitalism is survival of the fittest, and it is driving nations into war, economic war, we fight each other ever more intensely for the crumbs of employment from the capitalist table.

BrianD3

There are alternatives and as oil dwindles you'll see gas and coal (vast reserves left that can also generate hydrogen for fuel cells) electricity generation on the rise again along with eco-energy. Even if that supply tightens the ordinary motorist would be priced/legislated off the road (better for the environment and more efficient for society) leaving plenty for agriculture, security etc., with manual labour (6.4 Billion of us and rising, and don't forget horses and oxen) making a comeback. And if that's still not enough nuclear power will sadly proliferate.

That's all very well in theory, but in reality what's described above is a mammoth task. Do you see the Irish government (or any other government for that matter) being competent or organised enough to cope with it. I would say not a chance - even with years of advance warning. As for manual labour, are people going to be willing able to do this to survive or are they just going to panic, fight, steal, loot instead. It is true to say that the present capitalist world is "dog eat dog" to a certain extent but what will it be like if an energy crisis starts to affect the absolute basics eg supply of clean water. It sounds bizarre to be talking about a lack of water esp in a country like Ireland and TBH it probably wouldn't affect us too badly. But still, I guarantee that there would be an effect given that all sewerage and water treatment plants are heavy users of electricity.

Zillah

Someone smarter than me will fix it. They always do.

Capt'n Midnight

BrianD3 wrote:

all sewerage [ and water treatment ] plants are heavy users of electricity.

sewage plants produce methane. This can be used in CHP (combined heat and power) to supply their needs. Also methane can be used in fuel cells giving greater efficiency. http://www.jenbacher.com/www_english/prod/gasa_bio.html

http://www.earthscan.co.uk/news/printablearticle.asp?sp=332126698628342536322&v=4&UAN=532

The Korean Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) has targeted more than 20% of the country’s power generation to come from fuel cells.
...
The fuel cell for Chosun University Hospital, an institution with 24 medical departments staffed by 800 personnel, will provide power to meet the significant energy demands of a healthcare facility. Waste heat from the fuel cell will also be used to heat hot water for the hospital.

At the Tancheon plant, which processes 19% of the Seoul’s daily sewage output, the DFC unit will operate on methane gas generated by the facility’s anaerobic gas digestion process.

http://www.lei.lt/Opet/Projekts/biogas_pr_in_k.htm - selling sewage biogas

saibhne

BrianD3 wrote:

It sounds bizarre to be talking about a lack of water esp in a country like Ireland and TBH it probably wouldn't affect us too badly. But still, I guarantee that there would be an effect given that all sewerage and water treatment plants are heavy users of electricity.

Also need to remember that Climate change and the use of fossil fuels goes hand in hand - at the recent climate change civic forum a presenter (prof john Sweeney from Maynooth I think) said that at the current rate of global warming rainfall in Ireland will begin to fall significantly. Forgive the lack of numbers here but the consequence of this fall would be that by mid/late century there would not be enough water to supply the population of the East coast of Ireland.

One speaker had an interesting analogy to do with oil and labour - he produced a litre of milk and said the equivalent one litre of oil is equal in energy terms to 40 man hours - one weeks manual labour. He predicted peak oil to occur within 10 years (if it hasn't already occurred.)