When will oil run out and how will this affect transport infrastructure?

Enviromission made great promises for years in Oz and now are moving to Arizona. They are dangerously close to spoofer territory and need to start getting something built.

Also - the kind of places where solar towers work require transmission to get the power to where it's used.

Judgement Day wrote: »

Another complacent soul. I think that a more recent occasion when the pumps ran dry would be a more realistic scenario. The 1970s Oil Crisis when filling stations were closed for most of the time (opening for a few hours every day), queues were massive and people pushed their cars in the queues rather than start engines. Even basic items like plastic covers for vinyl LPs became unobtainable...that's just things that stick in my memory from that time. Where are all these alternatives? Is someone stockpiling them or guarding the new technology? We have already seen where the nonsense of turning over food producing land to grow bio fuels will lead. As I said in a previous post - no scientific links just my observations.

Personaly I am far from complacent,I am actively involved in alternative energies.
But I would agree many people are complacent
Thats not a problem though.
For every 1000 people complacent about the future there is probably at least 1 person contemplating that future and presently working on the remedy and they will be very quick to market that technology to the complicit.
The prospects of power,glory and money are great motivators.

The 70's oil crises was not the same,most people knew it was political and there was no shortage of crude oil and that it was only a matter of time before things were back to normal.
When oil runs out for good, cars will not be pushed anywhere because there will be nowhere to push them.
Granted the world will be in turmoil for a few years and your car will sit in your drive with its tyres going flat but it wont be long before some enterprising character will drop a leaflet through your letterbox advertising electric car conversions...take out the engine,replace it with an electric motor,an inverter and a layer of batteries in the boot,its an easy conversion ,many are doing it already,search youtube for 'electric car'.
It will be the same for wind turbines,solar panels etc.
A few leds powered from a small turbine has to be better than a flikering candle no matter how romantic it might seem:)
This is how things will start off but sophistication and professionalism will emerge and accelerate things.
Economies of scale will bring prices down quickly,when DVD players first hit the market about about 15 years ago they cost about €300 you can now buy them for €19.99 ,it will be the same for alternative energy technology,cost will not be a big issue.
This then brings up the question of where to get the plastics and other raw materials for all this technology,well it may be more expensive but lots of items can be manufactured using alternative natural materials.
I'd gladly pay 3 times the price (€59.97) for a wooden cased leather bound DVD player,think twice about throwing it out too:).

So where is all this technology and alternative energy now?
Its out there alright.
Do a patent search for 'electric car' and it brings up 18482 patents
http://worldwide.espacenet.com/searchResults?bookmarkedResults=true&submitted=true&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_gb&AB=electric+car&sf=q&FIRST=1&CY=gb&LG=en&&st=AB&kw=electric+car&Submit=SEARCH&=&=&=&=&=

Or how about 'solar panel'? 13405 patents

or 'wind turbine' 13658 patents.

The reason we dont see them now is like I said we dont need them now,they are not necessary yet.
People by nature will put off the inevitable for as long as possible especially if there is extra effort involved and they see no immediate effect
Oil is still relatively cheap and the first world governments and the vested interests that control it will do their utmost to keep things that way for as long as they can.
If that means bombing the s**t out of the middle east for any old reason you can think of then so be it.
The current high prices at the pumps is caused by speculation.

The sooner oil runs out the better,sure there will be a withdrawl period but after a short time we will wonder what all the fuss was about.
Of course you will then have government and vested interests trying to and succeeding in controlling the new energies and technology but thats human nature and those things will be slower to change.

paulm17781 wrote: »

Why hydrogen though, why not batteries?

Well because when you burn Hydrogen it just produces water as a byproduct (H2O) that and it's probably one of the most abundant elements on the planet. The idea of course would be to use "Fuel Cells" not particulary new technology given that they were used in Apollo and all. Result Hydrogen in Fuel cell is used to produce electricity to drive the vehicle. Sort of like way Trains are "Diesel electric" (eg. Diesel runs a electric turbine which then provides motive power).

Of course part of issue with Fuel Cells is costs, there are several projects underway to drastically reduce the cost per KW of a fuel cell (replacing Platinum as a catalyst for example). To quote wiki:

Fuel cells are generally priced in USD/kW, and data is scarce regarding costs. Ballard Power Systems is virtually alone in publishing such data. Their 2005 figure was $73 USD/kW (based on high volume manufacturing estimates), which they said was on track to achieve the U.S. DoE's 2010 goal of $30 USD/kW. This would achieve closer parity with internal combustion engines for automotive applications, allowing a 100 kW fuel cell to be produced for $3000. 100 kW is about 134 hp

Of course the same argument regarding price was one of the reason people didn't think PC industry would ever take off. Of course the improvement in computer technology due to "Moore's Law" put paid to that.

The other option is to use a "Hydrogen internal combustion engine vehicle" which basically operates like a standard internal combustion engine but uses Hydrogen as a fuel (instead of Diesel/Petrol), of course one issue there is storage of liquid Hydrogen plus the "explosive potential" in the event of an accident.

High crude actually presents an oppurtunity as it forces us to innovate. There are several government funded projects around the world with regards to improving efficiency of the likes of "Wind powered Hydrogen production" such as: http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/proj_wind_hydrogen.html

Of course when oil is cheap there is no incentive to do the research required to produce a viable alternative.

hydrogen, like CNG, works in certain applications - where emissions are an issue, short ranges from fuelling stations, cheap availability of hydrogen (like from nuclear power stations) and so on. If there was enough natural gas available you could strip the carbon from it but Ireland doesn't have so much it can use it on a mass scale to replace petrol or diesel.

There's a reason why petrol is king though and that's energy density. Hydrogen delivers 5.6MJ/litre compared to petrols 34MJ/litre, and that's compressed to 700bar (10,000 pounds per square inch). Volume is an issue in smaller vehicles, as is crash survivability.

dubhthach wrote: »

Of course the improvement in computer technology due to "Moore's Law" put paid to that.

And the falling cost of silicon chips means photovoltaics are getting cheaper:

<sarcasm>Electric cars won't need roads because they'll float, so no more need for good roads.</sarcasm>

I believe we in Ireland are heading for any almighty crash someday in the not too distant future due to our near total dependence on oil for transport.

It may be this year or next or 10 to 20 years down the road but it is coming.

An oil shock such as a prolonged price spike, a Libya style crisis/civil war in Saudi and/or the Gulf state or a war involving Iran and Israel/US/Nato could have a terrible effect on the ability of this country to function.

Our complete failure to invest in electric rail for urban and inter-urban travel for passengers and freight will come back to kick us in the arse some day. Across Europe, there are comprehensive electric tram/bus/metro/rail systems as an alternative to roads and most of these countries will still be able to function during an oil shock.

Ireland, on the other hand, will not - we face the nightmare scenario of no cars, buses, trucks or trains, bar Luas and Dart in Dublin.

There are people in govt - by that I mean the civil service - who are aware of this but I don't believe they have had much success convincing their CS colleagues or politicians.

The EU currently has a Transport White Paper which seeks to move away from oil-based road transport and on to rail by 2050.

http://ec.europa.eu/transport/strategies/2011_white_paper_en.htm

As part of this, we will soon need to start planning for and developoing electric rail lines between the major urban centres, alongside electric rail and bus lines in the cities - but discussion hasn't even begun here yet.

But we're still talking about the need for Metro and Dart in Dublin when the need for both and more such lines will be critical in a matter of years.

And for those who say about a major oil shock that 'it will never happen', I would point out that in the last 20 years we've seen an awful lot of 'never happen' events happen.