A friend of mine just returned from a visit to China - her homeland - after twenty years in the United States. She was completely dumbfounded at the changes she has witnessed in town after town that has become instead burgeoning city after burgeoning city. Skyscrapers, construction vehicles, cars, cars and more cars, factories, new homes - where once sleepy towns and small, stable cities once stood. This is an example of the real reason why we're in deep shit trouble where it comes to oil. There's lots of it - and production is stable, more or less. But the demand is going through a very steep climb, which amounts to the same thing as a decrease in supply. We have China and the E.U. knocking on the door saying "Okay, we're ready to be superpowers now". As a result, REGARDLESS OF ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING WE DO, the price of oil will inexorably climb to 60, 80, 100 dollars a barrel. At what price will we finally turn away? And if we do not, at what price will our economy collapse?
it does not really affect western countries, it just disrupts their economy but people in 3rd world countries need oil to survive and high oil prices, just a few pence kills in Africa
A worn but apt analogy is drug addiction. Oil corporations and their partners in government have encouraged Americans in becoming the most dangerously addicted petroleum users on the planet. When there appears a hint of a threat to our supply (and much more serious threats are ahead) we become agitated, and commence breaking windows around the world, while rationalizing the behavior in any way imaginable. If you have read The Prize by Daniel Yergin, then you understand why there is considerable conflict looming as modern-day robber barons move on to a potentially vicious petroleum end-game. If you have read the pablum prepared for the public by OPEC, then you know that everything is not going to be OK. While debate continues about the sustainability of King Oil from both supply and environmental standpoints, the behavior of leading governments is clearly an echo of the Opium Wars: Even as doubts multiply regarding the desireability and necessity of continuing to base our economy on petroleum, the most powerful are asserting that King Oil is not to be threatened: Not by developing nations who want to dip into our stash, man- And not by nationalities who audaciously feel entitled to what happens to lie under their feet. Americans prefer to assume that the "Powers That Be" have everything under control, and cannot possibly be leading us down a dark and dead-end alley. But history offers no encouragement when it comes to economic forces- Big Business and Big Government have time and again been unable to overcome their own inertia, and adapt to changing times in time to survive, and they go down kicking and screaming. It is for individuals recognizing the great dangers ahead to insist that a strenuous diversification of our energy sources begin right now, because the "or else" that our leaders threaten pales in comparison to the "or else" of economic reality.
...unless an energy-industry version of Microsoft can appear out of nowhere to pioneer an extraordinarily lucrative source of hydrogen. Scenario: A small startup buys land on a ruined Pacific Island (Nauru, Bikini, Enewietok - take your pick) and sets up a photovoltaic farm to electrolyse water into hydrogen and oxygen. Dump the salt back into the ocean, vent the oxygen and pump the hydrogen into tankers bound for the U.S. market. Run the tankers on a hydrogen turbine, come to think of it. Build a factory that converts beach sand into PV cells. Continue until the entire island is covered with a forest of solar panels. Move to a new island and repeat. There are something like 25,000 Pacific islands as far as anyone knows. No environmental impact that I can think of. A source of work and income for destroyed Pacific Economies and Environments. An endless cycle of a renewable resource. Once the demand for hydrogen is bootstrapped into existence, more marginal environments will become tenable - wind power, hydro power, etc. The beauty of the electrolysed hydrogen system is that it is essentially stored solar energy with water and oxygen as the only byproducts. Your tanker sinks or hits a reef? No problem - just torch it off... or not - doesn't matter. I'd like to see a cost comparison --- between the cost of extracting oil from the ground, paying for security/war/whatever to guarantee its flow, transport, refining, distribution and the environmental and health aftereffects --- and the theoretical cost of a electrolysed hydrogen system. My hunch is that hydrogen HAS GOT TO BE less.
There are a few new energy technologies. For example, newly developed Thermo-Depolymerization Technology (which converts carbon-rich garbage into crude oil). The conversion process doesn't create any harmful pollutants and use of the new form of oil actually releases less greenhouse gases than would be released by the natural decay process if the material had been stored in a landfill - in the case of naturally decaying material. The process can also be used to convert plastics and other non-decaying material. 'Turkey waste turned into oil' - New York Newsday - New TDP plant generating a positive cash flow while selling crude oil converted from garbage at a price 10% less than equivalent oil produced at a conventional refinery. http://www.nynewsday.com/technology...,0,1109501.story?coll=ny-technology-headlines 'Missouri plant begins making oil from farm waste’ – Waste News - Crude oil No. 4, produced from agricultural waste products, put on the market. http://www.wastenews.com/headlines2.html?id=1085160729 'Turkey Fuel? Factory to Turn Guts into Crude Oil' - National Geographic - Details how a Carthage plant is converting turkey waste into crude oil and its potential to solve many of America's waste disposal problems while making us less dependant on foreign oil. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/11/1125_031125_turkeyoil.html 'Researchers turn manure into crude oil' - MSNBC News - Researcher Yanhui Zhang of the University of Illinois has successfully converted pig manure into oil in small batches. He uses a similar process to the one already being used by a plant in Carthage, Mo., that converts tons of waste material, such as feathers and entrails, from a nearby Butterball Turkey plant into light crude oil. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4732398/ Successful Result of a California Pilot Thermo-Depolymerization Plant in the Philadelphia Navy Yard on the California Energy Commission's government website http://www.energy.ca.gov/pier/indust/descriptions/100_98_003_3.html And on the hydrogen frontier, there was a recent breakthrough in an ethanol-to-hydrogen reactor that will make hydrogen much more competitive as an energy source. The new reactor eliminates the need for large expensive facilities to produce hydrogen - being small and cheap enough for home and car use. http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/02/13/hydrogen.reactors.ap/ Mark Harm Candidate for State Representative - Michigan http://www.markharm.com
I have posted here in sciforums and elsewhere many times. Many years ago, I met a scientist in a international solar conference in Boulder, Colorado. He and I worked out a method to develop photovoltaic cells in a continuous process. I lost touch with him but gave up when I could not find investors interested in the project. This can be done and put on almost every roof to generate atleast 3 KWH per roof average. Polymer technology and nanotechnology must be developed to separate hydrogen and oxygen from water and used for fuel. In the end solution lies in developing hot fusion technology. In the meantime, various fuel cell technologies need to be accelerated...
kmguru I don't think anyone doubts that such a technology can work, the problem is making it affordable. Is it affordable?
In large volume production it would be affordable. Like anything else, the very first foot probably would cost 10 million dollars, if you are selling only one foot! The problem is connecting the money to the idea and to the management who delivers the idea. That is a classic problem since those three groups do not walk in the same circles.
