Cold world and no oil

You're a little late to the scene. The Greens & quite a few others are before you.

But there's a problem - those running the current energy system aren't letting go - there is an ongoing record of things like better engines, decent electric cars & a variety of better ways to live that have been smothered & removed from the scene.

They don't want to give up their billions until it's all gone - then they can trot out the next lot of billions-producing modes.

Hemp - close to a miracle plant, banned in most countries (even the non-drug version) produces better cloth than cotton, car bodies than steel, plastic or fibreglass, better paper than wood, better chipboard than pine, better biofuel than corn, multiple proven medicinal uses (aside from relaxation) cleans up industrial waste, grows anywhere. Banned for most of the above reasons.

The US systematically destroyed the crop in Bangladesh & gave them 40+ years of death & destruction from floods & starvation - Bang (hemp) was what was holding the landscape together - literally. The US got on its high moral horse & determined to wipe out the crop.

Sarich Orbital engine - very efficient & delivered good power to weight, cheap to make on any decent production model - bought out by Corporations & only ever appeared in a lawn mower.

I think it was a Chevvy but there was a fairly efficient electric car produced in maybe the 80's - wasn't suitable for long road trips but could have been a winner around town - never got past the prototype stage.

I know you'll like this one... but you should do some research before sniggering & rejecting it - the process that got labelled as Cold Fusion - no matter what MIT decided (& you know they perpetrated fraud on the public right?) there was anomalous energy produced. There are now multiple ways to produce the same effect being studied in places like Japan & France - just not in the US.

MHD - MagnetoHydroDynamics - back in the 60's (maybe the 50's?) MHD was a promising technology. It was envisaged a power station a block big could power a decent sized city. No CO₂ & clean. Fission & Fusion got the bucks.

The list can be extended however long you want. A lot of the same names appear at the tops of each list.

Nope, we've known since at least the 60's about the problems with fossil fuels but there's a bunch of people making billions of dollars from how things are - they aren't about to let that go until they've got every last cent from us.

I lived through the Sarich times. He got $100 million for his engine so somebody thought it was a workable idea.

And as I say, it came out in a lawnmower, but you're right it pays to research...

Why it never took off in cars remains in dispute, but the sophisticated fuel-injection and combustion system was developed for use in two-stroke engines and is used today in boat engines, motorbikes, lawnmowers and some small cars.

Mr Sarich later used the reported $100 million he received from the sale of the intellectual property rights to the engine to develop his small family company into today's massive property and investment empire.

And that Wiki article is in dispute for neutrality & accuracy.

I'm not so sure about some of the altrernative energies - is it that thye don't measure up or that they aren't funded through the development phase?

You make some good points about oil. The system within which we are trying to survive is not a good one. Consumerism & greed flourish under rampant capitalism & seem to be heading us into disaster.

I also try to live as frugally (eco-wise) as I can & I stay away from processed foods & try to buy quality so I can keep what I buy longer. But it's difficult to do.

Steve,

I agree with everything you said. I was there in 1990 when Pons and Fleischman gave a presentation at the Electrochemical Society meeting on their new electrochemistry results (LOTS of heat!!). I have followed the research ever since. You don't have to be a believer in conspiracy theories (which I am) to understand that Cold Fusion and many other promising solutions to our energy crisis have been bypassed in favor of higher profits. Our entire system is geared in that direction. Environmental factors are either ignored or lied about (lots of that!!). If you want another one for your list,
check out the "Powell Engine"

www.nustroke.com

A very impressive engine with high efficiency and very low environmental impact.

Of course, the coming Peak Oil crisis will not be all bad. It will force us all to be more frugal and probably help keep families together (need each other). I truly hope that Cold Fusion (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions) gets its day in the sun, just as electric cars seem about to. One positive will be that the extra CO2 up there will help in some plant growth (e.g. soybeans) so crop yields might be a little higher than they otherwise would be, but of course, the lack of fossil fuel inputs for fertilizer will probably make a bigger difference. Well (most) Americans could probably manage with fewer calories!

Keep up the good commentary.

Ian

I don't know about wells replenishing - but there is a company in California that claims that they will have industrial levels of output - 10,000 barrels a year? - from genetically modified yeasts and bacteria creating heavy oils.

Scale that up by a factor of about 400,000x and you'll be in the ballpark of today's imports by the US.

By the way... you're going to need a buncha' stuff for those bugs to eat to produce that--they don't get it from the CO2 out of the air, you know.

BTW,

In 2007, the us fleet of 109 nucler reactors produced 19.4 percent of the nations electricity, a grand total of about 806,000 mWh for the year if I'm reading this corrrectly:
www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0902.html

Ron,

Thank-you for doing the math. Pretty impressive amount of energy involved isn't it? I think your numbers are better than mine. That means that a number of almost 1000 1 GW nuclear power plants would be more appropriate. However, we should probably be reasonable and mention that the energy from oil is never completely available for any purpose (thermodynamic efficiency, etc.) while the electrical power rating for a Nuke plant doesn't include the heat that is wasted. If you downgrade the oil supply by the average efficiency of an automobile and compare it to the average efficiency of an electrical application (after transmission losses) you would probably have a better direct comparison. So perhaps the correct number is about 500 nuke plants (it doesn't really matter what the actual number is). The point is that replacement of that amount of oil imports with any other form of energy is almost impossible (at least in the short to medium term), and we had better hope that the predictions of Peak Oil are completely wrong!! (IMO they aren't).

Just to add to the problem here is a graph of the coal production in the US (from URL below). People are fixated on the total tonnage of coal being produced and ignore the fact that lower grades of coal have considerably less BTU content (more ash, metals, etc. and water). The peak in ENERGY CONTENT of Coal production peaked in the US in 1998, because the relative contribution from lower grade coals (sub-bituminous, lignite) has greatly increased. Has anyone ever burned Lignite coal? It is horrible stuff. (almost peat)

Check out the Graph of US Coal production by type and year at this web-site (1st comment by Nate Hagens on the posting at the website) at:

anz.theoildrum.com/node/4656#more

Many people still say that there are "300 years of coal production left in the US". This is VERY misleading. That statement assumes that the ease with which you extract coal is constant (or close to constant). Nothing could be further from the truth. Even using the graph at the website above does not provide a true description of the problem. That graph is total production and it doesn't include the problem of the amount of energy needed to find and mine the coal. The NET ENERGY GAIN is the key figure of merit (which is very hard to get). The net energy gain from coal production peaked in the US even before 1998. People who think that US coal production is the answer to our energy problems with Oil don't understand this very well. Coal consumption in the US has continued to rise throughout the 20th century despite the huge growth in oil consumption. We simply use too much energy per person in the US (and in most of the western world).

We need to be more efficient and less wasteful!!

Thanks for the numbers!

Ian