Another Oil Thread

[Cassandra]

This discussion is very similar to an earlier one about biodiesel, where somebody said 5% of UK agricultural land could produce 30% of our energy needs. Can anybody confirm this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Don't know about the exact numbers but biodiesel is another way of producing fuel from agricultural land.

See:

http://www.biodieselnow.com/

[Guest consa]

This discussion is very similar to an earlier one about biodiesel, where somebody said 5% of UK agricultural land could produce 30% of our energy needs. Can anybody confirm this?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes similar, but I think the availability for Biodeisel would be more restrictive all though a good concept. The farming capabilities of Zimbabwe are now at threat from corruption and LRA's although it could be possible to turn the situation unfortunately this may take too long.

South Africa could be a good contender, this would increase employment therefore reduce crime, and promote growth in their economy.

[Harry Sacks]

OK Dom, so I take it you are saying an ethanol-based fuel economy is not viable because it requires too much land. Surely this can be resolved by the use of GM crops with higher yields?

And do the same problems rule out biodiesel?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Maybe, but many GM crop rely on pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers derived from crude oil.

Basically, oil is liquid sunlight, assimilated in biomass over millions of years. Plants are less than 1% effective at converting solar energy into biomass which is then, maybe, practical for our energy needs. What I'm saying is, take an area of land, caluclate the average K joules of sunlight incident PA on that area. By the time you've processed the biomass into fuel you will have less than 1% of the Kj you started with.

Biodiesel made to a recognised standard requires methanol derived from crude oil. Although you can make it from ethanol this really is in the experimental stage.

We are never going to get the Kj per $ that we get from a barrel of crude oil.

[zzg113]

We are neaver going to get the Kj per $ that we get from a barrel of crude oil.

So what's the solution then? Hydrogen?

I still think biodiesel is the better bet:

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

[Harry Sacks]

So what's the solution then? Hydrogen?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A new economic model?

[Guest consa]

I think more emphasis should be placed on magnetism and Ion transition, and gravitation, this will be the future, I believe they are already testing some of these principles at NASA.

[clv101]

So what's the solution then? Hydrogen?

I still think biodiesel is the better bet:

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

What do you mean by 'solution'? Hydrogen is not a source of energy!! Biodiesel has potential but only for a small scale, we can't produce millions of barrels of biodiesel per day, certainly not a significant amount at sub $50.

I don't know what you mean by solution, but what has to happen in the future is for us to work out how to live a good life with less oil. That's the challenge, not to maintain business as usual in the face of oil depletion. That's imposable.

[ftbSean]

Africa is in my blood, so excuse me for objecting to the above posts,

but they seem like the ramblings of the colonial class.

Africa is not a farm for supplying the resources for western indulgence.

There are other ecosystems relying on the land.

PERHAPS WE SHOULD GET USED TO THE IDEA OF USING LESS ENERGY!

[Guest consa]

Africa is not a farm for supplying the resources for western indulgence.

How do you know this?

There are other ecosystems relying on the land.

Which ones?

[zzg113]

Hydrogen is not a source of energy!!

Wrong.

I don't know what you mean by solution, but what has to happen in the future is for us to work out how to live a good life with less oil.

Yes, by switching to hydrogen instead!!!

http://atlas.aaas.org/index.php?part=4&sec=hydro

Both oil companies and automobile manufacturers say hydrogen is the fuel of the future. Ford chairman Bill Ford told a Greenpeace conference in late 2000 that hydrogen "will finally end the 100-year reign of the internal combustion engine. Fuel cells, which run on hydrogen, a renewable resource, have zero emissions. Fuel cells could be the predominant automotive power source in 25 years."

PERHAPS WE SHOULD GET USED TO THE IDEA OF USING LESS ENERGY!

Yeah, right. Dream on. Meanwhile, in the real world, any politician suggesting such a thing would be voted out of office before he can say "reducing energy consumption demand".

[Grime- skint wouldbe ftb]

Africa is in my blood, so excuse me for objecting to the above posts,

but they seem like the ramblings of the colonial class.

Africa is not a farm for supplying the resources for western indulgence.

There are other ecosystems relying on the land.

PERHAPS WE SHOULD GET USED TO THE IDEA OF USING LESS ENERGY!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Africa is the solution to where to stick all the nuclear waste, loads of it comes from uranium mines on that continent in the first place. Might be a nice little earner for them too.

[Guest consa]

Africa is the solution to where to stick all the nuclear waste, loads of it comes from uranium mines on that continent in the first place. Might be a nice little earner for them too.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

All nations that produce Nuclear waste should despose of it themselves in their own country!!

[MarkG]

Hydrogen is not a source of energy!!

Wrong.

So where's all this raw hydrogen you're going to collect, stick in tankers and ship off to hydrogen stations to sell?

All nations that produce Nuclear waste should despose of it themselves in their own country!!

Why? The best way to deal with nuclear waste is to stick it in the middle of a desert surrounded by automated defence systems to keep whackos out. You may not have noticed, but there's a distinct lack of deserts in the UK.

[ftbSean]

Consa

It is a moral argument.

If you are just trying to sidestep the issue with a question or a request for proof then perhaps you should have asked me to prove that africa wasn't literally in my blood.

The point is that it would be better to treat the problem and not to continue finding ways of feeding it. The earth a closed system and is therefore finite....

zzg

Yeah, right. Dream on. Meanwhile, in the real world, any politician suggesting such a thing would be voted out of office before he can say "reducing energy consumption demand".

I hope you reread your statement while thinking about what sites like HPC are achieving through grassroot influence...also what people power is achieving throughout the world ... and how politicians are constantly being accused of not being in the real world.

[zzg113]

So where's all this raw hydrogen you're going to collect, stick in tankers and ship off to hydrogen stations to sell?

Mark, you didn't bother to read the article that I linked to in my last post did you. It explains where the hydrogen is going to come from.

Hydrogen gas is a combustible fuel just like oil or natural gas. But unlike them, it is ubiquitous, inexhaustible and clean. It can be made either by extracting it from a conventional hydrocarbon fuel, or by splitting water into its component elements: hydrogen and oxygen.

hydrogen can also be made by running electricity through water, splitting it into hydrogen and oxygen. This requires a lot of energy, however. And if that energy came from burning fossil fuels, the gains in terms of reduced emissions of greenhouse gases would be minimal. So the key to the "hydrogen economy", to breaking the link to fossil fuels, is to deploy renewable sources of this energy.

That is why Iceland, with its abundant potential for generating hydroelectric and geothermal energy, is so excited. All that energy is not a lot of use to a country of a quarter of a million people. But if it could be used to generate hydrogen -- effectively converting it into a new, portable form of energy -- it would become a money-spinner.

[MarkG]

And you seem to have missed the point.

HYDROGEN IS NOT A SOURCE OF ENERGY. To create hydrogen you have to put in more energy than is produced when it is burnt!!!!!!

Where is all that energy going to come from to make that hydrogen?

[FreeTrader]

The majority view of the guys on the Peak Oil forum is that there is no ready alternative energy source to oil that can sustain the current level of population and economic activity. They don’t doubt that alternatives are available, or indeed that existing energy sources will be relatively abundant for many years to come. There just won’t be enough (in the short to medium term at least).

[in case you think the PO forum members are a bunch of survivalist whackos, check out this thread on hydrogen:

The Hydrogen economy - The physics

I think you’ll see the depth of debate and discussion on alternative energy sources that goes on there]

I’m ambivalent on this. I’m a great believer that Man has an amazing capacity for technological advancement and scientific breakthrough when faced with extreme adversity. This is especially true when the situation is one of survival, not just economic duress. I’d hold up the Second World War as a great example of this.

However, what WWII also showed was that the transition costs of such advancements are enormous. So while I can’t help but think that we’ll muddle our way through the growing energy crisis, I believe there’s going to be a lot of pain along the way as public spending is diverted from the social arena to the development of new infrastructure for our energy needs.

More hard times for all (as if we didn’t have enough on our plate).

[zzg113]

Great link FT, terrifically informative.

RichM, I think this answers a question you posed yesterday or the day before:

Organic sequestration (i.e., forests) is NOT a permanent solution to the GHG problem of fossil fuels adding to the carbon loading in the atmosphere. At the best, it prolongs the agony by a few decades. See http://www.cypenv.org/Files/sequest.htm for more details on sequestration.

I still think biodiesel from algae looks like the most promising option to replace oil.

I’m a great believer that Man has an amazing capacity for technological advancement and scientific breakthrough when faced with extreme adversity

Necessity is the mother of invention.

[deano]

Wrong.

Yes, by switching to hydrogen instead!!!

http://atlas.aaas.org/index.php?part=4&sec=hydro

Yeah, right. Dream on. Meanwhile, in the real world, any politician suggesting such a thing would be voted out of office before he can say "reducing energy consumption demand".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hydrogen can be used as a liquid fuel after using electricity generated by other means to split it from oxygen in water (Hydrolysis). The amount of energy it creates when burned is nearly equivalent to the amount of electricity used to hydrolyse water in the 1st place. It does not reduce pollution it just moves it from the point of use to the point of generation! It has benefits but does not solve the problem.

Nuclear Fusion rather than fission is still a pipe dream but theorectically possible. Work at Cern is going ahead now to get increase our understanding of particle physics as is research into superconductivity. Helium 3 for fusion will be a new fuel source at some stage but its what 20 30 year away!

[zzg113]

Helium 3 for fusion will be a new fuel source at some stage but its what 20 30 year away!

Which is why I said I still think biodiesel is the most viable option.

[deano]

Which is why I said I still think biodiesel is the most viable option.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You want to cover the planet in plants to make bloody diesel.

[MarkG]

Helium 3 for fusion will be a new fuel source at some stage but its what 20 30 year away!

Helium-3 has a half-life of about 15 years: there's essentially no natural Helium-3 available on Earth, the only 'free' source is Helium-3 created by fusion reactions in the sun. I believe the going rate is around $50,000,000 a kilo.

That said, perhaps you could create 'fusion breeder reactors' that would burn other fuels and produce Helium-3 as a byproduct while producing energy at the same time...

Hydrogen can be used as a liquid fuel

Provided you can manage to store it in your car's fuel tank at around -250C. It also has a very low energy density compared to petrol: that's why the first stage of the Saturn V rocket to the moon burnt petrol rather than hydrogen, even though it's about a 50% less effective rocket fuel by mass. A kilo of liquid hydrogen gives you about twice as much energy as a kilo of petrol, but takes up something like five to ten times as much space: it's such a problem that NASA have actually looked at using hydrogen ice rather than liquid hydrogen as a rocket fuel on a few occasions.

[zorn]

Mark, you didn't bother to read the article that I linked to in my last post did you. It explains where the hydrogen is going to come from.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It's going to come from hydroelectricity, according to the article. In which case hydrogen is not the energy source for the future, it's just a mechanism for storing and transporting the energy that's already been generated by hydro power. And except that hydro power is in insufficient supply, environmentally damaging and dangerous, there's nothing wrong with that plan.

[deano]

Helium-3 has a half-life of about 15 years: there's essentially no natural Helium-3 available on Earth, the only 'free' source is Helium-3 created by fusion reactions in the sun. I believe the going rate is around $50,000,000 a kilo.

From what I understand is there not a larger supply of it on the moon, I'm not joking!

That said, perhaps you could create 'fusion breeder reactors' that would burn other fuels and produce Helium-3 as a byproduct while producing energy at the same time...

Provided you can manage to store it in your car's fuel tank at around -250C. It also has a very low energy density compared to petrol: that's why the first stage of the Saturn V rocket to the moon burnt petrol rather than hydrogen, even though it's about a 50% less effective rocket fuel by mass. A kilo of liquid hydrogen gives you about twice as much energy as a kilo of petrol, but takes up something like five to ten times as much space: it's such a problem that NASA have actually looked at using hydrogen ice rather than liquid hydrogen as a rocket fuel on a few occasions.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[zzg113]

You want to cover the planet in plants to make bloody diesel.

Don't be a moron ALL your life:

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

to replace all transportation fuels in the US, we would need 140.8 billion gallons of biodiesel, or roughly 19 quads (one quad is roughly 7.5 billion gallons of biodiesel). To produce that amount would require a land mass of almost 15,000 square miles. To put that in perspective, consider that the Sonora desert in the southwestern US comprises 120,000 square miles. Enough biodiesel to replace all petroleum transportation fuels could be grown in 15,000 square miles, or roughly 12.5 percent of the area of the Sonora desert (note for clarification - I am not advocating putting 15,000 square miles of algae ponds in the Sonora desert. This hypothetical example is used strictly for the purpose of showing the scale of land required).  That 15,000 square miles works out to roughly 9.5 million acres - far less than the 450 million acres currently used for crop farming in the US, and the over 500 million acres used as grazing land for farm animals.