The transition from oil to whatever's next

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - The transition from oil to whatever's next

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:06:30 AM EDT

Hydrogen?

Do you think it will be gradual, like the transitions from wood to coal, and from coal to oil? Or is it going to hit us like a ton of bricks, with no infrastructure in place to make it easier?

I tend to think that the world is driven by a greed for short-term profits, and that we'll be unprepared.

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:11:57 AM EDT

[#1]

We are never going to go to a hydrogen economy, ever, for three main reasons:

1: not enough platinum on the planet for every car to be hydrogen powered
2: hydrogen is very inefficient. You have to spend way more energy to make it then you get out of it. Also, it has a low energy density, so you would have to have a pretty large tank to get the same range.
3: by the time technology develops to allow for even remotely competitive hydrogen cars, battery technology will have improved enough to make it far more effective.

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:12:17 AM EDT

[#2]

It will have to be gradual, because the supporting infrastructure needs to be built. Otherwise, it wouldn't last long.

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:13:29 AM EDT

[#3]

As for your original question, I think it's going to be a gradual transition from oil to electric, with varying kinds of hybrids in between. In 50 years we'll probably be 100% electric. Sooner if oil prices continue to rise at the rate they are now.

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:13:52 AM EDT

[#4]

Quoted:

Hydrogen?

BZZZT - wrong answer.

Hydrogen is NOT a Solution.

Hydrogen does not occur naturally. You can't grow it, mine it, or collect it.

You must create Hydrogen by breaking down water through electricity, and a LOT of it - you are breaking molecular bonds.

So, you USE more energy than you can recover from burning/using the hydrogen.

Hydrogen is essentially a battery - you can take the juice from a nuclear plant, make hydrogen, and drive your car away on that. But you LOSE energy in the process.

If/when we get fushion power plants, hydrogen will be a great choice, but not until

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:14:47 AM EDT

[#5]

Another question: Do you think diesel will bridge the gap between gasoline and whatever? I mean, we could grow our own if the economics of oil stay on the current trajectory.

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:15:21 AM EDT

[#6]

Quoted:

As for your original question, I think it's going to be a gradual transition from oil to electric, with varying kinds of hybrids in between. In 50 years we'll probably be 100% electric. Sooner if oil prices continue to rise at the rate they are now.

And what will be generating all that electricity? Fossil fuels?

Yes, electric could be more efficient........but think of the energy cost of replacing the fleet, unless it's done through attrition

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:15:57 AM EDT

[#7]

Next: Spotted owls and baby harp seals

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:16:02 AM EDT

[#8]

Quoted:

Another question: Do you think diesel will bridge the gap between gasoline and whatever? I mean, we could grow our own if the economics of oil stay on the current trajectory.

No, since it's made from oil too. It would help a bit, given the better fuel economy, but not a big improvement.

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:20:25 AM EDT

[#9]

The price of gas is going to have to go incredibly high before a new solution takes its place.

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:22:33 AM EDT

[#10]

Quoted:
Quoted:

As for your original question, I think it's going to be a gradual transition from oil to electric, with varying kinds of hybrids in between. In 50 years we'll probably be 100% electric. Sooner if oil prices continue to rise at the rate they are now.

And what will be generating all that electricity? Fossil fuels?

Yes, electric could be more efficient........but think of the energy cost of replacing the fleet, unless it's done through attrition

yes it will be done slowly. It has already started, lots of people are jumping on the hydrid band-wagon nowadays.

The energy can be replaced with coal and nuclear, assuming we start building more base load plants soon (which is likely to happen). Even the greenie-weenies say that we have 300 years of coal, assuming the projected exponential increase in energy demand continues.

As for nuclear, there's like 1000 years of U235 available, and basically unlimited fuel if we switch to breeder reactors (a proven technology that just hasn't been widely adopted)

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:30:49 AM EDT

[#11]

Quoted:

Even the greenie-weenies say that we have 300 years of coal, assuming the projected exponential increase in energy demand continues.

Only 50 YEARS, using a 2% growth rate.

See page 10

CONGRESSIONAL ENERGY REPORT

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:32:05 AM EDT

[#12]

Quoted:
You must create Hydrogen by breaking down water through electricity, and a LOT of it - you are breaking molecular bonds. So, you USE more energy than you can recover from burning/using the hydrogen.

This is true of all energy conversion and always will be. Nothing new.

Hydrogen is essentially a battery - you can take the juice from a nuclear plant, make hydrogen, and drive your car away on that. But you LOSE energy in the process.

That's my take on it as well. Fuel-cell cars are just another approach to turnng grid power into portable power, just like electric cars. So unless fuel cells are a hell of a lot cheaper, more efficient or more energy-dense, what's the advantage over standard electric cars?

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:33:51 AM EDT

[#13]

Quoted:

That's my take on it as well. Fuel-cell cars are just another approach to turnng grid power into portable power, just like electric cars. So unless fuel cells are a hell of a lot cheaper, more efficient or more energy-dense, what's the advantage over standard electric cars?

- faster/easier refueling

- longer range

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:39:05 AM EDT

[#14]

Quoted:
Hydrogen?

Do you think it will be gradual, like the transitions from wood to coal, and from coal to oil? Or is it going to hit us like a ton of bricks, with no infrastructure in place to make it easier?

I tend to think that the world is driven by a greed for short-term profits, and that we'll be unprepared.

I think we'll be unprepared too. I imagine there will be resource wars erupting all over. I think it will get bleak.

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:41:30 AM EDT

[#15]

Quoted:
Quoted:

That's my take on it as well. Fuel-cell cars are just another approach to turnng grid power into portable power, just like electric cars. So unless fuel cells are a hell of a lot cheaper, more efficient or more energy-dense, what's the advantage over standard electric cars?

- faster/easier refueling

- longer range

Maybe at the moment, but that is apples to oranges. Comparing one unviable technology to the other, saying that idea A is better then idea B because idea A in the future will be better then idea B at the present is just lacking in foresight. By the time hydrogen becomes at all feasible, battery technology will have evolved to the point of being much superior (IMO).

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:41:51 AM EDT

[#16]

Quoted:
- faster/easier refueling

- longer range

Didn't think about refueling speed. Definitely a factor. Although new batteries that use nano-tech surfaces inside to increase surface area are making much faster recharging possible. New batteries coming out soon will allow a cell phone or laptop to be recharged to 90% capacity off of standard house power in less than five minutes. Just up-scale the whole thing, and over-night recharging will be a thing of the past.

By longer range, do you mean storage density? You can always just add more fuel storage to increase range. I assume you mean x miles of travel per x pounds of fuel/batteries?

how do fuel cells compare to batteries in this regard? I haven't heard. Although I understand it's currently a problem for both.

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:44:41 AM EDT

[#17]

Horse and buggies, worked well for 125 or so years

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:07:11 AM EDT

[#18]

Quoted:

As for nuclear, there's like 1000 years of U235 available, and basically unlimited fuel if we switch to breeder reactors (a proven technology that just hasn't been widely adopted)

Building nuclear reactors should be one of the top priorities in the next 30 years. Destroy any legislation or regulation that gets in the way, and build them everywhere.

Jim

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:09:46 AM EDT

[#19]

Quoted:

Horse and buggies, worked well for 125 or so years

PLEASE AL GORE, go back to your network.

Imagine - 300,000,000 horses in this country, and the infrastructure to feed and support them.

Imagine all the manure!

We can NOT got back to horses Al.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:11:00 AM EDT

[#20]

Quoted:
Horse and buggies, worked well for 125 or so years

I'm Algore and I approve of this message.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:11:02 AM EDT

[#21]

Quoted:
Quoted:

Horse and buggies, worked well for 125 or so years

PLEASE AL GORE, go back to your network.

Imagine - 300,000,000 horses in this country, and the infrastructure to feed and support them.

Imagine all the manure!

We can NOT got back to horses Al.

With all the casualties from the resource wars, the starvation, poverty and crime we won't need that many horses.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:11:59 AM EDT

[#22]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:

Horse and buggies, worked well for 125 or so years

PLEASE AL GORE, go back to your network.

Imagine - 300,000,000 horses in this country, and the infrastructure to feed and support them.

Imagine all the manure!

We can NOT got back to horses Al.

With all the casualties from the resource wars, the starvation, poverty and crime we won't need that many horses.

Yes, that is probably true. "What this town needs is an enema"

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:14:42 AM EDT

[#23]

Quoted:
Quoted:

Another question: Do you think diesel will bridge the gap between gasoline and whatever? I mean, we could grow our own if the economics of oil stay on the current trajectory.

No, since it's made from oil too. It would help a bit, given the better fuel economy, but not a big improvement.

Yes, it is efficient and can be grown ie biodiesel.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:15:28 AM EDT

[#24]

Quoted:
Quoted:
Quoted:

Another question: Do you think diesel will bridge the gap between gasoline and whatever? I mean, we could grow our own if the economics of oil stay on the current trajectory.

No, since it's made from oil too. It would help a bit, given the better fuel economy, but not a big improvement.

Yes, it is efficient and can be grown ie biodiesel.

Supposedly takes more energy to create biodiesel than you get from it.

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:32:21 AM EDT

[#25]

look up "oil from anything" on yahoo and you will see a story from discovery chanel that tells how a company is turning trash into oil.
they have a plant in MO. to turn scraps from a butter ball factory into oil.
kychas

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:33:28 AM EDT

[#26]

After oil, comes....
Peak_Oil

Posted: 8/24/2005 8:40:44 AM EDT

[#27]

Quoted:
Horse and buggies, worked well for 125 or so years

Worked well for several thousand years. They were very rapidly being replaced by bicycles, until bicycles were in turn eclipsed by the automobile.

Posted: 8/24/2005 11:13:05 AM EDT

[#28]

Posted: 8/24/2005 11:22:42 AM EDT

[#29]

I am still having a hard time believing that an alternate, liquid fuel cannot be developed from alcohol based or seed oil based products or some combination.

Hydrogen is a pipe dream

Compressed gas is too damned dangerous

Electrical cars are a friggin' joke

The only logical source of SAFE, relatively INEXPENSIVE and mass producable fuels are going to be stable liquid formulas based on some type of petroleum or alcohol product.

Posted: 8/24/2005 11:31:25 AM EDT

[#30]

Natural Gas

Posted: 8/24/2005 11:37:08 AM EDT

[#31]

Screw that! EASY CHEEZE!!!!!

Posted: 8/24/2005 12:34:56 PM EDT

[#32]

I think electrical is quite do-able if overhead caternary lines are run over the freeways and on major raods and highways. On those roads your electric car would get power from the grid and recharge the batteries.

Posted: 8/24/2005 12:36:17 PM EDT

[#33]

Quoted:
I think electrical is quite do-able if overhead caternary lines are run over the freeways and on major raods and highways. On those roads your electric car would get power from the grid and recharge the batteries.

The electricity comes from somewhere other than fossil fuels though, right?

Posted: 8/24/2005 5:33:48 PM EDT

[#34]

Quoted:
I am still having a hard time believing that an alternate, liquid fuel cannot be developed from alcohol based or seed oil based products or some combination.

Hydrogen is a pipe dream

Compressed gas is too damned dangerous

Electrical cars are a friggin' joke

The only logical source of SAFE, relatively INEXPENSIVE and mass producable fuels are going to be stable liquid formulas based on some type of petroleum or alcohol product.

I don't think the next big increase in energy production is going to come from chemical-based processes at all. Like someone posted above, I think it's going to have be based on some sort of fusion process.

One sci-fi author has a pretty good dissertation on the production of energy over the history of mankind. Some basic points from reading this about 15 years ago:

- A new energy source is always cheaper, easier to get, cleaner and by far, more powerful than the energy source it replaces (i.e. coal replaced wood, oil replaced coal, etc.)
- Energy density goes up by orders of magnitude.

The author's name is James P. Hogan, but I can't recall the name of the book. Pretty good read, IMO.

Posted: 8/24/2005 5:46:25 PM EDT

[#35]

Quoted:
Quoted:

As for nuclear, there's like 1000 years of U235 available, and basically unlimited fuel if we switch to breeder reactors (a proven technology that just hasn't been widely adopted)

Building nuclear reactors should be one of the top priorities in the next 30 years. Destroy any legislation or regulation that gets in the way, and build them everywhere.

Jim

Preach on brother.

And we need to invest money in new and more efficent reactor designs.

Then we need to tell the local yocals at Yucca Moutian to take one for the team. Hell I get more radiation from background than what will come off of Yucca Moutian when the waste is encased.

I know I am going to come off like a daydreamer but I would like to see more put into fusion, specifically the ITER project in France. I know, I know, we all hate the French but they are the location of ITER and they use a lot of nuclear power.

Posted: 8/24/2005 7:08:01 PM EDT

[#36]

Quoted:
Quoted:
I think electrical is quite do-able if overhead caternary lines are run over the freeways and on major raods and highways. On those roads your electric car would get power from the grid and recharge the batteries.

The electricity comes from somewhere other than fossil fuels though, right?

Well, we do have lots and lots of coal. But the electricity could be from nukes or even orbital solar arrays. Maybe there will be better ways to capture solar energy on earth.

GunLvr

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - The transition from oil to whatever's next

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