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This could change faster than you think, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot more solar in 50 years. Solar is now getting to the point it can compete w/

This could change faster than you think, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot more solar in 50 years. Solar is now getting to the point it can compete w/ fossil fuels on price, w/o subsidies.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
12-16 years till solar is the dominant form of power generation at its current growth rate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics There isn't anything to indicate that growth curve will slow; the manufacturing capacity is already in place, and more continues to be added. There are power purchase agreements at 2 cents/kWh, and I would not be surprised if you see prices below 1 cent/kwh in the next five years. http://www.pv-tech.org/news/43695 http://www.pv-tech.org/news/43695 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/solar-developers-undercut-coal-with-another-record-set-in-dubai https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/solar-dev...
- coredog64 10y ago
  Can't make fertilizer or plastic out of solar energy.
  - msandford 10y ago
    > Can't make fertilizer or plastic out of solar energy. No, but if you're willing to spend a lot of energy you can pull CO2 out of the air and use it as a feedstock to make various fuels or plastics. Right now I think you'd have to burn 10 gallons of oil to make a single gallon so that's not efficient at all. But if you literally had more solar than you knew what to do with (like Germany does on occasion) you could use that energy to make liquid fuels or plastics. It's at least a decade and probably several decades off. But this is an economic problem, not a technical one.
    - labster 10y ago
      In California and other deserts, excess solar can be directed to desalination plants. Our water and energy shortages are essentially the same issue; solving one goes a long way to solving the other.
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        All resource problems are energy problems. With enough clean energy, you can make fuel, water, fertilizer, anything. We're going to need a lot of surplus energy to sequester all of the CO2 we've pumped into the atmosphere over the last 100+ years.
        Neeek 10y ago
        The weird part about sequestering is that if it's really going to work, people will need incentive to simply put all that energy in to the ground with no immediate benefit for them. You either need heavy government regulation or for everyone involved to be thinking about the larger picture. I wonder if anti aging technology would push people to start seeing climate problems in its larger context.
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Carbon tax funds sequestering operations. Something like this: https://www.terrapass.com/climate-change/carbon-offsets-explained https://www.terrapass.com/climate-change/carbon-offsets-expl...
        philipkglass 10y ago
        Carbon sequestration doesn't necessarily mean driving combustion in reverse to get oxygen and hydrocarbons again. Accelerated silicate weathering could remove a lot more atmospheric CO2 per unit of energy invested and it generates carbonate minerals rather than fuel that people would be tempted to burn again. Like this, "Enhanced weathering strategies for stabilizing climate and averting ocean acidification": http://www.southampton.ac.uk/assets/imported/transforms/content-block/UsefulDownloads_Download/2639B3403ED947729B86FA1B2275AFD9/article%20Taylor%20et%20al%20(2015).pdf http://www.southampton.ac.uk/assets/imported/transforms/cont...
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    There's a process for fixing nitrogen using electricity as the primary input: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland%E2%80%93Eyde_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland%E2%80%93Eyde_process You can also plant nitrogen fixing plants and till them into the soil at the end of the season.
    - philipkglass 10y ago
      Even better, electrolyze water and run the hydrogen through a standard Haber-Bosch ammonia plant. It's a little more complicated but much more energy efficient. It's been done on an industrial scale in the past with electricity from hydropower.
      - Gibbon1 10y ago
        Yeah that's the thing, hydrogen is the key feed-stock for the Haber-Bosch process. I think currently it's mostly made from natural gas. Though earlier it was made by reacting H2O with coke (coal). Makes me think about the flurry of ill directed excitement about a catalyst that with energy supplied electricity could convert water and CO2 to alcohol. One wonders if it wouldn't be possible use a similar catalyst to convert nitrogen and water to nitrate/ammonia.
  - JulianMorrison 10y ago
    See http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use Total petroleum products: 19.531 (million barrels/day) Of which, deleting fuels, Asphalt and road oil 0.343 Petrochemical feedstocks 0.331 Lubricant 0.138 Miscellaneous products and others 0.089 Waxes 0.006 which sum to 0.907 If the oil industry existed solely for non-fuel uses, it would be extremely tiny, and probably entirely domestic. It would not be large enough to fund any new deep or complex drilling, and nor would it be large enough to fund even the fixed costs of existing wells.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - sbov 10y ago
      That chart seems odd. From what I'm aware of, not all parts of "oil" are used for the same thing. E.g. before the internal combustion engine, gasoline was an unwanted byproduct of creating kerosene, and was usually dumped into the environment by refiners.
      - maxerickson 10y ago
        Modern refineries work a lot harder to shift their output towards the most valuable markets. Look at all the steps with some output to gasoline on the right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery#Flow_diagram_of_typical_refinery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery#Flow_diagram_of_t...
    - throwaway5752 10y ago
      "Petrochemical feedstocks" means plastic and Haber process nitrogenous fertilizers. Lubricants is probably substantially motor oils, but even Teslas have gearboxes and sealed parts (stearing, suspension, etc) that require lubricant. Same for general industry (regardless of input energy source).
    - vonmoltke 10y ago
      You deleted far more than just fuels. "Hydrocarbon gas liquids", "Still gas", "Special napthas", and "Kerosene" include significant non-fuel uses. Those bring the total as high as 3.390, though it is impossible to determine from that chart how much is fuel use. Also, keep in mind that some fuel uses, such as welding/soldering gasses, don't have an effective replacement at this time. Cutting fuel use to 0 at this juncture is effectively impossible.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

This could change faster than you think, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot more solar in 50 years. Solar is now getting to the point it can compete w/ fossil fuels on price, w/o subsidies.

toomuchtodo 10y ago

12-16 years till solar is the dominant form of power generation at its current growth rate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics There isn't anything to indicate that growth curve will slow; the manufacturing capacity is already in place, and more continues to be added. There are power purchase agreements at 2 cents/kWh, and I would not be surprised if you see prices below 1 cent/kwh in the next five years. http://www.pv-tech.org/news/43695 http://www.pv-tech.org/news/43695 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/solar-developers-undercut-coal-with-another-record-set-in-dubai https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-03/solar-dev...

coredog64 10y ago
Can't make fertilizer or plastic out of solar energy.
- msandford 10y ago
  > Can't make fertilizer or plastic out of solar energy. No, but if you're willing to spend a lot of energy you can pull CO2 out of the air and use it as a feedstock to make various fuels or plastics. Right now I think you'd have to burn 10 gallons of oil to make a single gallon so that's not efficient at all. But if you literally had more solar than you knew what to do with (like Germany does on occasion) you could use that energy to make liquid fuels or plastics. It's at least a decade and probably several decades off. But this is an economic problem, not a technical one.
  - labster 10y ago
    In California and other deserts, excess solar can be directed to desalination plants. Our water and energy shortages are essentially the same issue; solving one goes a long way to solving the other.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      All resource problems are energy problems. With enough clean energy, you can make fuel, water, fertilizer, anything. We're going to need a lot of surplus energy to sequester all of the CO2 we've pumped into the atmosphere over the last 100+ years.
      - Neeek 10y ago
        The weird part about sequestering is that if it's really going to work, people will need incentive to simply put all that energy in to the ground with no immediate benefit for them. You either need heavy government regulation or for everyone involved to be thinking about the larger picture. I wonder if anti aging technology would push people to start seeing climate problems in its larger context.
        toomuchtodo 10y ago
        Carbon tax funds sequestering operations. Something like this: https://www.terrapass.com/climate-change/carbon-offsets-explained https://www.terrapass.com/climate-change/carbon-offsets-expl...
        philipkglass 10y ago
        Carbon sequestration doesn't necessarily mean driving combustion in reverse to get oxygen and hydrocarbons again. Accelerated silicate weathering could remove a lot more atmospheric CO2 per unit of energy invested and it generates carbonate minerals rather than fuel that people would be tempted to burn again. Like this, "Enhanced weathering strategies for stabilizing climate and averting ocean acidification": http://www.southampton.ac.uk/assets/imported/transforms/content-block/UsefulDownloads_Download/2639B3403ED947729B86FA1B2275AFD9/article%20Taylor%20et%20al%20(2015).pdf http://www.southampton.ac.uk/assets/imported/transforms/cont...
- maxerickson 10y ago
  There's a process for fixing nitrogen using electricity as the primary input: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland%E2%80%93Eyde_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland%E2%80%93Eyde_process You can also plant nitrogen fixing plants and till them into the soil at the end of the season.
  - philipkglass 10y ago
    Even better, electrolyze water and run the hydrogen through a standard Haber-Bosch ammonia plant. It's a little more complicated but much more energy efficient. It's been done on an industrial scale in the past with electricity from hydropower.
    - Gibbon1 10y ago
      Yeah that's the thing, hydrogen is the key feed-stock for the Haber-Bosch process. I think currently it's mostly made from natural gas. Though earlier it was made by reacting H2O with coke (coal). Makes me think about the flurry of ill directed excitement about a catalyst that with energy supplied electricity could convert water and CO2 to alcohol. One wonders if it wouldn't be possible use a similar catalyst to convert nitrogen and water to nitrate/ammonia.
- JulianMorrison 10y ago
  See http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=oil_use Total petroleum products: 19.531 (million barrels/day) Of which, deleting fuels, Asphalt and road oil 0.343 Petrochemical feedstocks 0.331 Lubricant 0.138 Miscellaneous products and others 0.089 Waxes 0.006 which sum to 0.907 If the oil industry existed solely for non-fuel uses, it would be extremely tiny, and probably entirely domestic. It would not be large enough to fund any new deep or complex drilling, and nor would it be large enough to fund even the fixed costs of existing wells.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - sbov 10y ago
    That chart seems odd. From what I'm aware of, not all parts of "oil" are used for the same thing. E.g. before the internal combustion engine, gasoline was an unwanted byproduct of creating kerosene, and was usually dumped into the environment by refiners.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Modern refineries work a lot harder to shift their output towards the most valuable markets. Look at all the steps with some output to gasoline on the right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery#Flow_diagram_of_typical_refinery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery#Flow_diagram_of_t...
  - throwaway5752 10y ago
    "Petrochemical feedstocks" means plastic and Haber process nitrogenous fertilizers. Lubricants is probably substantially motor oils, but even Teslas have gearboxes and sealed parts (stearing, suspension, etc) that require lubricant. Same for general industry (regardless of input energy source).
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    You deleted far more than just fuels. "Hydrocarbon gas liquids", "Still gas", "Special napthas", and "Kerosene" include significant non-fuel uses. Those bring the total as high as 3.390, though it is impossible to determine from that chart how much is fuel use. Also, keep in mind that some fuel uses, such as welding/soldering gasses, don't have an effective replacement at this time. Cutting fuel use to 0 at this juncture is effectively impossible.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]