7 ms·

Energy density per unit of weight of natural gas is in fact about 15% higher than the gasoline. The problem is compression, but not a big problem really, just a

Energy density per unit of weight of natural gas is in fact about 15% higher than the gasoline. The problem is compression, but not a big problem really, just about any car can be switched to use natural gas aftermarket, with some loss of engine power, but improvement in engine life span btw. Overally, i feel these concerns of 'peakers' are nonsense, the free market will help switching for other sources of energy, and science and technology already brought us to the point where it is possible, it's all about scaling now.

chimi 14y ago
Are the physical capacities of space and time capable of getting us to scale in these technologies? Only so much energy comes from the sun per square foot. Batteries can only store so much of that. There are only so many tons of required metals on the planet to create all the infrastructure, solar panels and electric motors we will need? I don't know yet for sure if it's possible to maintain our current quality of life given the resources we have at our earthly disposal.
- Retric 14y ago
  The long term solution to electric cars is electrified highways not better battery's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irisbus_Cristalis_ETB18_C1_Lyon_TCL_PDVM_Ibou.JPG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irisbus_Cristalis_ETB18_C1... Also, we use ~474 exajoules of energy per year, the sun provides ~3,850,000 exajules. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy Collecting 1% of that energy could easily support a western style lifestyle for 10 billion people.
  - pif 14y ago
    > Collecting 1% of that energy could easily support a western style lifestyle for 10 billion people. Yes, but how can we collect that 1%? Even considering 100% efficiency for solar panels, we'd need to cover 1% of the global Earth surface (land and oceans). Even more, we'd need at least to double it in order to have a 1% covered 24h/24. I'm afraid we don't have all the required material.
    - Retric 14y ago
      Wind and Hydro collect far more solar power than a solar panel as far a surface area is concerned and requires little in the way of rare materials. Also, we cover more than 1% of the earth with plants, but they don't tend to be all that efficient bump them into the 15+% range by say genetically engineering something to collect wavelengths that Chlorophyll skips over and the numbers get intense. We also farm the oceans but focus way to high on the food chain to get much in the way of efficiency. PS: There are also plenty of raw materials to cover the earth in solar panels but that's hardly unnecessary. But as far as the raw numbers go, covering 10% of the worlds oceans with floating solar collectors is vary doable and has a lower impact. (At the cost of significant climate change.)
    - Retric 14y ago
      Also the earth is a sphere, if you focus on where the sun is, and used tracking solar collectors you could probably get away with 1/2 of 1% of the earths total surface area @100% efficiency. And even less than that if you added wind, hydro, and geothermal. PS: Or ~1.5% with 33% efficient solar panels. Which might seem like a lot, but we already use a lot of land to generate energy.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 14y ago
  We require multiple worlds of resources for the human population to live at what we presently deem a good quality of life. For some reason we assume this means collapsing our living standards down to the third world. More reasonable, I believe, is acknowledging that there are an infinite supply of worlds.
  - noonespecial 14y ago
    And nice bite sized, pre chunked world nuggets known as asteroids.
pif 14y ago
> the free market will help switching for other sources of energy The question is: which ones?
- grammaton 14y ago
  Indeed. The only one that has a mild prayer is nuclear, and even that has a number of serious problems.
einhverfr 14y ago
I see peak oil differently. Peak oil/energy really is meaningless as an absolute. The only thing that really can matter is peak supply relative to demand, because this is what forces prices up and market changes. Oil hit this peak decades ago and is continuing to crunch slowly. Coal is likely to hit this peak soon, primarily because the cost of extraction is going up compared to yields. This means relative shrinking in supply regardless of what is in the ground. What this means to me is that energy prices, which have been supply constrained since the mid-1970's are going to continue to go up by fits and starts, and occasionally go down but it's a ratchet overall. This does have huge ramifications all across the economy. It won't be a drastic end like many of the peakers predict but a very slow crunch. In other words, the current economic troubles will continue by fits and starts more or less since they have since oil stopped being a demand-constrained commodity. I think you can trace most of the economic problems in recent decades to instability and supply constraints regarding energy. This has also helped fraud along, as in the case of Enron. The more we can do without oil, the more we can do. But energy return on investment is an important problem to solve and it isn't clear we have sufficient solutions available.
- grammaton 14y ago
  Your definition of Peak Oil is not the accepted definition. Peak Oil literally refers to the production curve of a single - or set of - oil fields, and the point at which their production is maximized, and then declines sharply thereafter. Supply and demand are secondary considerations until demand destruction is so far gone that no one wants oil anymore. Until then, the questions are, have we arrived at the peak yet, and if so, how fast do we end up falling down the decline curve?
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    I know it is not the accepted definition, but peak production doesn't really matter in and of itself. If as economists suggest, we have to expect that supply will continue to rise to power an ever-growing economy, one will find the effects hit before the absolute peak in production, therefore expecting to see drastic changes when production starts to decline is a bit late. I think you have to look at this relative to demand because the end of cheap oil requires demand exceed supply which it appears to have done since the oil crisis of 1973 (the oil crisis itself may have been political) but it only could have happened because there was a growing understanding that oil was a limited and finite resource (discovery had already peaked and reserves were about to). This has lead to a post-1973 world where oil producers do not increase production to meet demand, leading to price instability and little changes resulting in occasional price spikes, something we never saw before '73.
grammaton 14y ago
From BP Oil: "World proved natural gas reserves at end-2011 were sufficient to meet 63.6 years of production" That's at current rates. If we were to switch to an exclusively natural gas infrastructure, this number would of course drop sharply. Natural gas is an appealing alternative, but there just isn't enough of it. And before anyone whips out the old "they'll just find more" canard - not really. The primary reserves of natural gas we're tapping now have been known about for a long, long time, and there are few new discoveries in the pipeline. A similar situation exists with Petroleum.
- JumpCrisscross 14y ago
  "Only half a decade ago it looked as though the world might have only 50 or 60 years-worth of gas. Now shale and other unconventional as well as new conventional gas finds have increased that period to 200 years or more, by some estimates." http://www.economist.com/node/21558432 http://www.economist.com/node/21558432
  - grammaton 14y ago
    "by some estimates." Who's estimates? I notice the article doesn't mention. Personally, I tend to stick to estimates from the likes of BP and Exxon, since I figure they know what they're talking about.
- hythloday 14y ago
  It's worth pointing out that a "reserve" is fuel that is economic to extract. Even without technology improving, a simple hike in the price of fuel raises the reserves of it.

chimi 14y ago

Are the physical capacities of space and time capable of getting us to scale in these technologies? Only so much energy comes from the sun per square foot. Batteries can only store so much of that. There are only so many tons of required metals on the planet to create all the infrastructure, solar panels and electric motors we will need? I don't know yet for sure if it's possible to maintain our current quality of life given the resources we have at our earthly disposal.

Retric 14y ago
The long term solution to electric cars is electrified highways not better battery's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irisbus_Cristalis_ETB18_C1_Lyon_TCL_PDVM_Ibou.JPG http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Irisbus_Cristalis_ETB18_C1... Also, we use ~474 exajoules of energy per year, the sun provides ~3,850,000 exajules. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy Collecting 1% of that energy could easily support a western style lifestyle for 10 billion people.
- pif 14y ago
  > Collecting 1% of that energy could easily support a western style lifestyle for 10 billion people. Yes, but how can we collect that 1%? Even considering 100% efficiency for solar panels, we'd need to cover 1% of the global Earth surface (land and oceans). Even more, we'd need at least to double it in order to have a 1% covered 24h/24. I'm afraid we don't have all the required material.
  - Retric 14y ago
    Wind and Hydro collect far more solar power than a solar panel as far a surface area is concerned and requires little in the way of rare materials. Also, we cover more than 1% of the earth with plants, but they don't tend to be all that efficient bump them into the 15+% range by say genetically engineering something to collect wavelengths that Chlorophyll skips over and the numbers get intense. We also farm the oceans but focus way to high on the food chain to get much in the way of efficiency. PS: There are also plenty of raw materials to cover the earth in solar panels but that's hardly unnecessary. But as far as the raw numbers go, covering 10% of the worlds oceans with floating solar collectors is vary doable and has a lower impact. (At the cost of significant climate change.)
  - Retric 14y ago
    Also the earth is a sphere, if you focus on where the sun is, and used tracking solar collectors you could probably get away with 1/2 of 1% of the earths total surface area @100% efficiency. And even less than that if you added wind, hydro, and geothermal. PS: Or ~1.5% with 33% efficient solar panels. Which might seem like a lot, but we already use a lot of land to generate energy.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
JumpCrisscross 14y ago
We require multiple worlds of resources for the human population to live at what we presently deem a good quality of life. For some reason we assume this means collapsing our living standards down to the third world. More reasonable, I believe, is acknowledging that there are an infinite supply of worlds.
- noonespecial 14y ago
  And nice bite sized, pre chunked world nuggets known as asteroids.

pif 14y ago

> the free market will help switching for other sources of energy The question is: which ones?

grammaton 14y ago
Indeed. The only one that has a mild prayer is nuclear, and even that has a number of serious problems.

einhverfr 14y ago

I see peak oil differently. Peak oil/energy really is meaningless as an absolute. The only thing that really can matter is peak supply relative to demand, because this is what forces prices up and market changes. Oil hit this peak decades ago and is continuing to crunch slowly. Coal is likely to hit this peak soon, primarily because the cost of extraction is going up compared to yields. This means relative shrinking in supply regardless of what is in the ground. What this means to me is that energy prices, which have been supply constrained since the mid-1970's are going to continue to go up by fits and starts, and occasionally go down but it's a ratchet overall. This does have huge ramifications all across the economy. It won't be a drastic end like many of the peakers predict but a very slow crunch. In other words, the current economic troubles will continue by fits and starts more or less since they have since oil stopped being a demand-constrained commodity. I think you can trace most of the economic problems in recent decades to instability and supply constraints regarding energy. This has also helped fraud along, as in the case of Enron. The more we can do without oil, the more we can do. But energy return on investment is an important problem to solve and it isn't clear we have sufficient solutions available.

grammaton 14y ago
Your definition of Peak Oil is not the accepted definition. Peak Oil literally refers to the production curve of a single - or set of - oil fields, and the point at which their production is maximized, and then declines sharply thereafter. Supply and demand are secondary considerations until demand destruction is so far gone that no one wants oil anymore. Until then, the questions are, have we arrived at the peak yet, and if so, how fast do we end up falling down the decline curve?
- einhverfr 14y ago
  I know it is not the accepted definition, but peak production doesn't really matter in and of itself. If as economists suggest, we have to expect that supply will continue to rise to power an ever-growing economy, one will find the effects hit before the absolute peak in production, therefore expecting to see drastic changes when production starts to decline is a bit late. I think you have to look at this relative to demand because the end of cheap oil requires demand exceed supply which it appears to have done since the oil crisis of 1973 (the oil crisis itself may have been political) but it only could have happened because there was a growing understanding that oil was a limited and finite resource (discovery had already peaked and reserves were about to). This has lead to a post-1973 world where oil producers do not increase production to meet demand, leading to price instability and little changes resulting in occasional price spikes, something we never saw before '73.

grammaton 14y ago

From BP Oil: "World proved natural gas reserves at end-2011 were sufficient to meet 63.6 years of production" That's at current rates. If we were to switch to an exclusively natural gas infrastructure, this number would of course drop sharply. Natural gas is an appealing alternative, but there just isn't enough of it. And before anyone whips out the old "they'll just find more" canard - not really. The primary reserves of natural gas we're tapping now have been known about for a long, long time, and there are few new discoveries in the pipeline. A similar situation exists with Petroleum.

JumpCrisscross 14y ago
"Only half a decade ago it looked as though the world might have only 50 or 60 years-worth of gas. Now shale and other unconventional as well as new conventional gas finds have increased that period to 200 years or more, by some estimates." http://www.economist.com/node/21558432 http://www.economist.com/node/21558432
- grammaton 14y ago
  "by some estimates." Who's estimates? I notice the article doesn't mention. Personally, I tend to stick to estimates from the likes of BP and Exxon, since I figure they know what they're talking about.
hythloday 14y ago
It's worth pointing out that a "reserve" is fuel that is economic to extract. Even without technology improving, a simple hike in the price of fuel raises the reserves of it.