Hydrogen is NOT an energy source. We still need large amounts of energy to produce hydrogen. Only if huge amounts of renewable or everlasting sources of electricity (e.g. fusion) becomes available will it ever be viable in a petroleum starved economy.
Fission is also an ‘everlasting source of energy’, or close enough to it for our needs. You need around 200 nuclear plants to produce enough energy to create enough hydrogen to supply all U.S. transportation needs. We don’t do this today because it’s politically impossible, and because nuclear-generated hydrogen power is still too expensive.
But this is why ‘peak oil’ doomsday scenarios aren’t going to happen: Because we don’t have to rely on scientific breakthroughs to solve our problem. Alternative sources of energy are available NOW. They just aren’t in use because the demand for them isn’t there. But if oil prices skyrocket, you can bet that those sources will come online.
At 30 dollars/bbl, the Alberta oil sands have more recoverable oil than any other country other than Saudi Arabia. If oil goes to $100/bbl, we have about 3 times that amount. And at that price, oil shales in other countries become viable.
So as oil prices rise, previously uneconomical sources of oil come online to prop up supply. This buys us time. At the same time, oil prices that high make nuclear cheaper than oil, and once that happens you’re going to see a mass exodus to nuclear power. And if nuclear power remains economical at twice its current price, they we have no fuel problems either, because at those prices we can afford to extract uranium from seawater if we have to. So we have thousands of years of nuclear fuel available.
And we already know we can do hydrogen powered cars if we have to. Honda is already leasing a handful of hydrogen cars to various fleets for testing. They don’t have quite the range of a gas car, and trunk space is compromised by the hydrogen tank, but it’s doable.
If ‘peak oil’ is happening, the net result will be elevated inflation of a few percentage points, economic growth cut by maybe .5-1% per year until the energy market stabilizes, and expenditures of maybe 500 billion -1 trillion in the U.S. for a new energy infrastructure (nuclear plants plus pipelines for hydrogen plus filling stations). That’s assuming we moved to hydrogen power. Other power sources may be used instead.
No gloom and doom necessary. A somewhat difficult adjustment is a better description.
That first sentence seems pretty implausible. Why is the world choosing the high priced spread?
Crude prices have been above that $30 level for some time. Why would Alberta sit on such a large resource, if they can already nearly double their money?
Who said hydrogen WAS an energy source? Not I…or if I gave that impression then I wrote my post badly. Hydrogen is an energy carrier.
True, we would need a large energy source to bring off a new hydrogen age. We don’t need fusion though in order to make hydrogen viable and remove our dependance on hydrocarbons. I advocate nuclear fision, not pie in the sky fusion (at least for now). Build nuclear power plants to replace the coal/oil fired plants, switch over to hydrogen powered vehicles…and there you go. No more peak oil problem, no more dependance on oil. The oil resources we currently have would be more than sufficient to meet the needs for petro-chemicals and other things like that for a long time to come.
-XT
What new technologies?? Toyota plans on releasing a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in 2015…GM plans to release their’s in 2010. Shell and Texico are already testing hydrogen fueling stations in DC this year. Nuclear power has been around for decades, and several countries (like South Africa and China) are making great strides in making safer, more cost effective and smaller more efficient plants. Where is this ‘new technology’ thats required? Most of this stuff is either waiting in the wings for the public to get its head out of its ass and accept it (nuclear power), or its very hear to production and being held up because its either not cost effective (yet), or simply has a few more engineering cycles to go through before its ready for prime time. I’m not banking on fusion power or some anti-matter power system or some other science fiction solutions.
-XT
Honda’s hydrogen car, besides being too expensive, which can be dealt with, is almost functional as a daily driver. It has roughly half the range and half the performance of a equivalent gasoline car. That’s not bad, all things considered. We’re on our way.
Hey, you needed it. I was happy to help! 
Consider it noted that different sources place very different figures on Canada’s oil reserves.
1 - Hydrogen is a excellent energy source and holds great potential (used in fusion)
2 - Alternative energy sources may replace oil.
3 - bio-engineering may be able to create oil (genetically engineeed bacteria that convert waste into oil).
IMHO the peak oil theory is flawed, oil will always be available, in ever increasig quantities (due to invention and discoveries), but demand will fall due to alternatives.
Hey excuse me for assuming you meant the price of bread would increase 20% a year. Sure a 20% increase over the next 10,000 years won’t be a big deal.
[quote =kanicbird ]
1 - Hydrogen is a excellent energy source and holds great potential (used in fusion)
[/quote ]
Except we still haven’t invented fusion power in non-exploding form yet
[quote =kanicbird ]
2 - Alternative energy sources may replace oil.
[/quote ]
Possibly, however there are a finite number of sites that are suitable for hyro damns, geothermal plants, and wind turbines.
[quote =kanicbird ]
3 - bio-engineering may be able to create oil (genetically engineeed bacteria that convert waste into oil).
[/quote ]
Much of that waste is generated by the consumerism of an economy driven by cheap oil. The more expensive oil becomes, the less waste and the less oil from waste (which can never equal the oil that generated the waste in the first place).
I agree that peak oil is somewhat flawed, but it is valid in the sense that there is a finite amount of oil.
The other thing to keep in mind is that at some point it will take more energy to extract the oil than the oil itself can produce, at which point you would be better not extracting it at all (unless you need it for something other than energy).
I’m sure we will be extracting oil long after the home edition of the Mr Fusion machine comes to market. Oil is way to valuable for other things - but this is another issue.
It might still be worth it to extract oil if it requires more energy, if that oil is a more convenient form of energy and it is used as a energy vessel (to compete with non-fusion hydrogen), but at this point we have to have some other energy available to make it worth it.
What I think more likely then us reaching ‘peak oil’ is a ‘black war’ between the US and China, Where the US is creating situations where oil prices increase which should not hurt the US as much as it will hurt the Chinese as they are industrializing.
:rolleyes:
Well yes, but I was under the impression that the 175 billion barrel figure was generally accepted now.
From This cite:
The variations in estimates have to do with the nature of oil sands - to get to the deeper reserves requires steam, and that means for every barrel of oil you recover you have to expend a somewhat smaller amount of energy. If you use petroleum for that energy, then some of your oil recovered will be fed back in to the system, reducing the amount you can actually ship. Of course, we could use nuclear power for the energy source.
BTW, the American estimate for our reserves is much lower than the Canadian Petroleum Industry’s estimate, which is 315 billion barrels, and which would make us the world’s largest holder of oil reserves. To be fair, there is also a difference in the quality of the oil.
Who said Alberta is sitting on their resource? The oil sands already produce 700,000 barrels a day. Eventually, we’ll produce about four times that much per day, but oil sands are extremely capital intensive, so it takes a long time to get the infrastructure up to speed. But coming up to speed it is - billions are being invested in those projects right now. Alberta’s economy is booming because of it - so much so that our infrastructure is being severely strained. So we’re madly building new roads, twinning highways, etc.
That’s right. It uses petroleum because petroleum is cheap and easy. When petroleum isn’t cheap and easy they obviously wouldn’t use petroleum. They’d switch to coal and ethanol/hydrogen first and then to biomass conversion and then to syntheis from the air if required.
You know I’ve heard this claim a lot. And never once was it suported with any reference or logical argument. Since this is GD would you care to give that a shot?
Can you explain why we couldn’t produce the exact came amount of food in using solely coal electrical power and no petroleum whatsoever? Or failing that provide a reputable refrence that says the same?
Can you please tell me what this essential ingredient of food productionis that is found only in petroleum and nowhere else on the planet?
Why? Why not a very rapid period of adjustment?
In reality of course the period of adjustment will be long because the decline will be so long. As oil prices gradualy increase more money will be spent on finding new reserves or alternatives to oil.
But there is no reason the adjustment neds to be long is there? Couldn’t the US in fact move over to an exclusively coal, etahanol, biomass and nuclear society within 10 years if the will existed?
Some do. Very occasionally. In the vast majority of cases they don’t. They simply switch to an alternative resourse. Western society for example didn’t collapse when whale oil was depleted. Nor did it collapse when all the forests needed for iron production were depleted. Instead the societies switched to alternatives, and those alternatives were in fact superior to the previous material and led to great advancements.
So while it’s true that some civilisations do collapse when they run out of critical resources that is very much the exception.
No, but it is immune because we have access to the resources of half the solar system and the technology and skills and knowledge base to achieve almost anything we desire.
I’ve heard this claim a lot too, and it’s also never bneen epxlained or suported.
Why can’t we build pipelines, refineries and tankers using no oil at all, using just coal?
Cars can’t run on coal (which really pollutes by the way). I’m not familiar with ethanol but it seems like it would take hundreds if not thousands of new coal plants (and coals not infinite either) to produce enough hydrogen (which lb per lb is not as energy efficient, safe, or easy to transport as gasoline) to take the place of gasoline. And it’s going to be expensive converting all those gas stations and auto mechanics to a hydrogen economy.
Modern agriculture depends on several things - mechanized farm equipment, transportation to markets and fertilizer which is often derived from petroleum products. As fuel costs rise, so do agricultural production costs. Even with fuel alternatives, if there aren’t alternative fertilizer sources, yields won’t be as high.
Here’s a typical article:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/OFGU/energy040705.cfm
We could if we started BEFORE oil peaks. Otherwise we may not be able to afford those infrastructure changes and fall behind the curve.
As I mentioned in a previous post (before handsomeone gave his jackass roleeyes), Western civilization never RAN on whale oil. They did not power their ships and wagons with whale oil. They made purfumes and lanterns with it. Often those civilizations had the opportunity to find new trade partners or colonize new lands with abundant resources. We are a global economy now. We aren’t going to discover any new lands full of oil anytime soon.
Are you kidding? We haven’t even been to the moon in 50 years.
Well for one you don’t refine coal like you do oil. Two, coal is not infinite either. Three, it’s very dirty.
The thing is, it does not necessarily follow that we can produce exactly as much energy as oil by using other sources.
About 200 nuclear plants. The Canadian atomic agency ran the numbers and proposed putting 175 CANDU reactors in Nevada, and that that would be enough. We can do that if we have to.
Of course. And what percentage of the total production cost is energy? If it doubles in price, what will that do to the overall price?
America as a whole spent 703 billion dollars on energy in 2000. In about a 10 trillion dollar economy, that’s 7% of GDP. That even includes things like lubricants, kerosene, asphalt and road oil, and petroleum feedstocks and fertilizers. Some of that is coal, wood, and nuclear. So if the price of petroleum doubles over 10 years, we might see a decrease in GDP of half a percent per year due to increased energy costs. Even if it doubled in a year, the economy would absorb it handily. The U.S. increased defense spending by several percentage points of GDP in short periods and just suffered deficits or higher taxes.
I’m not seeing the collapse of civilization in this.
:eek: How could it ever be in the U.S.’ interests to cause oil prices to increase?! It would be like the '70s fuel crises, only many times worse. Even if there weren’t gas lines, the price of everything shipped by petroleum-fueled vehicles would go up, everybody would have to spend more of their personal/household budget on gasoline, and we would all suffer.
Ok…so we would need to build twice as many nuclear plants as are currently in the US (about 100 now).
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.htm
We can do a lot of things if we have to. We can’t do EVERYTHING. Build 100 new nuclear plants, convert to a hydrogen economy. Glad all these things are so cheap and easy.
No, I don’t believe that all of civilization will collapse. But 10 years of recession would hurt a lot.
Estimates of the cost of creating a hydrogen infrastructure (pipelines and filling stations) run from 500 billion to around a trillion dollars. Lots of money, but again, only about 5% to 10% of GDP for one year. It can be done.
A reduction in growth of .5% does not equal recession. The U.S. economy is growing at a rate of 3.5-4% per year. So maybe it will drop to 2.5% instead - which is still greater than the expected growth in Europe.
Shit, we could invade a dozen Middle East countries with that kind of money!
I thought you meant an overall decrease in GDP.