Oil Independence in the Near Future?

[Seditedi]

20% is a lot considering how much energy we use lol

He was mentioning the number for petroleum..
1.6%. I think you might just be a little bit confused..

I don't care if they find enough oil on US land to last 500 years, they need to make the shift to renewable energy sources for various reasons.
Oil is dirty, expensive, and inefficient. The government needs to start requiring new energy sources for automobiles and they need to start creating laws soon. Pollution from gasoline-powered vehicles is also the main cause of global warming, but that is another issue all together.

[Septimus]

We should expect them to change because you don't have an oil company when there's no oil.

Telling the oil comapnys the oil is gonna run out is like telling a creationist they evolved. Hell they are going 5+miles deep to find their precious.

But it will be hilarious in the future when the oil companies are whining that the government has to spend billions of dollars to bail out them out and invest in new energy exploration and creation.

[Darus Grey]

The problem? Government would rather give another multi-billion dollar tax break to Exxon than invest in more rapid development of photovoltaics.

Actually the real problem is they're completely unfeasible.

Photovoltaics and other similar solar technologies all have a single thing in common(to date).

They all require very rare earth elements that the earth simply does not contain a supply of big enough to meet the demands.

Indium, gallium, selenide, and hafnium in particular. As well as platinum. The way these panels operate actually *depletes* some of these materials, materials we have no easy way to replace.

Hell we're only 100yrs off from a copper crisis(which is scarier then any oil crisis you can imagine imho), we've already used up over 50% of the mineable supply worldwide, and are left with mostly the crap ones left. (If you live under a rock, the price of copper has went from $0.45 to $4.00 over the last decade in part because of this).

Back to the panels, they are completely economically unfeasible. Eventually when the materials run out we're forced to synthesize the materials. If you don't know, synthesizing metals is fuckin expensive... REALLY fuckin expensive. $10,000+ an ounce in electricity(we don't synthesize gold and platinum for a reason, lollead2gold).

Thus after an initial period of being useful, the value of the materials will exceed the cost savings into the negatives and then we're back to where we started in having an energy source derived from a un-renewable material that becomes low supply high demand.

Any scientist worth his salt realizes this, and this is why this isn't a big deal.

Thermal,Wind,Hydro, etc, are really our only options for *real* renewable energy, and come with their own sets of problems. Well, really just the US, we straight fucked up by having the most dispersed population relative to our land-mass, we waste ginormous amounts of energy transporting things here.

Though our real future is likely in fusion. Once we can master the power of the sun in a different way than solar.

[Intense]

Though our real future is likely in fusion. Once we can master the power of the sun in a different way than solar.

Mad scientist!

[Khamsin]

Well, really just the US, we straight fucked up by having the most dispersed population relative to our land-mass, we waste ginormous amounts of energy transporting things here.

I thought Canada had the most dispersed population relative to their land-mass?

But we can easily fix that by opening up the immigration flood gates and packing all that open land with people. Population density issue solved.

So, it seems you don't think our current way of life is indefinitely sustainable. What would it take to have an indefinitely sustainable lifestyle? Replace copper wires with...? Replace coal plants with nuclear plants? Although what happens when we run out of uranium or whatever the hell nuclear plants use?

What would ensure humans can continue living a high quality of life and luxury for billions of years to come (or until the sun supernovas or earth wanders outside the habitable zone or the planet's spin stops, etc.)?

[ronin sparthos]

Hell, after that documentary on our countries security regarding some nuclear plants... the last thing we need are more unsecure nuclear facilities.

[Intense]

Hell, after that documentary on our countries security regarding some nuclear plants... the last thing we need are more unsecure nuclear facilities.

I know, plus season 4 of the hit Fox series 24.

[Delta_9]

Hell, after that documentary on our countries security regarding some nuclear plants... the last thing we need are more unsecure nuclear facilities.

So you'd rather let the old reactors store waste on site then let them transfer it to Yucca Mountain? Nuclear reactors are pretty safe (in before 3 mile island/chernobyl). With all the restrictions on nuclear power pants, our current reactors are aging at an alarming rate. It takes anywhere from 5-10 years to bring a new plant online. The new reactors are far more efficient and this stigma that nuclear power is unsafe and pollutes just as much, has to go. The gas issue has little to do with nuclear power though. Using less coal however, has everything to do with nuclear power.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/polit ... nted=print

[evilbau]

the problem with nuclear is we still don't have a good longterm plan to deal with the waste. sticking it in a mountain or underground where its unpopulated to me is not an optimal situation

[ronin sparthos]

[quote=Delta_9][quote="ronin sparthos":2ngfymam]Hell, after that documentary on our countries security regarding some nuclear plants... the last thing we need are more unsecure nuclear facilities.[/quote]

So you'd rather let the old reactors store waste on site then let them transfer it to Yucca Mountain? Nuclear reactors are pretty safe (in before 3 mile island/chernobyl). With all the restrictions on nuclear power pants, our current reactors are aging at an alarming rate. It takes anywhere from 5-10 years to bring a new plant online. The new reactors are far more efficient and this stigma that nuclear power is unsafe and pollutes just as much, has to go. The gas issue has little to do with nuclear power though. Using less coal however, has everything to do with nuclear power.

[url="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/politics/09energy.html?pagewanted=print"]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/polit ... nted=print[/url][/quote:2ngfymam]

I was just mentioning the documentary where reporters were able to sneak past a 'sleeping' (guard claims he wasnt, go figure) security guard and access a supposedly 'secure' facility. Further investigation into the matter only turned up more inadequate security, unsecure fences, cameras that didnt work etc etc.

More reactors means more places that need to be secured at all costs, if we cant even protect the aging reactors we have right now - imagine when they start popping up all over the place. I just find it disturbing when the security supposedly protecting the nation find it better to catch up on some sleep, especially with the nature of nuclear reactors.

Not to mention no one wants to live near one.

the problem with nuclear is we still don't have a good longterm plan to deal with the waste. sticking it in a mountain or underground where its unpopulated to me is not an optimal situation

I remember someone mentioning that we should be taking it into space.

[Kyreth]

People wonder why space exploration is so fervently embraced by some futurists.

Resources. Piles of resources. Get Earth up to orbital industry, start exploring the asteroid belt for useful materials and sending those down the line to us so we can start pulling what we need. Mars. Luna. The asteroid belts. Either we get out there, or we consume everything here and modern technology as we know it gets fucked.

Edit: Also, fuck people and their opposition to nuclear power. Cheap electricity generation with modern nuclear plants would go a long way towards getting us energy-independant, especially if electric cars become the dominant form of transport (or hydrogen, which is still going to take power to generate.).

Speaking of solar:

http://www.nanosolar.com/

These guys show promise.

[ronin sparthos]

Who is opposing nuclear power? The fact of the matter is that they *need* to be secure. Someone attacks one and panic/chaos will ensue, funding needs to be going to securing the current sites before we start/dont start throwing them up everywhere.

[Delta_9]

the problem with nuclear is we still don't have a good longterm plan to deal with the waste. sticking it in a mountain or underground where its unpopulated to me is not an optimal situation

You're kidding right. Do some reading about how they plan to store the waste. First the pellets in the plant are being redesigned to be safer. Then they are encased in a type of glass (borosilicate glass) within a steel container that should last hundreds of years. It used to be the case that the nuclear sludge was stored as liquid waste and thrown into stainless steel tanks that were only designed to last 25-30 years. Some of those containers are approaching 50 years of service. Dealing with the liquid waste is not at all safe and is just a short term solution. The new storage system is not only resistant to corrosion but does a fair job containing the radiation.

Yucca was not chosen by throwing a dart at a map of the desert. Ground water levels, seismic activity, and population density (among a host of other things) was considered when deciding on the site.

I was just mentioning the documentary where reporters were able to sneak past a 'sleeping' (guard claims he wasnt, go figure) security guard and access a supposedly 'secure' facility. Further investigation into the matter only turned up more inadequate security, unsecure fences, cameras that didnt work etc etc.

More reactors means more places that need to be secured at all costs, if we cant even protect the aging reactors we have right now - imagine when they start popping up all over the place. I just find it disturbing when the security supposedly protecting the nation find it better to catch up on some sleep, especially with the nature of nuclear reactors.

Not to mention no one wants to live near one.

the problem with nuclear is we still don't have a good longterm plan to deal with the waste. sticking it in a mountain or underground where its unpopulated to me is not an optimal situation

I remember someone mentioning that we should be taking it into space.

Sending it into space was just a hairball idea. This is exactly what I was talking about though. I do not want them storing that waste longterm on site. To much space to guard. Protecting the reactors vs the waste is a different story. I was pointing out that our reactors now have to go through mechanical test after test because they are pushing the upper limits of their service life time.

EDIT: also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVL0Y4kY8uE

[evilbau]

I have done reading on it and the 'safest solutions' while practically acceptable, doesn't exactly instill a lot of confidence in me. And I certainly wouldn't want to be near these 'safe' disposal sites. And to me that is the true litmus test. Don't get me wrong, even with the misgivings I have about storage of waste, I am still a supporter of nuclear power.

[Delta_9]

I have done reading on it and the 'safest solutions' while practically acceptable, doesn't exactly instill a lot of confidence in me. And I certainly wouldn't want to be near these 'safe' disposal sites. And to me that is the true litmus test. Don't get me wrong, even with the misgivings I have about storage of waste, I am still a supporter of nuclear power.

Fine by me, opinions are opinions. I'm just annoyed by the overwhelming fear of nuclear power.

[Therin]

Once everyone (Exxon, Government agencies down to the municipal level, labor unions, environmental taxation) gets their slice, this will impact the average cost of a gallon of gasoline by: <insert cynically low amount here, in cents>

An official government survey of the Bakken region's oil treasure trove is due out next month. The report is expected to play it very conservatively, because it will confine estimates to the amount of oil that likely can be produced profitably based on last year’s oil prices. It will also not take into account any further technological advances that might make it even easier to extract more oil.

This also stands out to me. 5 years to actually get production going is a long time. Who knows who we'll be at war with then?

According to McKain, Iraq.

I would also like to remind everyone that anyone who has studied nuclear power realizes that there has not been one casualty attributed to nuclear malfunction or waste in the history of thousands of reactors worldwide. Once Chernobyl finishes leaking into the water table we may see some, but for now, according to the numbers, coal plants are infinitely more dangerous.

[Jer]

Pollution from gasoline-powered vehicles is also the main cause of global warming, but that is another issue all together.

:bagel:

[Therin]

Pollution from gasoline-powered vehicles is also the main cause of global warming, but that is another issue all together.

:bagel:

Yeah, I missed that quote (which is complete bullshit). Any scientist worth his salt knows that one volcanic eruption produces more gases that have an affect on global warming than all of the carbon monoxide from every car on the planet since cars were invented. Global warming is solely a political issue, it's not even considered remotely serious within the unbiased scientific community except by environmentalist extremists.

Not saying that we shouldn't be worried about pollutants, because we most definitely should, but saying that we should stop using oil SOLELY due to the greenhouse gas effects is completely ignorant. We should stop using oil because it's expensive and inefficient, not because of that.

But okay.

[Darus Grey]

Just to clarify I was speaking about nuclear fusion, not nuclear FISSION. They're incredibly different and we really have not developed a workable model for nuclear fusion power yet. Stars themselves are a perfect example of how efficient it is though, its the universe's method of choice and it seems logical that it would be the penultimate power source should we master it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDAZsPkTkMM&NR=1 Small video on it for the uninformed, it has it's current flaws but I think it's our logical endgame for energy(the fusion process itself, not specifically the tritium method).

I thought Canada had the most dispersed population relative to their land-mass?

They're the most dispersed in that sense of land mass to the physical distance of some citizens from others, but last I remembered like 70%+ of Canadians were concentrated into four general areas and the majority of Canada was relatively unpopulated to any major degree.

USA on the other-hand, theres a town 50miles(often less) from a town in every other direction for *most* of the country, obviously the more arid areas are exceptions to this. Compared to the amount of habitable land we have, our population is incredibly small, and the fact that we cover almost all of it... Yes, I believe the "American way" as we know it now is not permanently sustainable unless we have a method of permanent energy to support it. If it's worth supporting is an entirely different argument I won't touch on ;0.

Replace copper wires with...?

To the copper thing, that's why it's so scary. Oil we can replace. Copper we have no viable alternative to. Copper is the single most important material in modern society and was the catalyst of our information age. Well we can replace copper in some applications (Fiber being the best choice for data related things), it cannot be replaced in other applications(actually it can be replaced, but we'd only replace it with rarer and more valuable materials, which leads us right back to square one, Copper's value is in that it has many properties of much rarer elements despite being very abundant). Just about anything electricity related it's hard to replace, the only alternative is Aluminum(which is compromise at best), and well it is one of the most abundant elements on the planet, the making of aluminum is inefficient, because making aluminum from bauxite ore requires electrolysis(the making of aluminum is heavily subsadized to keep prices relatively low compared to how much it costs to produce, simply because of it's value to society).

Everytime someone throws away some small electronic device or wire or whatever instead of recycling it(which isn't feasible for most electronics), it gets removed from the general pool. Last I knew over 50% of the copper we've mined in the last 200yrs is now in landfills. Well mining landfills is possible...it's again not economically feasible(noticing a trend here? Capitalism is a failed experiment because it cannot address these issues).

Since we've established a trend of using the majority of our copper and wasting it, most mettalurgists(myself included, my career before linguistics /) and geologists agree within the next 100ish years we are simply going to run out of enough to maintain it's current ubiquitous nature. All these little things we take for granted, computers, electronics, displays, cars, will become significantly more expensive and eventually just not be commercially viable to produce.

Now, there are ways to fix this(though I think we're beyond avoiding it right now, increased recycling efficiency will slow it down, but not eliminate it). There's mantle mining, space mining, material synthesis... All three of which are not economically viable.

IMHO the only way we're gonna fix a materials crisis(of which copper is just a prominent example, as I pointed out this is on the horizon for many other materials in the solar argument) is a fundamental shift in our perception of the reality of human society, that our current way of life is not sustainable, and that as a society if we want to continue to advance we have to develop the mentality that we have to work together and do things that are not efficient for the greater good, as well as scaling back in our daily lives.

That's enough Marxist ranting from me, I don't see an alternative that fits in our current model of society though.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Just to clarify I was speaking about nuclear fusion, not nuclear FISSION. They're incredibly different and we really have not developed a workable model for nuclear fusion power yet. Stars themselves are a perfect example of how efficient it is though, its the universe's method of choice and it seems logical that it would be the penultimate power source should we master it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDAZsPkTkMM&NR=1 Small video on it for the uninformed, it has it's current flaws but I think it's our logical endgame for energy(the fusion process itself, not specifically the tritium method).

I thought Canada had the most dispersed population relative to their land-mass?

They're the most dispersed in that sense of land mass to the physical distance of some citizens from others, but last I remembered like 70%+ of Canadians were concentrated into four general areas and the majority of Canada was relatively unpopulated to any major degree.

USA on the other-hand, theres a town 50miles(often less) from a town in every other direction for *most* of the country, obviously the more arid areas are exceptions to this. Compared to the amount of habitable land we have, our population is incredibly small, and the fact that we cover almost all of it... Yes, I believe the "American way" as we know it now is not permanently sustainable unless we have a method of permanent energy to support it. If it's worth supporting is an entirely different argument I won't touch on ;0.

[quote:racqd2mg]Replace copper wires with...?

To the copper thing, that's why it's so scary. Oil we can replace. Copper we have no viable alternative to. Copper is the single most important material in modern society and was the catalyst of our information age. Well we can replace copper in some applications (Fiber being the best choice for data related things), it cannot be replaced in other applications(actually it can be replaced, but we'd only replace it with rarer and more valuable materials, which leads us right back to square one, Copper's value is in that it has many properties of much rarer elements despite being very abundant). Just about anything electricity related it's hard to replace, the only alternative is Aluminum(which is compromise at best), and well it is one of the most abundant elements on the planet, the making of aluminum is inefficient, because making aluminum from bauxite ore requires electrolysis(the making of aluminum is heavily subsadized to keep prices relatively low compared to how much it costs to produce, simply because of it's value to society).

Everytime someone throws away some small electronic device or wire or whatever instead of recycling it(which isn't feasible for most electronics), it gets removed from the general pool. Last I knew over 50% of the copper we've mined in the last 200yrs is now in landfills. Well mining landfills is possible...it's again not economically feasible(noticing a trend here? Capitalism is a failed experiment because it cannot address these issues).

Since we've established a trend of using the majority of our copper and wasting it, most mettalurgists(myself included, my career before linguistics /) and geologists agree within the next 100ish years we are simply going to run out of enough to maintain it's current ubiquitous nature. All these little things we take for granted, computers, electronics, displays, cars, will become significantly more expensive and eventually just not be commercially viable to produce.

Now, there are ways to fix this(though I think we're beyond avoiding it right now, increased recycling efficiency will slow it down, but not eliminate it). There's mantle mining, space mining, material synthesis... All three of which are not economically viable.

IMHO the only way we're gonna fix a materials crisis(of which copper is just a prominent example, as I pointed out this is on the horizon for many other materials in the solar argument) is a fundamental shift in our perception of the reality of human society, that our current way of life is not sustainable, and that as a society if we want to continue to advance we have to develop the mentality that we have to work together and do things that are not efficient for the greater good, as well as scaling back in our daily lives.

That's enough Marxist ranting from me, I don't see an alternative that fits in our current model of society though.[/quote:racqd2mg]

I'm just curious, how would any other style of economics solve it?