Don’t worry, just a little bump - $70 is just around the corner. Short traders just keep making those margin calls, mortgage the house if you have to. Fortunes await you! PO is for pansies and doomers. At $70 short some more ..... it is going back to $22 .... the world is awash with oil ........ reality has nothing to do with it, its all in those charts!!!!!!!!!!
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 9:47 pm Post subject: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
There is a crisis of thinking going on. Too many people are trying to bail the Titanic with buckets, while ignoring the scale and scope required to make any discernible difference.
JohnDenver recently wrote: “Oil will peak, and it will be no big deal because we will smoothly switchover to alternatives.”
Scalability refers to being able to add capacity easily. Currently, we do not have ready-to-scale alternatives with oil's energy density, portability and high EROEI.
Under these sort of conditions, a large scale switchover to alternative sources of energy will be, for all intents and purposes, impossible.
Renewables are not “green” on the scale required. To reach the scale at which they would contribute significantly to meeting global energy demand, renewable sources of energy, such as wind, water and biomass, would cause serious environmental harm. Look at the havoc biofools are creating. The energy produced by the sun and the wind is already being used by other systems. It’s not going to waste. It’s like tapping into a river. You can only divert so much without negative consequences.
Quote:
It has been commonly assumed that renewable energy generation is more environmentally friendly than the use of nonrenewable energy sources such as fossil fuels or nuclear power. While this assumption may be correct, it must be realized that the capture and conversion of solar energy will have significant negative environmental impacts, especially if they are employed on such a large scale as to supply nearly 100% of the U.S. energy demand.
Not to mention, almost all renewables produce electricity, and not liquid fuel.
pstarr wrote:
We live in a petroleum world, not an electrical one.
Renewables have severe limitations:
Renewables are diffuse energy sources – The potential energy available is – by any convenient measure of energy density – orders-of-magnitude less than that available from the combustion of conventional fossil fuels.
Renewables are not, generally speaking, dispatchable –Because of their intermittent nature, most renewables must be coupled with an effective energy storage system to have any value as stand-alone reliable power sources.
Renewables have unfavorable economics – Renewable energy technologies, while having very low operating costs, have very high capital costs.
And as I noted earlier, almost all renewables produce electricity in a liquid fuel world.
While this thread could easily be one for the Energy tech forum, that is not my purpose here.
The topic is coming to grips with the scalability required to make any discernible difference, much less allow us to “smoothly switch over to alternatives.”
I don’t think many grasp the orders of magnitude of scale required.
Richard Smalley says it best.
Smalley wrote:
By the middle of this century we should assume we will need to at least double world energy production from its current level, with most of this coming from some clean, sustainable, CO2-free source.
We simply cannot do this with current technology. We will need revolutionary breakthroughs to even get close… Such innovations in power transmission, power storage, and the massive primary power generation technologies themselves, can only come from miraculous discoveries in science together with free enterprise in open competition for huge worldwide markets.
It means that by 2050 all of the world’s energy demand above what we use now in 2003 – an additional 16 TW -- will have to come from some new energy supply that doesn’t put a single atom of carbon into the atmosphere.
Where can anything like that come from? That magnitude is greater than the entire magnitude of all the energy that the entire world produces now. By 2050, we have to have found the technology to make it and to implement it broadly across the whole world with the ten to hundreds of trillions of dollars it will take to do that.
Where is that magnitude of energy going to come from?.
_________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:33 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
MonteQuest wrote:
JohnDenver recently wrote: “Oil will peak, and it will be no big deal because we will smoothly switchover to alternatives.”
Scalability refers to being able to add capacity easily. Currently, we do not have ready-to-scale alternatives with oil's energy density, portability and high EROEI.
Why worry about adding capacity "easily"? We'll be producing millions of barrels a day decades from now, transition hardly requires replacement of crude TODAY.
Go read Bartlett's calculations with the exponential function, a 4% year over year increases should cover it within our lifetimes. It doesn't even matter where the 4% comes from, or if it comes from one alternative or many, just as long as it follows Bartletts exponential growth. Its all the math, you see.
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 10:49 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
KillTheHumans wrote:
Why worry about adding capacity "easily"? We'll be producing millions of barrels a day decades from now, transition hardly requires replacement of crude TODAY.
Quote:
I don’t think many grasp the orders of magnitude of scale required.
Might you be one of those? _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:04 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
KillTheHumans wrote:
Why worry about adding capacity "easily"? We'll be producing millions of barrels a day decades from now, transition hardly requires replacement of crude TODAY.
Go read Bartlett's calculations with the exponential function, a 4% year over year increases should cover it within our lifetimes. It doesn't even matter where the 4% comes from, or if it comes from one alternative or many, just as long as it follows Bartletts exponential growth. Its all the math, you see.
The problem isn't just energy. You seem to fail to comprehend this. Liquid fuel is required. What will replace this? Biofuel? Right. Good luck growing enough *without* the use of petroleum to even make a dent in fuel demand. The statistics vary, but if we use 10-30 calories of energy just to supply the food to our current system, where are we going to get the replacement for this? Keep in mind that most of that energy is in the form of petroleum based products and liquid fuels, NOT electricity. Let's not forget about all the innumerable other products we produce with petroleum which cannot be replaced by anything else. Add that up and combine it with the economic problems that come from a massive decline in *CHEAP LIGHT SWEET OIL* and the transition to Heavy Sour Oil and Tar Sands. 30:1 EROEI to a say 1.5:1 EROEI of tar sands isn't promising. Not to mention how extremely expensive sustainable energy technology is. You also forget that many places, especially in the US, are beginning to run into shortages of potable water. Oh, don't forget the water and natural gas required to process all those billions of barrels we have in the tar sands. Also, there are some rare and expensive materials used in things like solar cells, so what exactly is going to happen when we use all those up?
The problem is not a peak in oil. That will cause no major effect, we would transition like you said. The problem is that the oil LEFT is harder to get, requiring much more resources of various kinds, and has a much lower EROEI. THAT is the real problem. If we had a trillion barrels of light sweet nobody would be worried, but that is not the case.
Last edited by Opies on Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:12 pm; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:07 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
US Cropland: 442 million acres (20 percent of the land area)
1 bushel of corn yields 2.5 gallons of ethanol.
1 acre yields 160 bushels. (All-time record in 2004.)
1 acre yields 400 gallons of ethanol (2.5 x 160).
One gallon net takes 3 to produce (optimistic EROEI of 1.34 to 1 so
400/4 = 100)
442 million acres x 100 = 44.2 billion gallons net return
Ethanol has less energy density 44.2/1.5 = 29.5 billion gallons net ethanol
We use 144 billion gallons of gasoline per year
29.5 is 19% of 157 billion demand.
To summarize: we could plant the entire US cropland in corn for ethanol. No more food for anyone and that would only account for 19% of our gasoline needs. No diesel to carry the bodies. _________________ ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap
Electricity is the key. As we leave oil as our dominant energy technology, we will not only evolve away from a wonderful primary energy source, but we will also leave behind our principal means of transporting energy over vast distances. By 2050 we will do best if we do this transportation of energy not as oil, or coal, or natural gas, or even hydrogen. We should not be transmitting energy as mass at all. Instead we should transport energy as pure energy itself.
Scalability was the main thing on my mind debating that David Blume book. What he's suggesting seems patently absurd even to gas up a parking lot - is he really on to something? Badly misled? An egomaniac? A snake oil peddler? His claims regarding crop production are pretty impressive, frankly. And at least what's he pushing isn't more pollution (unless you factor in harm to the environment from burning ethanol - and the greater picture of overpopulation isn't part of his grand vision, near as I can tell). _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
I'm just gonna find a cash machine.
Joined: May 06, 2006 Posts: 821 Location: Tustin, CA
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:23 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
MonteQuest wrote:
JohnDenver recently wrote: “Oil will peak, and it will be no big deal because we will smoothly switchover to alternatives.”
John Denver, Yah, I remember him. Wasn't he killed in the crash of an "Experimental Plane"? _________________ Skeptical scrutiny in both Science and Religion is the means by which deep thoughts are winnowed from deep nonsense-Carl Sagan
Joined: Mar 19, 2007 Posts: 162 Location: Ontario, Canada
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:37 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
MonteQuest wrote:
Scalability refers to being able to add capacity easily. Currently, we do not have ready-to-scale alternatives with oil's energy density, portability and high EROEI.
I take exception to the mistaken belief that oil has a high EROEI.
In any other "sustainable" system, this is measured by adding all the inputs and losses to inefficiency, heat, etc.
With oil, we seem to disregard the original production of organic matter, and eons of high pressure energy inputs required to produce oil. We only look at the costs of the infrastructure to extract, process, and deliver. We're only getting a fraction of the true energy investment.
I will, however, grant that oils energy density and portability make it a very attractive way to store energy until needed.
MonteQuest wrote:
Renewables are not “green” on the scale required. To reach the scale at which they would contribute significantly to meeting global energy demand, renewable sources of energy, such as wind, water and biomass, would cause serious environmental harm. Look at the havoc biofools are creating. The energy produced by the sun and the wind is already being used by other systems. It’s not going to waste. It’s like tapping into a river. You can only divert so much without negative consequences.
Now this is a little tricky, because it seems to be reasonable on its face.
MonteQuest wrote:
Look at the havoc biofools are creating.
Conversion of food crops into biofuel is, I'll grant you, somewhat shortsighted. Conversion of crop waste is not. I know there is no such thing as waste. What I mean is, that converting the sugars in the parts of the crop we don't harvest for consumption into alcohol will give some portable energy. Composting and returning to the earth the rest of the organic matter ensures we'll still have productive land.
MonteQuest wrote:
The energy produced by the sun and the wind is already being used by other systems.
Good point, in so far as it goes. Solar panels shading biologically productive land? Probably a bad idea. Shading water, the same. As a structural component of shelter, transport, on rock faces devoid of life? Probably wouldn't hurt.
As for wind, I'm a little unsure. I mean, if I stretch my imagination a bit, I suppose it might be a little like the butterfly effect. Maybe we would upset weather patterns, because taking energy from the wind would decrease the energy in the wind, and so change weather downwind. I find it difficult to believe that we would be able to have that kind of effect though.
MonteQuest wrote:
It’s like tapping into a river. You can only divert so much without negative consequences.
Why divert at all? What negative effect does an undershot waterwheel have? How about hydro-electric facilities like Niagara Falls?
Damming rivers and destroying biomes is harmful, but there are other ways to take energy from the flow.
I'd like to go on, but it's getting late, and I have to convert some of the bio-mass I've consumed into useful stored energy so I can do some productive work tomorrow. _________________ If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research. ~A. Einstein
TANSTAAFL ~R.A.H.
The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is today. ~Chinese proverb
Joined: Mar 04, 2007 Posts: 504 Location: Hong Kong
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:41 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
I'm not sure it makes sense to discuss scalability in a vacuum. Scalability of what? First, we would have to establish the viability of alternatives based on ERoEI and feedstock, wood or plant material for biofools for example. There's enough argument on that already, and we'd never come to any sort of conclusion that everyone could agree on, it would just all boil down to some ontological disagreement and recrimination.
If the solution does pass muster in terms of ERoEI and feedstock, as in the case of wind and solar - which both have very favorable ERoEI, because the amount of energy that goes into building and maintaining them would be a small fraction of the energy that comes out of them if done correctly, and require no feedstock - than scalability is the main question, in my opinion.
We should be talking about wind and solar only. In that sense, energy density would refer to the amount elecricity that can be stored in a battery, since the amount of energy stored in a given volume of liquid simply doesn't apply. So, have we developed or can we develop a battery that stores the same amount of energy in the same volume as in the equivalent volume of oil?
Regading scalability, I've read that it would take a field of solar panels the size of France to supply all of Europe's energy needs. I've also read that the most efficient solar panels can transform 35% of sulight energy into electricity. Can that be dramatically improved to reduce the area that would be dedicated to solar panels and the amount of materials needed to build them? Even if it is possible, can we harness the political will to get it done? Can we raise the financing to get it done? Can we do that before we hit some sort of social/political/economic crisis that derails the whole thing?
IMHO, wind and solar could be useful, but only assuming a radical reduction in the amount of energy used by society. That precludes a radical reduction in transportation and relocalization. Hence, wind and solar, and their scalability, becomes a local issue.
Joined: Nov 11, 2007 Posts: 68 Location: Portland metro, Oregon
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:49 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
KillTheHumans wrote:
MonteQuest wrote:
JohnDenver recently wrote: “Oil will peak, and it will be no big deal because we will smoothly switchover to alternatives.”
Scalability refers to being able to add capacity easily. Currently, we do not have ready-to-scale alternatives with oil's energy density, portability and high EROEI.
Why worry about adding capacity "easily"? We'll be producing millions of barrels a day decades from now, transition hardly requires replacement of crude TODAY.
Go read Bartlett's calculations with the exponential function, a 4% year over year increases should cover it within our lifetimes. It doesn't even matter where the 4% comes from, or if it comes from one alternative or many, just as long as it follows Bartletts exponential growth. Its all the math, you see.
This site has a "Poster of the Year" vote, but can we add a vote for "Dumb-ass of the Year"?
Do all the math you want - mentally masturbate yourself until you're shooting equations from your eyesockets - but unless you can answer where that optimistic 4% comes from, you're just trying to blow smoke up your own ass.
Answer this, "killer": If it is not oil that provides us with the go-juice, what will? And at the scale, rate, ease of transport and energy density of oil? And how do we "easily transition" from depletion rates of 8-10% per year(or more)?
If you have a legitimate and functional answer, you have the opportunity to be the wealthiest and most powerful person this planet has ever seen. If not, I'm guessing your just another douchebag troll/shill/asshat.
Do you accept that oil is a finite resource, or not?
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 11:55 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
DavidFolks wrote:
take exception to the mistaken belief that oil has a high EROEI.
In any other "sustainable" system, this is measured by adding all the inputs and losses to inefficiency, heat, etc.
With oil, we seem to disregard the original production of organic matter, and eons of high pressure energy inputs required to produce oil. We only look at the costs of the infrastructure to extract, process, and deliver. We're only getting a fraction of the true energy investment.
I will, however, grant that oils energy density and portability make it a very attractive way to store energy until needed.
For all intents and purposes there is no reason to consider non-human input in the EROEI. If we did consider every single factor, then nothing in existence would have a positive EROEI. Doing so is illogical.
DavidFolks wrote:
Conversion of food crops into biofuel is, I'll grant you, somewhat shortsighted. Conversion of crop waste is not. I know there is no such thing as waste. What I mean is, that converting the sugars in the parts of the crop we don't harvest for consumption into alcohol will give some portable energy. Composting and returning to the earth the rest of the organic matter ensures we'll still have productive land.
Well of course, this is exactly how biofuels started. Sugar cane waste stalks were used to create biofuel. But of course the problem is again scalability and the fact that we expend a lot of energy growing the plants in the first place, reducing the EROEI even further.
DavidFolks wrote:
As for wind, I'm a little unsure. I mean, if I stretch my imagination a bit, I suppose it might be a little like the butterfly effect. Maybe we would upset weather patterns, because taking energy from the wind would decrease the energy in the wind, and so change weather downwind. I find it difficult to believe that we would be able to have that kind of effect though.
Yea, always remember one thing: Energy is not created out of nothing. For every joule of energy, for every volt of electricity, that energy is now GONE from whatever thing//system it was created by. The electricity generated by wind power has to take energy from something otherwise it wouldn't work. On a small scale, sure, it's fine, but on a massive 6+ billion people scale, it could very well have consequences. This goes for tidal energy too.
There is of course many options, many of which are very sensible as you point out. They will work for the relatively small amount of people who are lucky enough to have access to them, but they will never work on the scale of the entire planet.
The thing is, there are a lot of solutions. Including mass renewable, mass nuclear, cut down every forest etc. It doesn't matter though. Even if we come up with some ingenious solution it does. not. matter. Growth MUST stop. A Dieoff MUST ensue. Without sustainability, there is no hope. Maybe our generation will be fine, but what about our kids? our grand kids? great grand kids? what happens when the world is completely pillaged? Desert Earth?
The one thing every biological organism shares, is the drive exist. Every organism does everything it can to sustain the existence of itself. Yet we as humans seem to have an almost subconscious idea that we should live our lives to the max and turn our backs to future consequences, we will be dead anyway. The only self-destructive species on this planet that cares not for the perpetuation of its own species....
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:09 am Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
DavidFolks wrote:
With oil, we seem to disregard the original production of organic matter, and eons of high pressure energy inputs required to produce oil. We only look at the costs of the infrastructure to extract, process, and deliver. We're only getting a fraction of the true energy investment.
True, but we didn't have to cough up that energy invested, did we?
Quote:
Conversion of food crops into biofuel is, I'll grant you, somewhat shortsighted. Conversion of crop waste is not. I know there is no such thing as waste. What I mean is, that converting the sugars in the parts of the crop we don't harvest for consumption into alcohol will give some portable energy. Composting and returning to the earth the rest of the organic matter ensures we'll still have productive land.
It's still the "takeover method". That "waste" is something else's food. We have to appropriate that sugar from other living things. We already take 40% of NPP.
Quote:
As for wind, I'm a little unsure. I mean, if I stretch my imagination a bit, I suppose it might be a little like the butterfly effect. Maybe we would upset weather patterns, because taking energy from the wind would decrease the energy in the wind, and so change weather downwind. I find it difficult to believe that we would be able to have that kind of effect though.
That's what we thought about water and air pollution and global warming.
Quote:
Why divert at all? What negative effect does an undershot waterwheel have? How about hydro-electric facilities like Niagara Falls?
Few and far between and mostly maxed out. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Joined: Mar 04, 2007 Posts: 504 Location: Hong Kong
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:11 am Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
Quote:
The thing is, there are a lot of solutions. Including mass renewable, mass nuclear, cut down every forest etc. It doesn't matter though. Even if we come up with some ingenious solution it does. not. matter. Growth MUST stop. A Dieoff MUST ensue. Without sustainability, there is no hope. Maybe our generation will be fine, but what about our kids? our grand kids? great grand kids? what happens when the world is completely pillaged? Desert Earth?
Somebody had to say it. I'm just surprised MQ didn't say it first. Even if we did come up with an unlimited renewable energy source, we'd still have to deal with depleting water stocks, depleting foodstocks, topsoil erosion, desertification, general environmental degradation, Global Warming, Global Dimming and Peak Everything. We need population reduction and an end to exponential economic growth.
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:26 am Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
Opies wrote:
Energy is not created out of nothing. For every joule of energy, for every volt of electricity, that energy is now GONE from whatever thing//system it was created by. The electricity generated by wind power has to take energy from something otherwise it wouldn't work.
Spot on. 1st Law of thermodynamics; energy is neither created nor destroyed, only converted from one form to another.
Every bit of solar energy is absorbed and used by something either living or driven by it like the wind....except for that which is re-radiated out to space...which in turn maintains our equllibrium with space and gives us our temperate climate.
Solar energy isn't just some bottomless energy source we can tap.
It is an energy source we have to "take" from some other use.
Thus, there are limits; just like tapping a river. Look at the Colorado river. It has not reached the ocean in 35 years! _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2007 12:30 am Post subject: Re: Peak Oil : Scalability and Orders of Magnitude
FreakOil wrote:
Somebody had to say it. I'm just surprised MQ didn't say it first. Even if we did come up with an unlimited renewable energy source, we'd still have to deal with depleting water stocks, depleting foodstocks, topsoil erosion, desertification, general environmental degradation, Global Warming, Global Dimming and Peak Everything. We need population reduction and an end to exponential economic growth.
Been saying it too much lately, it seems. Thought I'd focus on something new. _________________ A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
Live in Arizona? Check out: http://sustainablearizona.org and read my blog.
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ree rah rip ram. sunofabitch godamn. hidey didey christ almighty. rah rah crap 
