1.) Oil Shale -- yes this is expensive to extract and we need to work on bi-product use... there are many useful byproducts here that help defray costs!! Like: Uranium, vanadium, zinc, alumina, phosphate, sodium carbonate minerals, ammonium sulphate, and sulfur add potential value to some deposits. Also by-products from oil shale include specialty carbon fibers, adsorbent carbons, carbon black, bricks, construction and decorative building blocks, soil additives, fertilizers, rock wool insulating materials, and glass. (Wold Energy Council). We have an estimated reserve of over 1.5 trillion barrels of oil shale of a global 2.8 trillion barrels. This is... according to my math about a 200 year supply of oil for us... that assumes continued efficiency allowing for current consumption patterns to make up for increased needs including population growth which may be a stretch but its the only practicable estimate for our purposes here.
~ So to be conservative proper development of oil shale could prolong our peak by... at current use it replaces oil for 200 years so to be conservative lets say we get 75-100 years out of it if properly developed.
2.) Coal -- Yes its dirty but we have it and someone is going to use it. Thats just the cold hard truth. Those who have read me before know that I'm a fan of clean coal filtered through algal diesel production to sequester the CO2 and use it again for liquid fuel... thus building our abilities to use algae to sequester more CO2 and be a fuels source independently when the coal is gone.. at least thats my hope.
Global coal reserves in 2005 where estimated at 850 billion tonnes. which is enough for 150 years of current consumption...this won't happen because of China and India's current consumption growth rate... but domestically we have enough to last until we find a power solution IMO. I don't suggest coal gasification however because I believe that threatens future electric production and is much harder to make green... power plants with proper infrastructure can be very environmentally friendly and I think we need to work on implementing the technology we have in that respect!
3.) Nuclear -- sure its scary but hey its relatively clean and relatively environmentally friendly. Replacing coal electricity needs with nuclear is the right move into the future IMO.
"Suffice it to say here that uranium resources are plentiful and pose no constraint on future nuclear power development." World Energy Council. Need I say more? The fuel is there... We aren't running out in our life time.
4.) Hydro-Electric -- this is still not entirely tapped or used to capacity. With issues of global warming on everyones mind this would be a great place to look. Water management is one of the biggest issues with global warming and if done properly we can kill two birds with one stone. By managing fresh water reserves to prevent or minimize impact of floods and droughts we can simultaneously produce hydro-electric energy... this is something that needs more in depth planning and study than it currently receives world wide! This is another potential algae infrastructure issue... perhaps integrate a macro algae harvest with this IDK just a thought haven't studied that aspect.
5.) Wave & Tidal -- these are not currently practical economically since estimates put commercial production around 44 cents per KWH which is I guess 4 times the national average. This is from my other reading about 2 times the cost of solar energy. However, as conventional energy is depleted this is a definite saver. This is probably more of a long term thought that short term solution since we would need to greatly increase efficiency or else wait until energy is more costly... but at some point this technology will probably come into play.
6.) Geo-Thermal. -- this is the coolest IMO -- The US is currently the largest producer of GEO-Thermal energy. It is done commercially and there is potential to greatly increase domestic out put if we are willing to invest in it.
MIT Panel
With a reasonable investment in R&D, EGS could provide
100 GWe or more of cost-competitive generating capacity in the next 50 years...
we have estimated the total EGS
resource base to be more than 13 million exajoules (EJ). Using reasonable assumptions regarding how
heat would be mined from stimulated EGS reservoirs, we also estimated the extractable portion to
exceed 200,000 EJ or about 2,000 times the annual consumption of primary energy in the United
States in 2005.
This is about a 375 page document but the executive summary would be a really good read! This is a real possibility when it comes to replacement of fossil fuels in the US!! I have high hopes.
7.) Natural Gas -- this is relatively unexplored globally and its anticipated that there are many large reserves to be found. Conservative estimates put future reserves at 130 times 2005 global consumption although about 70% current proven reserves are found in the middle east or Russia the pacific basin is expected to come into the picture as a major player in proven reserves in the near future.
8.) OIL -- To date we have consumed between 37% and 47% of the EUR. We have consumed 47% of proven reserves but its anticipated that large discoveries in the future bring the number down to 37% of total. We still have a lot left but with increasing demand now is the time to move off of oil and into something else. I still say that we need to be careful to use our reserves domestically before technology makes it less valuable.. I think now is the time to develop it and use the resources to build future energy infrastructure!
9.) Bitumen and Heavy Oil -- I'm not really that impressed... Canada has a lot of the stuff and development of technology there would be good for North America as a whole since there is over 1 trillion barrels of the stuff estimated on this continent. Again probably a good cushion if other technologies don't come along fast enough this would give us a few more decades to figure it out.
10.) Bio-Fuels -- These are controversial. We simply don't have the arable land at present production to make this viable with current feed crops. Ethanol is not the savior the process is too energy needy in the first place. Bio-diesel is the way to go but I think drawing from feed crops exclusively is a mistake. I think for this to be viable it has to take advantage of the land that is not farmed for feed crops. Algae would be one option but there are also some other technologies in the works that might be viable. Personally I'm a big fan of algal diesel. Algae requires no soil and thus can use un-used land to produce energy. I like the closed loops systems but would also like to see some studies on more natural harvesting methods... like production and processing at sea... I don't know that these would be feasible but I would like to find some reading on on this if anyone knows of any. I have read a lot about the technology surrounding the algal diesel industry and I think it is doable!! I think that with proper R&D and infrastructure investment algae could replace our liquid fuels in the distant future. I think we have plenty of fossil fuels to keep us going until we are able to perfect the algae thing but the faster the better.. this is a closed loop idea basically a bio-solar system... the algae chemically stores solar energy just like oil... but this acts sequester and reuse the same CO2 meaning that long run emissions from this would be zero... it recycles the carbon from the atmosphere... its genius really. Its a natural solar cell. But it does need a little more work to be really economically feasible... but I think that from my reading it is certainly doable.
Ok lets discuss 1-10... and lets talk about our estimates on the peak of civilization. I think I more or less show here that we are not going to see any energy peak in our life time or our children's lifetimes but lets talk about it. Which fuel is the most promising and what fuels have I missed? Am I missing some major discover that precludes development of any of these... and I don't mean technology that is not totally developed... if the R&D had been done and technology was there then it would be in use already... so thats not a valid argument.. unless you can preclude the future development of the source it is a valid future source in my opinion.
![[smilie=eusa_think.gif]](https://www.peakoil.com/forums/images/smilies/eusa_think.gif "eusa_think")
I need more ammo.
