Leanan,

You nailed me on that one,I should have realized that HERE such would the case be.Please don't hit me again until I quit seeing double.

I am new to blogging,never had the time and good internet access until VERY recently.

I do think my analysis is still valid for the general public/joe sixpack/english teachers/politicians in general etc.

The few who did actually believe in a hydrogen economy likely wouldn't be put off by that article.

Of course they won't. The article was by a blogger and bloggers are generally ignored by true believers. However the data came from an article in IEEE Journal. That is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. That is a science journal, not a blog. I do think people will pay attention to that journal. Well, at least someone already has as the article indicated, funds have been dramatically cut for any research.

Ron P.

Darwinian,

You are as usual correct.

It is unlikely that the energy efficiency of the process of the seperation of hydrogen from water will be improved very much,and as you say it is gauranteed that the process will always be a net energy loser by the laws of physics.

However I did not predict that hydrogen WILL ever power cars but that hydrogen technology might eventually prove more energy efficient than the ice overall-which I suppose is almost the same thing,to be honest.

But it is not exactly the same thing,because using the hydrogen to fuel a car presupposes the cost effective manufacture of the drive train.

If the various engineering problems are eventually solved,and if ff are in very short supply,and if solar or wind grows up in a big way,then maybe hydrogen will eventually be cheaper or cleaner or maybe both than gasoline and diesel.

As I said,I don't expect to live to see it happen.Every link of the chain is an if, and it's a long chain.

Otoh,I see blurbs here and there about very powerful new types of batteries that will no longer use both anodes and cathodes but rather substitute atmospheric oxygen for the cathode-unless I have forgotten the correct technology.Such batteries would evidently be cheap in terms of performance.

When I was taking freshman chemistry in 1968,the permeable membrane technology used today to desalinate sea water either did not exist or was only demonstrable in the lab,I can't remember which.

I do remember bsing about it with a dorm mate who was a chemistry major,and that my ag professors dismissed it as pie in the sky.They were wrong about desalination,and they were wrong about using antibiotics in livestock feeds.

My biology professors were livid and called the ag professors names for enabling the sin of breeding antibiotic resistant pathogens.They were right.That hasn't stopped us from dosing nearly every pig,chicken and cow in the US-not that it has anything to do with the current discussion inparticular,but it is relevant to the broader sustainability discussion here at theOD.

They(some of the ag profs) were right about the dangers of enabling third world farmers to make the transition to fossil fuel and synthetic fertilizer based ag.One in particular used to remark "teache'em how to double thier food production and in twenty years you'll have twice as many starving xxxxians".

I cant say the word or the ethnic group here in polite company,he was a profane but capable man,and political correctness was not a big issue back in those days,especially inside the ag quad.

Who can say that fuel cells will NEVER be cheap?

I have learned to be afraid of the words never and always except when associated with the laws of nature.That does not mean I am unwilling to place bets that involve these words.

Yogi sez predictin is hard,specially bout the future.

H2 needn't be compressed or cooled to the point liquification for storage. The best (safest) way to store it is in the form of metal hydrides. The weight of metal hydride precludes mobile application of this technology. But stationary apps may be practical, perhaps for running Sterling engines in remote locations. It's true that hydrolysis of water is energy expensive but if baseload is covered, excess generation capacity - from solar on a summer day, for instance - could be diverted to hydrolysis. A 50% efficiency doesn't approach that of the mitochondrion but it beats that of the ICE, after all.

H2 in underground caverns ...

It better be a sealed and tight cavern. Hydrogen is t_h_e most difficult substance to contain.

Pumped storage works best with my brain, it's straight forward with no surprises attached.
Uphill : I have not actual pump type at hand - thus losses unknown to me ... but
Downhill: The Pelton-impeller/generator is 90% efficient from hydrojet (kinetic energy) to electricity. Pelton is my hero !

large scale electrolysis with pumping H2 in underground caverns during the day and then burning it in combined cycle gas turbines at night should be the most cost-effective way of storing solar energy from PV.

I have never heard of using h2 as fuel for a gas turbine. But using it in fuel cells to produce electricity would mean you could store 23% of the electricity used to generate it. That is, assuming that your fuel cells were running at 50% efficiency.

Do you have any figures on h2 as fuel for gas turbines? It seems to me that would take a really lot of hydrogen. And storing it in underground caverns? I believe that would be near impossible. Hydrogen is the smallest atom, it can penetrate damn near anything. Solid rock would look like a sieve to hydrogen.

Ron P.

Not because of weather, but because of the economic crisis.

There's a world wide glut of natural gas now, because of the global economic slump. Even in Asia, where supplies had stayed tight for awhile. Residential use of natural gas has remained fairly steady. It's all those closed factories that have made the demand difference.

Hello Odysseus,

Nothing is more 'future-oriented' than seeds, water, and the Elements NPKS. IMO, Nature's photosynthesis process is timeless, and if a Liebscher's Optima can be achieved, then a 20:1 or better agro-ERoEI is possible. Food surplus->job specialization->civilization.

A farmer/gardener will not be interested in trading food for gold or a big screen TV, but will be interested in trading food for O-NPK or I-NPK because it offers a chance to continue to move into the future.

I have many postings in the archives on various personal and national strategies for leveraging above a Liebig Minimum: Federal Reserve Banks of I-NPK, investors getting with farmers to stockpile a multi-year supply inside the farmgate, composting, and so on. Recall my Ft. Knox scenario: gold bricks stacked outside in protective bunker formation to protect the seeds and I-NPK inside.

IMO, I-NPK may be the Last Bubble, but we could use strategic control of [S]ulfur to help create a giant O-NPK bubble thru full-on recycling. This S-method would help make things less worse than they might be; a move towards Optimal Overshoot Decline:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5471/508931

Have you hugged your bag of NPKS today? We are evolved to do the nightly darkness, but not starvation.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Leanan-

My wife is from that county and going back there is like a bad 80's sci-fi movie of the week. You go into a McD's and are used to seeing teenagers and it's all 45 year old men supporting their families because it's the only game in town. You read about it in the MSM, but seeing it really hits home. Every street has homes with card tables set up with yard sale signs in it. I'm talking like 2 out of every 3 houses. And it's not like only Saturdays - it's everyday.

You can feel the despair in the air.

Alot of people have left for greener pastures. I just don't see a way out for them. If that's what the future looks like, I know we talk a good game, but jesus it's going to be hard.

Luckily her grandpa still has some land he farmed. 2 Cousins and their families have already put trailers by the house.

Note that the years are clicking by pretty quickly -- we're already almost one full year into the deflationary phase. From my perspective, the crash has been slower than expected, probably due to massive new debt from the Feds, but in turn I expect the trough to be lower.

Garage sales have people selling to raise money and others buying to save money -- makes perfect sense...and it's an invisible tax-free economy, so the state suffers to boot.

As long as interest rates stay low we can exist fairly well in this fairly liquid slump, oscillating on a long, slow, slide, IMHO. If they go up, we'll be in a world of hurt with new rate resets forcing foreclosures, coupled with inability to get loans at "fair" valuations, and higher fractions of income going to interest as well. Seems like having a mortgage at all would be bad, but new renters may help cover low, fixed-rate mortgages on modest houses for a while, as denizens of McMansions move into suburbia. Rentals up to $2000 per month seem to be doing well in my neck of the woods.

DGDad,

I am not an economist,but I have taken the INTRODUCTORY level courses,and I do read a lot of history,so here goes as best I can:

When governments spend too much,and make up the difference by borrowing,at some future time either spending must be curtailed while holding taxes steady,or taxes must be raised while holding spending steady,in order to pay off the debt.

I expect you do not need me to go into much detail about why either option is unpopular as hell.

Nevertheless in "normal" times some combination of these two options is usually employed to keep the budget deficit(the difference between what is collected in taxes,and what is spent,which is generally larger) from becoming too large.The budget in the US and most other similar countries is virtually always in deficit,although there are bookkeeping tricks that sometimes work well enough to allow the pols to claim the budget is in surplus.The usual one is simply to leave a huge chunk of spending "off the books."

When "normal"times turn bad,the pressure for additional spending becomes so high that it cannot always be resisted.So many people will be looking for a business bailout, or dependent upon a company in trouble for a thier job,or work for a company dependent upon another company in trouble,and so forth,that the development of this pressure should be easy to understand.

Then we must add on the people directly dependent upon the govt for social security checks,etc,that are in line in both good times and bad.

Remember that tax collections are waaay dooown because the economy is in the pits,so the deficit is already much larger than usual.

If the spending passes a certain "tipping point",the people who buy up the government debt-such as the Chinese and the oil shieks-start to worry about the credit worthiness of Uncle Sam,and back off.

I'm not the sort who keeps lists of links handy,but you can can google the financial news and find out pdq that lots of people holding Sam's notes are already seriously worried.These guys are not just bloggers like me,they are executives responsible for the safekeeping of tens and hundreds of billions of dollars.Some of them might literally lose thier heads if they lose the money and can't get the hell out of Dodge fast enough.

These folks have been up until now the friendly bankers who let us have all we wanted at ridiculously low rates.They are starting to ask for higher rates,and if they get really scared,they will cut us off.

Then we go to the friendly finance place near the bank where the rates are higher but the questions are fewer.

Or maybe we just print the money.We're apparently getting seriously into the printing stage now.

NOW we get to the really big IFS.

If the economy does turn around,and the feds do manage to vacuum up all that funny money,things will hopefully be more or less ok.We go back to paying more taxes and spending less and things at least approach "normal".

IF the economy does not turn around,or IF the powers that be sailing the monetary ship miscalculate,the supply of funny money can become unmanageable.

The government may become desperate to maintain SHORT TERM STABILITY at the risk of serious inflation a few months down the road because it percieves that it has no other choice, and simply print even more money,and send out "stimulus checks".

This soon results in a viscious positive feed back of even less creditworthiness ,compounded by anyone and every one with cash rushing out to spend(read get rid of) it before it becomes worth even less.It does not matter that Joe Sixpack has very little of this cash,the doctors and the lawyers and the rich are always with us, and they will have it,and they will be desperate to get rid of it.

When the crowds start busting windows,the presses will roll and every body will get another stimulus check.Can you say PANIC?

The whole process winds up like the giant snowball getting bigger and bigger rolling down the hill and fixing to run over Olive Oil on the cartoons we used to watch when I was a kid.Only in this case Popeye may not have enough spinach of courage to stop the presses-and the snowball.

You can read all about the snowballs that have run over Zimbabwe and Argentina recently,and Germany after WWI to name a few.

Or try this explaination,it might "click" more easily.

Imagine the you and 499 other people live in a little community totally isolated from the rest of the world.

Your community uses gold for money,and there are say twenty five thousand little gold coins circulating in the community.Fifty per person,and every body has at least a few.

So lets say a bushel of wheat costs one coin,and so does a wagon load of firewood and so does one fat goose,etc.

Now let us suppose that I, a less than upright character,also live in your town,and I figure out an easy way to counterfeit the coins.Easier than whatever I have been doing to pay for my firewood,wheat and goose.

So I pass an an unearned fake coin every few days,and work less,but not enough less to attract attention.Maybe if you are my good buddy I share with you.

So I work less but I eat better,since I can "afford" more of whatever I want.I eat goose twice a month instead of once a month,and keep my house warmer,because I can "afford" more firewood.

So geese and firewood supplies are just a little tight,and whatever I used to sell,say maybe potatos are a little tight too,since I don't work as hard any more in my potato patch.

Now pretty soon somebody who wants a goose has to pay a little more,and somebody who wants fire wood pays more,and ditto potatos.This is not a big deal at first,but as prices start to rise I can pay easily while you cut back-unless you are my sharing buddy of course.

Meanwhile the number of coins in circulation is growing every time I pass a fake.Pretty soon the guy selling me the extra goose every month decides that since he has plenty of coins,he will quit growing his own potatos and buy them instead.They may be a tad expensive,but hey,what the hell,he's selling geese,times are good,there's plenty of coins in his pocket.He buys more firewood too.Besides-the price of goose is going up too ,right?

Now by the time you and me old buddy between us have passed a thousand fakes,we will have probably succeeded in raising prices by a little more than about four percent across the board because there are now 4 percent more coins chasing somewhat fewer goods.If we think we can get away with it,we will merrily destroy the purchasing power of a gold coin by flooding the economy with our fakes.

Now read printed money for fakes,and substitute the names of whichever groups on the government financed bandwagon you like the least for sharing buddies-they are going to be benefiting at your expense as long as you are payiny taxes and buying goods.

This whole process could go like a runaway train,or if kept partly under control it might only result in prices doubling every 5 or 10 years ,as has happened in this country a couple of times since I've been wearing long pants.If you are old enough to remember Reagen,you may also remember that"stagflation"-inflation at a time when business was lousy-had a lot to do with his election.

This is off the top of my head,and I apologize in advance for the lack of polish.I can usually reccomend books but in this case I cannot,mine are long gone text books.Rubin's new book Your World Is About To get A whole Lot Smaller does have a very good short discussion of inflation.

A better way to put this is: "Own what you own."

Yeah,

I paid mine off. But then I owe a bit on the Harley.

Would be kinda hard to repossess a HD. Specially in a barn. And having to trespass to do it.
But otherwise I am near to debt free. A bit on a credit card.

But its like the mortgage bailouts and then the squatters moving back in. Howse about a owner moving out, then coming back as a squatter?
Grow a beard, get some new ID,whatever.

Airdale

Thanks, Ashenlight,

These are important questions.

1) "Why would it?"

The NAS could bring to light some of the excellent work featured here on TOD. The work of Joules Bourne, Jeffrey Brown, Samuel Foucher, Tony Erickson, Gail, Nate and many others.

This work is not mainstream and is not known to most people.

The members of the Academies themselves often don't know about TOD. In fact, many people (and I have met them) who work for the consulting firms - (such as the one Dave Cohen mentions as being hired by Energy Secretary Chu) - are unfamiliar with the groundbreaking work posted on TOD.

People lack information. Some of these people are scientists themselves. If nothing else - (and I think there is much else) - the scientists who are members of the Academies will learn a lot.

This means the information people desperately need will be more available.

2) "Most people don't even know what the National Academy is..."

Ah, but you can let them know, AshenLight.

They will be thrilled to learn that the Academies were founded at the beginning of the "Age of Oil" and that they are designed to be objective. They may not come through for us - but if anyone can do so, there are the most likely candidates.

3) "even the type of well-meaning person who would readily become part of the solution doesn't know what to believe."

That's the point. That's why we're here and that's the "why" of the petition.

It's not "belief" - it's to encourage the best aspects of thinking...thinking for oneself, examining the evidence, talking to others who may know more and have a different perspective and insight.

4) Here are my sincere questions to you:

1. Why are you here at TOD?

2. Being here, how do you think we can best address the catastrophe that is (it seems) already beginning?

3. What do you think we should do?

4. How do you think we should do it?

5. Who should do it? When? (and with what resources, etc.)

I think a better metric would be acre per kwh of work. It took about a third of a farmers land to raise the energy to feed his draft animals pre oil. Today it would only take about 1/10 of a farmers land to produce the oil seed crops to produce home made biodiesel fuel to burn in existing tractors.
I don't think there is any chance we are going back to draft animals in any big way in the future. You just can't stuff the labor saving ICE technology back in a box.
Which do you think farmers will do: Cut trees, cut to length, split, haul, stack haul into the house, feed the furnace all day and night, clean out the ashes, clean the chimney, Or grow oil seeds crops and produce homemade biodiesel fuel to burn in a fuel oil furnace where you just fill the tank once a week or month and the furnace runs nice and clean and automatically?

I agree with you on the inplace reserve numbers memmel. They could be half what they throw around or maybe 3X as big. In one sense it doesn't really matter. As you point out resource utilization will be price driven. When shale gas wells can again deliver a 25% rate of return we'll be drilling like crazy and we'll have many TCF to produce. And then when drilling/completion costs go through the roof again or demand falls off we'll loose most of those TCF's of "proven reserves". Short of the political system suddenly developing a shocking amount of foresight and will it's just going to be one peak followed by another slump etc etc. With no long term vision (and the intellegenc/guts to impliment it) there can be no long term solution IMO.

And yes, I remove snow from my array manually. Have you seen the price of those Pole mounts?!

If you have a single axis tracker, you set to a high angle in winter (because the sun is low in the sky), and a lower angle in summer. Perhaps you only need two semi fixed angles, switch over around the time of the equinox.

memmel -- are you referring to a poor WROWI perhaps????

Hello Spaceman,

If my feeble memory serves: Years ago, I saw a video with Colin Campbell talking about Peakoil by referring to his half-empty beer glass as similar to the Hubbert Peak of crude production.

It occurred to me that if everyone who is Peak Aware would shout-out 'Peakoil' whenever their favorite yeasty beverage hits half-empty: it would spark curiosity among those who were NOT yet Peak Aware. This gives the 'shout-out person' a chance to explain the Hubbert Peak, how humans are like yeast, plus much more to a Newbie, and also give them websites names [TOD,EB,Dieoff,etc] or book titles [Powerdown by Heinberg, Overshoot by Catton, and so on].

I never had a chance to go to any ASPO gatherings, but I always requested for those attending to do the Peakoil Shoutout when they gathered in the bar/restaurant area after the daily meetings.

If you are in a public bar/pub consuming your favorite 'Nectar of the Gods' please practice this to help Peak Outreach.

THIS IS REMARKABLE NEWS.

No, it isn't.

During his presentation, Mr. Burkhard explained that in acknowledging that peak oil is here, CERA’s interpretation is that US gasoline demand peaked in 2008 and is expected to decline in future years. He also stated that CERA maintains its position that the reasons for US liquid fuel demand having peaked are economic and geopolitical in their nature, rather than in any way driven by geologic factors.

$70 oil menaces budding recovery of human plague

time for some $300 oil to nip those nasty buds in the bud. bye-bye, human parasite.

solar is a sham
wind is a scam
nuclear makes good bombs
fusion makes good pork
oil is almost gone
coal is full of mercury
but aren't those humans already mad as hatters?
tides bring nice rocks
and show the shellfish's cocks

plastic recycling is a scam
you can burn it to cook your ham
just like the third world does today
so you will do tomorrow

let's bust up the earth till she screams
in reams and reams of black seabreams

a roil of oil full of delicious spoil
milk chocolate from the rocky womb
squeezed out by a drill-dick

people just want to be happy
but i am here to tell them that they aren’t going to be happy
i am here to tell them that the world’s gonna be a shithole real soon

they will be homeless, jobless, busted, in jail or dead soon
90% of the world’s fish are extinct
the planet is almost dead already
humans will soon be killing each other over the last scraps of food

there will be no rescue
there will be no divine fucking intervention
there will not be a ‘better day’
better days already passed long ago

there will be ‘worse days’, and ‘worser days’ after them
there will be killing, murder, rape, rape of children, killing and eating of children
on a scale not yet seen before
don't worry about dogfood
your dog will soon be food
there will be acts committed that we don’t even have words for yet
and that will be just the beginning

just the beginning of a new deathlife for the survivors
their own private horrorshow filled with coming attractions

each day they will pray
for a nuclear war to wash away
the pain of gray