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Saturday open thread
Posted by Yankee on December 17, 2005 - 11:41am
Your own virtual snow fort. Play away.
Also of interest: Grist reports that the government and environmentalists may be able to see eye-to-eye on "clean coal" and carbon sequestration.
“We have only two modes—complacency and panic.”
—James R. Schlesinger, the first energy secretary, in 1977, on the country's approach to energy
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http://www.mda.state.mn.us/Ethanol/balance.html
This is a USDA report on ethanol EROEI (1995)
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer721/aer721.pdf
However, their EROEI of 0.74 for gasoline looks like a bit of dirty pool to me. I strongly suspect that there is a conceptual sleight-of-hand behind this.
Having to expend 1.35 BTU of fossil fuel in the form of crude oil to produce 1 BTU in the form of gasoline is NOT how you should compute the EROEI for gasoline.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the way it should be done is to first compute the EROEI for making crude oil appear at the entrance to the refinery, and to then multiple that number by the 'in-plant' EROEI for turning crude into gasoline. The product of these two EROEIs should be the true EROEI for gasoline going out the door of the refinery.
For example, if the EROEI for getting crude oil to the entrance of the refinery is say 4.0 (I don't know if this is what it really is, but I'm just using it as an example), and if the 'in-plant' EROEI for gasoline is, to use their number, 0.74, then the true EROEI of getting gasoline out of the refinery is the product of the two, or 2.96, a far more realistic number.
This is what I suspect is behind their dodgy number for gasoline EROEI. (Hey, would anyone expect a state DOA to cast ethanol from corn in anything but a highly favorable light?)
Information wants to live forever.
Does high octane "super" gas require larger inputs of crude or energy at the refinery to produce? Is there a reason for its higher price other than supply/demand or marketing?
I've always heard that a gallon of gas contains the same energy no matter the octane, yet Super allows my engine to develop more horsepower. Presumably that's because it operates at a more advantageous thermodynamic condition.
I'm not sure if the higher octane gas requires more crude input or not, but I do know that it is a bit more difficult to make, which might be the reason for the slightly higher price.
You can buy chip sets for your car which will bypass the controls on your engine and allow you to operate at higher compression ratios, increase your pollution, and possibly wear out your engine faster as well. You won't pass smog while using those chip sets. You will win street races, though.
Ideas regarding earnings and profit seems to often fall into two different cathegories in this forum:
- Large scale, nuclear powerplants, society needs to change to rail transportation, coal to FT-diesel, etc.
- The world as we know it has ended, grow your own vegetables, learn to live withouth electricity and how to deliver your neighbours children.
- Is usefull for a politician and policymakers and people with lots of money to invest. And it is usefull when thinking figuring out where to find employment. But its no good for starting a small business.
- Is a good hobby and good for survival in extreme scenarions but dosent give anything in the moderate scenarios.
I think manny of us could profit on peak oil business ideas that do not need billions or millions and can be implemented with a few people and then perhaps grow. This will also help with solving peak oil problems.I have a few example ideas here, what do you think about them and can you add more?
Dispatching services run on internet to plan travel and freight. The hard problem here is generating trust so that strangers dare to share cars. There is probably a whole set of possible social ideas with pubs, clubs, etc to form and profit from the build up of the social capital that people will need more of. (This is not my skill.)
Better modularised and series produced equipment for converting houses to biomass heating. (My detailed ideas are specific for the Swedish market. )
Electronic car speed controllers optimised for minumum fuel consumption with a built in drive efficient guide for the driver.
Design portofolios for splitting standard types of McMansions into two or three apartments. Design portfolios for reshaping "wrinkly" styles into flatter more easily insulated styles. (I am not an architect. )
Micro plants for combined heat and power.
Get to wallmart, Ikea etc bus services with equipment for easy loding and unloading of bags.
We should be able to both prosper and do somthing to help with the peak oil problems.
But it is important to know that faschism and other hate ideologies can be usefull for some people. You idealy have to get to those people with better ideas before those who are receptive to them fall for them as easy solutions that for the short run makes their lives better.
It was wise of you to and an "eco". People have a harder time to recognice hate ideas when the are used togehther with "eco", "feminism", "god" or other ideas with positive values.
Glomming Eco and Fascist together to imply that there is some real threat from ecologists is absurd. Should we not talk about ecological issues for fear the ecologists will take over and force us all to wear Birkenstocks and eat granola while hugging trees? There is more than enough threat from those who hold the reins of power now. It is hard to imagine a crew that could have done worse, both by their actions and their inactions - and they're not done yet. I'm not too worried about some imaginary monster under the bed - there are plenty of real ones at the door.
But one could argue that the anti-agenda of opposing nuclear power and actually almost all other achievmenst of modern industrialism that don't "fit", is a hidden agenda for genocide, or should I rather say extermination. I can't help the thinking that many people are welcoming the overshoot idea because it will get rid the nature from human species. My expectations are that if it gets to there we will become so desperate that there will not be a biosphere left after us.
If most everybody was nice to his family and friends and sometimes a stranger it could all add up to a peacfull and nice world. (I do believe this, at least it gives larger and larger icelands of stability. )
If most everybody had some solar cells, a mini windmill and an earthhouse it could all add up to an enviromentally sound world withouth pollution.
Wrong! People forget the infrastructure needed to produce all kinds of raw materials and products, the infrastructure needed for a wide range of culture and the number of people living in cities producing these things.
A naive formula for building a civil society do not work for building an energised society. The wind mill and earth home people living on the countryside do need to care for a couple of 5 MW windmills each, then it starts to add up. But then it isent cute anymore and you can all day see that you are part of a larger technological society. svish svish svish
Personally, I don't think the present population levels are sustainable, but I cannot imagine a process by which it will decrease in an orderly, controlled fashion. In fact, "controlled" almost by definition means somebody decides who stays and who goes. So I'm left with hoping we can find transitional energy sources and that our numbers will reduce naturally. But I suspect that these will be environmentally disastrous, and that ol' Jevon's Paradox will probably mean that any such temporary respite will only allow people to keep on keeping on, thus negating the benefit. Frustrating.
What's really amazing is that Labor didn't grab this issue when they knew that their North Sea production was on the decline.
Actually most of the article is saying what we, here, are generally saying (without the in depth questioning, data and analysis). Where it differs is the long anti-jewish diatribe which occupies about half the article.
I personally think the BNP are racist filth and might be better converted into soap. But there are stupid bigots in this world and I think it is better they are aware of peak oil than not.
Peak oil can be hijacked by white neofacists or their like? That seems a silly concept to me, but, maybe, sillier things have happened, GW.
I want some investment in new nuclear plants, increased investment to make fusion power commercially viable as soon as practical, investment in clean coal implementation, improved mass transit etc. All these things will help ameliorate PO but I think we are running out of time to implement them.
Renewable energy supplies, local minigrids and generation, household generation are even more important IMO. They can be implemented more rapidly, on a more widespread and distributed basis, and should boost the economy more than the large scale projects above. Besides being more environmentally sustainable. I see woefully insufficient action on these, too.
Massive conservation efforts are essential. Increasing house and business insulation, improving vehicle gas consumption, using energy efficient appliances and lighting. Where is this initiative?
Some people are screaming at the politicians to get moving on all these before it's too late.
But I also say: the signs of enough being done in time look minimal, so: learn to grow vegetables, make yourself less dependent on fossil fuel energy, be prepared. These things will benefit you regardless of whether the outcome is dire or moderate.
Here's a set of links I sent to the DK mostly about local electricity generation...
The UK DTI Energy Group has just published a report on microgeneration that concluded "by 2050 micogeneration could potentially provide 30-40% of the UK's total electricity needs". I've not read the report yet, you can find it and related links here:
http://www.gnn.gov.uk/environment/detail.asp?ReleaseID=181382
The main DTI Energy site is here:
http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/index.shtml
That and the DEFRA (dept of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) site:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/
are worth scanning.
The UK Sustainable Development Commission has some microgeneration info:
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/
They're planning a mini-grid in Ireland:
http://www.feasta.org/documents/landhousing/enliven.htm
The US DOE NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) has info:
http://www.nrel.gov/
The most pertinent to minigrids and the like are found here:
http://www.nrel.gov/learning/eds_distributed_energy.html
The whole set of links on left of that page are probably worth perusing as is the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy site:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/
Austria is a world leader in renewable energy use, this is the Austrian Energy Agency site (english version):
http://www.energyagency.at/(en)/index.htm
and its renewable energy section:
http://www.energyagency.at/(en)/projekte/ren-in-a.htm
This page about Upper Austria:
http://www.esv.or.at/esv/index.php?id=166&L=1
gives some background info and an impressive list of achievements since 1994.
Some other links which may be of interest:
http://www.cogen.org/index.htm (CHP)
http://www.microgen.com/main2.swf (microCHP UK)
http://www.whispertech.co.nz/index.cfm (microCHP NZ)
http://www.est.org.uk/housingbuildings/communityenergy/ (CHP)
http://www.bwea.com/ (wind)
http://www.ewea.org/ (wind)
http://www.british-hydro.org/mini-hydro/index.asp (hydro)
http://www.aepuk.com/need_info.php (some UK electricity data)
http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/ (World Energy Council)
http://www.nef.org.uk/greenenergy/index.htm (UK green energy)
My issue is that the forecast is based on flights getting cheaper, GDP growth averaging 2.25% both unlikely and the real clanger, that oil price will stabilise at $25 (2000 dollars).
Since the forecast traffic growth is wrong, the justification for airport expansion is gone. How can we get this message out and in so doing avoid the country misallocating billions on completely unnecessary construction?
This ought to mean that you do not need to expand the number of runways but the terminal buildings and public transportation to the airports.
Why not go ahead and do that in a large scale even in an early peak oil scenario? When they no longer are needed you will if you build with good quality have a lot of exelent roomy buildings with good public transportation that can be used for other things.
If they realy want to invest, encourage them to do so in a way that gives a reasonable plan B for their investment.
If you consider what kind of technology is required to build a 10 megawatt wind turbine (blades 70-80 meters long), you'll realize that it's but a tiny stretch to have the same plants building wings for those ultra-economy liners.
North Sea gas drying up faster than hoped
JAMES KIRKUP WESTMINSTER EDITOR
NORTH Sea gas reserves are being used up faster than anticipated, MPs said yesterday, warning that energy shortages will be impossible to avert in the event of the predicted harsh winter.
It will be VERY interesting to start paying attention to both domestic energy talk (not the ubiquitous 2030 blather, but the ongoing management of crisis after crisis) and the same for international trade meetings (pay attention to the lower level talks here, when world leaders get together, it's a safe bet that they will only discuss publically variations of the 2030 BS narrative.)
Another fun task...Anyone been keeping track of the 2030 storylines that emerge from time to time? Seems that this is the latest version of: in the future people will...fill in the blank (that I remember from my childhood).
Google "2030". You will be surprised by what you find!
Hopefully you will have realised before now that I'm totally deranged. I don't mind, they used to chain us to trees (or worse) and misinterpret our babblings in past times, it's safer nowadays - so far, at least.
While I'm on a roll here's the next few months economically (did you catch gold going down Monday as I forecast? There's another $20 to $50 downside to go but get out of gold shorts by mid-Feb at latest)...
16th December 2005, 14:00 GMT notes.
Next couple of weeks to 31st December 2005
Stocks will peak today (Friday 16th December) with the DJIA failing to top 11,000. Gold should decline a little into yearend. Oil should climb a little, the US$ should climb a little. Yearend predictions: DJIA 10,720, Oil $66, Gold $493, US$ 90.3%. Nothing significant.
Quarter 1 2006
Things will start to go bad in a very noticeable way somewhere around mid March, I expect most economic data to reflect this soon thereafter. There will be significant increases in inflation, unemployment, oil, gold and commodity prices; stock markets and US$ will fall. I'm not sure yet whether geopolitical events will partly trigger these problems nor what events those might be. I expect US GDP to slow markedly to below 2% growth in the first half of 2006. The unwinding of the profit repatriation discount which has supported the $, stocks, mergers and indirectly the US economy during 2005 will begin to have a significant downside impact.
The Fed may not do the expected on interest rates, they may skip an increase on January 31st, Greenspan's last at the helm (markets currently put a probability of 98% on an increase so I am out on a long limb here). Helicopter (money) commander Bernanke needs to raise them at his first FOMC meeting in charge to establish his credibility. If Xmas retail is poor a pause in January may be helpful to allow that. They are also wary of prompting a 'rate inversion' that will likely happen with 2 more Fed rate increases (rate inversions have preceded all but one of recent recessions). However, Bernanke's first FOMC meeting as chief will be on 28th March and things could look bad by then, he is likely to be pulled in different directions by inflation, economy, stocks and $.
US$ is quite hard to predict, it will go down soon but has already taken a near 3% drop in mid December 2005 (which was just a correction) so should bounce up a bit first. I expect perhaps a 1.5% bounce within the next few weeks then a steady decline into March when it will drop quite suddenly by maybe 5% to around 82% of its index value (currently it is between 89% and 90%).
Oil will creep up till early March, expected $70, then spike higher by 10% if no major geopolitical event or supply disruption. If something significant happens I expect a spike to $95 or more.
Gold should trade in the $470 to $520 range until it makes a significant move up. This time, apart from a couple of brief and not large retracements, it will get very close to $600 before any significant pause. The move up will probably start before mid March.
Stock markets will be lethargic and mostly trending down until March. I expect the DJIA to have dropped to 10,000 by then and occasionally below. There will be a drop to 9,000 or below in late March or early April.
I have a tendancy to be a bit ahead of events with my prediction timings, so slippage of one or two months on the above would not surprise me.
17th December note: stocks made a poor fist of going higher yesterday, I expect another attempt before yearend now, but they will fail below critical levels (including DJIA 11,000) again. That's probably the last hurrah for stock markets this side of a long, long time.
In all seriousness, where will we be going? Dead? Too poor to connect to the 'net? Too bored to do so? This is NOT meant as sarcasm--I really want to understand what you're predicting.
Imagine being somewhere where all your normal senses (sight, touch, hearing, smell, skin) are non functional. There are still impressions about the place that you can be aware of. Given enough of these you can piece together some semi-coherent idea of 'how things are'. Then try to make sense of that in the context of what you see in your current world.
I expect the US to be quite chaotic in 2009. Considerable anger, violence, despair (much higher than now); some significant structural breakdown. As things happen over the next few years it will be easier for me to feel what's coming more accurately. Sometime not many years thereafter it feels like the US isn't in one piece any more, like it has split into regional entities. But that is getting too far ahead and very vague, much happens first.
The roll call: some will be prematurely dead, but not many, I don't expect many millions of Americans to die violently in 2009, just hundreds of thousands. Infrastructure, like electricity, will preclude some; more are likely to have much more important things to do than discuss things here, events will have overtaken the peak oil debate.
I'm sorry, I shouldn't have started this, much will change before 2009. But the mentions of 2030 as if things might even be remotely similar to now irked me like the EIA and CERA fantasies irk many of us.
As for Agric's posts......
They are sneaky like that, these official fantasy generators. 25 years hence is too far for a rational mind to worry about, let alone an American consumer. Heck, i probably wouldn't worry either. When I read 'Limits to Growth' in 1972, a callow youth of 18, I thought: hmm looks like it might get iffy about 2016 but we humans are smarter than that, we'll solve it. Ah, youth's optimism. I didn't even begin to seriously re-look at these things till 4 years ago.
Thanks Stoneleigh and Twilight, though what you say troubles me more, I really would prefer to be mad than correct. In a sense I am scratching around in the present to find explanation for the maybe future.
Heigh ho. There's something afoot in next March / April that topples a cart or two. Best I work that out before bothering about beyond then.
On a different subject... I watched GWB's Saturday briefing. Struck me he looked and felt like Nixon in about 1971 in the first half. How is the "I'm president, I can break any laws / constitution that I feel necessary to 'protect America'" spiel running over there?
IMO there is a lot of flexibility within the current system that will allow us to get by for a decade or two without significant breakdowns. For example a significant dollar depreciation and/or recession might give us 5 to 10 years before energy shortages become problems again. Things will feel bad but will not be as bad as we are probably imagining now.
Time and space are not entirely as they appear to us in 'normal' life, I think. It seems that aspects of one's consciousness, stripped of 'normal' senses (for me, at least) can move forward and back in time as well as space. Think of it as a different 'out of body experience'. But the impressions got 'elsewhere' are tenuous, nothing like viewing a photograph, so it takes quite a lot of those impressions to piece together some idea of what might be. Then I use my own reading and thinking of current events to put those impressions into a context and guess at what might be in the future.
Whether I am really doing something like this must be open to very serious question. It is much more reasonable and sane to think I am imagining it. The only evidence that something real might be happening is the reasonable accuracy, especially of some out of the blue events, that I seem to get. If it were only fairly obvious and statistically likely predictions coming true then I would dismiss these absurd thoughts out of hand.
I must admit to being very puzzled by time. It seems to me that either the future is not fixed but probablistic or there are multiple futures as in Everrett's (sp?) multiverse theory. I have real problems knowing when future things are and that seems to be the major source of inaccuracy in my suggestions of future happenings.
Very occasionally I take a look at the predictions of psychics, astrologers and the like. But mostly for entertainment purposes, I don't take them seriously, lol. They seem woefully inaccurate, usually vague and often statistically probable when they do come true. So I am very definitely a skeptic, even when it comes to my own predictions.
Note that my $500 oil scenario was exactly that, a construction of possible events not based on what I talk about above. I am troubled by some things from mid March 2006 though. Now that Israel will have an election in late March I'm even more troubled because Israel seems part of what I sense happening then. Hopefully I'll have a clearer perception before anything happens.
I thought the prospect of non-fungibility had prompted a mad scramble to line up resources; witness, China's activity over the past year. Has Russia really now thrown its lot in with the U.S.? Is it now Russia and the West vs. China in the final scramble for oil? Or is the possible appointment of Evans a only a short-term (and possibly desperate) measure to, as is reported, restore investor confidance in Rosneft?
America apparently has huge resources of coal. It logically follows that 'big oil' will see coal gasification and "clean coal" technology as their and our solution to peak oil. If so, then how much investment is actually occuring worldwide to make these specific production methods a functioning reality? Where are the oil companies investing their current outlandish profits? Hydrogen? Nuclear? (I would presume not on solar).
Everyone that supports these 'world-saving' technologies seems to be making claims that we can produce oil and gas from coal at a cost lower than $60/barrel equivalent. If that's so, then why isn't it being done? All of us here have seen this coming for quite a while, and surely big oil and the powers-that-be have seen it as well.
Follow the money trail to a vision of our future.
Like you, I've seen those reports of coal (via CTL) being price competitive at a price of $50 or $60/barrel, but I've always been highly suspicious; those numbers feel low to me.
I think that high oil and natural gas prices will make 2006 the year that the US, in particular, really gets moving on at least some energy fronts. This will show up as implementing existing technology, funding new R&D (like cellulosic ethanol), and policy moves, like increased tax rebates (above the current levels) for adding insulation to buildings, installing solar panels, etc.
We're just entering a phase where the whole planet has pretty much figured out that The Rules Have Changed (even though most of us here saw it coming years ago). All the pieces are in play, and it's going to get VERY interesting.
In theory the Mayans offered up human sacrifices to hedge their bets about the sun continuing to rise. Currently people don't want to sacrifice to support the troops helping to continue their consumeristic lifestyle. While I don't doubt that with a bit of political wrangling and the media jumping in that things could be turned around, I don't see that happening. Who pays for the media controls the media, and J-random corp is paying more than the government and private citizens do.
So the message will continue to be that most things are all right, hey look at this bloody tragedy, and only 275 more shopping days until xmas 2006! Next up, a special report on how you're sexually undesirable, and your spouse will leave you if you don't buy product Xyzzy. But first a few words from our sponsors.
Sadly I think that most of 2007 is also going to be more of the same game. We'll likely be showing great signs of being on the plateau, but the stocks we've been building help help us ride the wave out. Maybe in late 2007 or early 2008 someone might put the cards down on the table and try to push for great change with the hope of getting a lot of senate and presidential votes.
But right now, I don't think that all the cards are down on the table, and even those which have been played are obscured by that annoying media chattering about xbox 360. Consider what the recent news has been about natural gas. The US is being out bid for lng, but quite shortly it's going to be back at $5-6 and the party shall continue. Peak oil might have gotten a fraction of the collective mindshare, but I think peak north american natural gas will have more dramatic events sooner in North America than peak oil. But maybe I think that because I've only lived in homes heated by natural gas and hate electric stoves.
P.S. If USA swithes from NG to electricity for heating then we'll probably need one more electric grid to handle it.
Peak oilers are quite sure which is right, but those deciding whether to invest billions lived through, and keenly remember, the various times OPEC messed up, over produced, and prices collapsed. Many in the oil business, and their companies, did not survive these dips, explaining why there are few skilled workers available in the current boom. These experiences teach caution, not boldness.
Thanks - just curious.
Several of the large tire manufacturers are adding capacity but that takes time. Everything I am reading from the mining publications say that a shortage will persist until at least 2007. Even though the coal companies in Wyoming are some of the largest in the world and could have some sway with suppliers, they too are limited by the tire manufacturers.
Very soon the constraints will switch to raw materials (oil, copper, silver, food, water...) and there is no way out of them.
Ultimately there are too many people requiring too much wealth and goods. Things will hopefully move towards the most efficient and fair use of remaining resoursces, but the 'easy' solution is population dieoff.
A much more possible outcome is a world-wide inflation and poverty. Otherwise, except maybe in nuclear war scenarious the number of "displaced" people per year will not be enough to lower demand with the same pace as we are eroding our production capacity.
Table of Contents
Oil: A Bumpy Road Ahead -Kjell Aleklett
Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas
Global Oil Production About To Peak? A Recurring Myth -Red Cavaney
American Petroleum Institute
Over The Peak -Christopher Flavin
Worldwatch Institute
Planning For The Peak In World Oil Production -Robert K. Kaufmann
Boston University Center for Energy & Environmental Studies
Peak Oil: A Catastrophist Cult And Complex Realities -Vaclav Smil
University of Manitoba
Since I am always happy to know upon awakening on a Saturday morning that I am a member of a Doomsday Cult, I thought I'd find out a bit more about Vaclav Smil. It turns out he is a frequent contributor at TechCentralStation (where Climate Change doesn't exist either). Lo and Behold, Vaclav took the opportunity to smack us around a bit on December 5th in Peak Curiosity from which (sigh) I now quote. The man can write! I've got to give him that. Naturally, I am very insulted that TOD is not mentioned. But are we groupies? Often, I find myself staring, dumbfounded, at BP production data or IHS (owner of CERA) slide presentations (as I am now) and other trivial pursuits. But clearly, all I really need is a Chrystal Ball and some faith in soothsayers. And now, the man himself.
Does this mean I need to return the hooded robe that I just had made special order! I hope they take it back. But, I am keeping the purple Nike sneakers....
I will also remove the Colin Campbell shrine (or at least move it to the garage)...My little Buddha will be happy to come back into the house though...
That is if he doesn't want people thinking he is just another pie-in-the-sky Polyanna.
I suspect this guy is a slick operator and angling to find his way into the Czar's good graces...
"Animals that face food shortages have a hard time adjusting,
and usually their populations decline. Some believe that
we as human beings will face a similar situation. I can't accept
that.As human beings we can think and come up with ideas,
and I believe we can find solutions. The road will be bumpy
and many people will be hurt, but when we arrive at the end
of this road it must be as a sustainable society. It will not be
possible to travel this road without using part of the existing
stocks of fossil fuels and, for industrial countries, nuclear
energy as well, but we can do it in a manner that will have minimal
impact on the planet.We should have started at least 10
years ago.We must act now, as otherwise the bumps and holes
in the road might be devastating."
So what we are really dealing with here is a guy who believes that Providence will always reward the faithful, so no need to really DO anything (Smil) and a guy who believes that one must keep your eyes open and be willing to work hard if you want to build a better world (Alaklet). Hmm..wonder which guy I want to go forward with...
I recognice some symptoms since I have local politics as a hobby. :-)
It can be quite irritating. Have had courses for a professor with good ideas and reasoning and experince from manny years. But he oversimplifies needlessly and call some of his sound bites for "natural laws", they are good sound bites but not good science.
Think if we could have some kind of signal system:
Waving ears, listening for criticism trying to be scientifically correct, scientist role.
Frowning, got to tinker till it works, engineer role.
Long nose, I am oversimplifing to get a point across, politician role.
Perhaps GW has a prob pronouncing his name.
I find TCS a good place to validate my thinking - if they decry it then it's probably correct.
One doesn't need a crystal ball.
I read this article much differently. Environmentalists have our backs up against the wall here. Grist makes clear that coal is happening bigtime and the scheduled plants worldwide are simply frightening. "Some" enviros are cautiously looking at CO2 capture/sequestration--because coal is a fait accompli whether we like it or not. [And careful here about which groups are most favorable. Better check out their corporate funding!]
I say "Show Me." It aint gonna work. Maybe technically viable but with an ERoEI that is prohibitively low. What poor country (or China or the US for that matter) is going to "waste" 2 units of coal to obtain 1 unit of clean energy when they could have 3 units of desperately-needed dirty energy?
But even "technical viability" on the grand scale required strikes me as laughable. Pumping super massive volumes of a gas into leak-proof reservoirs? Manical laughing. Ha ha ha. "And now monster, when the lighting strikes the pole, I, Dr. Frankenstein, will give your bride life!!"
A friend on the task force says that so far the size of the power plant has been haved, the estimated cost has still doubled and that he expects the Government to pull the plug soon and drop the idea.
I think that you are much too pessimistic regarding loss of efficiency. The least efficient process based on amine solution seems to lose 20-25% of the electricity output.
Shell cuts North Sea exploration
Excerpt: Shell said it took the decision after a review prompted by the chancellor's decision to increase a charge on profits from 10% to 20%.
Full text at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4537660.stm
Unintended consequences baby!
Tax on, Gordon, and increase the taxes on petrol and carbon emissions while you're at it, it will get UK ahead of the game.
The only way oil will hit $1000 US is if the dollar inflates by at least 5:1.
I work with a renewable energy (principally landfill gas and other "silver bb's") nonprofit. One of our nonprofit's directors currently assists in building fuel ethanol plants. That director is the very credible and astute, now retired, senior energy and environmental engineer of Coors Corporation (of Golden CO and beer ethanol renown). We have disussed these fuel ethanol plants rather extensively. The MN website EROEI of 1.34/1 for fuel ethanol plants is consistent with what he tells me for best state-of-the-art plants for fuel ethanol from corn.
While on the subject, how can anyone be terrible impressed with an EROEI of only 1.34 for ethanol from corn? Seems like we're increasingly spinning bigger and bigger wheels to get less an less good stuff out the other end. Will we eventually end up with a system having an overall EROEI of 1.0001? I think this is but another example of Entropy being its old cruel self (to put it in figurative anthropomorphic terms, which I generally dislike).
But my main point is that the Minnesota DOA appears to have deliberately mislead its website readers into thinking that ethanol from corn is a far more efficient way of getting energ from petroleum. Just ain't so!
This is exactly why I proposed taxing petroleum and getting rid of subsidies at my SinceSlicedBread proposal; the EROEI issues shake out naturally, and investment and production would flow to the best options.
So why all this corn ethanol nonsense when it should be biodisel? Most likely agri-protectionism, as usual, rather than anything valid, methinks.
It is better in a combined process when the left over protines are used as animal feed or fermented to methane.
Does anyone have an update on Sunday's election? Evo Morales is a native American running against big oil's candidate, a Harvard-educated elite with an American wife. If he wins, it would be yet another Socialist Latin American leader.
Chile is the example of what a prosperous Latin country can look like - unfortunately, Morales is not likely to emulate them.
"From 1880 to 1930 Argentina became one of the ten wealthiest nations. Conservative forces dominated Argentine politics until 1916, when their traditional rivals, the Radicals, won control of the government. The military forced Hipólito Yrigoyen from power in 1930 leading to another decade of Conservative rule."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Argentina
"Post-World War II
The period between 1914 and 1945 devestated the Argentine economy. Foreign investment disappeared during World War I to finance the European war effort, and following the devestation of the Old Country it failed to return after the peace. While the U.S. and Wall Street began to feature prominently on the international stage, the 1929 stock market collapse marked the end of Argentine hopes for a return to the export-led growth model."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentina#History
"Political change led to the presidency of Juan Perón in 1946, who aimed at empowering the working class and greatly expanded the number of unionised workers. The Revolución Libertadora of 1955 deposed him."
"In the 1950s and 1960s, military and civilian administrations traded power. When military governments failed to revive the economy and suppress escalating terrorism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the way was open for Perón's return to the presidency in 1973, with his third wife, María Estela Isabel Martínez de Perón, as Vice President. During this period, extremists on the left and right carried out terrorist acts with a frequency that threatened public order."
"Perón died in 1974. His wife succeeded him in office, but a military coup removed her from office in 1976, and the armed forces formally exercised power through a junta in charge of the self-appointed National Reorganisation Process, until 1983. The armed forces repressed opposition using harsh illegal measures (the "Dirty War"); thousands of dissidents were "disappeared", while the SIDE cooperated with DINA and other South American intelligence agencies in Operation Condor."
"Since the late 1970s the country piled up public debt and was plagued by bouts of high inflation. In 1991, the government pegged the peso to the U. S. dollar and limited the growth in the monetary base. The government then embarked on a path of trade liberalisation, deregulation, and privatisation. Inflation dropped and GDP grew, but external economic shocks and failures of the system diluted its benefits, causing it to crumble in slow motion, from 1995 and up to the collapse in 2001."
As you say... it was all socialisms fault.
gives you wheat prices from 1913 to now, and illustrates what happened to Argentina, Saudi Arabia of wheat, when nitrates from hydroelectricity, coal, oil, and natural gas doubled crop yields and switching from hay burning horses to oil burning cars and trucks halved farm area dedicated to fodder crops.
My family was in agriculture at the time and we were some of the okies, arkies, and texies that moved to California in the twenties.
Fuel * Energy yield Net Energy(loss)or gain
Gasoline 0.805 (19.5 percent)
Diesel 0.843 (15.7 percent)
Ethanol 1.34 34 percent
Biodiesel 3.20 220 percent
Pomona96: What I have a problem with is that ethanol and biodiesel are not presented in the same context as Gas & diesel. If I use all their numbers, I come up with the following results.
To produce 805 btu's of gas requires 1000 btu's of energy in, so you use 195 Btu's to produce 805 btu's of gas for an ERoEI of 4.13 or a net loss of 19.5 % of 1000 btu's. =413% gain
To produce 843 btu's of diesel requires 1000 btu's of energy in, so you use 157 Btu's to produce 843 btu's of diesel for an ERoEI of 5.37 or a net loss of 15.7% of 1000 btu's. =537% gain
To produce 1340 btu's of ethanol requires 1000 btu's of energy in, so you use 1000 Btu's to produce 1340 btu's of ethanol for an ERoEI of 1.34 or a net loss of 74% of 1340 btu's. = 34% gain
To produce 3200 btu's of biodiesel requires 1000 btu's of energy in, so you use 1000 Btu's to produce 3200 btu's of biodiesel for an ERoEI of 3.20 or a net loss of 31% of 3200 btu's. =220% gain