Re: OT - Supply side solution for oil energy bound to fail.
- From: Alan Browne <alan.browne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 20:54:30 -0400
William Graham wrote:
"Alan Browne" <alan.browne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:PY35g.3331$U74.16245@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
William Graham wrote:
"Joseph Kewfi" <f_stopblues@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:e30iaj$t4q$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My father told me in 1950 that we had enough oil in the ground that he knew
about to
last us another 100 years.......He was about right....We may very well run
out of it around 2050.......
The American people above all others today, are making the largest
contribution to making your old man's prophecy a reality.
Driving smaller more efficient cars doesn't mean you're less of a man or you
have small penises. Try it and see, while you're at it try walking and
cycling too, help yourselves with the national obesity problem, hell go the
whole hog, fire some Mexicans , clean your own houses and mow your own
lawns, squeeze your own OJ, help keep America- English speaking , whatever
that matters !
There is a big difference between living on the North American continent, and living in Europe. If you don't understand the difference, you really shouldn't comment on our transportation habits. It is not unusual for people here to commute over two hundred miles a day, or to live places where you have to drive nearly a hundred miles to get to a decent shopping center. If you ever visit here, try driving from Carson City, Nevada to Salt lake City Utah, on Highway 50, and tell me that we should be all riding around on bicycles or Vespa scooters.......If you do make that drive, incidentally, I doubt if you will pass by the living spaces of more than 20 people......
With California, Texas, Florida and the BosWash having 121 M people, there alone is reason enough to improve fuel efficiency. 121 M opportunities to save oil.
At an average of 0.0667 bbl / oil per US person, that comes to 8 M barrels a day being used in those areas.
Save 10% of that and it's about the estimated daily output when peak is reached) of the ANWR.
For your case of travel from Carson City to Utah, there is no reason why it can't use more efficient vehicles. If you're trasnporting two human bodies and a few bits of luggage, this is just as well done in a Honda Accord (or Civic for that matter) as a SUV. Very few people use SUV's for what they are purportedly designed to do. With high quality roads like the US interstate (most parts of it), you hardly need a truck. Even where the US interstate is in poor repair, a car does quite well.
The US could have a magnificent rail transportation system, esp. in the BosWash, but it has a mediocre one instead. The US does have a great air transportation system (if you forgive very long security lines and checkin lines at airports) but that is hardly the most fuel efficient means of travel (it is very time efficient of course).
Cheers,
Alan.
If all you are doing is transporting freight over that route, then rail is the most efficient method....The problem with transporting people, however, is that is has to be done at their convenience, and not yours....Which means that each person has to have his/her own vehicle, capable of going and stopping whenever and wherever they please.
The route from Carson City to Salt lake City on Hwy. 50 is a bad example....There aren't enough people who make that journey every year to matter how they do it.....Most of the oil consumption takes place in and around the large population areas during commute hours. If we figure out a way to stop using oil then, we will have really solved the problem.
See my other post regarding California, Texas, Florida and the BosWash.
I have long been an advocate of electric vehicles, picking up their power from electric rails built into the major highways, (or some other oscillating field method that I have heard about) The reason I liked this method, however, was because I assumed the electricity would come from nuclear power, and not by burning fossil fuels. I still think its the best method, but nuclear power will have to be developed first.
Eh? There's lots of it. The US by far and France a not too distant second.
Electricity is about 4 to 5x more energy efficent for locomotion than internal cumbustion (which is why so many trains are diesel-electric: the engine can be run at peak efficiency all of the time), but it is very difficult to store.
I don't understand all this talk about using hydrogen to power our vehicles. ASFAIK, the only way to get hydrogen is by electrolysing it from sea water, and this is highly inefficient. You would need more energy to get it than you could ever get back out of it, so it is an inherent loser. Not to mention the fact that, after you had the hydrogen, you would still have to liquefy it before a tank full of it could get you even 10 miles........But for some reason, even Bush is talking about using hydrogen as a fuel source.......There must be some magic method of obtaining/using it that I don't know about......
Most hydrogen used today is extracted from fossil fuels, not through electrolytics. Various processes include:
CH4 + H2O → CO + 3 H2
CH4 → C + 2 H2
CO + H2O → CO2 + H2
CH4 + 0.5 O2 → CO + 2 H2
Zn + 2 H+ → Zn2+ + H2 (most common lab method (electrolytic))
2 Al + 6 H2O → 2 Al(OH)3 + 3 H2
No, I'm not a chemical whiz ... wiki is just so helpful.
If you ran solar and nukes to extract hydrogen and oxygen electrolytically, it would be very ecologically sound (_if_ nuke waste management were properly done, which is not often the case. Breeder reactors can get a lot of energy (and make less waste) out of each pound of fuel (U, P). Go back about 4 or 5 issues of Scientific American).
Cheers,
Alan
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