505 replies to this topic

[advancedatheist]

The "brains," such as they are, in the Bush Administration probably know how bad the oil situation could become in remarkably short time:

http://www.alertnet....k/N25604527.htm

US may use oil reserve if half imports lost-Cheney

25 Aug 2004 19:59:07 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON, Aug 25 (Reuters) - The Bush administration indicated it would tap the U.S. emergency crude oil stockpile if imports of 6 million barrels per day, or about half of the nation's daily oil and petroleum purchases, were halted.

Vice President Dick Cheney's comments during an Iowa campaign appearance on Tuesday marked the first time the administration has given a specific example of the type of emergency that would cause it to use the stockpile.

Last week, U.S. crude oil futures soared to nearly $50 a barrel on nervousness about Middle Eastern supplies. Oil traders are closely watching whether the administration might back away from its long-held position that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve should be tapped only for a supply disruption.

Cheney made it clear that the White House was not budging from its position, and would not release emergency oil unless there was a "national crisis."

If the United States "were dealing with a situation where we lost 5 or 6 million barrels a day, for example, out of the 20 million barrels a day that we currently consume, that would be the kind of national crisis that would drive prices so high and probably bring large parts of our economy to a halt," Cheney said. Such a situation would require using the oil reserve, he said.

[advancedatheist]

Veteran oil man T. Boone Pickens states on National Public Radio that we are already at Peak Oil (requires RealPlayer):

http://www.npr.org/d...NPRMediaPref=RM

[advancedatheist]

http://cbs.marketwat...gle&dist=google

Chemicals sector faces more layoffs
35,000 jobs seen at risk if price of natural gas stays high

By Leslie Wines, CBS.Marketwatch.com
Last Update: 12:42 PM ET Aug. 25, 2004 
E-mail it | Print | Alert | Reprint | RSS

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Strong demand for chemicals and sharply higher profits among the industry's top manufacturers might not be enough to save an estimated 35,000 jobs in the coming months if natural gas prices remain worrisomely high, according to the American Chemistry Council.

Wholesale prices for natural gas, a key raw material in the industry, have nearly doubled over the past five years from an average of $3.12 per million British thermal units in 1999 to $5.78 so far this year, according to the Energy Information Administration.

The American Chemistry Council estimates that each $1 increase in gas prices drives up the industry's costs of doing business by $4.2 billion.

In the face of these higher costs, Kevin Swift, the organization's senior economist, said the industry would be lucky to keep its current employee count, a potentially hard blow to states like Texas and Louisiana, which are home to much of the industry.

Further losses would certainly not be welcome news in the Bush camp, which is already under pressure from the Kerry campaign over job growth as the economy struggles back to its feet.

[Mind]

I hope this isn't true. I would rather the world gradually run out of oil and convert to other energy sources. Anyway here is an article about the "other" theory regarding hydrocarbon formation within the earth.

Contact: Dr. Henry Scott
hpscott@iusb.edu
574-520-5527
Carnegie Institution

Hydrocarbons in the deep Earth?
National Science Foundation, NASA Astrobiology Institute, US Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Carnegie/DOE Alliance CenterWashington, D.C. In an era of rising oil and gas prices, the possibility that there are untapped reserves is enticing. Since the first U.S. oil well hit pay dirt in 1859, commercially viable wells of oil and gas commonly have been drilled no deeper than 3 to 5 miles into Earth's crust. "These experiments point to the possibility of an inorganic source of hydrocarbons at great depth in the Earth--that is, hydrocarbons that come from simple reactions between water and rock and not just from the decomposition of living organisms," stated Dr. Russell Hemley of the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory, and co-author of a study published in the September 13-17, early, on-line edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.*
Methane is the most abundant hydrocarbon in the Earth's crust and it is the main component of natural gas. Often, gas reserves are accompanied by liquid petroleum. However these reserves, at 3 to 5 miles beneath the surface, exist in relatively low-pressure conditions. Whether hydrocarbons exist deeper--and could even be formed from non-biological matter--has been the subject of much debate. As depth increases in the Earth, the pressures can become so crushing that molecules are squeezed into new forms and the temperature conditions are like an inferno making matter behave much differently. The team of scientists performed a series of experiments at Carnegie, the Carnegie-managed High Pressure Collaborative Access Team (HPCAT) at Argonne National Laboratory, and at Indiana University South Bend--together with calculations performed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory--to mimic conditions that occur in Earth's upper mantle, which underlies the crust at depths of about 12 to 37 miles (20 to 60 km) beneath the continents.

With a diamond anvil cell, the scientists squeezed materials common at Earth's surface--iron oxide (FeO), calcite (CaCO3) and water-- to pressures ranging from 50,000 to 110,000 times the pressure at sea level ( 5 to 11 gigapascals). They heated the samples using two techniques--focused laser light and the so-called resistive heating method--to temperatures up to 2,700 degrees F (1500 degrees C). The researchers found that methane formed by reducing the carbon in calcite over a wide range of temperatures and pressures. The best conditions were at temperatures and pressures of about 1000 degrees F and less than 70,000 times atmospheric pressure.

Dr. Henry Scott, of Indiana University South Bend, related the significance of the experiments to conventional hydrocarbon resources: "Although it is well-established that commercial petroleum originates from the decay of once-living organisms, these results support the possibility that the deep Earth may produce abiogenic hydrocarbons of its own."

Link to original article

[Mind]

You will like this one Mark. It arrived in a business e-newsletter I receive. The title was "rude awakening"

In late April of 2003, T. Boone Pickens kicked off the Grant's Spring Conference here in Manhattan by declaring, "I don't believe I'll ever see natural gas below $4.50 again." Inventories are extremely low, he explained, supply is falling and demand is holding steady - a potentially explosive situation for gas prices. "If we get another cold winter next year," Pickens predicted, "the gas price could go to $10 an mcf or more...the gas price could do anything, and I mean anything!"

Sure as shucks, the gas price soared above $7.00 later that year, and has only "kissed" $4.50 a couple of times since then. More to the point, the gas price has averaged about $5.60 since Pickens' declaration and topped $7.00 again yesterday.

Fresh from his dead-on prediction for natural gas prices, Pickens issued a second Delphic forecast last May - this time about crude oil prices. "I think you'll see $50 before you see $30 again," said Pickens. At the time, crude oil was changing hands for $41.50, and had averaged only about $36 for the year-to-date. But as we all know now, the price profile of the crude oil market has changed dramatically since then. Crude decisively scaled the $50-mark yesterday and planted its flag at $51.29 before settling in for the night at $51.09.

Pickens continues to up his forecasts. On September 27, he said in a radio interview with Bloomberg News that he expects the price of crude to surge to $60 before it returns to $40. Should we trust his judgment?

Many of the attendees of the May 2003 Grant's conference wondered the same thing, when Pickens' predicted a new era of permanently higher natural gas prices. One skeptical attendee asked the oilman, "If high, and rising, natural gas prices seem so probable, why aren't the exploration and production companies working feverishly to increase their drilling activity?"

The answer, according to Pickens, was that "there's nuthin' to drill." The oil and gas industry keeps poking holes, of course, but they aren't finding very much oil or gas to suck out of those holes. About 1,243 drilling rigs are currently operating on U.S. soil and in contiguous waters, according to Baker Hughes - that's about 12% more than this time last year, and about 40% more than two years ago. Even so, domestic production of crude oil and natural gas has tumbled 5% since 2001.

Proven reserves of U.S. crude oil are close to a 29-year low after falling 3.5% last year. Meanwhile, demand charges ahead. Worldwide oil demand will average 82.2 million barrels a day this year and jump by another 1.8 million barrels next year.

T. Boone Pickens is fallible, of course. But he seems to have a knack for putting himself in luck's path. All else being equal, we'd rather align ourselves with a consistently lucky soul than a consistently unlucky one.

[advancedatheist]

http://nytimes.com/f...135_200375.html

Top oil groups fail to recoup exploration costs
By James Boxell in London

Published: October 10, 2004

The world's biggest oil companies are failing to get value for money when
they explore for new reserves, according to research by Wood Mackenzie, the
energy consultant.

The report shows the commercial value of oil and gas discovered over the
past three years by the 10 largest listed energy groups is running well
below the amount they have spent on exploration.

[advancedatheist]

http://ogj.pennnet.c...TICLE_ID=214235

CGES: OPEC pushing limits of oil production capacity

Paula Dittrick
Senior Staff Writer

HOUSTON, Oct. 21 -- Most members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are pushing the limits of their oil production capability, and some probably are finding that their sustainable capacity is not as high as originally thought.

London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies reached that conclusion in its Global Oil Report Market Watch for September-October.

"Indonesia and Venezuela cannot meet their quotas, while Nigeria—which produced at surge capacity earlier this year—finds it must now lock in production at many of its aging fields, proving that its stated capacity is not sustainable," CGES said.

OPEC members have frequently talked up their production capabilities with a view to increasing their allocated quotas within OPEC, but only recently has this capacity been tested.

CGES expects that there will be little more than 1.5 million b/d of incremental oil production capacity by the end of 2005.

[advancedatheist]

http://www.businessw..._2937_db008.htm

OCTOBER 21, 2004

Crude Will Hit "$60 Before $40"

Energy tycoon Boone Pickens says "we've seen $40 oil for the last time" and expects "$10 natural gas" probably within "four months"

Oilman Boone Pickens, who came to prominence in the '80s by raiding companies such as Gulf, Phillips, and Unocal (UCL ), has bet big lately on rising oil prices -- and won. Pickens has guided his Dallas-based fund-management firm BP Capital with a prescient prediction that oil would hit $50. His BP Capital Energy Commodity Fund has jumped 390% for the year, and his equity fund has risen 70%. Here's what Pickens, 76, had to say in a recent meeting with BusinessWeek editors:

On where oil prices are headed:
I'll say it: $60 before $40. I think that will happen. I think we've seen $40 oil for the last time....

On natural gas, which hit $7.63 on Oct. 20:
You're getting ready to see $10 natural gas. The reason you know that you are is [because of] heating oil. Heating oil is in direct competition with natural gas, and it [has set record prices]. So you're headed in that direction, and we'll probably get there [within] four months. So that will become a problem for the country.

[Mind]

As the oil price goes up...people start looking for alternatives.

GRANITE FALLS ENERGY BEGINS CONSTRUCTION ON ETHANOL PLANT

Minnesota Has 14 Ethanol Plants in Operation and 2 Under Construction

Washington, DC – The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) today congratulated Granite Falls Energy, LLC for beginning construction at its ethanol plant near Granite Falls, Minnesota. The plant will process over 17 million bushels of corn into 45 million gallons of ethanol and 130,000 tons of distillers grains annually. When operating the plant will employ 30 to 35 people.

“It seems only fitting for Fagen, Inc. to build a state-of-the-art ethanol plant in Ron Fagen’s hometown of Granite Falls,” said Bob Dinneen, RFA president. “A good portion of the ethanol industry can be traced back to Granite Falls and Ron Fagen. I think it’s safe to say Fagen, Inc. will ensure this is the best plant they’ve ever built.”

Fagen, Inc., the Granite Falls, Minnesota design-build contractor, is the general contractor and will incorporate a process design provided by ICM, Inc. of Colwich, Kansas.

Currently, 81 ethanol plants nationwide have the capacity to produce over 3.4 billion gallons annually. There are 12 ethanol plants under construction.

More information on ethanol production here RFA Website

[advancedatheist]

http://www.thebusine...ew.php?id=29138

Oil supply to peak sooner than we think, says BP scientist

Richard Orange
November 07, 2004 6:00 AM (GMT)

WORLD oil production is likely to peak in the next decade, much earlier than many international forecasts, a senior BP executive has told The Business.

BP exploration consultant Francis Harper said he estimated the world's total original usable oil resources - the amount of oil before drilling began - at about 2.4 trillion barrels of oil. This is considerably less than the 3 trillion assumed by bullish commentators such as the US government's Geological Survey. This points to oil production peaking between 2010 and 2020.

His comments are a rare entry by a global oil company into the debate on the life of global oil supplies. If true, it would mean demand outstripping supply much earlier than energy projections by ExxonMobil and Shell. BP does not officially supply projections.

[Mind]

Mark, that 2010 to 2020 estimate follows well with the graph you posted earlier. The graph shows oblivion/disaster/collapse at around 2012.

[Mind]

The list of people realizing the end of the fossil fuel age keeps getting bigger. Here is an article from SEMI with a quote from Richard Smalley. Interestingly, he also notes the problem low quality of government run education in the U.S., which is something we have been discussing here.

During a keynote speech on the first day of NanoForum, Richard Smalley,
director of the Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory at Rice University in
Houston, Texas, identified the shortage of fossil fuels as the most
significant problem facing human civilization. Nanotechnology has the
potential to provide an energy storage capability so that alternative energy
sources can be widely adopted. "We need new technology to solve the energy
problem," he said.
    However, Smalley warned that the U.S. would experience a shortage of
future scientists to find solutions to these problems. That's because fewer
young people were pursuing science and technology as careers. "Where are the
new Edisons?" he asked.
    "The era of Sputnik and the moon shot were the only time we were
successful in getting American kids into science and technology," said
Smalley, who won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1996 for his discovery of
"buckyballs" -- the soccer ball-shaped molecule which is the third carbon
element.

[advancedatheist]

This is especially significant considering that totalitarian regimes always try to keep their major cities well supplied even during shortages, while letting the rest of the country suffer. The risk of dying from exposure complicates the process of maintaining control if the people in the capital threaten to riot because of the lack of heating, and it looks bad to foreign visitors and to the rest of the world.

http://www.guardian....1352019,00.html

China faces cold winter as fuel grows scarce

Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Tuesday November 16, 2004
The Guardian

Some 200 million people could be left out in the cold in China this winter, the state-run media warned yesterday, as energy shortages threatened the traditional switching on of the nation's centrally planned central heating system.

For more than 30 years, November 15 has been the day when Beijing's municipal managers turn on boilers, radiators and immersion heaters in a synchronised city-wide warm-up ahead of sub-zero temperatures that become the norm at this time of year.

But this year, the authorities warn that coal production has failed to match the demand for power, which has risen sharply as increased economic affluence has driven up sales of electric heaters, hot blankets, televisions and DVD players.

The China Daily said Beijing has only 50% of the coal it needs this winter, while Jilin has stores of 40%, half the level of this time last year.

City dwellers in 14 provinces across northern China plus Shandong and Henan in the east and central regions have been hardest hit.

[advancedatheist]

Note: This article appears in the Oil and Gas Journal, online version:

http://ogj.pennnet.c...TICLE_ID=216078

ODAC: World oil supplies likely to remain tight through 2010

By OGJ editors

HOUSTON, Nov. 17 -- Unless demand plummets, world oil supplies are nearly certain to remain tight through the rest of this decade, according to a study by the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre in London.

The study found that 68 oil-recovery "megaprojects" with announced start-up dates through 2010 would add 12.5 million b/d of crude supply by the turn of the decade. But that is unlikely to be enough to meet the world's growing needs, said ODAC officials.

"This new production would almost certainly not be sufficient to offset diminishing supplies from existing sources and still meet growing global demand," said Chris Skrebowski, ODAC board member.

Most of the estimated new supply would simply replace natural depletion of current production. A modest 1% annual increase in world demand for crude over the next 6 years would leave little or no surplus capacity to cushion against unforeseen supply disruptions, the ODAC study concluded.

If demand increased by 2%/year, available supplies would fall short of the total projected to be needed in 2010 by more than 2 million b/d—"roughly equivalent to losing all of Kuwait's current daily production," ODAC officials said.

"With most producers operating flat out to meet runaway demand increases this year, the world's immediately available spare production capacity has virtually disappeared. This means that significant additional supplies in the near-to-medium term must come from new projects already in the development pipeline," said Skrebowski.

"We now see those projects providing surprisingly limited relief in terms of incremental supply in coming years, and indeed physical shortages appear ever more likely if demand remains strong," he said. "Even with relatively low demand growth, our study indicates a seemingly unbridgeable supply-demand gap opening up after 2007."

[Mind]

"We now see those projects providing surprisingly limited relief in terms of incremental supply in coming years, and indeed physical shortages appear ever more likely if demand remains strong," he said. "Even with relatively low demand growth, our study indicates a seemingly unbridgeable supply-demand gap opening up after 2007."

The supply-demand gap never gets too far out of balance. If demand continues to outpace supply, the price of oil will go up and up until demand drops. Of course, if no other energy supplies are brought into the fold to replace the diminishing oil supplies, economies of the world will contract.

Most negative long term imbalances in supply/demand result from government meddling. One example I can think of is heating oil in the northeast U.S. Every year (as if on schedule) there are news stories in the fall about home-owners not being able to afford the oil to heat their homes during the winter. Now, you would think that eventually these home-owners would try to figure out ways to better insulate their house, conserve energy, switch to a different energy source, or move to a warmer climate. Why do they not change their ways? Because the U.S. government gives them money (subsidies) so they can keep using oil. Instead of using less oil, they keep using more, and it gets more expensive every year. In effect, the government is hastening the decline of oil supplies by meddling in the market.

[Mind]

Here is a promising direction for solar energy - Stirling solar power generators. Almost double the efficiency of current solar power. As the price of oil increases I am sure there will be a lot more interest in this type of power generation.

EEtimes solar energy story

By R. Colin Johnson
EE Times
November 22, 2004 (10:00 AM EST) 

PORTLAND, Ore. — EEs are turning a 19th-century invention into a 21st-century alternative-energy source.

The last leg of a two-decades-long effort by the U.S. Energy Deaprtment to unleash superefficient solar power by 2011 is homing in on the so-called Stirling engine, which is being used to drive solar generators. DOE test site measurements suggest the setup could bring the cost of solar power on a par with traditional fossil fuels and hydroelectric sources — assuming the project engineers can balance the separate power feeds from farms of thousands of simultaneously online 25-kilowatt Stirling solar dishes.

The heart of the design, the engine itself, was invented by the Scottish minister Robert Stirling in 1816.

"The Stirling engine makes solar power so much more efficiently than photovoltaic solar cells can," said Robert Liden, chief administrative officer at Stirling Energy Systems Inc. (Phoenix). "That's because the Stirling solar dish directly converts solar heat into mechanical energy, which turns an ac electrical generator." The bottom line, he said, "is that large farms of Stirling solar dishes — say, 20,000-dish farms — could deliver cheap solar electricity that rivals what we pay for electricity today."

Under a multiyear Energy Department contract that started in 2004, Stirling Energy Systems will supply Sandia National Laboratories with solar dishes for integration into full-fledged power-generation substations capable of direct connections to the existing U.S. power grid. Right now about 20 EEs, including more than a dozen from Stirling Energy Systems, are working full time at Sandia to create the electrical-control systems to manage these sunshine stations.

By the end of 2005, they plan to have six dishes connected into a miniature power station capable of supplying enough 480-volt three-phase electricity to power about 40 homes (150 kW). The next step, in 2006, is a 40-dish power plant that will transform the combined output of the farm from 480 to 13,000 V, for distribution of industrial-level power to an existing substation. From 2007 to 2010, the program proposes mass-producing dishes to create a 20,000-dish farm supplying 230,000 V of long-haul power from its own substation directly connected to the grid.

If the project succeeds, the DOE predicts that by 2011, Stirling solar-dish farms could be delivering electricity to the grid at costs comparable to traditional electricity sources, thereby reducing the U.S. need for foreign sources of fossil fuels.

Eventually, according to DOE estimates, an 11-square-mile farm of Stirling solar dishes could generate as much electricity as the Hoover Dam, and a 100 x 100-mile farm could supply all the daytime needs for electricity in the United States. By storing the energy in hydrogen fuel cells during the day, Stirling solar-dish farms could supply U.S. electrical-energy needs at night too, as well as enough juice for future fuel-cell-powered automobiles, the DOE believes.

Power today costs from about 3 cents to 12 cents per kilowatt-hour, depending upon the customer's location and the time of day. The average is 6.6 cents/kW-hr for the industrial sector in 2004, according to DOE. In contrast, the Stirling solar-powered substations operate only during peak hours (daytime) but at potentially the same or less than the peak rates paid today — or "about 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour during peak periods," said Liden of Stirling Energy Systems.

[advancedatheist]

So much for the argument that "market forces" will paranormally supply North America with natural gas that simply isn't there:

http://www.canada.co...57-0bc576b0e6d1

Canadian natural gas reserves continue to fall despite record drilling activity

James Stevenson
Canadian Press

Thursday, November 25, 2004

CALGARY (CP) - Canada's known natural gas reserves continue to decline and less than 60 per cent of production was replaced in 2003 despite a record number of wells drilled, the energy industry announced Thursday.

In its annual estimate of energy reserves, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said natural gas reserves declined by 2.5 trillion cubic feet by the end of last year, to 56.6 trillion cubic feet.

[advancedatheist]

More evidence that our economic priorities are irrational, and that biodiesel won't "save" us. Running the numbers will show how all the proposed "alternatives" to conventional petroleum are effectively imaginary, not practical:

http://politics.guar...1357499,00.html

Fuel for nought

The adoption of biofuels would be a humanitarian and environmental disaster

George Monbiot
Tuesday November 23, 2004
The Guardian

... Road transport in the UK consumes 37.6m tonnes of petroleum products a year. The most productive oil crop that can be grown in this country is rape. The average yield is 3-3.5 tonnes per hectare. One tonne of rapeseed produces 415kg of biodiesel. So every hectare of arable land could provide 1.45 tonnes of transport fuel.

To run our cars and buses and lorries on biodiesel, in other words, would require 25.9m hectares. There are 5.7m in the UK. Even the EU's more modest target of 20% by 2020 would consume almost all our cropland.

If the same thing is to happen all over Europe, the impact on global food supply will be catastrophic: big enough to tip the global balance from net surplus to net deficit. If, as some environmentalists demand, it is to happen worldwide, then most of the arable surface of the planet will be deployed to produce food for cars, not people.

This prospect sounds, at first, ridiculous. Surely if there were unmet demand for food, the market would ensure that crops were used to feed people rather than vehicles? There is no basis for this assumption. The market responds to money, not need. People who own cars have more money than people at risk of starvation. In a contest between their demand for fuel and poor people's demand for food, the car-owners win every time. Something very much like this is happening already. Though 800 million people are permanently malnourished, the global increase in crop production is being used to feed animals: the number of livestock on earth has quintupled since 1950. The reason is that those who buy meat and dairy products have more purchasing power than those who buy only subsistence crops.

[Lazarus Long]

Feed Cars not People!

)

Macabre sarcasm aside biodiesel is a necessary component for improving how we deal with the waste stream of society but should not be considered a solution by itself. There are no single solution panaceas and some of the concerns raised by Monbiot are why.

It should be looked at as a part of the efficiency and conservation side of the equation and not as a true *new* energy source in itself IMO.

[vortexentity]

Waste to energy conversion technology is the best short term alternative I think. It is only right to convert as much of our waste into clean energy. I think we should use MagneGas technology to convert our pumpable liquid waste into a clean burning alternative fuel http://www.magnegas.com

We should turn all of our solid waste into energy as well using one of the better gasifier technologies like Thermogenics http://www.thermogenics.com

These will help to provide some energy and are far better solutions than what is currently being used for most municipal waste solutions.

Fusion technology is the only real solution to meet our planet's large scale energy requirements. We are investing in some plasma fusion reactor technology and there are several that are close competition so this will likely be online in the next few years I would think.

There is no waste problem that can not be converted into a feed stock for some other process if they are managed properly I think.

Edited by vortexentity, 30 November 2004 - 03:50 AM.

[eternaltraveler]

fission will work just fine. We're still a ways off from workable controled fusion. There is enough fissionable material to last us for at least millions of years. Plenty of time to work out the fusion problem

[advancedatheist]

(elrond)
In recent years, the debate over nuclear power has revived, with proponents maintaining that we can find environmentally sound and politically acceptable ways to deal with the waste and security hazards. But even assuming that to be true, the potential is limited. To produce enough nuclear power to equal the power we currently get from fossil fuels, you would have to build 10,000 of the largest possible nuclear power plants. That’s a huge, probably nonviable initiative, and at that burn rate, our known reserves of uranium would last only for 10 or 20 years.

Not to mention that we can't get uranium magically to jump out of the ground in Africa, purify itself, fly across the Atlantic and assemble into fuel rods where we need it. We use energy from fossil fuels to make uranium to do those things, which indicates that its allegedly superior energetic payoff is illusory.




Marc I found this post unreadable and edited the best I could but it is probably missing information you might check it out.
laz

Edited by Lazarus Long, 02 December 2004 - 03:28 AM.

[eternaltraveler]

who says our known reserves would last for 10 or 20 years?

Certainly not the information I have found.

[eternaltraveler]

and even if that were true it certainly isn't taking breeder reactors into account. Breeder reactors could make that last last about 100 times longer

[Mind]

Something very much like this is happening already. Though 800 million people are permanently malnourished, the global increase in crop production is being used to feed animals: the number of livestock on earth has quintupled since 1950. The reason is that those who buy meat and dairy products have more purchasing power than those who buy only subsistence crops.

Most of the malnourished people of the world are that way because of political reasons. Tyrants and trade barriers prevent food from getting to the people who need it. It is a form of control. Also, western countries (U.S., Canada, and Europe) all subsidize their crops to protect their own farmers, and this makes it less economically viable for farmers in poor countries to produce food.

On a related note:
U.S. Bi-weekly ethanol report
Demand for corn and its price remains high. I heard on the radio today that it was 1.90 per bushel. This is higher than experts predicted because U.S. ethanol production contiues to break records every month. Next year the U.S. is on pace to produce over 4 billion barrels of ethanol. Ethanol is only a stop gap measure for the potential oil shortage, because it takes oil to grow corn, but it can be grown and processed more efficiently...well... I guess it will have to be made more efficiently to replace at least a small fraction of the oil we use today.

[Mind]

Solar cell production increasing

MANHASSET, N.Y. — Sharp Corp. has announced it will expand its solar cell production lines at its Katsuragi Plant in Nara Prefecture to cope with burgeoning demand for solar power both in Japan and abroad.

This move will expand annual production output from the previous 315 MW (megawatts) to 400 MW per year. The new line will begin operating January 2005.

Sharp said residential applications are primarily driving solar cell demand, though industrial and electric utility requirements are also growing. The company, which claims to be one of the largest producers of solar cells, estimates the total amount of electrical energy produced annually from photovoltaic sources will grow from 900 MW to 1.1 GW (gigawatts) over the next year.

As the price of oil climbs, the market will naturally shift to other energy sources. One argument is, of course, that it takes many barrels of oil to create solar cells, so there is not much to gain here. However, creating a solar cell from oil-energy, is different than just burning the oil in your house or car. Once the oil is burned in your car it is gone quickly and cannot be used again. When a solar cell is produced, the oil-energy spent continues to produce returns for a decade or two (the productive lifespan of a solar cell).

[advancedatheist]

Solar cell production increasing

MANHASSET, N.Y. — Sharp Corp. has announced it will expand its solar cell production lines at its Katsuragi Plant in Nara Prefecture to cope with burgeoning demand for solar power both in Japan and abroad.

This move will expand annual production output from the previous 315 MW (megawatts) to 400 MW per year. The new line will begin operating January 2005.

Sharp said residential applications are primarily driving solar cell demand, though industrial and electric utility requirements are also growing. The company, which claims to be one of the largest producers of solar cells, estimates the total amount of electrical energy produced annually from photovoltaic sources will grow from 900 MW to 1.1 GW (gigawatts) over the next year.

As the price of oil climbs, the market will naturally shift to other energy sources. One argument is, of course, that it takes many barrels of oil to create solar cells, so there is not much to gain here. However, creating a solar cell from oil-energy, is different than just burning the oil in your house or car. Once the oil is burned in your car it is gone quickly and cannot be used again. When a solar cell is produced, the oil-energy spent continues to procude returns for a decade or two (the productive lifespan of a solar cell).

Sigh. For some reason people don't see the problem with solar power versus oil. We've been using energy from oil to extract more oil, as well as natural natural gas, coal and uranium. We also use energy from oil to build and maintain hydroelectric dams. But the factories which manufacture solar panels aren't powered by the sun. Solar panel factories require the fossil fuels input to work, and the solar panels coming out the end of the assembly line can't gather sufficient power from solar energy income to allow the manufacture of additional solar panels. A true solar alternative to oil would have to crank out an exponentially growable supply of solar energy capturing devices that don't require any additional fossil fuel inputs -- and we don't have anything like that on the horizon.

I'm also no longer buying into the idea that "the market" is going to solve this problem. If anything, market forces helped to create it. We've had well defined property rights to oil and natural gas in North America all along, yet these rights haven't prevented the rapid depletion of these resources. Hence the quietly desperate scramble to begin importing cryogenic natural gas into the US, and the less quiet efforts to take over the Persian Gulf.

[advancedatheist]

And, of course, we face the prospect of Peak Grain:

http://www.modbee.co...-10513397c.html

Fertilizer, natural gas prices rise

U.S. farmers worried about competition

By DENNIS POLLOCK
THE FRESNO BEE
Last Updated: December 18, 2004, 05:37:05 AM PST

High prices for natural gas in the United States have boosted the cost for nitrogen fertilizer by more than 40 percent in the past two years and are helping to drive production abroad.

Those were among the points made during a speech this week at the Fresno Nutrient Conference by Jay Yost, assistant managing director of Independent Agribusiness Professionals in Fresno.

The Western Plant Health Association, based in Sacramento, sponsored the conference that attracted about 50 agronomists, researchers and sellers of fertilizers and pesticides.

Yost explained that natural gas is a key component in nitrogen fertilizers and is used as a source of heat to create the products.

"Population growth and the need for food remains an important driver of fertilizer consumption," Yost said, who added that developing nations, including China, have a stronger appetite for higher-quality foods.

He added that world grain consumption has been outstripping production for the past five years.

For 2004-05, he said, good weather in the growing regions means "the world's farmers will produce more grain than ever before. Although the production gap will close, there will not be a significant surplus to replenish grain inventories."

[Mind]

I understand what you are saying Mark. My main point is that the world...humanity....the market....whatever, is reacting to the price of oil even without many people thinking about peak oil seriously. The notion that supplies are tight and that the oil price could skyrocket is out in the memespace. Even if the current efforts toward alternative energy sources are inadequate, I take it as a positive sign that there are market movements away from oil.

[advancedatheist]

So much for economic arguments that demand magically creates its own supply, when the geology of the planet says otherwise.

http://www.iht.com/a...erg/sxnuke.html

Uranium prices are set to climb

 
By Matt Chambers Bloomberg News

Wednesday, January 5, 2005
Supplies dwindle even as Asia builds more nuclear reactors

MELBOURNE Prices for uranium, used to generate 16 percent of the world's electricity, may rise by a quarter this year as stockpiles of the nuclear fuel decrease and demand is set to rise from reactors being built in China and India.

"You have gone from a buyer's to a seller's market," said Bob Mitchell, who holds physical uranium worth more than $26 million for Adit Capital Management in Portland, Oregon. "Most reactors under construction haven't secured long-term supply and there is no inventory left among utilities."

Commercial stockpiles of the fuel dropped 50 percent between 1985 and 2003 because mine output could not keep up with demand, according to a September report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mine expansions may not meet demand, pushing up prices for uranium at miners such as Cameco, the world's biggest, and Energy Resources of Australia....

"It looks like current prices are here to stay and possibly rise significantly," Craig Kinnell, acting chief executive of Energy Resources of Australia, the world's third-biggest uranium miner, said in an interview Dec. 31.

"Inventories are falling and there has been little response to that in the way of more mine supply. Our contract prices have risen to reflect the spot price rises."