[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by AlphBravo
Well oil are getting harder to extract, it is not hard to extrapolate the outcome,

Ofcourse oil is getting harder to mine – the same is true of absolutely anything else that is regularly mined; but getting harder does not mean that we are close to having it run out, although it is inevitable that tomorrow will be two days closer to running out of oil than yesterday was.

quote:
as both the World Wars we have had were about oil and it's supply

I am not at all sure how you come to this conclusion.  In WWI, oil was not yet a major resource, and most power was still produced from coal.

It is true that oil had a strategic significance in WWII, but except in the case of Japan's' attack on Pearl Harbour, I am not aware that it was a cause of any country entering the war (and Japan was rather a late entrant, although there is no doubt that the American oil embargo on Japan was the main motivating factor for its entering the war).

George

[another_someone]

More gas than oil.

http://www.jsme.or.jp/English/emnews07.html

quote:
(6) Japan Utilize the New Energy Resource: Methane-Hydride

The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will start a new
energy project to utilize methane-hydride lying under the sea floor.
The 3-year first phase is to estimate by artificial seismic wave the
amount of deposits existing around Japan, and then by actually drilling
into the sea floor.  Following this first phase, the next step will
start in 2007 to extract methane directly from the frozen
methane-hydride layers. The total deposits around Japan is expected to
reach 7,400 billion square meters, which is equivalent to consuming
natural gas for 100 years in Japan. The METI plans to put this project
into commercial service in 2016.

George

[JimBob]

quote:Originally posted by AlphBravo

Well oil are getting harder to extract, it is not hard to extrapolate the outcome, we is one selfish lot, and as both the World Wars we have had were about oil and it's supply

WHAT THE HELL?? Don't people learn history anymore? As stated previously, oil had very little economic importance in WW I. The cause of WW I  is very complicated. It was the reslt of  an arms race among the European powers, a war of empire - Germany had one, too - and of monarchies vs. mostly deemocracies (Serbia and Russia were allies of British and France.) It was a "legacy" war resulting from alliances, hereditary distrust and a chance assasination.

WW II was mostly a result of the harsh terms for Germany and Austro-Hungary of the Treatty of Versailles that ended WW I and a madman.

If any energy resources were a factor in WW I & II it was the coal of the Saar but this land has been fought over for centuries.

What a scientis needs in order to most wisely pursue his or her field is a historical perspective. As George Santana said, those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are bound to repeat them. As human beings we are responsible for our science.

Oil and gas are being used up at an alarming rate, because the scientific world has not learned the lessons of the past. The deforestation of Greece is but one of numerous examples of the results of over-use of natural resources. We have not learned!



The mind is like a parachute. It works best when open.  -- A. Einstein

[VAlibrarian]

JimBob, I agree that petroleum was not a cause of WWII with Germany. It was actually a factor in Japan deciding to attack the USA at Pearl Harbor - because we had started to limit their access to petroleum.
Petroleum was also a factor in the victory over Nazi Germany, because we finally focused on bombing petroleum wells and refineries. The lack of access to fuel for the Germany army in the closing months of the war was one factor in their defeat.  

Your main point that petroleum is a limited resource is of course beyond debate, though many try to debate it. We started running out of oil with the first well that was drilled, insofar as mother nature is not making any more petroleum. It all dates from the time period in which dinosaurs trotted around.

chris wiegard

[Atomic-S]

quote:
1) Consider carbon dioxide generated in extracting raw materials for the wind turbines, manufacturing, transporting and erecting them, as well as the infra structure of roads and buildings required for their maintenance. This is rarely figured into the calculations of wind power benefits.

 Does this really amount to anything significant (compard to, say, burning coal), per kilowatt-hour produced?

quote:
2) Consider the unsightly nature of wind turbines.

Check. (Although public funds are regularly spent to erect far worse looking objects of "art" as part of public buildings.)

quote:
3) Consider the economic impact upon home owners where wind turbines are installed in their neighbourhood.

Well, what exactly would that be? One thing that comes to mind is that the number of jobs in the area of any power generating industry is likely to increase significantly.

quote:
4) Consider the high mortality rate of birds transiting wind turbine sites.

Check. However, has anyone considered installing wire fan gaurds on these things?

quote:
5) Consider the low frequency noise generated by these turbines which is detectable over great distances and whose long term effects upon humans and other animals has not been thoroughly determined.

I am unfamiliar with the severity of this problem, but might not like to live next to them if they keep me awake at night.

quote:
6) Consider the resource consumption of valuable materials to construct these turbines.

Is there any other power generating technology that does not consume valuable materials? But in any case, this consumption like with all capital infrastructure tends to be a one-time expenditure and then it serves for quite some time, and when decomissioned is often recycled.

[Atomic-S]

quote:1. When will the world run out of oil?

At 10:18:23 AM Coordinated Universal Time, July 17, 2063
   Actually, of course, that is only a guess, as are many other estimates.

quote:2. How will we cope when we do run out of oil? If we really do only have maybe 50 years or so, isn’t that too short a time to completely switch our dependence from oil to other forms of energy?

Well, it all depends. There are many possible scenarios.

quote:Will we be able to harness enough solar/wind/wave power to meet the demands of 2050 onwards?

Who knows? My own thought is that solar, wind, and wave will not do the job by themselves; something else will be needed also.

quote:Can we really expect to have developed safe, sustainable, cost-efficient, large scale nuclear fusion within that timescale?

Probably not. Nuclear fusion still remains largely in the realm of science fiction.

quote:What other energy sources are there that we might develop?

Fission.  Especially the breeder reactor. The breeder reactor utilizes nuclear fuel much more efficiently than conventional ractors, and produces less final radioactive waste. The only thing standing in its way is the politics of plutonium.

quote:And will we really be able to develop alternative materials to the plastics, lubricants, etc. that currently come from oil?

We may not have to. For these things we might rely upon vegetative crops, which can form the starting material for many organic chemicals.

quote:3. Which will be worse – the situation after we’ve run out, or the changes that will happen on the way to running out? I think the human race will find a way to manage without oil eventually.

We may not  have to. Even if fossil petroleum be exhausted, there are ways of producing these things from modern resources. One process generates crude oil by cooking almost any organic waste with water at high pressure and temperature -- basically a speeded up process of fossilization.

quote:What worries me more is the changes that we’ll undergo before we get there.

that could be an issue, especially as pertains to possible convulsions of international politics, war, and the rise and fall of nations.

quote:While oil supply falls and oil demand rises, oil prices can be expected to go through the roof - perhaps within the next couple/few decades.

Assuming that no other forces enter the picture. Among the things that might happen is the serious use of ethanol as a fuel, which is now looking as though it could become economic at today's oil prices; also the possible expansion of refining capacity (the present petroleum crisis is in part due to the failure in the U.S. at least to expand petroleum refining capacity for many years, so that it is now inadequate). Also, new supplies may come on line due to exploration; and who knows what direction politics will take in the Middle East?

quote:Won’t that lead to economic (and political) crises? And to social changes (e.g. fewer and fewer people being able to afford cars, air travel, heating, etc.)?

It is anyone's guess; however necessity tends to beget invention.

quote:Will the big oil companies become more powerful than the world’s governments?

Perhaps they already are.

quote:Will we see more “intervention” (i.e. military coercion or even invasion) by the US (and China and Russia?) to protect their sources of oil (and their oil pipelines)?

A definite possibility. Such things should be of concern; however it is  important to remember that armed conflict between nations may have many causes, and we must be careful, if possible, not to oversimplify the nature of world tensions. This is difficult, of course, for a person who does not have access to adequate news sources, or does not understand the inadequacy of the news sources he generually uses, which is the case with far too many people. We must also understand that conflict between nations must not be viewed simply as an environmental question -- that is, that we should evaluate a possible outcome solely in terms of what it will allegedly do to the physical environment. Other serious issues also are at stake in conflicts, such as in the American Revolution, which was not about the environment primarily, but other things primarily. We need to remember that other values also exist, and must be carefully guarded. Narrow, inadequately informed thinking about such things may lead to much support of foolish policies.

[Atomic-S]

quote:...the burning of fossil fuels at current rates will result in rising sea levels that will flood half of Bangladesh within a century. A majority of atmospheric scientists believe that it will happen, and that our CO2 contribution will be the cause.

This may also encourage the growth of plants such as corn, which can then be fermented into ethanol.

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by Atomic-S

quote:Can we really expect to have developed safe, sustainable, cost-efficient, large scale nuclear fusion within that timescale?

Probably not. Nuclear fusion still remains largely in the realm of science fiction.

I suspect the answer is never.  It is rather like the search for immortality and eternal youth, it sounds nice, but is not there for the taking.

Sustainability is not dependent upon the source of our energy so much as confining our energy demands to that which can readily be replenished.  In the pre-industrial world, we were quite satisfied with taking wind and hydro power, but the human population was much smaller, and we were willing to accept lower standards of life (including lower life expectancy, spending several months on our travels, much less warmth in our houses, and tolerating the heat of tropical climates without air-conditioning).

The fact is that evolution (not merely human nature, for humans are merely a child of evolution) is greedy; so as we learnt to utilise ever more energy to our benefit, we exceeded that which could be replenished in the same timescale.  What we have done with energy, we did with land usage before, and food supplies before that.  Ofcourse, to a substantial extent, the application of energy was actually utilised to mitigate limitations of space and food (intensive farming, and high density housing, are all energy greedy).

As I said, in the past we were quite happy to utilise small amounts of wind and hydro power.  Then people started to scale up hydro power (just as they earlier scaled up the small amount of coal and mineral oil that had always been burnt), and suddenly hydro power was seen as environmentally damaging.  We are only just beginning to scale up wind power, and although the controversy is only just beginning, I would fully imagine that as the developments continue to expand, the negative aspects of extensive wind power usage will become ever more apparent.  The same is true, no matter which energy source one uses – if one scales it up, you will have to accept the problems it will bring.  The notion that you can gain any advantage without having to pay a price somewhere is just foolish.

I am extremely dubious that large scale nuclear fusion will ever be 'safe' in any absolute sense.  I am not saying that it is not a worthwhile goal, only that people at present seem only to be stary eyed about the potential benefit, but have yet to find the downside (the only reason why people are so afraid of fission power is because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – before then, all the attributes of nuclear research were seen as positive, and radioactivity was seen as a positive advancement that came without risk).

Maybe it is a necessary part of human nature that we should always dream of a utopia tomorrow, and when we then become disillusioned by the imperfections of our instruments of a utopian world, we then turn on them and call them the devils creations.  They are neither of these things, and tomorrows creations will be no different; it will neither be the answer to all of our prayers, nor as demonic as we will portray it as being when we have become disillusioned with the technology.

quote:

quote:And will we really be able to develop alternative materials to the plastics, lubricants, etc. that currently come from oil?

We may not have to. For these things we might rely upon vegetative crops, which can form the starting material for many organic chemicals.

I don't see crops as being the answer to everything, or even the answer to most things.  Crops are very inefficient at producing single products because they need to create such a complex mix of products, so unless you have a need for that complex mix, then they are inevitably inefficient.  There may be some benefit if you can create crops that will supply a whole range of raw materials at once, but if you are looking to extract only one major product, and discard the rest, then it is inefficient.

More seriously, crops are very inefficient in their usage of land, which is a very scarce resource.

The major advantage to crops is that they are relatively well understood, and the technology for growing them is well established.  All we are using crops to do (from and industrial perspective) is to absorb solar energy, and utilise it to extract carbon from CO2.  In the long term it would make much more sense to do this directly; whether using solar, nuclear, or other energy sources, to develop industrial technologies to extract carbon directly from CO2 and convert it into industrially usable substances.

quote:

quote:3. Which will be worse – the situation after we’ve run out, or the changes that will happen on the way to running out? I think the human race will find a way to manage without oil eventually.

We may not  have to.

All things come to and end some day.  Whatever technology we use, today, yesterday, or tomorrow; it is naïve to believe that the technology will last us in perpetuity.

George

[Atomic-S]

quote:I don't see crops as being the answer to everything, or even the answer to most things. Crops are very inefficient at producing single products because they need to create such a complex mix of products, so unless you have a need for that complex mix, then they are inevitably inefficient. There may be some benefit if you can create crops that will supply a whole range of raw materials at once, but if you are looking to extract only one major product, and discard the rest, then it is inefficient.

I was thinking of crops serving as a general-purpose feedstock for the chemical industry, much as petroleum now does. Mow down an entire field of corn, feed the whole thing into a chemical process, which forms the base for subsequent conversion into innumerable chemicals. Such a use seems to me efficient.

quote:All we are using crops to do (from and industrial perspective) is to absorb solar energy, and utilise it to extract carbon from CO2. In the long term it would make much more sense to do this directly; whether using solar, nuclear, or other energy sources, to develop industrial technologies to extract carbon directly from CO2 and convert it into industrially usable substances.

Well, with crops you don't need (to a first approximation) the other energy sources discussed; although admittedly some other technology for extracting carbon from the atmosphere may occupy far less land. Be that as it may, have you any idea how the latter might be accomplished?