I read a lovely tale the other day that I thought I would share and hopefully open up an interesting discussion. Imagine your car breaks down 30 miles from home and you have to get it back without any help from man or beast. It would take you about 3 months to push it home. This is the equivalent amount of human labour provided by one gallon of petrol. It made me stop and think. Millions of years to lay down these energy stores and less than 200 to use them all up. We really are getting to the stage where our children will be alive when the oil runs out. There are no viable alternatives to our use of fossil fuels. The technology simply doesn't exist. The debate about the end of fossil fuels is diverted by media and political focus on environmental damage. What do you think? Are there any steps we could take now to stop this calamity?
There are huge oil and gases deposits in Siberia and other sure that measures could be found that would mean that these resources could be extracted. Im sure i heard that there was over 200 years worth of coal deposits underground in the we have to put up with cheap nasty Columbian and Polish coal. O i forgot we cant damage the enviroment can hype that like all the people that died from SARs,Bird flu and now Swine flu.
Good Thread :thumbup: My first answer would be that for this country vast improvments needs to be made on the public transport network to make it a viable alternative to the car, that is in terms of both reliability and cost for example my local bus firm Arriva run a service called fastrack B, I see this bus almost on a daily basis with sometimes no passengers or very few, I have been told that a weekly bus ticket from Dartford to Gravesend in Kent is more than it costs to run a small car weekly ! Also for this country I think we need to change not only our engergy sources but the way in which we use energy for example the way in which we heat our water, the technology is there it is just expensive in this country, but look at Greece, Spain most villas use solar to heat the water, and I know they have more sunshine that us but the technology is there. Also our life styles, should we (and I do) put the kids in the garden/down the park/in the local woods more and off of the engery draining WII/PS3/DS, pc, blueray etc etc etc instead of hours in front of the tele? Dont use the tumble dryer on dry days put it on the washing line, I have a relative who is so lazy that rather put it on the line, easier to shove in the dryer. And last but not least the thing that has saved me a fortune over the last year or so in electricity bills....at night turn everthing off at the plug you dont use, the only thing i have left on is the fridge and freezer, nothing on standby at all. Reacher
There is no single alternative to oil. If there was, oil-less countries would be using it already. What there is is a range of energy-producing systems that, combined with energy-use-reducing technology and policies, will help us manage the medium and long-term future energy requirements of this planet. We need to explore loads of different methods and optimise any that look promising. What can we, as indivuduals, so? Make an effort. Stop using oil and oil-products like they are an infinite resource. Use more re-usable stuff. Apply reduce, reuse, recyle in THAT ORDER. Whether we are saving the planet or saving our cash - it pretty well comes down to the same thing. We need to stop wasting.
Quote by foxylady2209 There is no single alternative to oil. If there was, oil-less countries would be using it already. What there is is a range of energy-producing systems that, combined with energy-use-reducing technology and policies, will help us manage the medium and long-term future energy requirements of this planet. We need to explore loads of different methods and optimise any that look promising. What can we, as indivuduals, so? Make an effort. Stop using oil and oil-products like they are an infinite resource. Use more re-usable stuff. Apply reduce, reuse, recyle in THAT ORDER. Whether we are saving the planet or saving our cash - it pretty well comes down to the same thing. We need to stop wasting.
I don't know if it's true, but I do recall years ago some discussion about research on non oil based fuels like hydrogen cells being "bought off" by the oil companies to prevent them ever seeing the light of day and those researchers who didn't comply disappeared in mysterious circumstances. I'm convinced that the technology is there; maybe that's why the water companies are constantly putting their prices up
I've been aware of reports very similar to this for many years. Patents for everything from more efficient petroleum burning engines, to dual-fuel motors, and electric/hydrogen engines having thier patents purchased under pressure by the petrochemical companies and the motor industry. The Patents themselves then disapearing completely. I would hope that they may be still around and the industry is simply awaiting the most profitable time to release these technologies ... because they are nice like that. The ourchasing of those patents was also done under immense pressure... and indeed there are stories (posibly appocraphal) that the inventors/developers of thesepatents in the late sixties and early seventies even disappeared. We all know that there is far too much profit involved inthe petrochemical industry for them to release thier grip on what they can still wring-out for a couple more decades. All of the above of course relates to fuels, but the same can be said, I believe, about the materials we use, or rather the materials we are prescribed for use, by the very same industries: the petrochemical based plastics. These things are everywhere. And are as much a drain on our fossil fuels reserve as the fuels in our vehicles and machines. lp
I believe the great Hugo Rune invented an engine that ran on water but he and it were smuggled away to Father Christmas's underground kingdom in the 1930's. Im convinced its true, I read it in a book and I dont usually subscribe to conspiracy theories. Good point on the other ways we gobble up 400 million years worth of stored energy random. So it would appear that we either need a strategic energy management and production program or we sit back relaxed in the knowledge that we have the technology ready for when it all runs out. I favour the former option I think it will avoid an awful lot of hard times and terrible bloody wars.
Don't tell a soul- I might get "disappeared"...but here's my contribution It's unthinkable that cleaner, greener ways of powering cars haven't been thought of in the last few decades. I'm 100% with ROLP on this one- there's Skulduggery afoot. The developed world needs to stop consuming so fecking much. Look around you in a large supermarket- Imagine that scene- all that packaging, all that "stuff" multiplied by however many supermarkets there are in the UK- and then globally. How many varieties of crap food do we actually need? And don't even get me started with the fashion industry- and it's "must have's" Damn, how I hate that phrase. We are all going to perish in a puff of consumerism.
LOL witchy I will drive one of them as long as I can have a dinosaur pig waste disposal under the sink. Wanders off to invent artificial photosynthesis.
Firstly, there's a lot more fossil fuel than you think, when an oil well is "dry", there is still around 50% of it left, just that it's not profitable to extract with current methods. Then there are the vast as yet untapped reserves in polar regions, under the ocean, locked in shale etc etc. Having said that, I've been concerned about burning fossil fuel since my early teens, it's profligate and polluting. Electricity is only as clean/green as the method used to produce it, however, long term I feel we will switch to electric cars as an electric motor is around 80% efficient as opposed to the 25% or so for the internal combustion engine. Recent developments in battery technology mean that in 5 to 10 years we should be able to produce an electric vehicle with a range of about 200 miles which can be re-charged in around 5 minutes. Hydrogen fuel cells require hydrogen (obviously), which using current production methods consumes more fossil fuel in its production than existing petrol engines use, though by pumping steam into coal seams (ie, without having to mine it), the carbon stays where it is, and the yield is higher. This approach is just starting to be trialled. Atomic fission - which is what current power stations and atom bombs use, has an extremely high energy yield, but leaves a scary legacy of long half life radioactive waste. I first came across atomic fusion about 30 years ago, and it was touted as the great hope for endless energy, but it seems that we are still a few years away (and has been for the last 30 years), though there have been advances in recent years (fusion generates no long half life waste, in fact, the waste produced is more fuel and thus the process is self sustaining) I don't buy the whole oil companies stopping technology breakthroughs coming to market thing. Sure, they buy up patents, sure they probably sit on stuff, but if someone really has cracked the electrolysis of water with less energy than burning the resultant hydrogen and oxygen would yield (ie, giving a net energy gain), then you can bet your arse, someone else would have figured it out too and you can't patent scientific principles, only applications thereof - I could design a car that runs on water, but you'd need a power source to electrolyse the water - therein lies the rub. It occurs to me that the biggest single source of untapped energy available to the planet is geothermal. If you imagine the earth as an apple, the solid bit we live on is only as thick as an apple peel, the rest is semi-solid molten rock (SiAl, SiMa) under intense pressure at zillions of degrees centigrade. It only takes a few degrees of temperature difference to create a water based heat pump which can produce electricity - all you need to do is drill a hole deep enough. Some parts of the apple peel (earth's crust) are thinner than others, in fact the whole crust is fractured in places (tectonic plate boundaries), which is where we get volcanoes. In these places you don't have to drill so deep. As with all things, it's commerce (ie profit) that drives everything, and thus, sadly, I suspect we won't actually do that much about it until it becomes unprofitable to produce energy by existing methods. For what it's worth, my cars run on LPG, which is considered a waste product of oil extraction, so the rest of you running on diesel and petrol are driving the production of my fuel I'd like to say I do it for environmental reasons, but in truth it's the 40p a litre that's the main reason :)
Quote by easyrider_xxx Firstly, there's a lot more fossil fuel than you think, when an oil well is "dry", there is still around 50% of it left, just that it's not profitable to extract with current methods. Then there are the vast as yet untapped reserves in polar regions, under the ocean, locked in shale etc etc. Having said that, I've been concerned about burning fossil fuel since my early teens, it's profligate and polluting. Electricity is only as clean/green as the method used to produce it, however, long term I feel we will switch to electric cars as an electric motor is around 80% efficient as opposed to the 25% or so for the internal combustion engine. Recent developments in battery technology mean that in 5 to 10 years we should be able to produce an electric vehicle with a range of about 200 miles which can be re-charged in around 5 minutes. Hydrogen fuel cells require hydrogen (obviously), which using current production methods consumes more fossil fuel in its production than existing petrol engines use, though by pumping steam into coal seams (ie, without having to mine it), the carbon stays where it is, and the yield is higher. This approach is just starting to be trialled. Atomic fission - which is what current power stations and atom bombs use, has an extremely high energy yield, but leaves a scary legacy of long half life radioactive waste. I first came across atomic fusion about 30 years ago, and it was touted as the great hope for endless energy, but it seems that we are still a few years away (and has been for the last 30 years), though there have been advances in recent years (fusion generates no long half life waste, in fact, the waste produced is more fuel and thus the process is self sustaining) I don't buy the whole oil companies stopping technology breakthroughs coming to market thing. Sure, they buy up patents, sure they probably sit on stuff, but if someone really has cracked the electrolysis of water with less energy than burning the resultant hydrogen and oxygen would yield (ie, giving a net energy gain), then you can bet your arse, someone else would have figured it out too and you can't patent scientific principles, only applications thereof - I could design a car that runs on water, but you'd need a power source to electrolyse the water - therein lies the rub. It occurs to me that the biggest single source of untapped energy available to the planet is geothermal. If you imagine the earth as an apple, the solid bit we live on is only as thick as an apple peel, the rest is semi-solid molten rock (SiAl, SiMa) under intense pressure at zillions of degrees centigrade. It only takes a few degrees of temperature difference to create a water based heat pump which can produce electricity - all you need to do is drill a hole deep enough. Some parts of the apple peel (earth's crust) are thinner than others, in fact the whole crust is fractured in places (tectonic plate boundaries), which is where we get volcanoes. In these places you don't have to drill so deep. As with all things, it's commerce (ie profit) that drives everything, and thus, sadly, I suspect we won't actually do that much about it until it becomes unprofitable to produce energy by existing methods. For what it's worth, my cars run on LPG, which is considered a waste product of oil extraction, so the rest of you running on diesel and petrol are driving the production of my fuel I'd like to say I do it for environmental reasons, but in truth it's the 40p a litre that's the main reason :)
I like your research and reasoning in most of your post, but if you are so concerned about the use of fossil fuels etc, why do you have more than one car? LPG emits less carbon than petrol/diesel, but does make a contribution to the carbon footprint you leave on the planet
Quote by fluff_n_stuff Firstly, there's a lot more fossil fuel than you think, when an oil well is "dry", there is still around 50% of it left, just that it's not profitable to extract with current methods. Then there are the vast as yet untapped reserves in polar regions, under the ocean, locked in shale etc etc. Having said that, I've been concerned about burning fossil fuel since my early teens, it's profligate and polluting. Electricity is only as clean/green as the method used to produce it, however, long term I feel we will switch to electric cars as an electric motor is around 80% efficient as opposed to the 25% or so for the internal combustion engine. Recent developments in battery technology mean that in 5 to 10 years we should be able to produce an electric vehicle with a range of about 200 miles which can be re-charged in around 5 minutes. Hydrogen fuel cells require hydrogen (obviously), which using current production methods consumes more fossil fuel in its production than existing petrol engines use, though by pumping steam into coal seams (ie, without having to mine it), the carbon stays where it is, and the yield is higher. This approach is just starting to be trialled. Atomic fission - which is what current power stations and atom bombs use, has an extremely high energy yield, but leaves a scary legacy of long half life radioactive waste. I first came across atomic fusion about 30 years ago, and it was touted as the great hope for endless energy, but it seems that we are still a few years away (and has been for the last 30 years), though there have been advances in recent years (fusion generates no long half life waste, in fact, the waste produced is more fuel and thus the process is self sustaining) I don't buy the whole oil companies stopping technology breakthroughs coming to market thing. Sure, they buy up patents, sure they probably sit on stuff, but if someone really has cracked the electrolysis of water with less energy than burning the resultant hydrogen and oxygen would yield (ie, giving a net energy gain), then you can bet your arse, someone else would have figured it out too and you can't patent scientific principles, only applications thereof - I could design a car that runs on water, but you'd need a power source to electrolyse the water - therein lies the rub. It occurs to me that the biggest single source of untapped energy available to the planet is geothermal. If you imagine the earth as an apple, the solid bit we live on is only as thick as an apple peel, the rest is semi-solid molten rock (SiAl, SiMa) under intense pressure at zillions of degrees centigrade. It only takes a few degrees of temperature difference to create a water based heat pump which can produce electricity - all you need to do is drill a hole deep enough. Some parts of the apple peel (earth's crust) are thinner than others, in fact the whole crust is fractured in places (tectonic plate boundaries), which is where we get volcanoes. In these places you don't have to drill so deep. As with all things, it's commerce (ie profit) that drives everything, and thus, sadly, I suspect we won't actually do that much about it until it becomes unprofitable to produce energy by existing methods. For what it's worth, my cars run on LPG, which is considered a waste product of oil extraction, so the rest of you running on diesel and petrol are driving the production of my fuel I'd like to say I do it for environmental reasons, but in truth it's the 40p a litre that's the main reason :)
I like your research and reasoning in most of your post, but if you are so concerned about the use of fossil fuels etc, why do you have more than one car?LPG emits less carbon than petrol/diesel, but does make a contribution to the carbon footprint you leave on the planet This always baffles me. There will obviously be more energy used to produce car #2, car #3 etc. However, after that I'd use no more fuel if I had 12 cars than one. You can only drive one at a time! In fact, it can be quite sensible- and better for the environment to have more than one car. We have far flung rellies, and friends we visit on the continent. We use a 2l people carrier when we do so. For nipping around when there's only one/two/three of us, my smaller car does the job.
what witchy said I also have a motorbike (but sadly it's mothballed at the moment due to the budgetary constraints of being a full time student and I really should be getting on with my dissertation) But if I can, I walk or cycle (yes I have an MTB too - guess I'm just greedy). If I need to go into the city, I take the train (I get student discount :). In the winter I wear sweaters and woolly hat in the house (unless I've got company), all my lamps are cfl and have been for years, double glazed, double loft insulated, cavity wall insulated (and that's just my legs ) I bet my carbon footprint is among the smallest in the UK. BTW fluff, I just wrote my initial post off the top of my head - no special research, most of it came from O levels nearly 30 years ago - but I do keep a weather eye on developments :)
An afterthought/observation: Using LPG doesn't actually change one's carbon footprint much, it's still a hydrocarbon (C3H4 butane or C3H6 propane if my O level chemistry memories are correct), therefore when burned in air it gives H20 and CO2 - though the combustion process is about 15% more efficient than with petrol. The big difference is there is no measurable CO (carbon monoxide - nasty stuff), no nasty sulphurous or Nitrous compounds (even nastier) and no un-burned long chain hydrocarbons (carcinogenic and asthma triggers) - so yes, it's a lot cleaner, but not much difference in CO2 per mile. Don't get me started on the great CO2 and global warming myth!!
I think it's about time we got back to the old-days. Cars were powered by steam engines, which could perfectly well run on wood, straw or camel droppings. Far more carbon neutral. Better still, give us all the Citzen's Income mentioned on another thread and we won't have to travel to work at all. <<<<< Takes big wooden spoon to another thread for some more stirring. :giggle:
Quote by easyrider_xxx The big difference is there is no measurable CO (carbon monoxide - nasty stuff), no nasty sulphurous or Nitrous compounds (even nastier) and no un-burned long chain hydrocarbons (carcinogenic and asthma triggers) - so yes, it's a lot cleaner, but not much difference in CO2 per mile. Don't get me started on the great CO2 and global warming myth!!
Its a very important point that we have a certain percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere as that is the "fuel" for photosynthesis to take place. No phtosynthesis = no oxygen. For the other items, you are quite correct in your assessment of them being nasties. And our atmosphere would be far better off without them. The debate regarding running out of fossil fuels is just a myth. Oil does not come from dinosaurs, this is an incorrect statement and the amount we use is replenished each year by approx 1% of the total oil contained within the Earth. Oil fields were originally drained of approx 33% of their financially viable totals, new technology is being developed to bring about the collecton of the next 33% and future technology will bring about the extraction of the remainder...but see my point above about the replenishing of the existing oil fields, so they will never effectively run dry. Vehicles in the next 20 - 40 years will move away from oil based energy to electrical energy (hydrogen fuel cell technology) Honda have developed a car that does this and it is commercially viable (see top gear ) So the more we have of these cars the need to use fossil fuels for car power will diminish ipso facto the by-product of burning the fossil fuel will also diminish.
Ben, Oil comes from a process called biogenic synthesis and is practically infinite, since the earth will outlast humans, it is suffice to say it will outlast our need for it. Here are some facts for you:- Saudi Arabian oil reserves stand at 1.3 trillion barrels (though only 260 billion barrels is the declared amount)....net global consumption 30 billion barrels per year...even if you double our need for oil every 30 years as has been the past consumption for oil then we have 100 years left from just Saudi Arabia. There are 3.6 trillion barrels in the Orinoco delta, 6.3 trillion barrels in USA (though contained in oil shale, traditionally very very hard to extract but hey thats what technology is for) My concern is not with the running out of oil but the uneconomic way its latent energy is converted into useable energy...i.e. a lot of it is just wasted as heat and by product.
I always thought oil was like dead plankton and stuff all squashed up for a few million years and coal was trees that had done the same. Is that not right. Id still love to know where all this biogenic synthesis is going on. So if it takes millions of years and like you say we have used a third of it in a couple of hundred, wont we run out in about 400 years time? I cant see how we are going to catch up, can you explain?
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