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Maybe. I just wouldn't count on it being average power without definitive knowledge that it is.
However Solar panels and projects are rated on what they are likely to produce (I don't know if wind is rated the same way). A 1 Gw solar system (LOL) doesn't mean that it produces 1 Gw in the unlikely event that the sun shines 24 hours a day. It means that in the area where it will be installed, taking into account the prevailing weather patterns, this system is likely to produce 1 Gw.
Maybe. I just wouldn't count on it being average power without definitive knowledge that it is.
That's cool, although, it really doesn't matter. The whole point of bringing that up was to show that China is focusing heavily on renewable energy and will likely surpass us next year in generating capacity. As to your Coal plant suggestion, Thermal energy (burning stuff) has been by a pretty big amount as a % of their entire generating abilities. Most recently it dropped by 1.5% last year (still solidly number 1 at about 74%).
Ok. We have that agreed-on assumption/concept.
Now, we can move on to the general way in which finite resources are extracted.
Generally, the easiest to get at and closest sources of any given resource are the first exploited and exhausted. The most economical sources are used first.
Do you agree with and understand THIS?
Wind is rated in a similar fashion yes.
Sorry, I missed WC's earlier response, he has answered this, already.
So, we have agreed on the first two assumptions. I believe you have even acceded that the two concepts imply that we MUST switch over from oil to something else eventually.
You and Darrin both seem to think that humanity has no useful estimate as to how much oil there is left, and use that perceived lack of data as a reason to delay any action on this, deferring instead to the "free market" to determine when we switch over.
The obvious reposte to this, is to point out, as WC acknowledges, that over time, the efficiency of oil as a resource will go down. This WILL make it more costly as time goes by, whether we know how much oil is left or not.
Now I will ask a rather important question that goes to the heart of the course of action that you are advocating Wild Cobra, i.e. do nothing.
Have government subsidies "incubated" industrial sectors and businesses that today require no subsidies and are profitable in the free market?
Absolutely.
Bottom line, yes, oil will get more expensive as time goes by. We really cannot predict by how much, over what timeframe. The energy companies have better knowledge on this, as insiders.
Again, Energy companies will focus on what is most profitable. When they see other means as being profitable, they will go down that path.
I will contend that accelerating this unnaturally will just give us higher prices, faster, and unnecessarily.
I assume some exist, but I couldn't name them.
Corn no longer needs subsidies, but that's because gasoline is now required to contain 10% ethanol. Not exactly a free market thing.
Some might disagree considering a tank of gasoline will burn longer than one with ethanol added. Ethanol increases the rate of use, and, thus, sales. I agree consumers didn't clamor to have ethanol+gas foisted upon them, but the people who marketed the idea were certainly happy to get it through.
The US' dominance in the areospace industry, boeing, lockheed, etc. stems from the same kinds of government investments, creating long-standing compe ive advantages.
The Chinese government is subsidizing its renewable sector, and indeed they are now licensing some technology to US, not the other way around, as the article I posted earlier in the thread notes.
Do you accede that it is indeed possible for governments to kick-start profitable companies and sectors?
I was limiting myself to our economy. Now if you wish to live under laws like the UAE, or China has, by all means, move.
p.s.
Government investments are not truly subsidies. Corporations might get seed money to develop a needed specified product, but after that, the money is earned.
So you do admit it is possible for governments to kick-start profitable companies and sectors?
I gave you at least two sectors of the US economy started that way.
So I think what we have here is pretty much a meeting of the minds:
We both understand that the energy efficiency of oil WILL fall.
We both understand what that generally means for other energy sources.
I don't think WC can make an effective case stating that governments never successfully incubate profitable industries and companies. There are concrete examples both in the US and abroad.
This leaves a few things unsettled:
1) How much oil is left. I will, this evening, flesh this out. From the data that can be gathered, we have a fair idea of how much oil is left that can be recovered.
2) What will happen as oil becomes less and less efficient as an energy source. I have, in other threads posted some guesses as to what that means, I can do so again.
3) What to do, given the above information.
Yes, it is possible. But only when it is a product that is new, and there is a demand for.
What is the government helping to develop what there isn't already investment capital for, that will carry a free market demand? What worth is it afterward without a free market demand?
I do agree.
My point is that corporate money is already there in most cases. There is no need to waste government money on what venture capitalists will do.
No, we only have an accurate assessment at what the minimum is. We haven't a clue what the maximum is.
Then as the price of energy from oil costs more, alternates like natural gas, hydrogen, electricity, etc. for transportation will become more attractive to invest in, and produce.
Let the free market work.
Hyrogen is not a form of energy. It is a form of energy storage.
We have a pretty good idea what the maximum will be, and we are pretty certain that long before we tap out the last barrel, it will have outlived its economic usefulness.
I am all for letting the free market work.
I am also all for giving our renewable sector a head start in terms of scaling up and R & D investment.
If we don't give that sector a head start, and other countries do, that will put us at a distinct compe ive disadvantage. Both Europe and China have started to make some solid investments.
Are you saying that we should just let them get a compe ive advantage?
So is methane, oil, gasoline, etc. in the chemistry view of things. We can easily make hydrogen using energy. However, it also occurs naturally like the others do. Do you really think that distinction matters?
You and I disagree there. So do others.
Who is this "we" in this case? Environmentalists? Politicians? Scaremongers?
I sure hope so.
I think the head start is accomplished. No more is needed unless you are one who wants the government to pick which companies to give a head start over others. I don't know about you, but I feel it is very anti-American to let the government pick winners and losers.
China has an ever-growing pot of money to work with. Europe taxes the out of petro. It is cost effective for them to do so. We have plenty of innovation happening already. There is a facility in Eugene Oregon that plans to put in a production facility for making solar cells, for the demand there already is.
We have the technology. That is not the problem. No head starts are needed. We just need the demand.
I'm saying you are 100% wrong about that aspect.
Petroleum engineers, the oil companies themselves, independent analysts.
There are some who have taken the analysis and created nightmare, Malthusian scenarios, but the data and estimations concerning the range on how much oil is out there have given us a pretty good scientific estimate.
There are indeed some politically motivated reports of reserves, yes, but those concern comical overinflation of reserves on the part of OPEC members with no engineering basis in reality.
If you head to places like the OilDrum and others, they invariably simply aggregate the best available engineering data to see where that leads.
The bottom line is, yes, we have a pretty good idea. We don't know to the last exact barrel, but we don't need to in order to make good decisions.
If you disagree, then find some data that supports Darrins claim of it being 'equally possible' that there is 500 years worth of oil out there.
If not, then you simply have to acknowledge that the data shows we are very likely on the plateau and downward slope of a predictable production curve.
If you fail to acknowledge that, then you have failed to consider the problem in a logical manner, and we can finish the discussion on that note.
As for the rest of this:
Other governments are doing exactly that: picking winners and losers, because they have made the same deductions about energy that we have made here.
Other governments are not so slavishly devoted to the free market that they won't give their companies and industries the exact head start I am talking about here.
So you are, in essence, saying that your principles are more important than US compe iveness.
That is all well and good, but I would prefer US jobs over your principles. I don't think we should let that sector of our economy languish until the problem is painfully obvious to you.
Yes, it's pointless to continue. The maximum is impossible to estimate when it is such a minuscule percentage of the earths crust. Anyone who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke up your ass. It defies sound scientific methodology to say we are on the right side of the hubbard curve.
That doesn't make it right.
No more of a head start is needed. these corporation do keep up technologically. What makes you think they don't understand it's in their best interest? Those who don't, those who want to suck the government teat, don't deserve to survive. they can develop with their own finds, or die with only old technology.
No, I am saying that you are wrong. I am saying the compe iveness is alive and well. What destroys it is governmental interference, picking the winners and losers. It takes out the compe ion of development.
Absolutely a wrong conclusion of what would happen.
So you are both more of an expert on climate science than those who have PhDs in the discipline, and more of an expert on petroleum engineering and geology than people with PhD's in the discipline whose job it is to know.
Impressive.
I guess we can quit, because if you said it, it must be true. I am defeated.
Well played, sir. I have no reposte to "nyah, nyah, nyah".
The distinction matters because it shows your conceptual framework regarding energy is flawed.Originally Posted by RandomGuy
Hyrogen is not a form of energy. It is a form of energy storage.
The distinction being that hydrogen itself is not present in its elemental, usable form in any usable quan y.
For hydrogen to be useful in a mechanical/chemical sense requires energy. As a chemist, you are familiar with the concepts of energy of activation, enthalpy, and so forth that are measures of how energy used/released in chemical processes.
In this case it takes MORE energy to make hydrogen than you get out of burning it.
That energy must come from SOMEWHERE.
That is decidedly different than oil/methane, etc. Those provide a net amount of useful energy, even after the extraction and refining processes.
Those are true sources of useful energy and, as we have discussed and agreed on here, they have varying degrees of net usable energy per extracted unit. We have also agreed that the efficiency of those sources will fall, as opposed to renewables that will, over time, rise in efficiency.
You know better. That's just a cheap excuse to focus on an angle that isn't important on this discussion. It only matters to know that it takes energy to create it. The semantics are less important, Chump.
True, but it is still a fuel. We are talking about energy and fuel, right? The fact that we have to make it doesn't matter. We make ethanol and methanol as well.
This is not the argument to focus on.
Have you missed the numerous time I have pointed that out?
That's true with anything we make, including ethanol and methanol.
Duh...
You know I know this. Thinl you're showing off to your fan club or something?
Except that ethanol, methanol, and hydrogen can use solar energy as their primary energy input. All the energy necessary to create these can come from the sun. It's just too costly right now.
What is the pint of all this rambling anyway? Like to see yourself type?
This pisses me off. It pisses me off because you should know I already know all this.
Again, what is the point of this rambling? Just because I'm willing to call hydrogen a fuel?
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