Aceshardware

P-M · Joined: 06 Sep 2007 Posts: 68

As many opinions as there is swearwords at the pump, isnt this the sign to come?

In Sweden people actually believe that brazilian ethanol will replace gasoline and diesel fuel..Current numbers put ethanol at about 10% of all cars in Sweden, and with this ethanol has gotten expensive in Brazil so they use more petrol instead..

When will there be a replacement that is as free as oil and as energetic?

My only hope is for fusion power to succeed, go ITER! BTW I am probably moving to France soon, my third language..Better pack my white flag :)

foo · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 116

a thing to consider when thinking fusion (or let just say "free power" or any sort) is cooling
you can have all the the "free energy" in the universe, but you also have to develop ways to vent the heat generate

of course, by the time we get fusion to work we might have the techinical capability to attach giant heatsinks to this planet ;-)

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 419

Whats the problem with cooling ? Surely the energy humans use is completely peanuts and statistically irrelevant compared to what the sun radiates ?

From Wikipedia:

In 2005, total worldwide energy consumption was 500 EJ (= 5 x 1020 J) [..] This is equivalent to 15 TW

that is 15x10E12W or 1.5x10E13 W, agreed?

Most of the world energy resources are from the sun's rays hitting earth - [..] For the whole Earth, with a cross section of 127,400,000 km², the power is 1.740×10E17 W

So there seems to about 4 orders of magnitude difference between what we consume right now and what the sun brings in. I doubt that would do much to warm our planet if we had "free" energy

The problem I see with fusion is just that its not likely to happen in our lifetimes, and quite possibly not in that of our children or grandchildren. Would love to be wrong though.

foo · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 116

how much of the energy from the sun hitting the earth actually makes it to the surface?
also, what is earth's capacity to cool?

Johan · Joined: 23 Jul 2007 Posts: 128 Location: Belgium

P-M wrote:

As many opinions as there is swearwords at the pump, isnt this the sign to come?

In Sweden people actually believe that brazilian ethanol will replace gasoline and diesel fuel..Current numbers put ethanol at about 10% of all cars in Sweden, and with this ethanol has gotten expensive in Brazil so they use more petrol instead..

When will there be a replacement that is as free as oil and as energetic?

My only hope is for fusion power to succeed, go ITER! BTW I am probably moving to France soon, my third language..Better pack my white flag :)

Fusion is still decades away. Brazilian Ethanol is just a recipe for disaster. To make so much fuel the whole Amazon wood is going to be replaced by a monoculture of corn or something.

What about a combination of more windenergy, and Li IOn batteries in our cars?

Kej · Joined: 28 Jun 2007 Posts: 11 Location: Sweden

foo wrote:

how much of the energy from the sun hitting the earth actually makes it to the surface?
also, what is earth's capacity to cool?

This picture is one that given me a rather good understanding of the mechanism involved.

Source: Climateprediction.net

The "Climate Basics" on this site is well worth reading.

Johan · Joined: 23 Jul 2007 Posts: 128 Location: Belgium

P-M wrote:

As many opinions as there is swearwords at the pump, isnt this the sign to come?

In a way, it is wonderful. People will stop wasting oil and think twice. Just a weird example: people in Europe drinking water that is transported from the Fiji Islands. That is >10.000 miles of transport for something that you can get from a source a few miles away.

Here is to hoping that governments will not react by pumping billions of dollars to ease the pain (heavy tax cuts), but instead invest in research to decrease the dependence on oil.

But the unfortunately one of the most likely things to happen is that they will turn to the same old technology used with decent success in WWII. IIRC most of the oil of Germans was extracted out of coal.

EduardoS · Joined: 22 Mar 2008 Posts: 75

Johan wrote:

Fusion is still decades away. Brazilian Ethanol is just a recipe for disaster. To make so much fuel the whole Amazon wood is going to be replaced by a monoculture of corn or something.

1) It's sugar cane, not corn.

2) The land used is very small, about 1% of arable land, 0.5% of total land.

3) There is no monoculture of sugar cane at Amazon at all.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

Johan wrote:

What about a combination of more windenergy, and Li IOn batteries in our cars?

Li Ion batteries are too heavy, try fuel cells.

cornelius785 · Joined: 23 Jul 2007 Posts: 68

I'm leaing towards fuel cells. Fueling a car with something like hydrogen seems like it would be a lot faster than recharging batteries. I'm not that familiar with battery technologies, but I'm fairly certain batteries take a long time to charge if you want a charge that last long. I'd be interested in the size comparison between the 2 systems.

Setting up a hydrogen (or whatever it ends up being) infrastructure could be take a long time and be very costly. There are still many things to be solved still.

P4man · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 419

EduardoS wrote:

1) It's sugar cane, not corn.

2) The land used is very small, about 1% of arable land, 0.5% of total land.

I tried looking up some figures. I came across this PDF, which I havent read yet, but will:
http://cei.org/pdf/5774.pdf

In 2006 in Brazil, 5 million ha were used to produce sugercane.

Then, from Wikipedia: "In 2005, Brazil consumed 2,000,000 barrels of oil per day, versus 280,000 barrels of ethanol"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

So it appears for Brazil, you'd roughly need 40 million ha of land use devoted to sugercane to replace oil, assuming you could completely replace oil (which you cant) and assuming constant energy consumption -which is not likely either.

The Brazilian Amazon rainforest is 550 million ha, so that is not exactly neglectable.

Mind you, we are talking about Brazil *only*, which doesn't have a dense population. And with oil prices reaching $150 per barrel, you can bet Brazilian farmers will be enticed to produce and export (much) more. Meanwhile we need to feed evermore people, so we need more land as it is for agriculture. Its no miracle rice, sugar and other basic food prices are going through the roof.
http://tfc-charts.w2d.com/chart/RI/M
I'm not claiming bio ethanol is THE cause, but it certainly isn't helping. And its not helping the rainforest either (which in turn is not helping climate change, which in turn is not helping food production -ask the Australians- and the circle is somewhat round).

EduardoS · Joined: 22 Mar 2008 Posts: 75

P4man wrote:

I tried looking up some figures. I came across this PDF, which I havent read yet, but will:
http://cei.org/pdf/5774.pdf

In 2006 in Brazil, 5 million ha were used to produce sugercane.

Then, from Wikipedia: "In 2005, Brazil consumed 2,000,000 barrels of oil per day, versus 280,000 barrels of ethanol"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

If all wikipedia numbers are correct it's not really critical:
280,000 barrels = 11,760,000 U.S. Gallons
2,000,000 barrels = 84,000,000 U.S. Gallons
Production: 5,019,200,000 U.S. Gallons

P4man wrote:

So it appears for Brazil, you'd roughly need 40 million ha of land use devoted to sugercane to replace oil, assuming you could completely replace oil (which you cant) and assuming constant energy consumption -which is not likely either.

Not that big, there are 355 million ha of arable land in Brazil, and it's not likely someone really need so much area.

P4man wrote:

The Brazilian Amazon rainforest is 550 million ha, so that is not exactly neglectable.

And not arable and not suitable for sugar cane, there is no sugar cane at Amazon and won't be. The soil isn't for sugar cane (and for most monocultures).

P4man wrote:

Mind you, we are talking about Brazil *only*, which doesn't have a dense population. And with oil prices reaching $150 per barrel, you can bet Brazilian farmers will be enticed to produce and export (much) more. Meanwhile we need to feed evermore people, so we need more land as it is for agriculture. Its no miracle rice, sugar and other basic food prices are going through the roof.
http://tfc-charts.w2d.com/chart/RI/M
I'm not claiming bio ethanol is THE cause, but it certainly isn't helping. And its not helping the rainforest either (which in turn is not helping climate change, which in turn is not helping food production -ask the Australians- and the circle is somewhat round).

The area used to produce ethanol is very small and unlikely to make food prices higher, but I can tell you another reason for such growth, the Brazillian president extended the "Bolsa Família" program wich helped to reduce proverty, as a side effect many rural workers who was getting less than US$1 per day now don't work for less than US$10 per day increasing the production cost of many products, and the price of the food... How to solve this problem?

foo · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 116

Kej wrote:

foo wrote:

how much of the energy from the sun hitting the earth actually makes it to the surface?
also, what is earth's capacity to cool?

This picture is one that given me a rather good understanding of the mechanism involved.

Source: Climateprediction.net

The "Climate Basics" on this site is well worth reading.

very interesting schematic, one would have to double check the numbers of course, but (assuming they are correct) it gives you a nice visual overview
thnx for posting it

who? · Joined: 01 Sep 2007 Posts: 464

my opinion is very simple, Invest all you can in solar panels, and screw the petrol companies. There are now chinese companies producing 200W solar panels for 400Dollars, I saw them at computex. Let's hope the petrol guy don t buy them out, as BP and co did, to keep the price of the Solar cell too high.

I just purchased 15 of those panels. I will be running all my PCs out of Solar energy, youpi!

if you want the name of the Chinese company, email me, you all know my name (1stname.name@intel.com)

If we all do this, the Petrol B.....d will lose their power.

who?

martinw · Joined: 06 Sep 2007 Posts: 106

P-M wrote:

When will there be a replacement that is as free as oil and as energetic?

Hard to see what it could be. Oil is an almost perfect energy source, extremely energy dense, easy to extract and convert into useful form, liquid so ideal for transportation usage, and easy to convert into useful work. None of the alternatives have all these properties. A barrel of oil contains the same amount of energy as that generated by a human working for about 10 years. Even at $130 it's still an absolute bargain.

Each energy transition in the past has gone to a better quality form of fuel (wood->coal->oil.) I can't see the next one being a step up.

In terms of peak oil, well the evidence is beginning to pile up. Of course at some point any finite resource reaches a maximum of extraction and declines, the question is not if it will happen but when. Here's a pretty scary graph for anyone wondering when it will be for oil (current consumption is just over 300 billion barrels/decade):

The peak decade for oil discoveries was in the 60s, almost 50 years ago now, and it's been downhill ever since. Most of the big oilfields in the world have been producing for decades now, and new discoveries are relatively tiny in comparison. Most of the remaining reserves (>60%) are in the Middle East, but there is a high probability that most OPEC countries have artificially inflated their reserves, since at one point there was a move to tie production rates to reserves and suddenly everyone magically discovered they had much more oil than before. There is no independent monitoring or assessment of OPEC reserves - would you really trust their numbers?

A lot of major producers (US, UK, Norway, Mexico) are now in decline. Russia was for a long time one of the main sources of increased oil supply, growing significantly each year, but it has just begun to decline this year. Canadian conventional oil production is in decline and overall Canadian production is only going up due to tar sands production, probably the dirtiest and least efficient oil production in the world. If the oil companies had better options than that you could be sure they would be using them instead.

Meanwhile demand from China/India etc continues to grow rapidly. Even as the US finally dumps the gas guzzlers, car sales are up 17% this year in China:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/07/content_8323219.htm

so no net benefit there. And the big untold story is that the oil producers themselves are massively increasing their oil usage since they are now rolling in money and have young fast growing populations that expect everything to be available for them, and pay almost nothing for fuel.

The biggest problem is scale. Oil is such a huge industry that generates so much energy that it is hard to see an alternative ramping up to the required levels in time.

Uffe Merrild · Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 107 Location: Silkeborg, Denmark

Let's develop the algae based oil supply. There's also another option of growing water based salat stuff to extract biodiesel from. An airline company already ordered a gigantic automated production facility from the first (dutch) company. The efficiency is seven times higher than rapeseeds and it is easier to extract the oil from the plant.