World Without Oil

Discussion in 'Environment & Conservation' started by Taxcutter, Feb 20, 2012.

  1. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    People have been bleating about the end of oil ever since Col. Drake sank the first well in Pennsylvania. So far, that seems to be empty gloom and doom, but one would think logically oil will one day become too expensive to use as transportation fuel or residential heating fuel. Already it is too expensive for industrial purposes, electric power generation and commercial and institutional space heating.

    What would a world without oil and natural gas (an allied form of energy) look like?

    Let us posit:
    Time frame 2030-2050
    No new energy technologies are invented (no fusion, no workable batteries)
    No breakthroughs in wind, solar or utility-scale energy storage
    Biofuel (even algal biofuiel) does not work out on a mass scale
    Coal, uranium, and thorium are available for the foreseeable future
    The US has the good sense to develop use of coal, waste-to-energy, uranium, and thorium


    Fortunately for the futurist, we have a past example of a oil-free world – that of 1850. We need only fine tune the picture.

    First and foremost, America will have to build a lot of nuclear (uranium and thorium) and coal-fired power plants between now and then. Most of this (beyond replacement of old plants) is to provide electricity to drive heat pumps to replace natural gas for residential, commercial, and institutional space heating and to provide electricity for a revised transportation system.

    South of the Potomac and Ohio rivers, heat pumps work OK. North of there they are on supplemental heat for a large part of the year. In addition people (particularly women) dislike heat pumps because they produce 94 degree supply air where a gas furnace gives you 104 degree air. That ten degree difference is the difference between a house that feels cold and one that feels cozy. Don’t even think of Jimmy Carter’s goofy sweater. So we’ll need some solid fuel to supplement the heat pump. Coal or wood. Since you cannot load up residential heating equipment with end-of-pipe emission controls without driving the price beyond what people can pay, you’ll wind up with smoky cities in the wintertime.

    Transportation will change drastically. Cars and trucks will become what they were in 1900. Short-range vehicles. People and goods will get around on trains and ships. Air travel will be for George Soros and Al Gore types only. Jet fuel will be made from coal using an updated Fischer-Tropsch process. The least painful change will be to transition from over-the-road trucks to containized freight. This process is already in progress. Everyday the container-handling facilities become more efficient and the break-even distance for rail gets shorter and shorter. There will be an end point for that process as rails just don’t lend themselves to door-to-door deliveries for any but the biggest shippers and receivers. There will simply be more and more container handling facilities to bring the rail-truck interface to more areas.

    The railroad mainlines will be electrified as will the Interstate highways. This is old tech and works well once you get by the high capital cost. Road vehicles (powered by Fischer-Tropsch fuel made from coal or solid waste) will move people and good locally.

    Riverine and seagoing vessels will revert to coal-fired steam engines. Waterborne transportation will garner even more of a cost advantage over rail (and road) transportation, particularly for bulk commodities. River and seaport towns will experience a revival.

    The high cost of transportation would cause a massive shift in land use. Cities would become more viable. Foolish brownfields regulations will be thrown out and businesses will begin moving back into the cities. Cities will invert like many Third world cities. Think Manila. The rich will live closest in, then the middle class. Then the working class. The (currently) urban poor will be relegated to decaying Leavittowns and isolated trailer parks out in the boonies.

    The big problem will be in agriculture. Modern efficient agriculture needs a lot of diesel fuel. Some of this can be electrified or converted to coal, but a tractor or combine with a long extension cord isn’t gonna fly. Combined with the cost of transportation, food will get real expensive. As always, the poor will take this in the chops. Vast tracts of Africa and Asia will face chronic famine.

    Enviro-wackos fervently wish for a world without oil, but such a world would be expensive, hungry, and much dirtier than today.
     
  2. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    What about the environmentalist ideal, not only no oil, nothing but renewable energy.

    Trains would only run in the day time, on Stirling, or steam engines powered by focused sunlight. Power would need to be stored to climb hills.

    Ships, would revert to sail power.

    Cars could be electric powered. That requires stored energy, to charge the car (unless employers provide charging stations), and to power the car.

    No aircraft.

    Productivity would fall off substantially. Reduced production of food, would reduce population back to 1, at most 2, billion.

    But, that assumes MMGW is only caused by fossil fuels. 3000 years ago farmers in Africa killed off large portions of the rain forest. Easter Island, and the Navajo ruins, show that settlements of man harm the earth.

    The only way man can live in "harmony with nature" requires human populations to be limited to hunter gathers.
     
  3. MannieD

    MannieD New Member

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    Wow! A whole thread based on the strawman argument that proponents of AGW want to do away with the use of oil. Tell me, do we also want to do away with the use of coal? :roll:

    BTW, do me a favor and link to a quote where any of us suggest want to do away with the use of oil or coal!
     
  4. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    Negative.

    My scenario posits that the notion of "peak oil" is correct.


    Not Amused's scenario is the seventeenth century scenario of zero fossil fuel, rather than now latter-day "mid-nineteenth century" scenario.

    Back to a time when human life was short, nasty, and brutish.
     
  5. livefree

    livefree Banned

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    Your assumptions are absurd, your knowledge of this whole matter appears to be miniscule at best and mostly wrong anyway, and your conclusions are hilariously ridiculous. Your rejection of the scientific reality of CO2 driven global warming makes everything you say sound pretty insane and very out of touch with reality. Coal is about the worst possible, most polluting source of energy in use and the first one that absolutely needs to be phased out.

    Non-polluting, renewable energy sources are the inevitable wave of the future, unless we develop cheap fusion power or something unexpected.

    Cost of Solar Power Competitive with Coal Some Places, & Dropping Fast
    April 7, 2011
    (excerpts)

    At Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s annual conference in New York this week, industry executives and representatives indicated that solar power installations are going to continue growing rapidly and the cost of solar, which may soon be competitive with the cost of coal in general, is low enough in some regions that it is already competing with coal. “Large photovoltaic projects will cost $1.45 a watt to build by 2020, half the current price,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported. However, already, in sunny regions like the Middle East and California, “solar is viable against fossil fuels on the electric grid.”

    “We are already in this phase change and are very close to grid parity,” Shawn Qu, chief executive officer of Canadian Solar Inc. (CSIQ), said. “In many markets, solar is already competitive with peak electricity prices, such as in California and Japan.” "Comparisons often overstate the costs of solar because they may take into account the prices paid by consumers and small businesses who install roof-top power systems, instead of the rates utilities charge each other", said Qu of Canadian Solar. “Solar isn’t expensive,” he said “In many areas of the solar industry you’re competing with retail power, not wholesale power.”

    Better technology and more streamlined manufacturing processes are consistently bringing the cost of solar down and increasing solar installations and growth. “The most powerful driver in our industry is the relentless reduction of cost,” Michael Liebreich, chief executive officer of New Energy Finance, said at the New York conference yesterday. “In a decade the cost of solar projects is going to halve again.” Solar manufacturing capacity has nearly quadrupled since 2008 and it is expected to double by 2013 (from 18.6 gigawatts in 2010 to 32.6 gigawatts by 2013). “System costs have declined 5 percent to 8 percent (a year), and we will continue to see that,” SolarCity Inc. CEO Lyndon Rive said.



    Wind power now competitive with coal in some regions
    8 Feb 2011
    (excerpts)

    More good news on the renewable energy front Monday: The cost of onshore wind power has dropped to record lows, and in some regions is competitive with electricity generated by coal-fired plants, according to a survey by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a market research firm. “The latest edition of our Wind Turbine Price Index shows wind continuing to become a competitive source of large-scale power,” Michael Liebreich, Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s chief executive, said in a statement. “For the past few years, wind turbine costs went up due to rising demand around the world and the increasing price of steel,” he added. “Behind the scenes, wind manufacturers were reducing their costs, and now we are seeing just how cheap wind energy can be when overcapacity in the supply chain works its way through to developers.”

    In some regions of Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, and the United States, the cost of electricity generated by wind farms is on par with coal-fired power, the report said. In those areas, the cost of wind-generated electricity is $68 per megawatt-hour compared to $67 a megawatt-hour for coal power and $56 per megawatt-hour for natural gas.
     
  6. MannieD

    MannieD New Member

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    But your claim "Enviro-wackos fervently wish for a world without oil, " has nothing to do with your scenario. Your claim is a lie and I request that you back up your claim or admit you are lying.
     
  7. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    Over and above the intermittent production issue, it appears that is what is killing wind and solar is that they require a LOT of maintenance.

    Solar equipment has to be kept clean - quite a job when you consider the area involved - or it becomes inefficient. Just heating up the dust. Maintaining the machinery in a wind turbine nacelle four hundred feet up requires a bona fide daredevil. Daredevils don't work cheap.
     
  8. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    After the wind and solar facilities go through a couple of cycles of bankruptcy and being sold at fire-sale prices, they may become economically viable - if you can economically maintain them.

    Typically assets sold in bankruptcy sales go for about twelve cents on the dollar. 0.12 x 0.12 = 0.0144. 1.44% of five million dollars is about $72,000. Debt service on 72 grand should be fairly easy to handle.
     
  9. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    What do you think a world without petroleum or natural gas would look like?

    Following up, what would a world without fossil fuel look like?
     
  10. Not Amused

    Not Amused New Member

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    Lies? You want CO2 neutral fuels.

    There are no good ways to store energy for transportation with near the energy density of carbon and hydrocarbons.

    Withour a hydrocarbon fuel, airplanes cannot fly, and cars are limited to short range.

    Without a carbon based fuel, trains and ships are limited by solar and wind power (or nuclear power - yeah, that's going to happen).

    Show me a viable, CO2 neutral, alternative for oil and coal, suitable for transportation.
     
  11. livefree

    livefree Banned

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    Pretty much everything you post seems to be clueless nonsense.

    First off, nothing is "killing wind and solar". That's one of the retarded myths of your cult of AGW denial. Solar and wind energy sources are multiplying rapidly and dropping in cost every year.

    Secondly, talking about the operation and maintenance costs of solar and wind is meaningless unless you compare them to the O&M of fossil fuel plants.

    There are 'fixed' O&M costs, which cover just the maintenance of the equipment, and what they call the 'variable' O&M costs, which include the fuel that the power plant consumes. Fixed maintenance costs of wind and solar are estimated to be about 9.6 dollars and 12.1 dollars respectively per megawatt/hr of power produced while the fixed O&M for modern coal plants with scrubbers is only about 9.2 dollars per megawatt/hr. However when you add the 'variable' O&M, including fuel, which amounts to about 33.1 dollars per megawatt/hr for coal, the coal plants total O&M rises to 42.3 dollars per megawatt/hr and the wind power farms and solar energy plants' O&M costs stay at about 9.6 and 12.1 because they have zero fuel costs.

    source:
    Cost of electricity by source
    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
     
  12. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    If wind & solar really were so economical, why have tens of thousands of generating units been abandoned in place?
     
  13. MannieD

    MannieD New Member

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    'tens of thousands"? :roll:
     
  14. livefree

    livefree Banned

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    Complete nonsense. Solar and wind power production equipment is not being "abandoned in place". This unsupported claim seems to be one of the new retarded, pro-oil myths of your deranged little cult of AGW denial.

    In reality, solar and wind power production is expanding at an pretty fast rate that is increasing every year.
     
  15. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    I posted pictures and links. Tens of thousands - mostly wind turbines in places that should be outstanding sites - sitting there broken down from neglect.
     
  16. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    So what does your world without oil look like?
     
  17. YukonBloamie

    YukonBloamie Banned

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    Solar and Wind energy have a small radius of influence.

    Without petroleum there's no plastics or rubber.
     
  18. livefree

    livefree Banned

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    Nobody is objecting to the use of petroleum to make plastics and rubber. It is the burning of petroleum and the consequent release into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide that is the problem.
     
  19. alaskan_sol

    alaskan_sol Member

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    Hydrocarbons are an inevitable byproduct of existence. The use of it was destined to be due to its sheer abundance. Making this question almost irrelevant if not unanswerable.

    But if I was to try to venture a guess. We probably would of been doing alright. Mankind is naturally driven to improve himself and his environment. We are smart and clever enough to have figured out all kinds of different ways to spin the magnet. The Industrial revolution was turbo charged by Oil, but it didn't start with it

    What about plastics and polymers? Well even Ford was using corn/soy based plastics in his Model T. The decision by Ford on which plastic to use (petrol or bio) was purely an economical decision until the oil boom hit ushering in the permanent use of oil based composites.

    The use of oil has no doubt accelerated mankind's dominance, improving the lives of millions of Americans and spawning the birth of billions of people throughout the World. So I can understand why so many people worship it on the same level as Jesus Christ.
     
  20. MannieD

    MannieD New Member

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    "tens of thousands"???? :roll:
     
  21. livefree

    livefree Banned

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    Just more of the usual rightwingnut spin, lies, and misinformation designed to keep people misinformed about renewables and support the continued use of fossil fuels. Speaking of fossil fuels, guess which major industry's propaganda people are pumping this idiotic anti-renewable dreck into taxcutter's head?

    Apparently some oil corp stooge working at a rightwingnut rag called 'The American Thinker' published an article trashing wind power and pointing at the 37 unit Kamaoa wind farm in Hawaii that had been retired when newer equipment came on line. The new turbines produce more than twice as much power as the old ones with only a little over a third as many turbines.

    The figure — 14,000 dead wind turbines — comes from Andrew Walden of the American Thinker in his report on the demise of a wind farm at Kamaoa, Hawaii.

    The real story is, of course, very different from the fossil fuel industry stooge's BS.

    Pakini Nui Wind Farm
    (excerpts)

    Apollo Energy Corporation purchased and repowered the retired Kamaoa Wind Farm which began commercial operation in 1987. Apollo kept the 37 windmills going by using parts from the ones that had broken down through 2006. Now owned and operated by Tawhiri Power LLC, a subsidary of Apollo, Tawhiri leased another property from Hawaiian Homelands near the Kamaoa Wind Farm and renamed this new property Pakini Nui Wind Farm. Pakini consists of 14 General Electric turbines producing 21 megawatts. It went online in April 2007. The purchase power agreement with Hawaii Electric Light Company was approved by the Public Utilities Commission on March 10, 2005. Pakini Nui went into service in April after the wind turbines were installed in January, said Tony Pace, head of Apollo Power Corp., the parent company of farm owner and operator Tawhiri Power LLC.

    Pakini Nui's turbines replaced the nearby 9.3-megawatt Kamaoa Wind Farm, which began operations in 1987 and had 37 Mitsubishi turbines on 100 acres of land. Pace said the company is currently deciding whether to dispose of, remove or rehabilitate the Mitsubishi turbines. Kamaoa Wind Farm consisted of 37 Mitsubishi 250-kilowatt wind turbines capable of generating up to 9.3 megawatts which are all disabled as of the end of 2008. These were old machines and it was not cost effective to keep these going. However, these could be retrofitted with new state of the art wind mills if the funds were spent on this project and all the permits are in place to continue using them if Apollo would go ahead with this. The towers are in stable condition.


    Copyright © 2012 hawaii-kau.com

    (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
     
  22. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    ...and what will Tawahiri do when the subsidy ends?
     
  23. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    Back on-topic, what does livefree's oil-free world look like?
     
  24. MisLed

    MisLed New Member

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    no tires. no shampoos, no make ups. No plastic bags, none of those things that have made our lives so easy and enjoyable.
     
  25. livefree

    livefree Banned

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    They'll continue making money selling the power the wind turbines produce and they'll very probably invest in more turbines.

    Meanwhile, what will the oil and coal companies do when their massive subsidies end, oil gets even more expersive to find and extract, and fossil fuels have to compete fairly with energy sources that are almost free after the initial capital investment?
     

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