ahhh, peak oil

i'll give you the run down.

peak oil is the idea that production of oil will reach a "peak" in which it becomes impossible to keep up with demand as oil resources are used up.

basic economics should show you where this is going: supply falls, demand rises, prices skyrocket. and soon, supply will be GONE.

now, people believe anything from "this is the end of days" to "well, time to find a job close enough that i can walk".

if you've got the time, do a google search. its real interesting when you juxtapose this idea with our REAL reasons for being in Iraq

Currently, the worlds oil production capabilities are more than sufficient to keep pace with demand.

OPEC keeps down oil production to keep the price high.

Most of the petrochemical fuel needs of the world can be satisfied by alternative means, gasoline engines can be converted to hydrogen power fairly easily, diesel engines can run on biodiesel that is refined from soy oil, and houses heated by fuel oil can be converted to electric furnaces at a moderate cost.

People respond by saying "but where will the energy to make the hydrogen come from?"

Quite simply, there are many solutions. Canada has an overdeveloped hydroelectric infrastructure, which can easily be expanded upon to produce liquid hydrogen, many other countries do as well. Nuclear power is also an option.

There is a massive surplus of wheat grain every year in North America, those fields could be growing soy beans instead. When biodiesel is in high enough demand, you can bet that farmers will much rather be growing genetically modified soy that gets them top dollar as opposed to grain that they barely make money on.

The electrical grid will have to be vastly revised and improved to facilitate the extra demand, there will probably need to be taxes implemented to pay for it. People will bitch, but when it's costing them $3K a year to heat their homes with oil, it won't seem that bad.

In the meantime though, oil is still cheap enough that the average person can afford gasoline and to heat their homes, and still profitable enough that major oil companies have massive pull with governments around the world, particularly in North America, and can stymie the developement of alternative fuel sources here.

I'd be more worried about finding an alternative to petrochemical fertalizers.

Actually we were talking about this today in class. Although there is oil/petroleum products coming from all over if there is a severe flaw that occurs in one system it affects it all. i.e. the supply-demand that you mentioned. And that will cause prices to soar as well.

Anyways, I agree with all of what CBass said. Hold on. Wait a second did I just agree with you? We have a revelation. :biggrin:

I think that revelation marks the last days. The end is very near.

The whole discussion started rationally until the last line when it mentions the “real reason for being in Iraq”

The biggest users and the largest growth potentials for oil out of the Persian gulf are not from North America. Use google to take a look at the list of names there and juxtapose that list on the countries that didn’t want the US to go to Iraq. Now you’ll see the real reason why those countries opposed the war.

oh, i know france and russia had oil interests in Iraq. no surprise there. (somehow im getting the impression you think im a ignorant liberal)

what i ment was our real reason for invading Iraq and taking hold was not only to secure the oil there for ourselves when the oil crisis does come (keep in mind thats a lot of oil) but also to gain a foothold on the deposits that exist in the dead sea, which cant be expolited until we can gaurantee a safe pipeline out of it (right now, any pipeline would be EASY for terrorists to target).

its is all about oil, but in a sense more in line with self preservation than profits. When Bush came into office, he had three months of long meetings with the top exec's from all the oil companies, in which he actually attended and paid attention to all the meetings. obviously something was up.

not to mention that one of the largest proponents of the peak oil theory is a former bush administration exec.

kinda makes one wonder.

I'm not calling anyone an ignorant anything.

Did Iraq have to do with oil? I don't recall ever saying it didn't have anything to do with oil. To many people believe that it is only about oil. That somehow it was easier to destroy and then rebuild an entire countries oil infrastructure then to convince Saudi Arabia to maximize output is amazing. If oil were the primary concern, it would have been a whole lot easier to take the Saudis as we were already there. (not that I'm suggesting that we do, but it would have been a whole lot easier)

the thing is not to maximize what we already control, but to control more. think about it. we can always tell the saudis to maximize output or else, seeing as yes, we are already there.

but the ability to control a country with ANOTHER 25% of the worlds known oil supply and that presents the ability to exploit the dead sea reserves.

we can maximize saudi arabias 25%, but thats still just 25%..or we can use a convenient (yet all together wrong) excuse to attack Iraq, and take control of its oil and effectively control 50% of the worlds oil (not counting what we already control) that we can maximize later without prematurly flooding the market and still make maximum profits for our buddies in haliburton :D

Yeah? well, Haliburton, OPEC, the Arabs, and those motorists who don't believe they support America's dependence on foreign oil - yet drive giant SUVs, can all kiss my Subaru 360s tailpipe. Heck, even the hippies in their "hybrids" can do so. I can make six gallons last all week...
Or we all switch to alcohol, the "general purpose" wonder liquid: cleans plastics, kills germs, fuels cars... :)

ahh, alcohol engines. we can see it as the gas station "one pump for you, one pump for me..."

There is a massive surplus of wheat grain every year in North America, those fields could be growing soy beans instead.

What about achohol? Thousands of farmers here are subsadised to NOT grow food so the prices wont fall out of the market. What if they did grow corn or wheat, but for methanol or ethanol purposes? Hell, it'd be a way to deal with human sewage too, we wouldn't be eating the wheat or corn, so that could be used as a fertilizer. Unfortunately, I think it's a bit of an energy and time consuming process, so I don't know how effective it'd be.

What about achohol? Thousands of farmers here are subsadised to NOT grow food so the prices wont fall out of the market. What if they did grow corn or wheat, but for methanol or ethanol purposes? Hell, it'd be a way to deal with human sewage too, we wouldn't be eating the wheat or corn, so that could be used as a fertilizer. Unfortunately, I think it's a bit of an energy and time consuming process, so I don't know how effective it'd be.

Alcohol is a good fuel source as well, but it requires a pretty extensive fermentation and distillation system, and it would cost more to produce than hydrogen would. It's also not the most efficient fuel in the world.

Hydrogen is cheap and easy to produce, on just about any scale. You could set up your own electrolysis apparatus, and produce your own cheap hydrogen at home. On an industrial scale, all you need is power and water, which makes tidal generation, hydroelectric, or geothermal systems very lucrative ;)

Actually, making ethanol that's of high enough quality to burn in an engine is easy enough for just about anybody to do at home, but it's also more expensive to just make small amounts for yourself than it would be for a company to open up a factory. Ethanol is not suited for use cold climates though, delivers worse mileage than gas, but burns much cleaner, and has the potential to deliver more power.
Hydrogen is also easy to make, but unlike alcohol, you can't just pour it out of a still and into a can, and it presents more safety issues. It's also a whole lot easier to make an engine burn alcohol, advance the timing, put in larger jets, and make a pre-heater for the fuel - that's it. A very simple conversion. If you wanted to take advantage of alcohol completely, you'd also want to increase compression.
I also like the idea of "greasel" or whatever they call it. Running diesel engines on vegtable (or heating) oils. Vegtable oil burns much cleaner than diesel.

Alcohol is a good fuel source as well, but it requires a pretty extensive fermentation and distillation system, and it would cost more to produce than hydrogen would. It's also not the most efficient fuel in the world.

Hydrogen is cheap and easy to produce, on just about any scale. You could set up your own electrolysis apparatus, and produce your own cheap hydrogen at home. On an industrial scale, all you need is power and water, which makes tidal generation, hydroelectric, or geothermal systems very lucrative ;)
But then the consumption of fuel would be in the public's hands would it not? And who here in the US would honestly buy a hydrogen-powered car? It would be a big risk to put all your eggs in that basket if the consumers aren't even using it.

I'm curious as to what the uses of hydrogen are? I really don't have much insight on alternative fuel, besides what is mainstream. :confused:

I would buy a hydrogen powered car if there were someplace to fill up. I would keep the Chevelle for weekends though.

Hydrogen is a much better burning fuel than alcohol is, by far. It creates more energy than alcohol when burned, by a considerable margin, has virtually no harmful emissions, and takes far less space to store

Theoretically, a hydrogen powered generator could be employed at a hydrogen production facility, meaning it could be entirely self sufficient. All you'd need then would be a desalinization plant and you could produce limitless quantities of hydrogen.

Production of alcohol requires first that you have a base to ferment, a sugar source for the yeast to convert into alcohol. Grain is the most cost effective solution for ethanol production, and if I recall correctly, methanol is derrived from wood. Then you require distillation apparatus, which requires a powerful heat source to boil off the alcohol. Even the most effective reflux apparatus can only produce around 96% alcohol, so the rest of the water will have to be chemically removed, and the end product filtered and chemically treated to remove it's impurities.

It's a pretty time consuming and energy intensive process...

Hydrogen, on the other hand only needs a filtration system for the water, electricity and an electrolysis chamber, and a high pressure tank to store it.

2strokebloke, what you are describing is more commonly known as biodiesel. There is a racing team in Europe than campaigns a New Beetle TDI 1.9 in a touring car series there, and doesn't do badly at all. They run on synthetic diesel fuel derived from soy bean oil.

In Germany, there are already hydrogen filling stations for automobiles, although I think there are only 4 or 5 so far.

Converting a gasoline powered engine to hydrogen is rather simple as well, if it's EFI, you simply replace the injectors, remove the tank and replace it with a high pressure cylinder and regulator. The ignition and fuel curves will have to be altered to suit the much higher octane fuel.

If it's carbed, it's even easier just give it more advance and calibrate the regulator for the right fuel pressure.

Actually, simple solar stills do a very good job of producing ethanol alcohol. Research shows that alcohol with a small percentage of water burns better and delivers more power than pure 100% alcohol, so about 120 proof is all you need, and it is possible to get this concentration from a simple home made still, whether it be solar powered, or burns waste wood. The fermentation is really the hardest part, not the purifying. If you have a pressure cooker you can ferment enough to make enough alcohol to power a lawnmower or moped, but you'd need something much larger if you planned on fueling your car.
Hydrogen, being a gas is harder to control than alcohol - that's not to say it doesn't have it's advantages, in actual use in an engine it is a better fuel than alcohol, but in issues of safety, and practicallity of use, alcohol is more practical, except in cold climates.

Production of ethanol is very simple, but it's very unlikely that many people would be willing to make this own as a fuel source, and it's still quite illegal to produce your own in most parts of the western world.

Damn you Kiwis :iceslolan

That being said, with an old hot water heater and about $100 in copper pipe and fittings, you can produce a reflux apparatus that will produce 96-97% alcohol in a single pass, and depending on the size of your water heater and the type of base you use for fermentation, you can make as much as 10 gallons of fuel in one run.

Alcohol would be much more practical in converting older cars on a budget, but hydrogen is a much more practical source of fuel overall, especially when you consider that the cost of production is minimal, production plants can be built anywhere, and the only requirements for making the hydrogen are water and electricity. The actual parts involved in the conversion are minimal, and BMW has already proven that gasoline engines are easily converted to hydrogen burning engines.

Large scale production of alcohol to replace gasoline would require massive quantities of a fermentation base. There are very few choices for the base, it would most likely have to be a grain source, such as wheat or barley. This would leave the production of the world's fuel supply subject to harvest conditions. The cost involved in the fermentation and distillation would be significantly higher than the cost involed in running an electrolysis plant, especially if the electrolysis plant was running off a hydrogen powered generator ;)

Well I see everyones points and view.. And I am just going to rant on this subject... But I think the most F****d up part of this is that the US has enough of this natural resource to supply there own country. But vs suppling our own country we choose to sell our oil to other countries for an inflated price and then also buy oil from other countries in which we are now getting an inflated price.. So it all boils down to we are getting screwed real hard up against a brick wall right now with gas prices.. And it majorly sucks for a person like me.. Who works for a giant corp. That does not even give cost of living raises, get an evulation once a year and that is your only time to get a raise.. If you are late too work once that screws you for getting a raise that you.. you can work 300 hours of overtime in a week to keep your company from getting fined up the ass on there production agreements.. So now that i have to pay over $2.00's for one gallon of gas that gets me about 30 miles and that is on a good day.. That really pisses me off especially when not even 4 years ago i was paying like a $1.10.. So now americans.. have to deal with this on top of it all.. I really think it is time that our country spends less time in other peoples business all the freakin time and start taking care of there own.. We cannot even provider our seniors with reasonable health care.. But if they had smuggled themselves into this country and got knocked up it would be completely paid for no questions asked free health care for all.. On top of that we will give you money to live and pay for you a forgiener in this country that does not belong here cause you SNUCK in here.. what the hell.. So for all us lower-mid to mid class citizens who have rent/mortage to pay for your property taxes keep going up due to less money for schools in the budget.. (by the way i live in NY).. and have a car payment in order to get to work.. and get raped on income taxes... and have to work our asses off to be able to afford to live.. lets just add another curve in the road.. for you all.. so come winter next year we will all freeze cause we cannot afford to heat our homes... Yes i understand there are other means of energy and what not... but at this point in time.. they are not the cheapest things to switch too.. and by the way ... I have gas heat and electric heat.. i refuse to use my electric heat cause it cost ALOT more then my gas heat.. I think our goverment needs to spend less time planting trees on sidewalks and making enimies and more time on home..

well thanks for letting me get that all out.. I may be wrong on some issues here.. but i am sure some of this has been on peoples minds.. and i am not asking for anyone to agree with me or disagree with me.. it was just a rant