lazysmurff

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

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Cbass

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.

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Connor - Porsche Nazi since 2001, VW defiler since 2004
This here's a Fabrication forum!
My lugnut requires more torque than your LS1 makes.

TexasF355F1

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.

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DGB454

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

YogsVR4

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.

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lazysmurff

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.

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YogsVR4

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)

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Resistance Is Futile (If < 1ohm)

lazysmurff

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

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2strokebloke

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...

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lazysmurff

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

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justacruiser

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.

Cbass

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

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Connor - Porsche Nazi since 2001, VW defiler since 2004
This here's a Fabrication forum!
My lugnut requires more torque than your LS1 makes.

2strokebloke

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.

__________________

Support America's dependence on foreign oil - drive an SUV!
"At Ford, job number one is quality. Job number two is making your car explode." - Norm McDonald.
If you find my signature offensive - feel free to get a sense of humor.

Pick

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.

DGB454

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