Peak Oil Problem(Apocalypse) and Solution

[Kylon]

For those of you who aren't aware of the Peak Oil problem, you might want to look up. It basically describes what will happen when the oil becomes scarce(a 5% shortfall of demand caused a 400% increase in price). All economic activity is depedent indirectly or directly on cheap energy.

So here's a solution to the problem. Basically build an artificial lake, set off small fusion blast in it, and use the steam to power big turbines. It's a crude but effective method for fusion power. Not the best I admit, but it would work. I keep the best for myself.

[lionhead]

The game "fallout" really shows well what would happen if the Oil runs out... The game "act of war" too by the way. Hopefully it won't happen though.


But that idea with the lake sounds great, back too steam.

[webtaz99]

There's just one small problem with that concept - reality.

[Kylon]

If we don't solve the problem somehow, then we're all dead.

Thus, we've got to find a solution.

This is a relatively simple solution, with a high probability of working(everything in the universe is simply a probability).

It would also solve the oil shortage problem long enough for us to convert to electric vehicles and what not.

The reason for this is about 65% of the oil in an oil field, cannot be extracted in an energy profitable manner, and that's what we classify as a "depleted" field. This stated, with fusion energy, we could double the total the intial(before we started drilling) reserves of any well, and add that to the current available reserves already in the well. So the U.S would have a HUGE amount of oil for a while, then we could convert our infrastructure, and by the time the oil supplies started dwindling, we would already have our infrastructure converted.

We need team work in order to fight the coming apocalypse, or as Benjamin Franklin would say, "We'll all hang together, or we'll all hang seperately".

[EnsignParis]

It's not all energy however. Oil is the raw material for many products on the market. Plastics, my friend, plastics are all based off of oil products.

Crude oil converted to be used for energy is only a very small fraction of what it can be used for. We are in a lot more trouble than many people realize. In the relatively short future, grocery shelves are probably going to look quite a bit different.

[Captain.Dan V2]

[lionhead]

[EnsignParis]

[Kylon]

I believe it has a high probability of working. I think it will work.

In simpler terms, and to paraphrase someone else on another forum, this idea is basically to set of tiny nuclear blast and collect the energy through steam pressure and let the pressure drop again, then repeat.

As for comparison to a regular nuclear fusion reaction, this idea wouldn't be to sustain a fusion reaction, rather to set off a huge number of small fusion reactions in pulses. The energy requirement to intiate a fusion reaction isn't that much(you can look up pyroelectric fusion), hardly any energy at all. The reaction however would probably use a pulse laser to intiate it. However, if the energy requires a certain amount of energy to intiate a reaction, the amount of energy required would remain constant. However the energy produced would directly correlate with the size of the artificial lake. So essentially, if the intial energy requirements were too great(lets say we're doing this in a puddle of water), then you'd simply make it larger(a medium size swimming pool of water), and if that doesn't work continue making it larger until there is net energy gain.

[Kylon]

Concerning hydrocarbons and the lack of Oil,

2/3rds of all the intial oil in oil wells ever found, is still in the ground. This is due to the fact that it requires more energy to get it out than it produces. We could tap that oil with fusion energy, because we no longer consider the energy cost.

Also, someone could probably, and would probably develop a method of extracting CO2 from the environment, which with water could produce hydrocarbons.

CO2 + 2H2O = CH4(methane) + 2O2

[Captain.Dan V2]

[PrankishSmart]

Wind & solar electricity don't provide much power for the amount of equipment required. You need a very, very large field of solar panels or wind generators to get a usable about of power. Coal electricity is what is used here on the mainland of australia and is very inefficient in my opinion (something like 1/100 the power of nuclear energy?) I really think that a move should be made to upgrade from coal. Nuclear energy is very efficient if controled correctly which now as technology advances I believe this makes nuclear very safe.

In Tasmania here we use Hydro (water from dam) electricity and I believe the single powerstation which holds the highest energy output in the world is a hydro powerstation. Hydro could be seen as solar electricity, but hundreds of times more efficient and powerful (except for when the dams dry up ).

Electric cars will never happen. Batteries are too inefficient and heavy for useful use to power a automobile in my opinion. Hydrogen seems like the way things might go. Lots more reasearch needed, though.

[Kylon]

It's good that y'all are considering this problem because it's a real problem.

Everyones ideas and inputs are welcome to try to overcome the evil of energy poverty.

Nuclear energy is what is needed, and more research does need to be done. Coal and oil won't suffice.



Anyways, y'all might look into the website www.peakoil.org for more information about Peak Oil, it's a global crisis, and if we don't stop it, there won't be a civilization left for us to live in.

[webtaz99]

When cotton was produced without oil-based machinery was available, it was called slavery. That's illegal now.

Pyroelectric fusion does not produce net energy (it will not initiate a reaction). I don't see how you are going to contain the resultant steam from boiling an artificial lake. It is much more efficient and safe to use "inherently safe" reactors.

Sadly, you can build a no-moving-parts ultra-simple nuclear reactor to run a car, there just aren't enough radioactive (or certain other) materials available, and it would cost too much.

Sadly, if you add up wind, geothermal and (currently available) photoelectric sources, they fall way short of current needs. Also, there must be a way to get power from where it is generated to where it is used.

I strongly suspect that oil companies already have a way to synthesize all the major components we "crack" oil into. There really is no market for the original, long-chain molecules that "crude oil" is made of. What will happen is that these processes will slowly be "discovered" as oil supplies dwindle, and will start out costing more than oil, but as volume ramps up, they will end up costing less (than oil of the future).

[Captain.Dan V2]

I never mean't anything about slavery if you thought I did then I apologise, Maybe you were talking to Paris.

You are probably right about oil giants.

Who knows ? Besides from the oil companies themselves

What can we really do ? We (Humans) are a joke when it comes to energy. No thats wrong thanks to some goverments *Dan coughs what sounds like George Bush and USA* have not even attempted to find alternative energy sources, As my geography teacher says "George Global Warming Bush", However that is going slightly off topic (Going onto global warming instead energy, I suppose that they do coincide but I'll stop there) so I'll stop now.

What we need is for more money to be invested into energy research.

[lionhead]

i don't really know what you guys alreday have discussed. But i just wanted too say this:


It doesn't matter if we even have an altenrtive energy source. we can't get rid of oil. If the oil will be replaced in the next 20 years or so the whole economy would collapse. we would have global anarchy, war, holocaust. What do you think would happen in the middle east if the oil supply would just come too a full halt? War, wihin days they would be slithing eachothers throaths. and there would be nothing too stop it, it would spread across the globe untill we have destroyed civilization so much we would be forced too use oil again..


nah, lets stick too oil for now. Perhaps in about three hundred years we can tink about using Hydrogen.


Thnaks.. Now get back at discussing.

[IntrepidIsMe]

Well, I suppose that would all be well and good if we still have oil left in 300 years. Its only been 100 since oil use became mainstream, and if we're already worrying about running out, what does that tell you?

[webtaz99]

You would be astounded to know how much money has been granted to huge corporations like GE and DuPont for alternative energy research. And how many of the directors of various alternative energy "promotion" groups are board members of huge energy companies.

The problem is a social one. The guys with a stranglehold on the status quo are not going to allow any change, unless they first get a stranglehold on the new status quo. That's why the the "hydrogen economy" LIE is being pushed so hard. The same guys would end up with all the high cards in their hands.

[Five - seveN]

Ehm. Hydrogen (at the current state of research) isn't that much of a power source. More a way to store energy, really. That's because you need hydrogen and oxygen for the reaction that produces the energy - and water. These elements, however, first have to be extracted out of something - water. This costs about as much energy as the 'merging' reaction (hydrogen + oxygen = water + energy, so to say) generates.

What we need, people, is nuclear fusion energy. However, there aren't that many efforts for that right now. There is quite a lot of research at the moment, but more needs to be done. But there's a problem with that, as Webtaz just perfectly described (above).

[lionhead]

I don't mean hydrogen as a power source but as fuel. a lot of Public transportation and government vehicles(like garbage trucks) already run on hydrogen/electricity hybrid cars.

[PrankishSmart]

[webtaz99]

Actually, the "splitting" of water (using methods found so far) requires MORE energy than the recombination provides. Plus there is the problem of storage and transportation, leakage, etc.

Using ethanol would be much smarter. It is non-toxic, bio-degradable and a good hydrogen "carrier". I feel certain that bio-science will result in microorganisms (or even complex organisms like trees) which can use sunlight to generate ethanol from carbon dioxide and water.

NASA has created containers for small thermo-electric reactors (used in satellites) which were subjected to (among other things) being shot by a high power rifle and slammed against a concrete wall by a mass equivalent to it being hit by a locomotive. No radioactive leakgage was measured.

[EnsignParis]

[lionhead]

I'm not talking about Hydrogen fusion. Fusion melts 2 atoms together, the heat that is needed for that is incredible high. They explode TNT in an A-bomb too allow the Plutonium atoms too melt together. They use the Melting of plutonium atoms too get the heat needed too melt Hydrogen Atoms together(which releases much more energy). using that power as an Energy source is foolish.


I mean using it as a Feul, instead of Oil. Using Hydrogen too cause the explosion for the propulsion. I tihnk Hydrogen and Oxygen are mixed too get a better explosion(they are both explosive) but i don't know much about the working of Hydrogen feuled Engines.

[webtaz99]