World Energy Use - There's No Tomorrow - Let's Fix This!

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Best background info I've yet seen in one place - Dr. Chris Martenson's "Crash Course" is three years old now, but seems on the mark. This video gives an overview of energy and availability. Oil is not the only resource that's peaking - take a look at copper, coal, and uranium. This - more than anything else we have on this forum - shows exactly why we'd be wise to be planting wind turbines and solar panels as quickly as we can.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfAQktktGgQ[/youtube]

The entire program is available in this Youtube playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7E8A774DA8435EEB

And at the main website:
http://www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse
 
AndyH thank you so much for sharing this great resource!! :) I didn't even know it existed because there is no billion dollar marketing machine behind things like this! In fact, there are tons of billion dollar marketing machines designed to completely block this kind of messages!

I just watched that one chapter you mentioned and it is very clear and convincing as well as alarming.

Is it possible to put this and similar things on the forum as sticky on front page? I know that on some forums admins can mark a post as sticky so it stays on top on the main forum page.
 
AndyH said:
Oil is not the only resource that's peaking - take a look at copper, coal, and uranium.

Oil is near peak, but coal is a several hundreds of years away from peaking. At least. There is a lot of coal under the ground. Probably can't burn even half of it without nasty climate change, however.

Uranium and thorium is rather more complex. At current prices, using once through reactors, perhaps a hundred years. At twice to four times the current price, perhaps a thousand years. At ten to twenty times the current price, perhaps five hundred million years.

A lot of granite has more energy as uranium and thorium than coal does as carbon.

As copper gets harder to mine, recycling and reuse become far more important.
 
WetEV said:
AndyH said:
Oil is not the only resource that's peaking - take a look at copper, coal, and uranium.

Oil is near peak, but coal is a several hundreds of years away from peaking. At least. There is a lot of coal under the ground. Probably can't burn even half of it without nasty climate change, however.
200 years of coal is often cited, but it requires that consumption stay at TODAY's rate, and that coal quality remain the same as today. Neither of those are true - and that makes the 200 year number nothing more than a political sound bite. The video covers the why's better than I can, but is not the only reference that shows the gap between politics/marketing and reality.

WetEV said:
Uranium and thorium is rather more complex. At current prices, using once through reactors, perhaps a hundred years. At twice to four times the current price, perhaps a thousand years. At ten to twenty times the current price, perhaps five hundred million years.

A lot of granite has more energy as uranium and thorium than coal does as carbon.

As copper gets harder to mine, recycling and reuse become far more important.
Again - watch the video first. ;) I agree that it appears that projections consider first-use - mining to reactors, for example - and that reusing fuel in advanced reactors might allow wringing more energy from the fuel. And maybe some day that'll be possible. But it's not today either in terms of 'hardware on the ground' making power, or with a reactor we'd be able to afford to build.

It's vitally important that we understand exactly what 'exponential growth' means in the real world. These'll help:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXd66gP53fk[/youtube]
 
Solution - The Right to Radiate!

This solution brought to you by a physicist - and the CATO Institute! :shock:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-boslough/the-right-to-radiate_b_1709866.html

One of the barriers to finding solutions to global warming is the insistence of political conservatives and libertarians that their right to burn as much fossil fuel as they want cannot be regulated. Since nobody "owns" the atmosphere, we have always treated it as an open sewer for our tailpipe and smokestack emissions. The sky seems infinite. Carbon dioxide is odorless and colorless. Who is it hurting, and what can they do about it? Would conservatives and libertarians have a different opinion if they understood physics and realized that their property rights were being taken without due process or just compensation?

Don't stop there - hit the link and read thru - the fun starts after this first paragraph teaser! :lol:
 
AndyH said:
WetEV said:
AndyH said:
Oil is not the only resource that's peaking - take a look at copper, coal, and uranium.

Oil is near peak, but coal is a several hundreds of years away from peaking. At least. There is a lot of coal under the ground. Probably can't burn even half of it without nasty climate change, however.
200 years of coal is often cited, but it requires that consumption stay at TODAY's rate, and that coal quality remain the same as today. Neither of those are true - and that makes the 200 year number nothing more than a political sound bite. The video covers the why's better than I can, but is not the only reference that shows the gap between politics/marketing and reality.

200 years of coal is at current growth rates, not at current consumption. There is a LOT of coal.

Total estimated reserves are 948,000 million short tons. Current use is about 8,000 million short tons a year. Source

http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=1&pid=1&aid=2&cid=ww,&syid=2007&eyid=2011&unit=TST" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=1&pid=7&aid=6&cid=ww,&syid=2008&eyid=2008&unit=MST" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

AndyH said:
WetEV said:
Uranium and thorium is rather more complex. At current prices, using once through reactors, perhaps a hundred years. At twice to four times the current price, perhaps a thousand years. At ten to twenty times the current price, perhaps five hundred million years.

A lot of granite has more energy as uranium and thorium than coal does as carbon.

As copper gets harder to mine, recycling and reuse become far more important.
Again - watch the video first. ;) I agree that it appears that projections consider first-use - mining to reactors, for example - and that reusing fuel in advanced reactors might allow wringing more energy from the fuel. And maybe some day that'll be possible. But it's not today either in terms of 'hardware on the ground' making power, or with a reactor we'd be able to afford to build.

Hardware on the ground is heavy water reactors, such as CANDU reactors. And yes, lasting five hundred million years does require that the energy consumption growth rate goes to zero in the next hundred years.


AndyH said:
It's vitally important that we understand exactly what 'exponential growth' means in the real world.

Yes, I agree. Exponential growth will hit a limit. What limit is hit first is the only thing we are disagreeing about.
 
WetEV said:
Yes, I agree. Exponential growth will hit a limit. What limit is hit first is the only thing we are disagreeing about.
Did you watch the video? Ok - sorry - my bad. Here's the appropriate video. You can fast forward to 6:04 for coal, but it's better to include the earlier material.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lRkB6gvBC0[/youtube]

Do your 'our use' and 'our reserves' include the coal being exported in greater numbers? Or the fact that the high-quality coal is gone and we have to extract increasingly larger volumes to provide the same energy? Or that increasing use of lignite makes it harder to meet emissions requirements (resulting in mine closures)? Something doesn't seem right about this...

Ok, the EIA pages show world consumption thru 2010, and 'total recoverable coal' as of 2008. Here's the rub:

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=4390

Coal_World_Consumption_still.png


The planet isn't making any more coal but while the planet's demand was up 9% from 1992-2000, but up 48% from 2001-2010. (edit...Removed bad time to double...thanks WetEV)

200 years? Not a chance on this planet.

edit...in the "let's do this in reverse order" category ;)

WetEV said:
200 years of coal is at current growth rates, not at current consumption. There is a LOT of coal.

Total estimated reserves are 948,000 million short tons. Current use is about 8,000 million short tons a year. Source
Using these numbers and assuming the demand curve levels immediately, that's only 118.5 years. And that's still before we compound at 48%.
 
AndyH said:
Something doesn't seem right about this...
...but up 48% from 2001-2010. At a 48% rate, demand doubles at just under 1.5 years.

Perhaps this is one thing that is not quite right. 48% over 10 years isn't the same thing as a 48% rate per year.

Other things not quite right will need to wait.
 
WetEV said:
AndyH said:
Something doesn't seem right about this...
...but up 48% from 2001-2010. At a 48% rate, demand doubles at just under 1.5 years.

Perhaps this is one thing that is not quite right. 48% over 10 years isn't the same thing as a 48% rate per year.

Other things not quite right will need to wait.
[/quote]
You're right - 48% over 10 years - fixing that when you posted - thanks.

But that still doesn't negate that current reserves at current demand is only 118.5 years. Hopefully that busts the "200 years of coal" myth.
 
WetEV said:
200 years of coal is at current growth rates, not at current consumption. There is a LOT of coal.

Total estimated reserves are 948,000 million short tons. Current use is about 8,000 million short tons a year. Source [EIA links removed]
We may have a LOT of coal, and we might be able to reduce demand enough to stretch it for 200 or more years. But there's no way we'll be able to maintain a fixed consumption at today's rate beyond the estimated 2020/2030 peak.

peakcoal.jpg
http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG_Report_Coal_10-07-2007ms.pdf

In addition:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5256
This appears to be quite a sophisticated piece of resource modeling, and a good one to bring out when someone blithely comments that 'we have enough coal left to last hundreds of years, so why worry.'

All this is outside my area of expertise - I have to rely on the experts. If you have information that turns this apparent consensus on it's ear, please share it!
 
Solution- Become Empowered!


Tompkins County, NY is one of the cloudiest, least windy places in the country, and yet its residents are proving that we can meet our energy needs through totally renewable resources. From solar and wind to veggie oil and geothermal, Empowered: Power from the People tells the story of one community’s role in the energy independence revolution.

http://empoweredthemovie.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://empoweredthemovie.com/watch-the-movie/trailer/
 
Son of BOB!

There are batteries on our power grid today, but so far they've been installed to prop-up inadequate infrastructure. It appears that 2013 is the year of renewable grid storage!

So - look out BOB http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-04/texas-town-turns-monster-battery-backup-power - there's a new Texas-Sized battery in town!

http://www.sandia.gov/ess/docs/pr_conferences/2011/3_Ratnayake_Notrees.pdf
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729026.000-texas-megabattery-aims-to-green-up-the-grid.html

It's a 24 MWh battery -

mg21729026.000-1_300.jpg

Built for energy giant Duke Energy by local start-up Xtreme Power, the array is the biggest and fastest battery in the world. It can deliver 36 megawatts of wind power to the grid over a period of 15 minutes.
The Notrees battery is the first in a wave of new grid-connected storage systems funded in 2009 by power companies and the US Department of Energy (DOE) that are expected to come online this year. Notrees has bus-sized, lead-acid battery modules with high surface area electrodes and multiple terminals, so electricity flows in and out quickly.

Most of the other DOE-funded projects look very different. The California-based Pacific Gas and Electricity Company will soon start filling depleted gas wells near Bakersfield with compressed air that can deliver 300 MW of power. In Modesto, a wind farm will be backed up by a 25 MW storage system based on a zinc-chloride flow battery, which is charged by filling with a reusable electrolyte liquid. The battery will replace a planned 50 MW fossil fuel plant.

"There are storage projects all over the country, and 2013 is the year for all of these to come online and start working," says Mike Gravely of the California Energy Commission. "The goal is to give you enough energy to manage variability, or to give you enough time to find alternative resources."

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D67yIrN2_QU[/youtube]
 
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io7V7rHlO2U[/youtube]

http://theburdenfilm.com/


Our military - the largest in the world and the largest consumer of fossil fuels in our country - is fighting to be part of the solution. This shows why.

It's worth it to click through to the main site or hit this Vimeo link - the full trailer isn't on Youtube and the nearly six minute clip provides a much better view of the problem.
http://vimeo.com/45443231
 
Andy, I haven't read this entire thread so I don't know if this has been posted, but here's a out-of-the box solution. There are more recent developments (videos, federal grants, results, etc.) that you can easily find with google.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=driving-on-glass-solar-roads

Maybe crazy to think that we could be driving trucks on PVs, but it does present some very nice solutions to the problems you've been discussing. Placing PVs in/on roads does not consume any farmland, wilderness areas, sensitive areas, etc. It doesn't displace or kill endangered or protected species. It shouldn't require an EIS review. It places/concentrates power production close to the population centers (e.g., more roads exist where more people live). It has the potential to add additional transmission capabilities and connect to the existing grid anywhere a road crosses a power line. It widely distributes power across the entire nation, thus reducing or eliminating the need for storage. Other benefits? Now if we can only get this cheap enough to make immediate financial sense, and not have to wait 30-50 yrs for payback.
 
Reddy said:
Andy, I haven't read this entire thread so I don't know if this has been posted, but here's a out-of-the box solution. There are more recent developments (videos, federal grants, results, etc.) that you can easily find with google.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=driving-on-glass-solar-roads

Maybe crazy to think that we could be driving trucks on PVs, but it does present some very nice solutions to the problems you've been discussing. Placing PVs in/on roads does not consume any farmland, wilderness areas, sensitive areas, etc. It doesn't displace or kill endangered or protected species. It shouldn't require an EIS review. It places/concentrates power production close to the population centers (e.g., more roads exist where more people live). It has the potential to add additional transmission capabilities and connect to the existing grid anywhere a road crosses a power line. It widely distributes power across the entire nation, thus reducing or eliminating the need for storage. Other benefits? Now if we can only get this cheap enough to make immediate financial sense, and not have to wait 30-50 yrs for payback.

Wow, you were on a roll! had oil reeling. they were set up for the knockout then you let them go... gave them an out. the same out they have been using for years while collecting billions from us
 
DaveinOlyWA said:
Wow, you were on a roll! had oil reeling. they were set up for the knockout then you let them go... gave them an out. the same out they have been using for years while collecting billions from us
Yes, agreed. But there is a big difference between putting PV's on a roof, getting 10 yr payback, vs. putting them on the freeway where 100 million vehicles squash them. I would expect that the latter panels will cost significantly more. If the cost were $100/W, then the "financial only" payback could be 100+ yrs. The societal payback (improved grid, reduced/eliminated fossil fuels, etc.) will certainly be much quicker, perhaps even within a year of completion. It's a amazing out-of-the-box idea but certainly a long way until the engineering is up to the task, irrespective of the costs.
 
Solution - Passivhaus

http://www.treehugger.com/green-arc...zero-energy-house-1970s-recognized-award.html
http://www.passivehouse.us/passiveHouse/PHIUSHome.html

What is a Passive House?
http://www.passivehouse.us/passiveHouse/PassiveHouseInfo.html

A Passive House is a very well-insulated, virtually air-tight building that is primarily heated by passive solar gain and by internal gains from people, electrical equipment, etc. Energy losses are minimized. Any remaining heat demand is provided by an extremely small source. Avoidance of heat gain through shading and window orientation also helps to limit any cooling load, which is similarly minimized. An energy recovery ventilator provides a constant, balanced fresh air supply. The result is an impressive system that not only saves up to 90% of space heating costs, but also provides a uniquely terrific indoor air quality.
 
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