"What the F is this kind of jubberish??? Means NOTHING unless you expound on it, and then likely NOTHING."

Jack,
Have you taken your meds today?

As you have pointed out, fossil fuels are finite. As we use them, we are reducing the supply. The value of the remaining reserves will increase, (and it will cost more to extract and refine them, as we have been taking the low-hanging fruit.) That increase in value will eventually price fossil fuels out of the market. In addition, we are releasing carbon which has been stored for millenea. What effect is that having?
An interesting side effect nuclear technology has, is the waste heat released. In fact, when you think of it, all of our energy 'production' (which isn't really production, but rather changing energy from one form to another) is converted to heat. What effect are we having? How does the earth dissapate this release of stored energy. Do we radiate it off into space? Does a bit of our atmosphere 'boil away'?
What price, of which we might as of yet be unaware, are we paying?

For the past century or so, we have been living like we stumbled into a marvellous house which had a full fridge, freezer and pantry. We are eating our way through the goodies, vaguely aware we've been putting on some weight and the food is running low.
I think it's about time we went on a diet and planted a garden.
There is no 'free lunch'.
Les

OMG. I have never seen such uninformed scaremongering. You should write for the media.

So a 10x one time production cost, for a 3x lifetime effeceincy? So long as its not a short life, don't see the trouble there. :)

Red-beard,
I am guessing you took exception to my last paragraph. OK, fair enough. I do get the feeling though, our energy consumption in the west has been opportunistic.

I would really like to know what happens to the released energy. Does it radiate into space? Is the component absorbed by the atmosphere manifested by the much-bandied-about 'global warming'?
What does happen when the Asian economies boom and their energy conversion rates even come close to ours on a per capita basis? Anything? Nothing? Can everyone on Earth afford to live the way we in the western world have been for the past generation? Can we?

I'm not blind. I know I'm doing my share of converting petrochemicals into heat and garbage.. I've got about 2 dozen thirsty cylinders around here to keep running and I put my plastic garbage and recycling bags out at the roadside every two weeks. Is that sustainable? I don't know.

Les

Well, I have some sense in how it works as I used to work at a nuclear power plant (Browns Ferry, a three unit BWR-4 plant) and have been through General Electric's "Nuclear Power Plant Design and Operation for Engineers" class. I'm no expert, but I have gotten my share of zoomies crawling around in the depths of a nuclear plant. :>)

Nuclear fuel *is* bombarded with neutrons to get the reaction going. Once enough free neutrons are flying around to sustain the reaction, the neutron sources are not required. Until the fuel is bombarded with neutrons (either from the sources or from an existing reaction) it is perfectly safe to handle (I've seen it done).

The reality is that spent fuel is a problem that has not been addressed yet. There are a variety of reasons, but the reality is that it is a problem. You should see Browns Ferry's spent fuel pools...

As for uranium reserves, like everything else, if we built enough plants to really increase the amount of power produced by nuclear, then uranium reserves shrink more rapidly. I don't think gettting it from the moon is a cost-effective solution.

Chernobyl was a whole different story and really can't be compared to nuclear plants in the west.

Mike

Well,
I did have a few snorts when I penned that thread so it is very possible that it was not as cohesive or clear as it could have been. As my 3 year old lil girl now says "my bad".

I guess what I was trying to say is that the true cost of energy (or anything for that matter) is not really captured. The costing model from one country is different than another so to truly understand the actually cost of energy is not very well understood nor will it ever be.

Now as for free energy; define free? Does that mean you spend zero and get something back? Or, does it mean that in time the investment made into something becomes zero because of the perceived savings that is understood. That savings then actually pays for the cost of the item? If that is the case, it is rudimentally flawed because the costing model is skewed and will be until all are playing from on the same field.

Actually, no one knows if they're finite or not. The reason for that is at least two fold.

First, all known oil fields have not been fully mapped yet. A good example are those of Iraq. Those are believed to be the second largest on the planet, but when you look into what that is based on you find out that the fields south of Baghdad formed the basis for that, and the northern fields, believed to be an entirely separate oil field, has scarcely been mapped at all.

Second, the method of oil formation is poorly understood, if at all. A very well respected physicist has theorized that oil is generated by a process entirely independent of organic origin, and is an ongoing process today. There's some support for this theory in dormant oil fields that when reinspected for oil, have been found to be productive again. Further, this man postulated that the oil generation process occurs much faster than widely believed.

I think more work on this theory is called for.

Pat,
I just came across a reference to the recently postulated theory of hydrocarbon formation. If it is valid, perhaps re-injecting carbon into appropriate strata of rock could foster that process. That will be worth following.

As for the mapping statement. Not knowing we have something is not the same as knowing there is only so much of it. There may be 10 times the known reserves, but if they are not being renewed, they will come to an end, some day.

I suspect the regeneration of dormant fields has much to do with the porosity of rock strata and flow rates through certain formations vs. pumping rates at the well head. As the price of crude goes up and recovery techniques improve, there will be a lot of dormant fields which will see action. I don't really expect to see a day when taking the old E out for a drive involves winding up a rubber band. In my lifetime, the price will go up. I'll see $5.00/liter gasoline someday down the road, but someone will be able to buy it.

Les

I think Mike's take on a changing cost/benefit calculation is right on, in any case.

It's important to allow the market to dictate oil prices, and that demands governments stay out of the way of market forces as much as possible. Today, we don't really know what the true value of oil is because there's so much politics involved in its' flow. Consider that there are known reserves off the California coast that are being kept off the market by politics only. The oil is there and it's recoverable. The recovery techniques are well in hand. And, it's within reasonable environmental laws to do so. Every known oil field in America should be pumping if it's economical to do so, free from being locked out.

As an aside, the regenerating oil fields I mentioned weren't in a field that had subterranean porosity. That's what made it so interesting.

Oil, may indeed be a "renewable" resource. Possibly generated by massive reactions of methane gas from within the earth, oil may last the life of the planet. At least theoretically possible, unlike solar, wind or geothermal energy. And even though this theory is unlikely, its not clearly impossible like solar, wind or geothermal are.

Even the totally incompetent, corrupt system of the Soviet Unions Chernobal disaster is a minor porblem compared to total energy porduction, and well worth the risk. But it isn't necessary to take such risks as long as the incompetent socialists keep out of the problem. there have been NO such disasters in the West, even in spite of political interference with optimal methods, mostly due to the lack of corruption. Three mile island caused NO injurys to anyone outside the plant.

And even Chernobal, compared to coal mining, has caused fewer deaths than any method of energy production in history.

DUH! DO YOU EVEN FREAKIN REALISE THAT YOU GET ALMOST ALL YOUR ENERGY EXCLUSIVE FROM THE SUN!

Erm, pardon the caps, but people just don't get it...

Wind, is in a way solar energy, different areas of the Earth receive more heat, which causes wind. Its not a world wide solution, but people that live in high wind areas could easily suporrt themselves and others off of it.

Solar, almost every single freakin' green plant is powered by solar energy, and stores it up to either go to new plant growth, or be eaten and digested and so the energy is released. Your energy source comes from the sun. The food you eat, is either direct, or indirectly, sun related.

"And even Chernobal, compared to coal mining, has caused fewer deaths than any method of energy production in history."

Deaths, perhaps, but Nuclear has the potential to kill people who aren't paid to be in the mines.
Have you ever met any of the Ukranian children who suffer from radiation sickness?
Les

The personal computer you paid $2000 to $3000 for 20 years ago is now available:

1000 times as powerful, with many standard features undreamed of in 1985.

For less than $500

So don't say that anything is not cost effective - it just proves you have no understanding of how the free markets operate.

Second topic: Energy production

If every home had it's own self contained power generation & storage facility, many enconomies would be realizied immediately. many more would be available in the longer term.

Jack S. Kilby (do a Google search, I am not going to justify the man to you bunch of knotheads) invented and patented just such a system in the 70's.
It was impractical then due to very immature fuel cell technology - much improved now, and getting better all the time.
I won't bore you with all the details, but the basic, mass produceable system was as follows:

solar bump array in liquid filled container that converts solar > electrical > chemical energy. Output =Hydrogen, stored in tanks and / or used in a fuel cell to generate power to operate the home, depending on available light, etc.

There is a registered US patent for this, it may be feasible today, I don't know for sure.

Perhaps we can take snowman's millions & put it into production...:cool:

Totally agree with that. After spending over 10 years in battery research, I now happen to be doing fundamental and applied research in solar cells. The current silicon based ones are energy intensive to produce, I will agree with that. But there are new solar cell types now, such as Dye sensitized solar (DSSC) cells and polymer solar cells, that are much less expensive to produce. DSSC gets about 10% efficiency, which is not far from silicon (12-15%). The DSSC problem is stability, they don`t last as long as the silicon ones. The polymer solar cells are very promising, but the efficiency is still low (5%) and stability is not great either. There is a lot of research going on to adress those issues, and solar can really become an aternative energy source when those issues are solved. The low costs are already achived by the processes involved in these new systems. Considering that the sun puts out 1000W/m2 of energy, that is by far the greatest energy source we have. Indeed, all other energy sources are converted from it, one way or the other.

Aurel

I believe he was speaking of direct solar energy collection, not the indirect resources.

However, that said, there's no proof of any kind that solar radiation is involved in raw petroleum production. Neither is solar energy involved in the slightest in geothermal energy production, other that illuminating the geothermal field during the day so it's easier to see.

Interesting topic getting trashed with hard language and humble posters with "If I can´t figure it out, nobody can - attitudes".

Without a any alternative energy sources and the oil gone - is there any other power but nuclear left for all practical purposes ?

Petroleum is aliphatic carbon molecules that originates from the slow transformation of organic material such as plants, wood, over very long periods of time. Plants incorporate carbon from CO2 source by photosynthesis. Thus, solar energy is directly at the origin of petroleum. This is science 101, there is nothing contoversial about that fact.

Aurel

Aurel,
Actually, there is an alternate theory that says that petroleum was, and is created in the earths heated mantle, and has been present since time before vegetation.

see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiotic_oil
and other referred sources from there.

The established petroleum industry price model is based on oil as a very limited resource. Unlimited supply would be really bad news for them...:rolleyes:

Although I'd arque about it having always been a slow process.

It sure would. It would make the secondary rationale for the conquest of Iraq and intimidation of Iran useless activities over the long term.

Abiotic Oil Theory wasn't taken seriously in the west until physicist Thomas Gold took more than just a little interest in it.