The Oil Drum | That cubic mile
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That cubic mile
Posted by Engineer-Poet on February 28, 2007 - 11:50am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: efficiency, heat, nuclear, photovoltaic, solar
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A lot's been said lately about how much energy is in a cubic mile of oil. This is roughly
the amount the world uses in a year.
Assumptions: The Three Gorges Dam is rated at its full design capacity of 18 gigawatts. A nuclear
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power plant is postulated to be the equivalent of a 1.1-GW unit at the Diablo Canyon plant in
California. A coal plant is one rated at 500 megawatts. A wind turbine is one with a 100-meter blade
span, and rated at 1.65 MW. A solar panel is a 2.1-kilowatt system made for home roofs. In comparing categories, bear in mind that the average amount of time that power is produced varies among them, so
that total energy obtained is not a simple function of power rating.
src: Joules, BTUs, Quads—Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, IEEE Spectrum, January 2007
Illustration: bryan christie design. Click to enlarge.
Leaving aside some errors (the coal and nuclear numbers are off by about 10% to each
other, and the capacity factor of wind turbines should be closer to 30%) the most essential
oversight in that equation is elephantine:
It compares oil's inputs to the other's outputs.
Compared to that, the rest is small potatoes.
According to IEEE Spectrum, a cubic mile of oil has energy equivalent to:
z
z
z
z
z
4 Three Gorges dams, cranking for 50 years.
32850 1.65 megawatt wind turbines, cranking for 50 years (100% capacity factor).
91,250,000 2.1 kW solar PV installations, for 50 years.
104 500 megawatt coal-fired electric plants, for 50 years.
52 1.1 gigawatt nuclear electric plants, for 50 years.
Let's start this analysis over, with these figures:
z
z
A barrel of oil has 6.1 gigajoules (GJ) of chemical energy.
A cubic mile is 26.2 billion barrels (42 gallons/bbl). (The USA uses about 20.5
million bbl/day, or 7.5 billion barrels/year; this comes to less than a third of a cubic
mile annually. World annual consumption is closer to 1.3 cubic miles.)
By this, a cubic mile of oil is even more impressive: 1.60*1020 joules. That's 5070
gigawatt-years of energy, nearly twice IEEE's estimate. But that's what we put in. What
do we get out of it, and what would it take to replace it?
Ins and outs
Oil gets turned into a bunch of different things, and those uses vary widely in efficiency.
If used for heat, oil can be very efficient. Bunker fuel burned in low-speed marine diesels
can yield 50% efficiency. But our most important uses of oil are also the least efficient.
Take the average car or light truck. They don't run on crude oil; they require a highly
refined fraction known as gasoline. Demands of octane rating, vapor pressure and sulfur
and aromatic content increase the losses in the refining process. One source claims
82.9% efficiency from an oil well to a refinery's gasoline output. That cubic mile just got
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smaller.
But the losses are just starting! The average vehicle is very inefficient, turning just
14.9% of the energy that goes into the tank to work done against air and rolling
resistance. The rest is lost in the engine, transmission and brakes. From well to wheels,
the total is a pathetic 12.4%. That cubic mile just shrunk by half... in all three
dimensions! Diesel is more efficient both at the refining end (87.9%) and the
consumption end (35-40% engine efficiency in heavy trucks) but overall throughput is
still around 1/3.
If the world followed US patterns (it doesn't, but it's not that far off), refineries would
average perhaps 90% efficient. Gasoline would be about 43% of the total energy of the
product supplied, distillate (diesel and heating oil) 22%, jet fuel 8.3%. All the rest comes
to 27%. If we drop jet fuel as non-essential and add the rest up by efficiency (14.9%
gasoline, 40% diesel), the total useful energy comes to 42.2% of the input. Best of all,
only 15.2% of that is mechanical work; the rest is heat.
Adding up the end products
If we were going to supply a cubic-mile-of-oil equivalent of heat and work from nuclear
plants at 33% thermal efficiency (3.3 GW thermal input, 2.2 GW thermal + 1.1 GW
electric output) it would take a lot less. If you cranked them for 50 years, a mere 14 1.1
GW plants could supply 771 GW-years of electricity and another 1540 GW-years of lowgrade heat, more than satisfying the requirement of 1370 GW-years of heat from oil.
Coal would do about about the same, but it would take 31 500 MW plants to equal the 14
nukes. Wind has no waste heat stream and couldn't do as well (the energy would have to
be all electric), but the possibilities for solar are amazing. Solar heat (for space heat) can
be collected for very little, sometimes for free with careful design. Supplying 770 GWyears of electricity from solar PV at 25% capacity factor would require only about 40
million 2.1 kW installations; doing a year's worth per year would require about 2 billion
2.1 kW systems, or about 700 watts per capita.
700 watts is about 10 of today's PV panels. The industrial nations could almost afford to
give 10 panels to every child at birth, and cost improvements in the pipeline could extend
this to much of the world in the next decade or two.
Imagine clean, cheap energy as a birthright. Something to ponder.
Edit: Note that this analysis only considers energy obtained from oil. Weighing this
against the total consumption of (especially first-world) humanity leads to inaccurate
conclusions; coal, gas, nuclear and hydro sum to considerably more total energy than oil.
Ponder and discuss accordingly.
[ED by PG] You may also want to check out Khebab's story called "Getting a Grasp on
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Oil Production Volumes" which also discusses this topic.
202 comments on That cubic mile
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Prof. Goose on February 28, 2007 - 12:12pm | Permalink | Subthread
Hit reddit, hit digg, hit your favorite link farm! :) Send it to slashdot, metafilter,
del.icio.us, stumbleupon, etc.
Let's get EP some eyes for this really good post.
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goinggreen on February 28, 2007 - 12:28pm | Permalink | Subthread
Great post EP. I gotta call you on the Nuclear numbers, though. How do you deliver the
low-grade heat to homes that currently use heating oil, etc? There is also the transmission
loss, and then the loss in the presumed charging of the electric vehicles that would be
required in an electric-only world. A quick guess would be that you'd need about double
your 14 1.1GW plants/year. Still under the 52/year from IEEE.
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Not ManCon on February 28, 2007 - 2:57pm | Permalink | Subthread
How do you deliver the low-grade heat to homes that currently use
heating oil?
Do what was done in London with Battersea Power Station - simply have big pipes
conducting the hot water to the houses across the river. It was then like a giant
central heating system.
(From the book London Under London):
When the power station was functioning, it carried untreated Thames
water, heated to boiling point in the power station, under the River to
Dolphin Square and the Churchill Gardens Estate, supplying the flats
with central heating before discharging the water back into the Thames.
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goinggreen on February 28, 2007 - 7:02pm | Permalink | Subthread
Should we put our Nukes in the city centers? What is the chance of getting that
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done?
I'm all for harvesting the wasted heat. For instance, check out the Ecopower
combined heat/power unit (goggle it, it is pretty good). That takes care of the
60%+ energy loss due to heat/transmission. Unfortunately, it runs on fossil
fuels, though a hydrogen version should be possible. Still, it is no Mr Fusion,
but then I'm not holding my breath for that one.
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memmel on February 28, 2007 - 10:38pm | Permalink | Subthread
I initially read that is should we Nuke our city centers.
I thought it was a pretty good idea.
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Davidyson on March 1, 2007 - 5:21am | Permalink | Subthread
In fact, it's called combined heat and power (CHP) with district heating.
This is something widely used in Europe (especially Denmark and Germany).
30% of Berlin's (ca. 3.5 million people) space heating requirements are
covered by CHP.
So, it's absolutely no rocket science and has been refined and optimized for
decades already. Just not in the UK or the US.
CHP causes slightly lower electric conversion efficiency (like, 5% less), but
makes use of this 5% loss to deliver another like 20%-30% of the otherwise
wasted primary energy to the homes.
CHP with nuclear plants is not exactly a good idea. Consider a radioactive leak
in the plant, contaminating the hot water loop. It would have to shut down
immediately to avoid pumping radioactivity into the homes, leaving entire
cities cold from one minute to the next.
Micro-CHP units in individual homes are half-nonsense, because
- the capital cost for a home owner to buy such a thing is much higher than for
large-scale utility companies,
- maintenance needs to be organised in much more decentralized and therefore
more inefficient way,
- a change of fuel is almost impossible and
- propagation of such units is much slower than with a central solution which
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would serve whole cities or at least city quarters in one go.
Cheers,
Davidyson
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goinggreen on March 1, 2007 - 5:09pm | Permalink | Subthread
Micro-CHP units in individual homes are half-nonsense,
because...
Have to disagree here in USA circumstances. With most homes heated by
natural gas (at least presently), the CHP unit does not necessarily mean
more maintenance than present if current furnaces/boilers are swapped
out with CHP. It also gives the homeowner electric power that is
competitive with utility-based power (due to addition of taxes, etc), and
also gives backup power during (the rare) outages.
Here in Connecticut, with some of the highest rates in the country (Long
Island and Hawaii are the only higher areas), the CHP unit I'm installing
will pay for itself in under 8 years. It helps that we have net-metering. If
we could get hourly net-metering, the unit would pay for itself in
probably 5 years or less.
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Davidyson on March 2, 2007 - 4:52am | Permalink | Subthread
Hi goinggreen,
thanks for the reply.
You are right - there are of course places and circumstances in
which micro-CHP actually makes sense.
However, please note that what might make sense for you as an
individual might not make sense for society. The capital cost point
remains, as does the fuel switching point and the speed of
propagation point.
Also, micro-CHP units are more complicated than simple gas
boilers, so probably subject to more or more expensive
maintenance.
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Cheers,
Davidyson
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 1:31am | Permalink | Subthread
As for the comparisons, I plead haste. (I noticed, too late, that I hadn't dealt with
the amount of heat we get from natural gas and coal, directly and indirectly. That
would have to figure somewhere, and I intend to go back and insert a note to that
effect.)
Delivering heat to homes isn't necessarily impractical. If you are willing to put a
nuclear plant in tunnels beneath a city (and what better place to put it to eliminate
the threat of terrorist attacks?), you could transfer the heat as medium-pressure
steam to neighborhood energy recovery turbines [1] and then the exhaust lowpressure steam or hot water for space heat. The water goes back down to the steam
generators by gravity. [2] I did a writeup on this almost two years ago.
When heat is not required for space heat or to drive absorption A/C, it could be
vented through cooling towers. These might be integrated with office towers or
other buildings.
Electric transmission losses, battery losses etc. would probably be on the order of
the efficiency gains from electric drivetrains. This looks close to a wash.
The one thing I didn't consider is higher-grade heat requirements for e.g. industrial
process heat. This could also be supplied by nuclear (which was the original intent
of what became the Midland Cogeneration Venture in Midland, MI) but there would
be a greater impact on electric output.
[1] Medium-pressure steam is probably better than low-pressure, because the pipes
will be much smaller, cheaper and have lower heat losses.
[2] If the reactor is deep enough, gravity could provide a large part of the pressure
required for the boiler feedwater.
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AlanfromBigEasy on March 1, 2007 - 8:21am | Permalink | Subthread
Electric transmission losses, battery losses etc. would probably be on the
order of the efficiency gains from electric drivetrains
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And if the batteries are replaced with an overhead wire ?
No battery cycle losses (out/in), no weight to haul around (include structure to
support the Battery), no wasted time and distance refueling.
Best Hopes,
Alan
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GliderGuider on February 28, 2007 - 12:39pm | Permalink | Subthread
This illustrates the perennial problem of comparing apples to mangoes. I will stipulate the
relative efficiencies in your calculations, but of course you're still begging the question of
usefulness. Oil can't do the same amount of formal work as electricity, but electricity
can't do the same amount of useful work as oil. And of course by "useful work" I mean
"run cars and light trucks". Given that 60% to 70% of our oil consumption is for that
purpose, unless we have a generally available mechanism for turning electricity into
vehicular motion (and I don't think current BEVs need apply) the whole discussion is
moot.
We use a lot of oil. Some of that usage could be supplanted at low cost by electricity or
waste heat streams, some couldn't. Some could be supplanted at higher cost, but some
still couldn't. For me, the only utility of the "One Cubic Mile" image is to help get across
to laymen just how much oil we use. The implication that the various forms of energy are
interchangeable is incorrect, unfortunate and distracting.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 12:55pm | Permalink | Subthread
"unless we have a generally available mechanism for turning electricity into
vehicular motion (and I don't think current BEVs need apply) the whole discussion
is moot."
The latest generation of li-ion batteries really do fill the bill. A123systems and
Altair have much greater cycle life than conventional li-ion, thus dramatically
reducing lifecycle costs.
GM indicates they are satisfied with the specs for the 2 batteries they're considering
for the Chevy Volt (A123systems and Saft), and are just waiting for the engineering
of large battery packs suitable for vehicles.
The only limitation right now is cost - PHEV's/BEV's can't compete at the moment
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with very cheap gasoline (heck, BEV's preceded ICE's, but haven't been able to
compete for the same reason). That will change in the next 3 years with the Volt,
and other PHEV's. Of course, it could change even faster, if gas prices rise...
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GliderGuider on February 28, 2007 - 1:07pm | Permalink | Subthread
What is the penetration of A123systems-driven BEVs going to be like in
Africa, Asia and South America? What's the global fleet change-over time?
What about cost of retraining mechanics world-wide? How much will a 20%
penetration of BEVs in these regions over the next 25 years help the global
problem? This problem doesn't stop at the shores of the United States.
As I say in my Musings on Peak Oil Mitigation I look on BEVs strictly as a
near-term technology that will promote a softer entry into the coming
depletion phase. The way I see things unfolding, if we roll into a medium term
characterized by localization, the technology requirements of such devices will
be too great to maintain.
By all means we should develop them. Just don't be surprised if they have less
impact on the situation than some are hoping.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 1:22pm | Permalink | Subthread
Electrics are much simpler, and easier to maintain than ICE's. Their
lifecycle cost is going to be less than ICE's.
If you think our ability to maintain complex systems will decline,
electrics are just the ticket.
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GliderGuider on February 28, 2007 - 1:25pm | Permalink |
Subthread
I'm thinking more about our ability to produce batteries that depend
on nano-technology.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 1:33pm | Permalink | Subthread
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Nanotech in this case is a bit of a misnomer.
Originally it referred to very complex, very small scale
systems, like tiny robots. Here it really refers to very tiny
particles, or materials with very altered characteristics at a
very small scale due to an understanding of material dynamics
at that scale.
I don't think manufacturing it is all that much harder than
conventional batteries.
Of course, if you think we won't be able to maintain central
large manufacturing facilities due to catastrophic economic
collapse, all bets are off. I think that depends on the
assumption of catastrophically fast depletion combined with a
lack of substitutes for oil. I don't see either being the case.
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GliderGuider on February 28, 2007 - 1:44pm | Permalink
| Subthread
I see it as inevitable, with the only question being when.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 1:58pm | Permalink |
Subthread
Oh, I have no question that oil consumption will
look like that chart. I just see no reason why it has
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to cause economic collapse.
Peak oil does not equal peak fossil fuels - coal will
be with us for a long time, and it will be used if it's
needed to prevent economic collapse. Peak FF does
not equal peak energy - renewables and nuclear will
do just fine. For that matter, peak energy wouldn't
equal peak economic growth - the US could easily
function with 10% of our current energy. Heck,
replacing heat engines (with renewables for
electrical generation and electric motors for
transportation) would reduce our energy
consumption by 2/3, with no loss of functionality).
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Dezakin on February 28, 2007 - 5:35pm |
Permalink | Subthread
Given the sun pumps out 10^26 watts, peak
energy is a good deal beyond the scope of
reasonable conversation.
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story.
slx on February 28, 2007 - 6:22pm |
Permalink | Subthread
I agree that solar/wind can supply all the
energy we need, i.e. it is technically
possible. However, getting to that
situation without accidents under the way
is what most people here think the
problem is, and it is caused not by
technical difficulties but by the
peculiarities of the human social
behaviour.
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story.
Samsara on February 28, 2007 11:54pm | Permalink | Subthread
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...is what most people
here think the problem is,
and it is caused not by
technical difficulties but
by the peculiarities of the
human social behaviour.
Exactly. Can Be is different than
Will Be.
As a test, go to Walmart parking(or
any mall) lot for a half hour, Look
at the people close and consider
how easy/hard it would be for them
to change radically their lifestyle.
Go and convince them that
Economies of growth may be a
thing of the past for quite a while.
Tell them that their may not be
NASCAR in 5-10 years.
Tell them to meditate on "Less is
More" for a while.
Or (with GW thrown in) tell them
to watch Grapes of Wrath.
Peace
John
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paal myrtvedt on March 3, 2007 11:13pm | Permalink | Subthread
this one is for SIX
In using the calculator on the
numbers put forward in this
‘CUBIC MILE ‘- thread, you’ll see
some ridiculous numbers/sizes
coming up - after those 50 years of
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compensation (for dwindling oil , as
I understand it all).
As for windmills the numbers
comes to 1,8 millions of them – and
at a rotor-diameter set to 100m and
equator at 40.000 km – the line of
wind turbines will, put ‘shoulderby-shoulder’, circumference
equator 4,5 times OR more or less
cover all coastlines of this planet
……. Still possible??
AND as for the insane number of
the 2,1kW solar arrays (demanding
ca 30m2 pr unit) – you need a jampacked area of more than half of
that of the UK – or alternatively the
area of the Czech + Slovakian
Republics …. Still possible????
Both of these energy converting
systems are subjects for
replacements and maintenance –
and PV’s are prone to be depleted
through 20/25 years, rendered dead
and gone ….
I reckon these systems will yield
much less than what ever we can
imagine at our worst, reality are
some times brutal (!)
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Engineer-Poet on March 4,
2007 - 11:25am | Permalink |
Subthread
Fifty times 32850 wind units
is a bit over 1.6 million. If
you arranged them in lines 300
meters crosswind and 1 km
downwind, the entire
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complement would only
require an area of 493,000
square kilometers (190,000
square miles). This is less
than 3 times the area of North
Dakota, for the entire world.
(The land between the turbines
can still serve for agriculture
or forestry.)
50 times 91.25 million 2.1 kW
solar units (which would
require about 15 m2 each, not
30) would require 68437 km2
of area. If I recall correctly,
the USA alone already has
about twice this much area
beneath impervious surfaces
like roofs and pavement. The
world as a whole could put
this much PV on existing
rooftops.
Last, today's PV panels are
warranted for 25 years. They
will probably produce at
upwards of 60% of their rated
power for 50 years. If the
cells on Pioneer 6 can operate
in the high-radiation
environment of space for 35
years, cells on the ground
which aren't mechanically
damaged should do just fine.
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paal myrtvedt on March
4, 2007 - 12:16pm |
Permalink | Subthread
You are failing to see my
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point Engineer Poet.
And you are correct for
the Wind turbine
numbers – I used the
number 35850 – for
some erroneous reason,
so my number came out
10% wrong.
But I googled an 2,1 kw
array saying 1 kw needed
10x15 feet , giving my
number 30m2 some
truth.
BUT my overall
assessments to these
energy-systems are the
shear scale of it all – and
my claim is that the
cubic-mile of oil will
never be substituted by
these systems on a
MToes basis.
Surely the spaces are
readily available – that’s
not the issue. THE issue
is to understand the
‘simple task of pumping
oil/refine it’ in
COMPARISON to the
‘complexities to
manufacture, maintain
and substitute
PV/Wturbines as per
needs’ – on this
grandiose scale.
Both systems are
dependent on their
limitations –
a) it must blow – and
nominal yield is roughly
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15m/s …. Think again
b) it must be day and the
sun must shine …. Think
again
You will never be able
(in the future) to depend
on such systems – but
they will constitute an
add-on effect which we
surely must go for ….
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Engineer-Poet on
March 8, 2007 2:56am | Permalink
| Subthread
You are arguing
against scale
(argument from
incredulity), when
today's petroleum
systems have an
even greater scale
— thus questioning
your argument ab
initio.
The USA installed
about 2.5 GW of
wind power in
2005, up from
about 400 MW
installed in 2002.
This is more than
doubling every 2
years. Potential of
the continental 48
states is about 1.2
TW average, the
continental shelves
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about 0.9 TW
average; at 0.3
capacity factor, the
USA could carry on
installation at 50
GW/year for
several decades
without reaching
limits of the
resource.
Production scales
relatively well.
What's the showstopper?
15 m/sec is well
above the average
design speed for a
typical wind
turbine. The ones
I've seen are
generating
considerable power
in 7 m/sec winds.
There is nothing
intrinsically
expensive about
PV. Silicon isn't
especially energyintensive (unless
you try making it
into single crystals),
and one advance
like a long-lived
dye-sensitized TiO2
cell would slash
costs radically.
Once PV comes
down to a small
multiple of the cost
of conventional
roofing or glazing
materials, it will
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replace them.
There is an
enormous installed
base of structures in
the world, and those
structures require
fairly regular roof
repairs or
replacements.
I can depend on
wind and PV
producing a certain
amount of energy
every year, if not
every hour; PV is
well-matched to
one major load (air
conditioning).
Technology like
thermal storage,
grid-interactive
vehicles and
biomass-powered
fuel cells can
provide the
buffering capability
to manage a lot
more. Keep 20%
nuclear and 15%
hydro in the electric
mix, and you're
probably there —
I'd have to do the
numbers to be sure.
Your last argument
is equivalent to
claiming that
because individual
electric plants go
off-line for minutes
or weeks, I can't
depend on the grid.
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Your logic is faulty.
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sofistek on March 1, 2007 - 3:23am |
Permalink | Subthread
Peak oil does not equal peak fossil
fuels - coal will be with us for a
long time, and it will be used if it's
needed to prevent economic
collapse. Peak FF does not equal
peak energy - renewables and
nuclear will do just fine.
If your primary energy source peaks, I can't
see peak FF being far behind, if it is behind at
all. "A long time" for coal, won't be as long as
you think, especially if it starts to substitute for
oil, at least not at the required quantities.
Natural gas is already peaking, or close to
peaking, in some major regions. No doubt the
US could operate on 10% of current energy
consumption but there will be severe hardships
getting there, unless it's done over many
decades.
Renewables also take resources and would
take a very long time to ramp up to what is
required. No doubt they'll do fine but I don't
expect them to be able to allow the party to
continue. And growth will trump any
"solution" eventually.
Just because you think something can be done
doesn't mean that it will be done, or will be
done in time, or that the transitions will be
anywhere near painless.
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 2:01pm |
Permalink | Subthread
Let me address things out of order.
"Just because you think something can be
done doesn't mean that it will be done, or
will be done in time, or that the
transitions will be anywhere near
painless."
There's no question in my mind that we
will go to alternatives. The process has
started: wind is 1% of US electricity and
is growing at 25% per year at least: that's
a doubling period of 3 years, so in 15
years we could be at 20% wind easily. If
all of the wind projects planned for the
US in 2007 actually get built, wind
capacity will double to 2%, in just 1 year.
That's not likely, but it tells you
something about the demand for wind,
which is mostly being held back by the
speed with which turbine manufacturing
can ramp up. Solar is doubling every 2
years, and in 10 years will be where wind
is now. The needed batteries are here,
and will be on the road in 3 years
(whether it's GM or an asian
manufacturer).
OTOH, I'm not suggesting that the
transition will be painless. As I've noted
elsewhere, if depletion happens relatively
fast (or if war expands in the Persian
Gulf to the point of greatly disrupting oil
supplies), and we haven't prepared better
than we have so far, then the transition
will be much more painful than
necessary. The question is, how painful
will it be?
My hope is that the campaign against
global warming will accelerate
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preparations.
"Renewables also take resources"
No question. OTOH, they don't take
significantly more than conventional
energy. Excess costs will arise if we have
to retire infrastructure before the end of
it's normal lifetime, as appears necessary.
That's difficult, but doable.
"I don't expect them to be able to allow
the party to continue"
Why not? And why do you phrase in a
way that suggests that our current way of
life is vaguely immoral, and that we
should return to an ebstemious, pure life
of ascetism?
"growth will trump any "solution"
eventually."
Not really. This is an outdated notion.
Growth levels off. Population growth is
doing so, and manufacturing is doing so
in OECD countries. The difficult
question is how to raise developing
countries to the standard of living of the
developed.
"If your primary energy source peaks, I
can't see peak FF being far behind, if it is
behind at all. "
Oil isn't our primary energy source: it
only provides 40% of our energy.
Imported oil only provides 24% of US
energy (and yes, US oil is declining, but
very slowly).
"I can't see peak FF being far behind, if it
is behind at all. A long time" for coal,
won't be as long as you think, especially
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if it starts to substitute for oil, at least not
at the required quantities."
A long time for coal is 30 years. No one
thinks coal will be used up earlier than
that, even with the highest estimates of
growth in consumption. That's all we
need it for - alternatives will be in place
long before then.
"Natural gas is already peaking, or close
to peaking, in some major regions. "
No question, NG is going to be painful.
OTOH, we don't import much now, some
imports will be available (as LNG, and
probably in the form of fertilizer), and it
will be around for a while, even
declining.
"No doubt the US could operate on 10%
of current energy consumption but there
will be severe hardships getting there,
unless it's done over many decades."
We could convert to PHEV's for 75% of
vehicle miles driven in 20 years with
relatively little pain (3 years to PHEV
sales, 7 years to convert most vehicles to
PHEV, 10 years of sales). That would
accomplish a large chunk of the
reduction. Actually, it could be really
good for the domestic car industry to do
it that fast or faster: it would keep them
solvent, if done in the right way.
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paal myrtvedt on March 3, 2007 - 10:41pm |
Permalink | Subthread
Nick - maybe - maybe not ...
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As I see it Peak-Oil and the add-on of PeakCoal will coincide with peak-Fossils
somewhere down the line – which in turn will
coincide with peak-everything so to speak.
Now, philosophically speaking or rather
physically speaking: ARE we NOT in the
progress of putting the physical parameters for
the atmosphere back to the stages where
FOSSIL-FUELS where produced at the first
stage (?) some 90 – 170 million years ago…
As we now deplete the fossil-fuels and put
them back into circulation again (CO2,
methane, etc) – over a few hundred years –
… and eventually if we did succeed 100% in
doing this – we would reach the same
temperatures (greenhouse-effect) as way back
than when the oceans went green from algae
(oil/gas) and the peat-swamps(coal) blossomed
…
ARE we about to close some kind a circle
here ????
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 1:36pm | Permalink | Subthread
In the US we have a lot of under-used vehicles in our inventory. We can
replace 50% of vehicle miles driven in 5-6 years, easily.
Poorer countries that tend to wait for our used cars will have a harder
time, no question.
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 1:55am | Permalink | Subthread
One paper I found shows the 50% crossover at about 9.5 years
(link), but under pressure from high fuel prices and/or legal changes
it might be quite a bit less.
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 3:29pm | Permalink | Subthread
hmmmm. I don't see the 9.5 years. The data on page 15
suggest that 8 years of sales accounts for 49.0% of total VMT
(cumulative total of %'s in 4th data column).
The same data indicates that the median life of CA vehicles is
16.6 years (total vehicle population divided by last year sales),
while the same figure for the country as a whole is 12.4 years
(210M divided by 17M). So, apparently California is not
representative.
The same ratio (8 to 16.6) applied to the national figure of 12.4
gives 6.0 years.
I agree, that could be accelerated.
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Rethin on February 28, 2007 - 9:26pm | Permalink | Subthread
A neat editorial on why car manufactures seem so reluctant to use all these
wizbang new battery technologies we see popping up.
Big battery packs that are necessary to propel a full function
automobile or truck (not an NEV like the Kurrent or GEM) on a
daily basis, need to bee able to withstand the abuse of different
driving habits, vibrations from bad roads (or no roads), operating
conditions ranging from -40 degrees to 130 degrees, sand, salt,
gravel, you name it. Those battery packs are expensive, and nobody
is going to want to replace one during the normal lifespan of a car.
Electro-chemical batteries don't work well at low temperatures
either which means that drivers in cold climates would potentially
have much worse range and performance than those in warmer
temperatures.
He basically goes through and explains the wide range of operating conditions
cars are used in. Then points out that these new batteries have yet to be proven
in real world conditions, and until that happens big car makers can't afford to
use them.
That's not to say it won't happen, for it surely will. It's just going
take some time to refine the construction processes to reach the
necessary level of reliability and durability and cost. That will
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happen over next few years, we just have to be patient.
---------------------------------------------------Keep in mind that these new battery technologies don't even claim to be usable
in the entire range of real world operating conditions.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/18086/page3/
Jim Miller, vice president of advanced transportation technologies
at Maxwell Technologies and an ultracap expert who spent 18 years
doing engineering work at Ford Motor, isn't so convinced.
"We're skeptical, number one, because of leakage," says Miller,
explaining that high-voltage ultracaps have a tendency to selfdischarge quickly. "Meaning, if you leave it parked overnight it will
discharge, and you'll have to charge it back up in the morning."
He also doesn't believe that the ceramic structure--brittle by nature-will be able to handle thermal stresses that are bound to cause
microfractures and, ultimately, failure. Finally, EEStor claims that
its system works to specification in temperatures as low as -20 °C,
revised from a previous claim of -40 °C.
"Temperature of -20 degrees C is not good enough for automotive,"
says Miller. "You need -40 degrees." By comparison, Altair and
A123Systems claim that their lithium-ion cells can operate at -30 °
C.
-------------------------------------------------------It seems to me we still have a long way to go before we can electrify
transportation in any reasonable way. As one commenter in the first editorial
said:
One should note that batteries have been actively researched for
many years. Progress does occur, but in general it is much slower
than some other tech areas like CPU design or biotechnology. In the
early 1990's a Li-Ion 18650 cell was good for just over 1 Ah.
Today, the best 18650 is 2.6 Ah.
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Nagorak on February 28, 2007 - 10:16pm | Permalink | Subthread
Necessity breeds invention. If we need battery powered vehicles because
it simply is too expensive to fuel with gasoline, then we'll have them.
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They may have limitations compared to normal ICE vehicles and it
simply will not matter. When the question changes from "which would
you rather drive?", to "would you rather drive or not?" then the answer
becomes very easy.
There are other solutions, of course, like increased public transportation.
I think that is a very viable idea. But EVs will definitely play a part in the
solution to our dwindling oil supplies, and all of the problems they'll face
will fall by the wayside as time goes on.
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TrueKaiser on February 28, 2007 - 10:29pm | Permalink | Subthread
Necessity breeds invention. If we need battery powered
vehicles because it simply is too expensive to fuel with
gasoline, then we'll have them.
betting that this will happen is like going out and buying a 500,000
dollar boat on the assumption just because you bought a lottery
ticket you will win the lottery. it might happen but the chances are
so remote and you only have one chance to win before the
collectors start calling that it's just better not to take the chance.
more simply put modern(not counting bagdad batterys) battery's
have been around for almost a hundred years and to expect a
increase of efficiency larger then the it's history combined is
asinine.
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 2:21am | Permalink | Subthread
"to expect a increase of efficiency larger then the it's history
combined is asinine."
Possibly, but the increase has already happened - check out
Dewalt 36 volt tools.
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vtpeaknik on March 1, 2007 - 4:25pm | Permalink |
Subthread
Need a different kind of "efficiency" here: the high price
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of advanced batteries reflects (in part) embedded energy,
and thus their price will RISE as energy prices rise.
(They'll also fall as technology improves, those two
effects will happen simultaneously.) Couple that with
harder economic times, and the ability to "turn over the
fleet" is going to be limited, IMHO.
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 6:37pm | Permalink |
Subthread
"high price of advanced batteries reflects (in part)
embedded energy"
Do you have any specific reason for believing this?
Energy cost as a portion of industrial sales averages
less than 3%, as I documented in a post elsewhere
on this article (search for "cement").
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fallout on March 5, 2007 - 3:46pm | Permalink
| Subthread
The manufacture of batteries is one of the
most energy intensive, and wasteful, processes
on earth. The average Li-Ion battery pack can
store less than 1/100 of the energy used to
manufacture it, and has a limited number of
recharge cycles.
The MIT battery is still very much a dream,
articles on the technology still use the weasel
words 'may' and 'possibly', if the technology
does actually pan out it will be years before its
in production. Time is short. The Altair
Nanotech battery is not available for sale, and
their claims are yet to be proven. We all hope
these and other technologies will see the light
of day but the fact still remains you can not
buy a reasonably priced EV today, one with a
good range, one that is a real car not a
converted atv/golf cart.
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I want to like EV's, I really do. I recently got a
price of $55k for the S.U.T. and that is out of
my range. There has been much talk of solar
panel charging, yet a modestly sized
residential grid tied PV array is over $25k, will
never pay for itself at current residential
electric rates (per BP Solar's own website) and
solar panels require a great deal of specializes
resources to manufacture (hence the present
shortage of them).
Granted, EV developments are looking better
but at the same time internal combustion
engines have also gotten progressively better,
more reliable, lower emissions. The balanced
view if you ask me is EVs will take over when
they are really ready and that isn't now. The
last vehicle I sold had 220,000 km on it where
nothing has ever been done to the engine
except oil changes, plugs and wires. The only
problems (and had some)were all electric. The
I.C.E. continues to roll.
Factor in the 5000 to 8000 li-ion batteries in
the drive banks, the 12,000 odd fuse links, the
300 circuit board to solder all the cells to, the
DC controllers, cooling bath for the batteries,
fans, tons of sensors for temp and voltage,
wiring harnesses, hopefully well shielded DC
motors, and various interconnects, and there is
a ton of extra spark gaps just waiting to fail in
the dynamic load situation and inclemental
weather normally seen by passenger vehicles
in normal use. All with low use reliability
testing. Every ICE powered vehicle I have
ever owned I have driven for 100k or more
virtually without a hiccup. Does anyone
seriously think you'll get that kind of
reliability out of an EV?
Ever?
Think you will ever seen an EV tractor trailer?
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Nick on March 6, 2007 - 5:02pm |
Permalink | Subthread
"The MIT battery is still very much a
dream, articles on the technology still use
the weasel words 'may' and 'possibly', if
the technology does actually pan out it
will be years before its in production. "
Are you referring to the A123systems
battery, originally researched by MIT? If
so, it's being sold currently in Dewalt
power tools. GM is waiting for
engineering of a large battery pack for
the Chevy Volt, but the battery itself is
real. GM says they expect to have a
prototype on the road this year, and be in
full scale production in 2010.
" The average Li-Ion battery pack can
store less than 1/100 of the energy used
to manufacture it, and has a limited
number of recharge cycles."
Could you provide more info? Is this
process heat provided by natural gas?
Does the energy info apply to the new
generation of li-ion, like the
A123systems?
"The Altair Nanotech battery is not
available for sale, and their claims are yet
to be proven."
Isn't it being sold to Phoenix for the
SUT?
"the fact still remains you can not buy a
reasonably priced EV today, one with a
good range, one that is a real car not a
converted atv/golf cart. "
Well, sure. The day that happens
everything will be different. That's what
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we're all waiting for, with bated breath.
"There has been much talk of solar panel
charging,"
It's perfectly clear that grid electricity is
cheaper than PV (before subsidies) - this
is for the minority of people who are
willing to pay a premium for clean,
independent power.
"Every ICE powered vehicle I have ever
owned I have driven for 100k or more
virtually without a hiccup."
You're luckier than most. OTOH, EV's
are much simpler than ICE's, and will be
much cheaper to maintain. For instance,
the Prius has much lower maintenance
than the average car.
"Think you will ever seen an EV tractor
trailer?"
Sure. Hybrid-electric is the preferred
technology these days for large vehicles,
like tanks and trains. More reliable, more
efficient, better low speed acceleration.
I wouldn't be worried about complex
electrical systems. Cars these days are
already rolling computers. The batteries
are the least of it.
30 years ago my father was selling
electrical harnesses to Ford that allowed
complex electrical interconnections that
would nevertheless be reliable - this is
old hat.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 10:23pm | Permalink | Subthread
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I think you're getting confused by different kinds of "batteries".
First, the editorial to which you refer is dealing with the new generation
of li-ion's, the A123systems, Saft, and Altair. These are inherently safer,
cheaper, more powerful and longer lasting.
As the editorialist noted, they will get used. His point is just that it will
take several years to engineer the battery packs/power electronics and test
them. That's all - he's just asking people to be patient.
The TR article is talking about Eestor ultracapacitors. Everyone agrees
that these are much more speculative. They promise the world, and it will
be wonderful if they deliver, but for the moment everyone is skeptical.
The last person you quote is talking about conventional Li-ions. He
doesn't seem to be aware that, in fact, there has been a quantum leap in liion progress in just the last 5 years in the new-gen li-ions.
The best candidate for GM's Volt is the A123systems battery. If you have
any contractor friends, ask them about the latest DeWalt 36volt tools
which use them.
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Rethin on February 28, 2007 - 11:12pm | Permalink | Subthread
You're right, I was lumping different technologies together.
And I also agree that these new techs (ultra capacitor and next gen
li-ion) will get used eventually.
I was trying to stress that there are no new battery technologies
currently capable of performing in real world operating conditions.
Take a look at the A123 batteries (for the Volt). Neat stuff, I sure
they work great for power tools. But only rated to -30C. Next cold
snap and every car north of Virginia dies.
Batteries have a long way to go before you see viable EVs.
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 3:56pm | Permalink | Subthread
1st, -30C (-22 F) is pretty cold.
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2nd, take a look at their spec sheet:
http://www.a123systems.com/html/products/ANR26650M1spe
The drop in performance at -20C (about 15%, by eye) is a lot
smaller than the drop in conventional car starter batteries
(sealed lead acid), which lose 50% of their power at only 0C.
I'd say the electric cars will be going when the ICE cars are
frozen.
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vtpeaknik on March 1, 2007 - 4:28pm | Permalink |
Subthread
Gets colder than that around here. And to start the ICE,
only need to preheat the engine a bit. And the battery too,
in extreme cases. After starting, the engine keeps itself
(and the driver) warm, and the battery can be cold, since
little electrical power is needed. With an all-electric
vehicle, be sure to dress warmly!
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 6:43pm | Permalink |
Subthread
"With an all-electric vehicle, be sure to dress
warmly!"
Probably 95% of the heat thrown off by an ICE is
wasted. If you use 1,000 watts for resistance heating
that would only use about 5% of the car's cruising
power consumption, and you'd get instant-on heat,
instead of waiting several minutes like you have to
in a gasoline vehicle.
Interesting question: would it make sense to put a
heat pump in an EV, instead of a straight air
conditioner?
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Starship Trooper on February 28, 2007 - 1:07pm | Permalink | Subthread
Yes, but are they mangoes from India?
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I agree that the CMO concept is useful in terms of use (just as it is useful in one the
diagrams to pose the 5 Eiffel Towers to give a concept of length of one of the sides).
And you are correct that some kinds of equivalencies don't work too well. We can
have electric trains (rather than diesel engines turning electric generators to run the
motors that power the train as a very workable alternative, but we can't have electric
aircraft (or if we did, it would bring a whole new definition to "fly by wire") or
"nucular" aircraft or vehicles. There's just nothing quite like the high energy density
associated with oil to offset low efficiency of some of our mechanical devices.
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Nagorak on February 28, 2007 - 10:18pm | Permalink | Subthread
In the worst case scenario we don't actually need air planes. Not to mention,
oil is going to be with us for a long time. If we use the residual small amount
of oil for things like aircraft it will probably work out fine. If everything else is
displaced it means more is left over for those things that cannot be displaced.
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Zoe di Magnifico on March 5, 2007 - 2:03am | Permalink | Subthread
Alternative powered, efficient aviation could expand a lot! It's hardly been
considered. Bring back the blimps! Send 'em into the jet stream and you got
ships in the sky at 300kph! Use renewable electricity to cast (relatively non
polluting) solid rubber rocket motors for long distance powered gliding (ala
SpaceShipOne design). Or hydrogen itself? I don't know - maybe there are
much better ideas out there too. But don't discount alternative aviation.
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AlanfromBigEasy on February 28, 2007 - 3:20pm | Permalink | Subthread
unless we have a generally available mechanism for turning electricity into
vehicular motion
I am a few weeks away from the return of the St. Charles streetcars 2.5 blocks from
my home. Built in 1923 & 1924, they convert electricity into vehicular motion quite
well :-)
The newer Canal & Riverfront streetcars convert braking energy back into
electricity, but the 83 year old streetcars do not.
New Orleans once had over 600 streetcars in operation over 222 miles of track, so
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that meets any reasonable criteria of "generally available".
Best Hopes,
Alan
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GliderGuider on February 28, 2007 - 3:41pm | Permalink | Subthread
Yes, for fixed routes you're good to go with electricity. Any place where you
can use a "hundred mile extension cord" is going to be OK. Unfortunately
there is no tram line out to my folks' farm 10 miles outside London Ontario, or
most places in Kenya, Chile, Siberia or China.
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AlanfromBigEasy on February 28, 2007 - 3:52pm | Permalink |
Subthread
Unfortunately there is no tram line out to my folks' farm 10 miles outside
London Ontario, or most places in Kenya, Chile, Siberia or China
The Trans-Siberian Railroad was completely electrified in 2002. Any
place that people live in Siberia (with a few exceptions, like some oil
fields) is served by electrified railroad. My SWAG is 95% of the Siberian
population lives in towns served by electrified railroads.
China has recently gotten serious about electrified railroads and Urban
Rail as well. The new Tibet railroad is still diesel though.
And there has been talk of an inter-urban light Rail line in the London
ON area. VAGUE memory was from London or Hamilton to Toronto.
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GliderGuider on February 28, 2007 - 4:18pm | Permalink |
Subthread
There is no way to do a full-access electrical rail network in a
region with a primarily rural population. The low densities won't
allow it, at least not economically. We will see electric rail in highdensity regions and corridors. For cities it's a no-brainer. For high
density regional corridors like the Canadian side of the Canada-US
border it will work, as long as the "last mile" can be serviced as
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well. That does not make it a general transportation solution in my
mind. "Not general" does not mean "not useful", of course.
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AlanfromBigEasy on February 28, 2007 - 4:32pm | Permalink |
Subthread
Illinois and Iowa, as two examples of many, were once crisscrossed by interurban railroads, most of them electric.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_interurbans#Illinois
Yes, the "last mile" was on foot or horse & buggy (perhaps
bicycles) and later Model Ts.
http://www.gemcar.com would work well as a "last mile"
vehicle today IMHO.
You under estimate "what was".
Best Hopes,
Alan
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kvenlander on February 28, 2007 - 5:02pm | Permalink |
Subthread
Arguments from facts, who ever thought of such thing!
Thanks for always increasing the signal/noise ratio here.
This is interesting - do you know of a source for maps of
those rail lines?
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AlanfromBigEasy on February 28, 2007 - 5:25pm |
Permalink | Subthread
I saw a map of Iowa interurbans (with the edge of
Illinois on the map) in a friend's out-of-print book
and was astounded by the network.
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A few minutes googling found a low quality map of
Ohio interurban rail lines.
http://hometown.aol.com/metrafan/maptinoh.html
and a larger download 1920 map of Indiana and
Ohio
http://www.railsandtrails.com/Maps/Interurban/defau
Please note that 1920 era rail was largely built with
"coal, sweat and mules". We could do more today.
Best Hopes,
Alan
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markincalgary on February 28, 2007 - 7:53pm
| Permalink | Subthread
In my area, which is predominantly rural, the
train lines had stops every five miles in their
hay day (50 years ago). This was because a
farmer could only move his grain about ten
miles from his farm in a day and make it home
to do it again the next day.
I still find it hard to believe that rail transit
would be realistic in my area, but I'm
beginning to think that I'm wrong.
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JustZisGuy on March 1, 2007 - 4:35pm |
Permalink | Subthread
What proportion of travel is in rural
areas? I don't see this as an issue. The
vast majority of travel is urban/suburban,
areas that *can* be covered
comprehensively with electric mass
transit.
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vtpeaknik on March 1, 2007 - 4:39pm | Permalink |
Subthread
Thank you, Alan, for reminding all of us that there is
more to transportation than "cars". I have an atlas from
the 1950's that has a large-page map of each state in the
USA. In those maps, the roads are NOT shown, only the
railroads are shown! And the rail network in Ohio
depicted therein is MUCH more extensive than in the
older maps you linked here. Almost every town
important enough to be shown on that map of Ohio, must
be many hundreds, is shown served by rail. That
presumably reflects "peak rail", before those tracks were
abandoned. Perhaps I should scan that page, I found it
really striking.
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AlanfromBigEasy on March 1, 2007 - 9:15pm |
Permalink | Subthread
Yes, I would like to see it, perhaps post it on TOD.
Rural transportation is essential for food production,
our most essential industry. And a reasonable
fraction of "Vehicle Miles Traveled" are rural. So,
yes, rural service will never have as high a % by rail
as NYC but it CAN be an essential part of the
solution.
Best Hopes,
Alan
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new account on February 28, 2007 - 12:34pm | Permalink | Subthread
Great post EP, thanks.
It really opens up the door to the possibility of realistic FF replacement options and
makes for a slightly more optimistic take on AGW.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
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Again, thanks.
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garyp on February 28, 2007 - 12:38pm | Permalink | Subthread
Top down, OK - however do these figures meet the bottom up derivation?
In particular that 700 watts per capita looks questionable, particularly since you haven't
seemingly taken into account storage, clouds, environment for most big energy users, etc.
I'd agree there is good scope for making benefit from solar heating, solar PV etc., but I
wouldn't get carried away - there are losses and factors you haven't considered.
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TrueKaiser on February 28, 2007 - 10:33pm | Permalink | Subthread
yea more then i can count on both my hands :P
but the biggest is that none of the ones he mentions have the 'ease of use' factor as
oil does but the system is tuned to that exact factor.
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Joseph Palmer on February 28, 2007 - 12:43pm | Permalink | Subthread
Interesting article.
I know the '50 years' thing comes from the IEEE article, but I think that construct is not
terribly usable.
What I'd like to know is, for a given year (say -- 2006)...
1) How many Nuclear Power plants would it have taken to replace oil in that year?
2) How many Windmills would it have taken to replace oil in that year?
3) How many PV rooftops would it have taken to replace oil in that year?
4) How many Solar (thermal) rooftops would it have taken to replace oil in that year?
These questions lead to the next level: What are the energy inputs and outputs for
establishing these infrastructures, and what about the EROEIs for each?
All of these questions assume that we need to consume energy like we did in 2006 -- so
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that leads to efficiency and conservation...
Aw jeez, EP. If you wrote a book about this, I'd buy it!
J.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 1:07pm | Permalink | Subthread
All of these have EROEIs of higher than 20, which is more than enough.
You could replace all US electrical generation with residential rooftops alone:
440GW needs about 2.2TW of PV at 20% capacity factor, or about 130B Sq ft at
15.7 watts per sq foot, or 100M residences at 1,250 Sq ft per roof.
Replacing light vehicles would increase consumption by about 16% (210M
vehicles, 12K miles/year, 250wh/mile), which would mean you'd have to throw in
some Industrial/Commercial roof space as well.
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DelusionaL on February 28, 2007 - 1:18pm | Permalink | Subthread
I agree that PV should be the way to go. How much is the "grid-tie"
mechanism? I have a figure of $10k US but it includes battery
strorage/backup, power conditioning, etc.
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Laurence Aurbach on February 28, 2007 - 1:52pm | Permalink | Subthread
Sombody correct me if I'm wrong (which is likely), but here's how I read E-P's
numbers. One cubic mile of oil consumed in one year can be replaced by:
* 700 1.1 GW nuclear plants cranking for one year
* 1,550 500 MW coal plants cranking for one year
* 2 billion 2.1 kW solar PV systems generating for one year
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GliderGuider on February 28, 2007 - 1:53pm | Permalink | Subthread
Well, it looks a lot more doable when you put it that way...
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 3:30pm | Permalink | Subthread
A better way of putting it might be:
The world's annual consumption, one cubic mile of oil, can be replaced by:
* 700 1.1 GW nuclear plants,
* 1,550 500MW coal plants, etc
That clarifies that once you install the plants (or wind turbines, or solar
systems) they will replace oil consumption going forward, not just for one
year. That's very doable.
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Kyle on February 28, 2007 - 6:35pm | Permalink | Subthread
You are off by an order of magnitude here.
One barrel of oil/year equals roughly 200 Watts of power continuous (1
bbl oil = 6 million btu; 1 kWh = 3414 btu; 8760 h/year; 6 million
btu/year /3414 btu/kWh / 8760 h/yr = 0.2 kW = 200 W).
So, we need 30 billion x 200 watts of power, which is 6 Terawatts, or
6000 GW. In other words, 7000 nukes or 15000 coal plants. The cost to
install that capacity, even without assuming any inflation which will be
inevitable if you try to push that much capital through in a short period of
time, and regardless whether nuke, coal, or solar, is roughly the same is
global GDP, $50 trillion. So that's not particularly "doable".
Just for reference, rated power capacity in the US is roughly 1
Terawatt....
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Kyle on February 28, 2007 - 6:46pm | Permalink | Subthread
Ah yes, I didn't read EP's arguments correctly - he is stating that oil
usage is inefficient, and to go to electricity would require only 10%
that much energy.
However, that game can be played both ways - how much
electricity would be necessary to go the other direction, i.e.,
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electricity to oil? That depends upon the medium of transport - if
the "hydrogen economy" is the route, it's just as bad due to losses
from electric transmission, electrolysis, hydrogen
compression/liquifaction, and added transport due to the low energy
density of hydrogen. The efficiency in that direction isn't going to
be much more than 20%, either. Even counting the fact that electric
motors coupled with fuel cells are 2-3 times as efficient as internal
combustion engines, that still means we'll need 2 times the power
given by the "cubic mile" of oil/year to replace oil as a
transportation medium.
The bottom line is that oil is used for transportation, and (at this
point) electricity isn't on a significant scale (in the US). The amount
needed to replace the "cubic mile" will depend greatly upon the
route taken from electricity to transport.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 6:54pm | Permalink | Subthread
"if the "hydrogen economy" is the route, it's just as bad"
True. There is, finally, near universal agreement that the
"hydrogen economy" will never happen for transportation.
"The amount needed to replace the "cubic mile" will depend
greatly upon the route taken from electricity to transport."
Very true. The best route, at the moment, is definitely via
batteries. That's clearly happening, though more slowly than
we would all like.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 6:55pm | Permalink | Subthread
Kyle, you should go back and review the basic ideas and
calculations in the main article.
You're comparing the heat input value of crude oil to the energy
output of electrical generation. We can replace 30B barrels of oil
with much less electrical BTU equivalents. For one example, the
Tesla runs on .215kwh per mile (wall to wheel), which is equivalent
to 159 MPG.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
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Only 104 nuclear power plants provide 20% of US power, which in
turn consumes 39 of the US's 97 quads (BTU's). It would only take
another 75 plants to power electrical replacements for all 210M
light vehicles in the US.
Average electrical generation in the US is about 445GW....
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Kyle on February 28, 2007 - 7:35pm | Permalink | Subthread
You'll notice that I quoted electric generation in terms of
"rated capacity", which is how much could be produced
theoretically, not actual production.
The electric car thing is very debatable in terms of efficiency,
much more than you are letting on. I am playing devil's
advocate here, but there are definitely some issues that deserve
more discussion.
Comparing apples to apples, I could buy a similar 2-seater
"muscle car" such as a Chevy Corvette for about half the
money, which would pay for gasoline at any cost for as long as
I would ever care to drive the car. This is obviously a joke to
compare these two cars, but for example, if you compare the
Honda Civic Hybrid versus the gas version, the price
difference is about $6,000. At 100,000 miles expected life, that
suggests a gas price of $6/gallon for breakeven, i.e.,
substantially more than the $2/gallon energy price that was
around when the car was built. While I have no problem with
paying to go green, I do worry about whether this represents
an EROI issue - why do these electric/hybrid cars cost so
much more than the gas versions? Do they truly save energy
full cycle? It may be the dual drive. Regardless, we won't find
out until electric cars become widely available...
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 8:10pm | Permalink |
Subthread
I believe that expected life is more like 150K+ - good
used cars stay around for a while. If gas prices rise, I
would expect new PHEV's to have a much higher than
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average lifetime mileage, and gasoline to be lower...
It is the dual drive, plus the NIMH battery, plus R&D
costs. As with most manufacturing, it's high priced labor,
not energy.
Toyota expects to reduce the cost premium for their
hybrid system, for the next-gen Prius, by 50%.
Serial hybrids are in some ways likely to be significantly
cheaper than parallel hybrids. EV's are simpler than
ICE's, and a serial hybrid is an EV with a small add-on
generator.
The battery cost is the wild-card. That's one reason GM
is playing off two battery suppliers against each other, to
reduce their pricing leverage. The first generation is
likely to be a bit pricey, but come down quickly. The real
question is the TCO - total lifecycle cost of ownership.
That should be equal to or lower than an ICE at current
gas costs, and dramatically lower if gas prices rise. It
looks to me like a question of engineering and project
management, which GM is pretty good at, once they have
their goals right. I think they understand how crucial this
is to their future, so I'm hopeful.
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 1:58am | Permalink | Subthread
Actually, I missed a big one. Those things would only replace the energy
we get from oil. Replacing all the heat, electric, etc. energy we use from
all fossil sources would take quite a bit more, especially when those
sources are used with greater efficiency than 12.4% well-to-wheels.
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sofistek on March 1, 2007 - 3:40am | Permalink | Subthread
And what about peak generation? It may be possible to theoretically
calculate the amount of electrical energy required to replace the
energy we get from oil but electricity generation has to deal with
peak loads. This would surely add a factor to the calculations
(double, triple?). Oil seems very good at providing those peaks; just
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look at the traffic jams, at peak times, with all those engines still
running just fine.
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 9:45am | Permalink |
Subthread
The analysis is about energy, not the rate at which it's used
(power).
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mididoctors on February 28, 2007 - 12:43pm | Permalink | Subthread
I'll go for the PV panels.. the 14 nukes.. is that a per annum builds figure. I never did
understand this cubic mile graphic? what about the replacement utility.. by that how
many nukes does it take to replace the cubic utility of oil by electrical means?
Heat and btu's is all well and good but its not really the end goal?
Boris
London
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thomas deplume on February 28, 2007 - 12:44pm | Permalink | Subthread
Looking at end uses of energy may be the best way to look at the problem. It's not
neccesarily gasoline that I want, it's the work it can do for me. I don't neccsarily want
natural gas, I want a warm house and a hot shower. I don't want coal, I want power for
this computer and a few other gadgets. But is 700 watts enough power to improve the
quality of life for the world's poor? Put another way would you be comfortable on just
700 watts?
A big problem with substitutes for oil and coal is Wall Street's insistence on maximizing
profits by always going for the lowest bidder. There is enough biomass produced every
year to replace all our coal use and then some but it is much cheaper to use strip mined
Wyoming coal. If we applied the standards that the military uses in weapons procurement
and emphasized bangs over bucks then conversion to renewables and greater efficiency
would be a no-brainer. Placing a reducing cap on the amount of fossil fuels sold each
year would change long term energy investing enormously.
All it takes is changing a few rules of the game.
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 2:03am | Permalink | Subthread
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
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700 watts is 16.8 kWh/day; enough to drive 84 miles every day at 200 Wh/mile.
If the goal is to replace oil, 700 W/capita is enough for a very comfortable world.
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thomas deplume on March 1, 2007 - 10:25am | Permalink | Subthread
Man does not live by transportation alone. Transportation is only 20% of my
energy use. 3.5 kw or 84 kwh/day which includes the embodied energy of all
the goods and services I use.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 12:48pm | Permalink | Subthread
We should keep in mind the multiplier effect in the other direction for heating: heat
pumps (air and geothermal) can turn 1 kwh of electricity into 3 or 4 times as much heat.
That means wind and solar electric are much more useful than a straight comparison
would suggest.
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toilforoil on February 28, 2007 - 1:02pm | Permalink | Subthread
How do wind/solar powered heatpumps compare with diesel powered heat pumps?
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 1:18pm | Permalink | Subthread
Well, diesel electricity is very, very roughly about $.25 per kwh
($2.50/10kwhs per gallon), depending on efficiency and handling costs (the
military estimates fuel can cost $70/gallon in the war theatre due to supply
chain costs).
Wind in the US is around $.04 to $.06 wholesale, or around $.10 retail, so
wind is a lot cheaper, especially given that you could probably shift some of
your daytime heating/AC to the night, when pricing is likely to be around $.05.
Wind can be double the cost in countries like Denmark and Germany, whose
wind resources are pretty poor (even though those countries are determined to
maximise it).
Solar PV is around $.30/kwh, so it's a little more expensive at the moment. It's
dropping very quickly in cost, though not yet in price due to skyrocketing
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demand.
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Rajiv on March 1, 2007 - 4:33pm | Permalink | Subthread
Carbon dioxide actual heat pump efficiencies (not theoretical) can be found at
Performance test of a carbon dioxide heat pump for combined domestic hot water
and floor heating
Hot water output at 65 to 95 deg C. COP of roughly 4.5
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davet on February 28, 2007 - 1:16pm | Permalink | Subthread
Imagine clean, cheap energy as a birthright. Something to ponder.
Well, we're treating cheap energy as a birthright, one out of two ain't bad? Still and all,
I'm a bit leery of that 700W/person number. Today we have energy beyond imagining -in the imagination of 100 years ago. Give us 1400W/person, or 7000, and I suspect we'll
find ways to waste it and suck up resources even faster.
Anyway,
That cubic mile just shrunk by half... in all three dimensions!
I think we'd need that cubic mile to increase 8-fold.
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DelusionaL on February 28, 2007 - 1:49pm | Permalink | Subthread
I assume that this is oil only and to replace nat gas we will need even more?
This is ALOT of stuff to build. Factoring out river capacity already being used, coal from
co2 emmissions, the intermittance of wind and solar, and of course nukes.
The chart should be refined into a "best options list". Conservation via rail has to get
bigger press(Alan!).
I get a sense of urgency thanks to WT and Khebabs work. "Net export capacity" or nat
gas for the US, which will be the dog that bites us first.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 2:06pm | Permalink | Subthread
"This is ALOT of stuff to build. "
Not really. If we built it for new consumption, and to replace obsolete infrastructure
at it's end-of-life, it wouldn't be any more expensive than our current approach.
Now, if we start to replace coal plants and ICE vehicles before the end of their
normal life-time, it starts to get a little expensive (though still afordable, IMO).
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Khebab on February 28, 2007 - 2:04pm | Permalink | Subthread
By this, a cubic mile of oil is even more impressive: 1.60*1020 joules. That's
5070 gigawatt-years of energy, nearly twice IEEE's estimate.
I'm also having trouble reproducing their calculations.
There are some clues in another presentation from the same author (Hewitt Crane):
Second set of considerations about the state of the world’s energy supply
They give the following figure:
From the first line, a new oil well producing 27,000 barrels per day installed every week
for 50 years give:
27000*50*52= 70.2 mbpd= 25.6 Gb/year ~ 1 CMO
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One new nuclear reactor (0.9 GW) installed every week for 50 year, at the end we get an
annual production of:
0.9*52*50= 2340 GW-years
but 2340 Gw-years is 46% of the raw chemical energy you mention (5070 GW-years).
In conclusion, I'm wondering if they assumed that the useful energy from 1 CMO is the
electricity that would have been generated by burning the oil (assuming a 46%
efficiency). Assuming a steam cycle to produce electricity with heat rate of 10,000
Btu/kWh (i.e. 34% thermal efficiency). At best, an industrial plant cogenerating electric
power with process steam is capable of having a thermal efficiency of 5000 Btu/kWh (i.e.
68% thermal efficiency).
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polytropos on February 28, 2007 - 2:10pm | Permalink | Subthread
Do we have any comparisons in history that give some guidance as to the social and
economic changes (upheavals)that will occur with the decline of the availability of low
cost oil?
Homer Dixon posits that the decline of the Roman Empire was due in part to their
inability to source enough energy to maintain it.
Was it energy, or was it wealth?
Wealth comes from productive capacity and productive capacity comes from energy.
Is this as good as it gets, or will technology save the day?
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polytropos on February 28, 2007 - 2:13pm | Permalink | Subthread
Do we have any comparisons in history that give some guidance as to the social and
economic changes (upheavals)that will occur with the decline of the availability of low
cost oil?
Homer Dixon posits that the decline of the Roman Empire was due in part to their
inability to source enough energy to maintain it.
Was it energy, or was it wealth?
Wealth comes from productive capacity and productive capacity comes from energy.
Is this as good as it gets, or will technology save the day?
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Nick on February 28, 2007 - 3:02pm | Permalink | Subthread
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My understanding of the decline of the Roman Empire is that it was by nature shortlived. AFAIK, agriculture couldn't sustain the lifestyle in Rome, and they kept it
going by conquering their neighbors. The circle of exploitation had to keep
expanding until the empire was too big to defend.
In our case, peak oil does not equal peak energy - renewables and nuclear will do
just fine.
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toilforoil on February 28, 2007 - 4:55pm | Permalink | Subthread
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2184473
The Role of Deforestation in the Fall of Rome
From the time that Octavian became Caesar Augustus in 27 BC, the Roman
Empire dominated the Mediterranean world for about 500 years. The
Emperors had absolute control over the lives of as many as 70 million people from Hadrian's Wall in Britain to the Euphrates River in what is now Iraq. The
Roman legions were the largest and most powerful military the world had ever
known, and peace and prosperity reigned without interruption for centuries at a
time. The famous historian Edward Gibbon describes this as the best time to
be alive in the entire history of the world. Yet in AD 476 the last emperor,
Romulus Augustulus, was removed from power at the whim of the barbarian
general Odovacer. What events led the most powerful empire in the world to
its dramatic collapse? The question of the fall of the Roman Empire has been
debated for 1500 years, but new evidence suggests that the wealth and
prosperity of Rome may have been the cause of its own downfall. According
to a new theory, environmental damage, and particularly deforestation, to meet
the needs of the luxurious elite caused a whole host of problems eventually
weakening the Empire to the point that it could no longer stand.
The Causes of Ancient Deforestation
· Building with Wood
· Wood for Heating
· Wood-use in Industry
· Felling Trees for Agriculture
· Deforestation in Warfare
The Effects of Ancient Deforestation
· Soil Depletion
· Increasing Marshlands
· Abandonment and Flight of Industry
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The Fall of the Roman Empire
So, what was the end result of this all? In essence, at the same time as
neighbouring barbarian tribes became more powerful and organised, Rome
became a starving parasite which had sucked its land dry. Population began to
decrease, and with a worthless coinage and empty treasury there was no way to
pay the army. Eventually, in AD 376, there was no longer any way to keep the
barbarians out, and the borders were overrun by a series of invasions. 476 is
the year usually given as the official fall of Rome - but it was nothing but an
empty shell for many decades before that, a victim of its own rapacious hunger
and unwillingness to develop sustainable systems. As the great Roman orator
Cicero said in a speech which no one apparently heeded: serit arbores quae
alteri seculo prosint ('He plants trees so that another age may profit').
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Oilrig medic on March 1, 2007 - 11:18am | Permalink | Subthread
I think you are taking a symptom as a cause.
Rome had a host of problems...breakdown of the nuclear family, lead
poisoning, complete lack of morals, and a ruling elite who abused the
public.
We have plenty of trees and no lead poisoning (on comparison to rome)
yet we have many early signs of rome's decline.
Rome also gave bread (food stamps) to the masses to keep them fed
while the watched the games (television). What happened when the bread
ran out?
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toilforoil on March 1, 2007 - 1:12pm | Permalink | Subthread
I think you get too much information from old movies.
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new account on March 1, 2007 - 5:00pm | Permalink |
Subthread
Cuiusmodi familia multesimus?
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Oilrig medic on March 1, 2007 - 5:40pm | Permalink |
Subthread
Discipuli putant se linguam Latinam amaturas esse....
But you won't :)
It helped me through life though especially in school.
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kjmclark on February 28, 2007 - 5:05pm | Permalink | Subthread
In our case, peak oil does not equal peak energy - renewables and
nuclear will do just fine.
Don't you mean "peak oil does not *have to* equal peak energy"? Oil is 40%
of US BTU worth of energy. We're going to have to get cracking if a reduction
in that 40% is going to be covered by increases in renewables and nuclear.
Having done a small bit of research on Rome, I'm fairly convinced that they hit
peak wood. Remember, it isn't how much oil there is in the world, it's the rate
you can extract it to do work. In the Romans' case, it wasn't how much wood
there was in the world, it was how fast they could produce wood for their uses.
The production rate incorporates the rate of growth, the slow reduction in
forested land, the smaller size of trees as they're recut compared to their old
growth size, shipping distances, etc. They cut the easy to get and higher quality
wood first, then went for farther and poorer supplies, eventually conquering
the vast forest resource of the British Isles, but being held back by the
Germans. In the end the shipping costs for hauling wood long distances
overwhelmed the value of their harvests. They attributed the constant price
increases for wood to speculators and gouging. Those price increases
combined with the need to otherwise maintain their far-flung empire to bring
them down.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 5:34pm | Permalink | Subthread
"Don't you mean "peak oil does not *have to* equal peak energy"?"
Sure, it's just not as catchy.
More seriously, I thought in terms of a strict identity: PO does not equal
PO, meaning that one does not necessarily cause or imply the other. That
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doesn't exclude the possibility of getting PE. This is a long discussion,
which needs to include energy quality (as discussed in the main article),
efficiency, substitution growth rates, etc.
Re: Rome - I had the impression that food agriculture was more
important than wood. In any case, do you think that your description of
peak wood is consistent with the idea that Rome was inherently
expansionist, and unsustainable, because it was stealing from an ever
expanding fringe of colonies to support central luxury?
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kjmclark on February 28, 2007 - 6:53pm | Permalink | Subthread
Yes, I think most people have that impression about food in Rome
vs. wood. Of course if you asked most people today whether they
burn more calories as food or as fuel, they'd almost certainly say
food. People don't think about how much energy they use; the
Romans didn't either. There are great records of how much grain
moved through Ostia, but AFAIK there aren't many records of how
much wood moved through Ostia, though it was probably far more
BTUs of energy. As good lumber and firewood species became
more scarce in central Italy, wood consumption for producing goods
moved to the provinces, so the energy consumed came to Rome as
finished goods like cement, metals, glass, pottery, and food, making
it even more difficult to see how much energy was being burned.
The food still came to Rome as food however. This should sound
familiar, since we're doing the same thing in the developed world
today.
I would say that Rome was unsustainable, but I think it was
expansionist because it was using its wood resource faster than it
could be naturally replenished and the Romans had to expand their
territory to maintain an adequate wood supply. It isn't quite the
same thing. Rome was unsustainable because it used resources
faster than was sustainable.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 7:08pm | Permalink | Subthread
My understanding was that Rome was sustained by taxes on
conquered agricultural areas. They overexploited those areas,
and then moved onto more distant lands, using the taxes stolen
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there to subsidize closer lands.
I guess the basic question is, which came first, empire or
excess wood consumption? Did they conquer first, exploit and
get a taste for excess consumption, or did they consume first,
and expand to feed the habit?
In the case of the US, clearly the high energy consumption
came first, and later was fed by imports as US oil peaked.
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Aniya on February 28, 2007 - 8:11pm | Permalink | Subthread
Hi Nick,
re: "Don't you mean "peak oil does not *have to* equal peak
energy"?"
Sure, it's just not as catchy.
More seriously, I thought in terms of a strict identity: PO does not
equal PO, meaning that one does not necessarily cause or imply the
other. That doesn't exclude the possibility of getting PE."
I'm glad you brought this up, because I've recently run into a
problem with exactly this logic.
This particular formulation, namely "...That doesn't exclude the
possibility of getting PE." seems somewhat (unintentionally, of
course) misleading, it seems to me, especially to those unfamiliar
with the role and function of energy to meet human needs.
In fact, without adding anything else, I'd say the situation is exactly
the opposite. PO (in fact) *does* (for sure!) equal PE, *unless*
mitigation measures, including new methods of energy production,
are taken. (And even then, it still might, we don't know.)
I would say what's missing here, is a qualifying word that involves
time, i.e., the future.
How I'd parse this:
1) Oil is a subset of our total energy production/consumption in the
real world, as it functions today. (Please add quantifiers - I leave
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that to you!)
2) An impending decline in this one source (world supply of oil)
definitely means a certain decline in total energy
production/consumption, unless mitigation measures, including new
energy production methods, can be instituted.
3) These leads us to some important questions:
-- How do we analyze the current production/consumption?
-- Do alternatives exist on the production side?
-- Do these add up?
-- What else can be done?
-- What kind of lead time is necessary?
And so forth.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 10:37pm | Permalink | Subthread
I suppose it depends on your perspective.
In England of the 1300's (and, apparently, Rome ca 300 AD),
peak wood was peak energy. When they ran out of wood, they
were out of luck.
Now, there is no question that there are alternatives to oil. Oil
is only 40% of our energy consumption. Coal is plentiful, and
it will be used if the alternative is turning out the lights.
Nuclear is similar. Wind is plentiful and more than cheap
enough. Solar thermal is cheap, solar CSP electric is cheap
enough, solar PV will be cheap enough in a short time.
When oil gets more expensive there is no question at all that
these will be used. We can quibble about the external costs
(GW, pollution, catastrophic risk of failure) and comparative
costs between them, but they will be used if the alternative is
no power.
The only questions that remain are: will these be more
expensive or less convenient than oil, and if so how much, and
how long will they take?
But the alternatives exist, and they will be used.
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Aniya on March 1, 2007 - 12:09am | Permalink |
Subthread
Hi Nick,
Re: "The only questions that remain are: will these be
more expensive or less convenient than oil, and if so how
much, and how long will they take?"
And:
1) If "more expensive" where does the money come
from?
2) If "less convenient", what is the dollar/energy cost of
that inconvenience?
3) "How much" - and is there "enough money" to put
them in place?
4) "How long will they take?" And how much time do we
have?
5) Who will do this transitioning?
6) Will they do it in an optimal (or even sensible)
manner?
etc.
I left out: 7) Do they add up as replacement? Or as a
fraction of replacement?
8) What about continuing growth?
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 7:04pm | Permalink |
Subthread
Let me start with the most important:
"7) Do they add up as replacement? Or as a fraction
of replacement?
8) What about continuing growth?"
Yes, they can replace oil (and coal) and provide
room for growth. For example, wind in the US
could generate twice the electricity we use now.
Here is an analysis for just one region, the Mid-
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Atlantic:
February 7, 2007
Mid-Atlantic Offshore Wind Potential: 330 GW
by Tracey Bryant
The wind resource off the Mid-Atlantic coast could
supply the energy needs of nine states from
Massachusetts to North Carolina, plus the District
of Columbia -- with enough left over to support a 50
percent increase in future energy demand -according to a study by researchers at the University
of Delaware (UD) and Stanford University.
More at http://www.ocean.udel.edu/windpower/
Regarding solar: the earth receives 100,000
terawatts continously from the sun, and humans use
the equivalent of 4.5 terawatts on average. There's
more than enough.
If electricity costs go up by 20-30% (my estimate of
the premium for a 100% renewable grid), you'd
have 20-30% higher electric bills. You'd spend a
little less on pizza.
If transit, or EV's, were a little less convenient,
you'd spend a little more time traveling. Actually, I
suspect they won't be. The biggest permanent effect
of much less oil might be on air travel, which is
likely to get 25-50% more expensive. Why not
more? Because we can synthesize kerosene, or use
ethanol, and that won't be out of this world
expensive. Jet fuel is perhaps 30% of airline costs
these days, so a doubling of their fuel cost would
add 30% to overall air travel cost.
The hardest question is how long it will take. That
depends on how serious we get as a country about
global warming, and how quickly oil prices rise. As
I noted elsewhere, we could convert to PHEV's for
75% of vehicle miles driven in 20 years with
relatively little pain (3 years to PHEV sales, 7 years
to convert most vehicles to PHEV, 10 years of
sales). That would accomplish a large chunk of the
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reduction needed. Actually, it could be really good
for the domestic car industry to do it that fast or
faster: it would keep them solvent, if done in the
right way. If done in the wrong way....we'll all be
buying our vehicles from Toyota, and upcoming
Chinese car manufacturers.
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sofistek on March 1, 2007 - 3:58am | Permalink |
Subthread
Coal is plentiful
How do you define "plentiful"? Oil is plentiful, also, (1
trillion barrels of conventional recoverable resource,
produced at about 80 million barrels each and every day),
but we're discussing the decline of that particular
resource. Whenever I've seen the calculations done on
coal, it doesn't last more than about 80 years, if it could
be produced at the required rates. It won't be produced at
the required rates and so will last longer, but will peak
much sooner. And if used to substitute for oil, the peak
will occur even sooner.
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 2:17pm | Permalink |
Subthread
As I discussed elsewhere, I define plentiful as
sufficient to get us through a 30 year (or less)
transition.
Keep in mind that coal usage for generation isn't
going to increase greatly in the US. TXU just
cancelled 8 coal plants, and other cancellations will
follow. The remaining new plants are likely to be
substantially more efficient than older coal plants.
Wind is 46% of new planned generation for 2007,
and coal is only 13% (adjusted for capacity factor see http://www.nei.org/documents/Energy%
20Markets%20Report.pdf
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page 8, keeping in mind that only 07 is accurate for
wind because of the short planning horizon for
wind: this is a compilation of specific planned
projects, not a forecast or projection). Wind has
challenges providing peak capacity, but there's no
question it's great at reducing fuel usage.
I expect to see substantial CTL, but I expect
EV/PHEV's will be the main solution to oil
depletion.
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feedorfeedback on February 28, 2007 - 5:23pm | Permalink | Subthread
In our case, peak oil does not equal peak energy - renewables and
nuclear will do just fine.
I'm not so sure that renewables and nuclear will step in so easily to fill the gap.
Liebig's Law of the Minimum states that growth is controlled not by the total
of resources available, but by the scarcest resource. Oil is and will stay
essential for maintaining our current state of affairs in the coming decades
AND is needed to fuel the transition to new energy concepts for our society.
Here lies a potential area for big economic conflicts. Such economic conflict is
already visible on the corn markets.
My understanding of the decline of the Roman Empire is that it was
by nature short-lived. AFAIK, agriculture couldn't sustain the
lifestyle in Rome, and they kept it going by conquering their
neighbors. The circle of exploitation had to keep expanding until the
empire was too big to defend.
Every system operates in pulses with 4 phases: growth, climax/transition,
decent and restoration for the next growth phase. Just as the Roman Empire
started to decline after 250, so will our western culture do at a moment. But it's
a big question if we will and make the efforts to sustain our societies. Our
technologies do not only consists of knowledge but depends on materials, fuels
and economic exchange.
When peak oil arrives the economic and material exchange can and probably
will change unfavourable for the don't haves i.e. most western countries. This
will make the transition to renewables even harder within our current
economic paradigm's.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 5:55pm | Permalink | Subthread
"Here lies a potential area for big economic conflicts. Such economic
conflict is already visible on the corn markets. "
No question. I expect high EROEI renewable and nuclear energy
investments will attract money and energy even during an era of
declining oil production, but it will do so at the cost of other areas,
especially light vehicle use and Industrial/Commercial consumption, and
maybe meat production (as is happening now with corn).
If depletion happens relatively fast (or if war expands in the Persian Gulf
to the point of greatly disrupting oil supplies), and we haven't prepared
better than we have so far, then the transition will be much more painful
than necessary. I expect it to happen - the only question is how painful it
will be.
My hope is that the campaign against global warming will accelerate
preparations.
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cyclelicious on February 28, 2007 - 2:47pm | Permalink | Subthread
I "digged" this; I like comparisons like this article provides. All that's missing is acres of
corn required to replace this cubic mile, expressed perhaps as a fraction of the earth's
available surface area.
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GliderGuider on February 28, 2007 - 3:11pm | Permalink | Subthread
According to my calculations, it would take about 13% of the world's total land area
to produce the ethanol equivalent of 30 billion barrels of oil from corn.
Coincidentally, that's almost exactly the total amount of arable land.
And of course, you still need to burn fossil fuels to make the stuff...
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Testudo on February 28, 2007 - 3:20pm | Permalink | Subthread
Why do you need to burn fossil fuels to create ethanol? I agree that you need
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energy inputs to run the tractors, fertalize the filds, ect. But why cannot
renewable energy be used?
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GliderGuider on February 28, 2007 - 4:10pm | Permalink | Subthread
Because then you'd need to use many times the arable land in the world,
given that your EROEI is just over unity. The point of this exercise is to
compare oil energy to some of the suggested replacements, and to offer
the sheeple some hint of the scale of the problem. I think corn ethanol is
stupid, but then I think all food-sourced biofuels are criminal, and PV is a
non-starter as well.
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Testudo on February 28, 2007 - 4:45pm | Permalink | Subthread
I agree with you that corn ethonol is a poor use of land, and not an
adequate replacement for petroleum. But there are non-fossil fuels
that don't require arable land; hydro, wind, solar, nuclear. The
challenge is to replace fossil fuels wiht non-fossil fuels. The only
sustainable situation is the one where non-fossil fuels contribute
100% of our energy use.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 3:22pm | Permalink | Subthread
Yeah, ethanol from corn is very inefficient.
It would be probably 10x more productive to generate electricity by burning or
gasifying a crop that was tailored to the purpose.
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ThatsItImout on February 28, 2007 - 3:39pm | Permalink | Subthread
Let's be honest, we all know here that corn was chosen for political
reasons, not technical ones. Sugar beets would be a better crop, and the
better choice is still bio-butanol.
The continued attempt to subsidize ethanol from corn will prove
unsustainable and the switch to other crops and a better end product will
begin. It is only a question of how much time, money, and natural gas we
waste before we get the politicos to realize this.
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RC
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom
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vtpeaknik on March 1, 2007 - 4:56pm | Permalink | Subthread
We are only one cubic mile, and a total reform of the political (and
financial) system, from freedom.
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 2:11am | Permalink | Subthread
Don't even get me started on ethanol... the blinkered mindset of "vehicles cannot run
on anything but a liquid fuel" is our biggest problem in the struggle to deal with oil
depletion and climate change. Our future is the "electron economy", and liquids
like ethanol will play only bit parts.
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ThatsItImout on February 28, 2007 - 3:34pm | Permalink | Subthread
Well!!
I don't even have to say how happy I am with this little discussion! :-) :-) :-)
Engineer Poet, excellent post, excellent starting point to really work over and visualize
the numbers, and once more, one sees what the "one mile" visualization can do for
creating a conceptual leap and a fascinating change of perspective. Great job.
A minor point or two:
--First, I don't think anyone has ever said replacing or substituting the volume of oil the
world uses would be "easy". We are talking about a change of infrastructure as large
(probably larger due to the increased population and technical complexity) as the one that
ushered in the industrial/fossil fuel age itself. It is not a "slam dunk" or inevitable that it
will happen. Another interesting issue is who among nations and regions will be able to
break out of old ways and make the leap. We (the U.S., Europe, Japan, Former Soviet
Republics) will find it most difficult to leave a vested infrastructure and a system that has
worked for us. We are talking about a "Powershift" (to use a term from Alvin Toffler,
with a book by that name, now mostly forgotten...) not only in type of power but who has
it.
--The chart showing alternatives to oil above only shows 5 choices, or 5 major
technologies. 3 of the shown technologies are already well developed and "old" in that
they are in play in a large scale way (hydro, nuclear, coal)
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I think the range of technology, the confluence of other sciences, and the breakthrough
science will lead us down many more energy paths than those listed above, not only in
energy production, but in efficient distribution and use. In fact, I think it will have to, to
avert major energy shortfalls in this century. Some of the numbers listed above sound
staggering until we think about what is already being done in manufacturing of energy
consuming devices.
I gave this example once before: Building 91 million solar panels sounds impossible
doesn't it? But remember, last year the world built over 65 million cars and light trucks!
Think for a moment of the complexity of cars and trucks, and you see that mass
manufacturing can do some large scale shifting about in the world, but, again, and again
we must say, or I must say anyway, that this is not an exercise in trying to make it sound
"easy". All I am trying to demonstrate is that it is "possible", and that complete
destruction of a technically modern world is not assured for technical/scientific reasons.
It may happen though, because the one thing that matters most is the desire, the will, to
save it, the belief that the technical age and the work of technology and scientific inquiry
have not been for nothing for these last couple of thousand years since the Greeks! That
is a question each of us must answer for ourselves. Is it worth saving? Because it is
possible to save, possible for our children to have as good or better lives than we knew,
free from that one cubic mile and it's controllers. But we have to want it enough to make
the changes, and now. Time, not energy is now our enemy.
Roger Conner Jr.
And what a place to get to use my tag line....:-)
Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom
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rohar1 on February 28, 2007 - 3:46pm | Permalink | Subthread
I don't understand a posting regarding Solar PV or Nuclear as oil alternatives. Solar PV
panels take a high amount of energy to produce relative to the energy they will ever put
out before they degrade completely and there already is a semiconductor feedstock
shortage.
The Australian Uranium Information Center has a prediction for 75 years worth of
uranium with minimal growth in usage. There are other estimates that are even lower
than that.
Both of those links are from their respective industries and are worth what they are worth,
but I don't understand why anyone would mention replacing a non-renewable resource
like petroleum with another one that is in short supply before it has any substantial
contribution to world energy.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 4:59pm | Permalink | Subthread
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"Solar PV panels take a high amount of energy to produce relative to the energy
they will ever put out before they degrade completely "
I'd be curious where you saw that. It was true decades ago, but it no longer is. The
following is good: http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/10/17/18478/085
I would note that the author is being conservative, and sticking to the older
published studies. E-ROI for both wind and solar PV have increased further since
then, but AFAIK no one has published on it - I suspect they think that a high solar
EROEI is old news.
"there already is a semiconductor feedstock shortage."
Only relative to demand. Supply is increasing quickly, but demand is doubling
every 18 months, which is hard to keep up with. Remember, the basic feedstock is
silicon - think sand.
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kvenlander on February 28, 2007 - 5:10pm | Permalink | Subthread
think sand
Has anybody told the Saudis?
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 6:09pm | Permalink | Subthread
Heh.
Yeah, they're the Saudia Arabia of sand. Of course, maybe you mean, has
anybody told them alternatives & renewables are a threat? The answer is
yes - that's a big reason why they wanted to keep oil under $40 for a long
time: Carter's CTL was at that price point, and it was a real shot across
the bow for them.
They have a lot of light too. More seriously, so does Iran. If we had
gotten started a little sooner on solar power, we could be offering Iran a
real alternative to nuclear. As it is....
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rohar1 on February 28, 2007 - 6:04pm | Permalink | Subthread
Wind turbines weren't in the discussion.
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"Remember, the basic feedstock is silicon - think sand."
No, "think sand" and massive amounts of electricity in an electric arc furnace.
You also have to think about construction of high tech factories and
equipment.
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 6:33pm | Permalink | Subthread
"Wind turbines weren't in the discussion."
No, but they were in Cleveland's article, and they're perfectly relevant,
so...they're in the discussion now.
"massive amounts of electricity in an electric arc furnace"
hmmm. Massive? Do you have any figures? Solar has a high EROEI, so
it can't be that big.
Let's back out possible figures, using industry costs. It takes about 2
pounds of purified polysilicon (which is melted in the furnace) to make
100w of cells. Until demand outstripped supply it was going for very
roughly $20/lb, so that's $.40/watt. If electrical costs were half the
manufacturing cost (likely it's less) and power averaged $.10/kwh, than
we're talking 4 kwh's per watt, and a payback period of about 2.5 years,
which is consistent with analyses from about 10 years ago. The payback
period has roughly dropped in half since then, as polysilicon usage has
been reduced.
"construction of high tech factories and equipment."
Which is mostly labor. Manufacturing costs are very roughly 3-10%
energy.
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Cid Yama on February 28, 2007 - 7:52pm | Permalink | Subthread
Just saw a video on BBC that showed manufacturer output ratings
for home wind turbines do not come close to actual real world
performance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_64000
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rohar1 on February 28, 2007 - 9:55pm | Permalink | Subthread
I don't want to be misunderstood. I think Solar PV has a niche
market in the energy picture.
1.25 years to balance EROEI on Solar PV? Did you know that 80%
of facts on the internet are made up on the spot? This link proves
that statement.
I live in Saskatchewan, Canada. Canada is the worlds largest
producer of uranium and it's all in Saskatchewan. They are building
2 new mines here and you are right, they haven't looked very hard
for uranium. There also are large supplies in reclaimed nuclear
weapons.
Homer Simpson and Chernobyl have had a major effect on society's
view of nuclear, whether the fears are valid or not, it's a tough sell. I
work in what is supposed to be High Availability systems, and I
wouldn't want us running a nuclear plant (at least not before coffee
Monday morning). If you read about the events of the Chernobyl
disaster, you will understand how multiple layers of safety can still
not be enough.
In the case of Solar PV and nuclear, you have to ask yourself why
technologies that have been around for more than 50 years haven't
become a major factor in the energy supply.
A 3-10% energy cost on construction of anything is a total
fabrication. Think about it a step back, it's _all_ energy cost.
Everything is built from stuff we found laying around the planet, it
didn't "cost" anything except the energy to recover and process it.
Human labor is a renewable resource and everything else is energy
cost. A bag of cement at my location went from $7 to $10 last year
with the increase in the oil price, not because of a limestone
shortage.
Saskatchewan also has 2.6 billion tonnes of coal and at the current
extraction of of 10 million tonnes per year, the known supplies will
last for 260 years, and again they haven't looked very hard.
The original point I was trying to make was not that any of the socalled renewable ideas are "bad", it was that some of the things
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labeled as "renewable" have components that might run out before
petroleum does if we shift any amount of the energy picture to
them.
Wind wasn't in the discussion, because it doesn't suffer the same
problems as Solar PV and generally can be built from common
materials without a high level of technology or long EROEI
balance.
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TrueKaiser on February 28, 2007 - 11:13pm | Permalink |
Subthread
Saskatchewan also has 2.6 billion tonnes of coal
and at the current extraction of of 10 million tonnes
per year, the known supplies will last for 260 years,
and again they haven't looked very hard.
you forgot to add this little tid bit of tasty information on that
little factoid.
at current usage levels
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 2:52pm | Permalink | Subthread
"1.25 years to balance EROEI on Solar PV? Did you know
that 80% of facts on the internet are made up on the spot?"
uhmmm. Are you suggesting the figure of 1.25 is incorrect?
Do you have a source (using data less than 5 years old) that
suggests otherwise?
"In the case of Solar PV and nuclear, you have to ask yourself
why technologies that have been around for more than 50
years haven't become a major factor in the energy supply. "
Well, I think renewables are a better priority than nuclear, but
there's no question that nuclear is a major factor. It's 20% of
US electrical generation. That's not major? On PV, compare
cell phone usage 20 years ago to usage now. The growth rates
are similar.
"it's _all_ energy cost."
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uhmmm, sure, if you want to define it that way. But, nobody
does. I've seen the argument that human labor is a form of
energy, but labor is a great deal more than the calories it
requires, and almost all costs are ultimately labor (labor to
machine drill bits, drill for oil, refine, etc). That's why EROEI
analysis is useful: it looks just at energy separately from labor,
in order to identify supply bottlenecks and weird feedback
loops created by subsidies. But, EROEI is a fairly
straightforward analysis, and so is analysis of manufacturing
costs.
If everything is energy....how do you analyze anything? Heck,
you could extend that way of thinking to say that 99% of our
daily energy usage is solar, warming up the planet on a daily
basis.
OTOH, you seem to be excluding labor. I think maybe you
just haven't sat down and added up the costs for your
operation, to inform your intuition.
If you added up all of your costs, you'd very likely find that
energy is less than 10%. What % of your cost is cement? What
% of the cement cost is energy? It's probably less than 25%, all
told (data anyone?).
Add up your direct costs: energy (utilities, fuel) is likely to be
less than 5%. Then look at your supplies, like cement. That's
probably less than 50%, and energy costs are likely less than
10% of their costs, overall. You could follow the supply chain
back, with similar results.
Oil, at $60/barrel and 7.4B barrels, is $420B, or only about 3%
of the US economy.
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rohar1 on March 1, 2007 - 3:43pm | Permalink |
Subthread
http://www.cement.org/basics/concretebasics_history.asp
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 7:11pm | Permalink |
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Subthread
I don’t see info on energy intensity. BTW, are you
thinking about cement, or concrete?
According to this:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/analysispaper/industry/c
“ In 1998, delivered energy intensity for the cement
industry was 68.0 thousand Btu per 1992 dollar of
output; the average for the energy-intensive
manufacturing sectors was 15.6 thousand Btu per
1992 dollar of output; and the average for the entire
industrial sector was 5.5 thousand Btu per 1992
dollar of output. “
And “Coal is the largest energy source, providing
two-thirds of the energy delivered to the cement
industry. “
Finally, coal costs about $1.70 per million BTU,
and gas is around $7 per million BTU. If we assume
2/3 coal and 1/3 gas then our weighted cost per M
BTU is $3.47 per million BTU. The energy cost of
our $1 of cement is, therefore, .068 times 3.47, or
about 24 cents, so my seat of the pants estimate of
25% was almost exactly right.
The comparable figure for the overall industrial
sector, assuming 25/75 mix of coal vs oil & gas, is
3 cents, at 2007 energy costs and 1992 industry
sales figures!
Contract coal prices have been pretty stable, so I
don't know why your cement has jumped in price by
almost 50%. Gas rose, but it maybe accounts for
about 8% of cement costs, so even at it’s peak
(about 3x before), that would only be a 16%
increase ( and that would be on the spot market contract costs would be more stable). It's not energy
costs. Maybe it's demand from China...
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rohar1 on March 2, 2007 - 5:58am | Permalink
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| Subthread
It's partially supply and demand. Hurricane
Katrina, Athabasca Tar Sands, residential
construction boom in Calgary and we had a lot
of housing starts locally. I think there were
some industry shortages in some of the cement
additives.
Beyond those factors, Diesel jumped $0.20/L.
Partially due to oil price and partially due to
refinery capacity. A 40 bag pallet of 40Kg
bags of cement weighs 1600 Kg and at
$10/bag retail is $400. How far would you
haul 3500 pounds of anything for $400? And
that is full retail. Truckers aren't making more,
they are probably losing margin with every
fuel increase, but the cost of transport and
manufacture of heavy goods still has to
increase with oil prices.
It's the same with other heavy but cheap
construction materials. Drywall
(sheetrock,gypsum board) floated around $5
per 4x8 1/2" sheet from 1985-1998 and now
it's at $11 retail. There is nothing in drywall
but gypsum and paper and it's a competitive
market. The retail price jump again had to do
with supply and demand, but the price of
petroleum affects all of these either directly or
indirectly.
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Nick on March 2, 2007 - 1:20pm |
Permalink | Subthread
Well, at 80,000 lb semi capacity, 1,000
mile trip, 6.5 MPG, $1.25/gallon, $7/bag
and 88 lbs/bag, the fuel cost was 3% of
the cargo value. So, if fuel increased by
$1.25/gallon that only increased the cost
by 3%, and as you note truckers have
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been eating some of the increases, so it
would have been even less than that.
A similar calculation for drywall at
$5/sheet is 2.6% of cargo value, so that
the doubling of retail price had very, very
little to do with shipping costs.
Not to mention that I would hope that
shippers would start using intermodal/train shipping, which would cut
fuel cost by 90%.
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sofistek on March 1, 2007 - 4:12am | Permalink | Subthread
a payback period of about 2.5 years
Hmm, over on the ROE2 group, there's a guy there who works in
the solar industry today and calculates a payback time, without
subsidies, of about 40 years. Other's agreed, though with subsidies,
that comes down to 20-odd years. A TV programme on the subject,
earlier this week, talked about 25-30 years payback. 2.5 years seems
very optimistic.
Not that payback time should necessarily be the yardstick, now, but
it perhaps illustrates the confusing information that's available on
this stuff.
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 9:47am | Permalink |
Subthread
You are confusing financial payback with energy payback.
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vtpeaknik on March 1, 2007 - 5:05pm | Permalink |
Subthread
I'll believe the energy payback claims when the finances
concur. Otherwise my guess is that the energy accounting
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is missing some big items. E.g., installation cost is
substantial, and that represents an energy input too. A
characteristic of low EROI is that a large portion of
society would have to work in the energy sector. That
leaves fewer people doing other things, i.e. fewer other
products being made, which means (in this example) that
we all end up with solar panels and not much in the way
of electricity-using devices we can afford to buy. (Were
is Eroi Van Tanstaafl when we need him?)
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 7:20pm | Permalink |
Subthread
"I'll believe the energy payback claims when the
finances concur."
That's the whole point of EROEI analysis: EROIE
and $ ROI are not always the same. If they were the
same, what would be the point of doing EROEI??
Again, EROEI analysis isn't hard to do, and it
always includes things like installation, supplies,
embedded energy, etc. That's just basic.
You may be allowing the low EROEI of corn
ethanol to give you the impression that such a thing
is common. You shouldn't, because it isn't. Corn
ethanol is just weird.
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vtpeaknik on March 1, 2007 - 11:33pm |
Permalink | Subthread
Corn ethanol is just weird
That's right, due to extensive and convoluted
subsidies. But in cases where there are no
subsidies, or they are more transparent, the
EROI analysis is not all that radically different
from the economic analysis. Especially so in a
case (PV) where both nominal inputs and
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outputs are primarily of the same kind of
energy (electricity). So how can you explain
the major (10x) discrepancy between the two
analyses? I claim uncounted energy inputs.
Got a better theory?
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Nick on March 2, 2007 - 2:03am |
Permalink | Subthread
"where there are no subsidies, or they are
more transparent, the EROI analysis is
not all that radically different from the
economic analysis. "
That's not the case. The point of E-ROI is
that $-ROI can be fooled by subsidies, so
that with subsidies you can have a good
$-ROI and have a bad E-ROI. If there is
no subsidy, then a bad E-ROI will force a
bad $-ROI.
The reverse is not true: you can have a
high E-ROI, and still have a low $-ROI,
if there's a lot of expensive labor
involved.
Let's walk through examples. In the case
of ethanol, they're trying to produce $1 of
energy with $.83 of energy input. If they
can't do it with less than $.17 of labor
(which is pretty hard) they can't make a
profit without a subsidy.
In the case of PV, they're trying to
produce $1 of energy with around $.04 of
energy input and very roughly $1.20 of
labor. So, they have high E-ROI, but
nonexistent $-ROI.
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vtpeaknik on March 2, 2007 10:17am | Permalink | Subthread
Labor is an energy input. You have
to account for the laborers'
McMansions and SUVs. You might
say: in a tighter economic situation
the laborers will live more frugally,
and thus the energy contents of
labor, so to speak, is not fixed. But
that means that in tighter economic
conditions we'll all consume less
and work harder to keep those PV
panels going, i.e., lower EROI. You
can change the labeling of things,
but the physical constraint is that
you cannot base an "affluent"
society on a low-EROI energy
source, and PV panels seem to be
an example of such.
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Nick on March 2, 2007 12:02pm | Permalink |
Subthread
As I explained above, if you
consider labor as equal to
energy you make it impossible
to think coherently about
energy.
The calorie content of labor is
the least important element of
it. It's necessary, but not
sufficient. Consider - a large
German Shepherd consumes
as much energy as a person,
but they don't contribute to the
economy (at least for house
pets...).
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Don't forget, the price of labor
is very important. PV requires
expensive labor.
"You have to account for the
laborers' McMansions and
SUVs."
Well, no. Think of a situation
where energy triples in cost,
but salaries rise very little
(say, 5%). If something has
very low E-ROI, then it's cost
will triple too, but something
that is expensive because of
labor, like PV, but uses little
energy to produce will only
rise in cost by 5%.
Suddenly the energy output of
PV would be worth 3x as
much, but the cost to produce
would go up very little, and it
would have a pretty good $ROI.
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 2:18am | Permalink | Subthread
The number of wind turbines required depends on the capacity factor,
which varies with geography and is a bone of contention regardless.
However, I am very bullish on wind. Any energy technology which can
grow 25-40% per year for 2 decades is bound to be a big player.
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TrueKaiser on February 28, 2007 - 11:07pm | Permalink | Subthread
...
the best pv solar cells use the exact same power hungry cpu fab factory's that
power the chip in your computer right now.
they use silicon one grade lower then cpu/gpu grade. the entire plant needs
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24/7/365 power to maintain the clean room(cleaner the operating rooms and
about as clean as the space nasa uses to handle space martial). as little as a one
minute brownout would force the entire plant to be closed for cleaning and
cause all silicon on the production line to be thrown out(considered too risky
to even recycle).
then there is the fact that NOT ALL SAND can be made into pure silicon.
peak oil unfortunately /does/ mean peak energy when our current system
require it to do anything. coal might extend it a few years longer using the
same tech the nazi's used in ww2. but not much. top down like it or not is /not/
a good way to look at a problem like this since it /will/ make you tend to
overlook factors.
the article you post on wind those doesn't take into account the making of all
materials needed to make the wind turbine. it starts with these parts already
made to make the whole thing look better then it is. yes this means going all
the way down to mining raw ore, because nature only counts the whole
picture. arbitrary points such as the ones used in said article are not counted.
thus they are my starting point for determining eroei.
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Aniya on March 1, 2007 - 12:16am | Permalink | Subthread
Hi TK,
Thanks for the phrasing here: "... top down like it or not is /not/ a good
way to look at a problem like this since it /will/ make you tend to
overlook factors."
I suppose, though perhaps not optimal, it is part of an analysis, in the
sense in can give some parameters (?). Likewise, my problem was in
making it the exclusive approach.
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 5:23pm | Permalink | Subthread
"the article you post on wind those doesn't take into account the making
of all materials needed to make the wind turbine. "
Ah, actually they do. Really. EROEI procedures are pretty
straightforward, and they include stuff like that.
"NOT ALL SAND can be made into pure silicon"
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Interesting. Given that we have a whole lot of silicon (it's 28% of the
earth's crust), that doesn't seem worrying, but if you have info I'd be
curious.
"peak oil unfortunately /does/ mean peak energy when our current system
require it to do anything...top down like it or not is /not/ a good way to
look at a problem like this"
Well, no, it really doesn't. Look at it bottom-up: the average household
has enough roof space needed for PV for half of their current highly
inefficient electricity needs, even assuming inefficient PV, and bad roof
placement, etc (750 Sq ft roof space for the average household (half of
actual), 15w/SF, assume low capacity factor of 12%, gives 1.35 KW
average, about half the average household usage). Of course, PV is much
more expensive than the alternatives at present, so that's a worst case
scenario right now, but it would work if necessary. Of course, wind,
nuclear and coal are more than cheap enough right now.
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Dezakin on February 28, 2007 - 5:58pm | Permalink | Subthread
The Australian Uranium Information Center has a prediction for 75 years
worth of uranium with minimal growth in usage. There are other
estimates that are even lower than that.
Every couple of weeks this myth gets replayed.
From the very link you posted:
Current usage is about 68,000 tU/yr. Thus the world's present measured
resources of uranium in the cost category slightly above present spot
prices (4.7 Mt) and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last
for some 70 years.
When you consider how small the fuel cost component is in nuclear power, and how
little exploration has been done for uranium for the past fifty years, its not alarming
in the least. We have enough nuclear fuel to last at the very least thousands of years.
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rohar1 on February 28, 2007 - 9:02pm | Permalink | Subthread
What are facts support thousands of years of uranium? It may be as common
as tin, but if it isn't in rich ore, it takes a lot of energy to find and extract. Until
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the recent price increase it wasn't worth mining even the rich ore they knew
about.
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Ian Down Under on February 28, 2007 - 10:11pm | Permalink | Subthread
This today on Financial Sense:
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/casey/2007/0228.html
Australia is poised for a breakout in uranium production. The land down
under hosts 36% of the world’s reasonably assured uranium resources
(recoverable at low cost)—more than any other country—and yet it
accounts for only 23% of global output. But that picture could change
drastically in the next few years...The stakes are enormous. Because of
past governmental disincentives, few of Australia’s prospective uranium
regions have been explored with up-to-date technology. There’s big
potential for a significant discovery in the Northern Territory, where,
according to a November 2006 report by the Northern Territory Minerals
Council, only 20% to 25% of the prospective rock units have been
effectively explored.
I think the problem is going to be more about the cost of construction of
Nuclear Plants as the demands for concrete and steel (both very high
energy demand products) is going to continue up for a very long time.
Plus, even more strict environmental and accident controls are certain to
be implemented if small plants are planned near non-isolated areas.
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AlanfromBigEasy on February 28, 2007 - 4:54pm | Permalink | Subthread
20 to 1 efficiency gains
What happens in the substitution formula when freight is shifted from heavy trucks to
electrified railroads ? Energy use goes from 20 BTUs (or joules) of diesel to one BTU (or
joule) of electricity ?
Or Miami builds out 103 miles of elevated Rapid Rail (already funded locally) and #
3/4ths of the population moves to within a mile of a station, the auto population drops by
1/3rd, total miles driven drops by 2/3rds and oil use drops by 90% ?
http://world.nycsubway.org/us/miami/miamiextmap.html
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Of course, more electricity is used for transportation, but more than a 20 to 1
gasoline+diesel to electricity exchange.
Best Hopes,
Alan
# A reasonable SWAG for twenty years of TOD post_peak Oil
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 2:18am | Permalink | Subthread
Is rail really that much more efficient than (even electrified) semi-trucks? I don't
have figures handy.
At even 5:1, moving half of our freight from interstates to rails would make a
considerable dent in energy requirements.
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AlanfromBigEasy on March 1, 2007 - 9:31am | Permalink | Subthread
I am surprised you never read my paper on how to Reduce US Oil Use by
10% in ten to twelve years with mature technology
I found an 8:1 efficiency gain for diesel-electric locomotives vs. heavy trucks
in the US in my paper.
http://www.lightrailnow.org/features/f_lrt_2005-02.htm
Thus the strong growth in intermodal shipments.
Someone else also quoted an 8:1 gain in Canada.
The industry "rule of thumb" is a net energy gain of 2.5 :1 on the plains and
3:1 in the mountains and congested urban areas by going to electric locos vs.
diesel-electric locos. The difference can be ascribed to more regenerative
braking in the mountains/urban areas.
Since I am comparing electricity BTUs to diesel BTUs, transmission &
transforming losses of ~8% vs. ICE losses to electricity in a small diesel
generator; 37% ICE efficiency is reasonable (and all locos brake occasionally).
Both type locos use electric motors for the final drive.
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8:1 x 2.5:1 = 20:1; 24:1 in some cases.
Also consider refueling losses (diesel fuel requires transport to the loco, and
has to be hauled around till burnt; also idling time while refueling, warm-up
time (~30 minutes in cold weather before putting a diesel-electric into service),
etc.
Best Hopes,
Alan
How does one electrify an 18 wheeler ?
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 9:53am | Permalink | Subthread
I can think of three ways to electrify an 18-wheeler:
1. Repower with something like zinc-air fuel cells (and refuel every
few hundred miles).
2. Use fast-charging batteries like the AltairNano units (0-80% in 60
seconds) and have one-mile recharging lanes (like weigh stations)
every 30 miles. Power transfer by brush from overhead wires.
3. Make the trucks dual-mode a la Blade Runner and power by
overhead wire when running intercity, battery for the urban mileage.
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AlanfromBigEasy on March 1, 2007 - 10:18am | Permalink |
Subthread
AltairNano is a scam corporation
Altair Nanotechnologies was founded in 1973 as Diversified Mines
Limited and changed its name to Tex-U.S. Oil & Gas, Inc. in 1981.
Later, it changed its name to Orex Resources, Ltd. in 1986; to
Carlin Gold Company, Inc. in 1988; to Altair International Gold,
Inc. in 1994; to Altair International, Inc. in 1996; and to Altair
Nanotechnologies, Inc. in 2002. The company is headquartered in
Reno, Nevada
The company is listed as being in the "Drug Manufacturers - Other"
industry. One could speculate on just what drug >:-)
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=ALTI
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Changing lanes on wired interstates could be "problematic", etc.
Zinc-air fuel cells cannot accept regenerative braking and ALL sorts
of practical problems develop from that proposal.
OTOH, the Trans-Siberian Railroad is electrified. All problems
resolved.
Trucks vs. rail still suffer from delta in coefficient of friction
between steel-steel and rubber-concrete or asphalt plus pneumatic
losses from tire sidewall flexing.
In summary, it is not practical to electrify heavy trucks for long
distances.
Best Hopes,
Alan
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 6:24pm | Permalink | Subthread
"AltairNano is a scam corporation"
Alan, what makes you think so? They seem to be shipping
product.
http://localnewsleader.com/jackson/stories/index.php?
action=fullnews&id=...
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fiev26feb26,1,948395.story?coll=la-h...
http://www.sys-con.com/read/343190.htm
Clearly they haven't looked entirely reputable in the past.
http://www.fool.com/investing/highgrowth/2005/05/31/history-repeats-at-...
but they seem to have finally delivered. Again, scam seems too
strong....
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AlanfromBigEasy on March 1, 2007 - 8:49pm |
Permalink | Subthread
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Your links all point towards an iffy company that got a
Photo-op with out "Engineer-in-Chief" @ 1600 Penn.
Ave. I trust his engineering judgment even less than I
trust his military judgment (over-riding his generals
recently).
Phoenix is doing what has been done before with leadacid batteries. Take a regular ICE vehicle, take out the
ICE & related components and add batteries, controls and
an electric motor. Nothing magic, or very desireable in
that.
Yes, Altair is a scam. Has been since Day One. Just
suckered $20 million more from investors.
Do you believe that the scam artist that hangs out in the
local bar and has a bit of a drug problem will one day be
the second Tesla or Thomas Edison ?
Well, our "Drug Manufacturer - Other" HQ is on Edison
Way !
No, scam is not too strong a word. Anyone that partners
with them is equally tarred IMO. I discount 110% any
Altair PR.
Best Realistic Hopes,
Alan
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Nick on March 2, 2007 - 12:31am | Permalink |
Subthread
The point of the articles was that they seem to have
actually produced a battery.
Sure, the SUT isn't designed from the ground up,
but it seems to be using the Altair battery, and
PG&E seems to be buying it.
I don't know if it's real or not. I note that GM isn't
dealing with it as a potential supplier. OTOH,
they're not dealing with Firefly, which certainly
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seems reputable.
What specifically makes you think it's a scam? Do
you have a source, or info not publicly available?
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AlanfromBigEasy on March 2, 2007 - 9:11pm
| Permalink | Subthread
Their bio-medical research "effort" (note their
industry classification) had some negative
feedback that I am aware of.
But this company has ALL the earmarks of a
scam company. Guilty until proven innocent
beyond any doubt is the ONLY safe way to
deal with companies like Altair Intermational
Gold that now lists itself as a "Drug
Manufacturer - Other".
I disbelieve ANY claim from them ! All
hogwash and hokum. I see Altair and I think
"Scam".
You seem to believe that scam artists are
innocent until proven guilty. That is a sure
path to being mislead and decieved. Give them
the benefit of the doubt and they will scam
you.
Best Hopes for reality based planning,
Alan
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fallout on March 5, 2007 - 4:08pm |
Permalink | Subthread
Altairnanon have yet to allow third party
to independently verify the performance
of their battery systems. The news
releases by the company are not
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convincing short of third party
verification.
I also see CA based Phoenix Motorcars
paid $750,000 for ten of their 35kw
battery packs. That's $75k a piece for just
the battery, sans vehicle. Toys for the
rich, nothing to get excited about.
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fallout on March 5, 2007 - 4:16pm | Permalink
| Subthread
Lets see here
Altair has claimed to create an amazing
technology significantly better than anything
else on the market.
However, they don't seem to be making any
sales attempts towards possible consumers
(like GM & Ford), have not tried to use them
in consumer electronics, have not provided
any OEM development samples (like A123),
nor submitted their batteries to independent
verification.
They establish an exclusive agreement to sell
them only to a company with questionable
finances (Phoenix Motorcars), which they now
own a part of.
No rational mind would choose an exclusive
agreement with no name Phoenix over
possible orders for a major automaker.
Likewise, apparently we can buy a BEV for
$45k that has a battery pack that cost Phoenix
somewhere around $75k.
This is starting to look like either incompetent
management or investor fraud. Either way, I,
like Alan, smell BS.
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story.
Engineer-Poet on March 2, 2007 - 12:53am | Permalink |
Subthread
Changing lanes on wired interstates could be
"problematic", etc.
Trucks don't change lanes through weigh stations either
(charging lanes), and the Blade Runner concept would be on
rails. Convert the left shoulder of the freeways to rail and put
all the semis on it.
Zinc-air fuel cells cannot accept regenerative
braking
Neither can diesels. But if you want to move a load where
you've got no rails and no wires, ZAFC will do the job with no
fossil fuel.
Trucks vs. rail still suffer from delta in coefficient of
friction between steel-steel and rubber-concrete or
asphalt plus pneumatic losses from tire sidewall
flexing.
Blade Runner places most of the load on steel wheels.
Rubber-to-steel contact is used for drive and braking, but the
required loads (and rolling resistance) is much lower because
of the relatively high coefficient of friction.
In summary, it is not practical to electrify heavy
trucks for long distances.
You've made an assertion without proof. You should do better
than that.
WalMart is working to make its trucks achieve 13 MPG (up
from 6.5) with better streamlining and better tires. If we
assume 140,000 BTU/gallon of diesel and 40% thermal
efficiency in the powerplant, the energy delivered to the
transmission is 1.26 kWh/mile. If that came from zinc-air fuel
cells through a 90%-efficient motor and controller instead, it
would take roughly 1 kilogram of zinc per mile (assuming a
fuel-cell output of 1.40 Wh/gram of zinc metal). Half a metric
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ton of zinc gives a range of about 500 miles.
This is not just possible, this is clearly feasible and practical.
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AlanfromBigEasy on March 2, 2007 - 9:08am |
Permalink | Subthread
Doubling fuel mileage @ Walmart is just wishful
thinking. Pulling all known tricks (including Michelin's
newish double wide single tire, synthetic oils, waxed
trucks at 55 mph) and a few new ones, they MIGHT get 9
mpg. When I first saw this goal, I thought some nonengineer wanted to help WalMart's stock price. BTW, I
would use a truck size electric motor efficiency of 88%
under varying loads.
In summary, it is not practical to electrify heavy trucks
for long distances
Interstate highways were not practical in 1908, the first
year of the Model T. They were practical by the late
1930s or late 1940s.
New "gadgetbahn" technologies are not practical until
proved in practice. My minimum is a half dozen systems
in varying climates and use patterns in operation for a
decade.
The elevated Metrobus in downtown Miami is NOT
practical, despite the initial hype and engineering theory
"proof" in the 1980s. Operations showed that it is simply
not price competitive (and too slow).
OTOH, monorails just barely meet the practical
threshold. The "wrapped rail" version is practical in
amusement parks and MIGHT be practical in VERY
rugged terrain.
I know nothing of Bladerunner except that it seems to be
just another gadgetbahn. They are not even close to being
practical (where are they built and operating in a
commercial envirnoment ?)
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OTOH, electrified rail is EXTREMELY practical with
10,000s of miles in operation for over a century. And rail
in street is no big deal. Accross the river from me, freight
trains run on 6th Street in Gretna in mixed traffic and
streetcars run in mixed traffic in the CBD of New
Orleans and on Carrollton Avenue.
Best Hopes for reality based planning,
Alan
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Engineer-Poet on March 3, 2007 - 2:59am |
Permalink | Subthread
Doubling fuel mileage @ Walmart is just
wishful thinking. Pulling all known tricks
(including Michelin's newish double wide
single tire, synthetic oils, waxed trucks at
55 mph) and a few new ones, they
MIGHT get 9 mpg.
Quite wrong. Today's faired semis have a drag
coefficient of 0.6-0.7. We can probably hit 0.25.
Steel wheels cut rolling resistance in half. If the
drag is distributed 35% rolling/65% aero, this would
give a prospect of 14.6 MPG (assuming the original
0.6 Cd figure; an improvement from 0.7 to 0.25
would give as much as 16 MPG).
OTOH, electrified rail is EXTREMELY
practical with 10,000s of miles in
operation for over a century.
I have no doubt that it is. It is also capital intensive
and grossly unsuited to serving the hinterlands.
We're going to have those trucks anyway, and
they're going to compete with your rail on selling
points like flexibility.
Nothing like a free market, eh?
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AlanfromBigEasy on March 4, 2007 - 5:21pm
| Permalink | Subthread
Steel wheels cut rolling resistance in half
Just what I want pulling up behind me on
Tchoupitoulas (access road to Port of New
Orleans) on a wet day.
Safety and braking are MAJOR issues. Our
streetcars have sand drops (computer
controlled on the new ones) and four 1 meter
long "high friction" bars that
electromagnetically clamp to the rails (battery
backup) for a VERY fast emergency stop (as
well as regenerative braking and disc brakes).
That is how we can safely run streetcars in
mixed traffic.
Just how do you propose to run steel wheels
on 18 wheelers safely in traffic ?
And I can already hear the Civil Engineers
screaming about steel wheels on THEIR
roads !
Not to mention embedded design issues
(assumed acceleration up on ramps to
Interstates in all weather, spacing of exits and
signs, etc. that cannot materoally change w/o
changing our roads).
I just do not see this efficiency gain
happening.
The pdf link did not work for me, but we are
VERY near the economic and legal limit on
aero improvements. As an example, a long
tapered tail helps Cd, but does nothing for
legal limits on total length, cargo capacity and
economic loading and unloading. Boxes are
rectangular and fit into rectangular interiors.
Cars can get low Cds becuse the cargo is a 2-6
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people and some luggage. Walmart trucks
(AFAIK, old vague knowledge) max out on
volume before maxing out on weight. A cube
gets the most cargo into a given legal limit
volume, not a low Cd shape. Running 4 low
Cd trucks to deliver what 3 "old style"
WalMart trucks delivered is not acceptable.
Again, I do not see this efficiency gain
happening.
Best Hopes for realistic planning,
Alan
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Engineer-Poet on March 8, 2007 2:56am | Permalink | Subthread
Steel wheels cut rolling
resistance in half
Just what I want pulling up
behind me on Tchoupitoulas
(access road to Port of New
Orleans) on a wet day.... I can
already hear the Civil
Engineers screaming about
steel wheels on THEIR roads !
They wouldn't be on the boulevard, or
running steel wheels on pavement.
They'd be running steel wheels on rail
(converted medians, shoulders or even
traffic lanes) and lifting them to run on
pavement for the legs from rail to
destination. They'd also be using rubber
tires to drive and brake, so their stopping
distances would be acceptable to you
even when on rail.
Not to mention embedded
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design issues (assumed
acceleration up on ramps to
Interstates in all weather,
spacing of exits and signs, etc.
that cannot materoally change
w/o changing our roads).
You assume that the trucks would stay on
rail for those maneuvers. It wouldn't be
necessary, and probably wouldn't be
done immediately if at all. The typical
operation would either be on dedicated
rail rights-of-way or rolling onto an
interstate on pavement, crossing to the
truck lane at the divider, and dropping
the rail wheels to engage the rails and lift
most of the load off the rubber tires.
we are VERY near the
economic and legal limit on
aero improvements.
Legal limits can be changed. Inflatable
aero boattails could be exempted from
state length limits by Congressional fiat.
A soft boattail would present minimal
safety issues and might even be
collapsible for city driving. And a rail
vehicle can do things a road vehicle
cannot; one driver could easily tow a
train of 4 trailers delivered to the railhead
by short-haul tractors and picked up the
same way at the destination. This would
allow most of the efficiency of rail, but
for distances far too short to be
economical for conventional trains.
I do not see this efficiency
gain happening.
It looks to me that you view it as
competing with your vision, so you don't
want to see it. We all have our blind
spots.
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AlanfromBigEasy on March 4, 2007 - 5:43pm
| Permalink | Subthread
Nothing like a free market, eh?
And with tolls on interstates (= to maintenance
+ lost property taxes + interest on cost of
construction), we might begin to approach a
free market :-)
Hint: It was not a free market that shrank the
railroads.
It is also capital intensive and grossly unsuited
to serving the hinterlands
VTPeakNik posted some links to a 1960 atlas,
showing rail lines in 3 rural areas.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2329#comme
-165293
I think I win the "access the hinterlands" point
with those old maps.
As for capital cost, please add long term
maintenance & life expectancy to that cost.
Rail need not cost much more than a first class
highway, and it's life cycle costs is lower
(especially with new concrete ties; the most
recent ones seem to have VERY long lives
except under the heaviest loads (and 30+ years
even then).
Have highways pay property taxes on their
value (or make railroads exempt).
Best Hopes,
Alan
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story.
Dave Cohen on February 28, 2007 - 6:11pm | Permalink | Subthread
Re: 700 watts is about 10 of today's PV panels. The industrial nations could almost
afford to give 10 panels to every child at birth, and cost improvements in the pipeline
could extend this to much of the world in the next decade or two.
Imagine clean, cheap energy as a birthright. Something to ponder
OK, I just pondered it. This works, if you disregard all realities except physics.
And, also
By this, a cubic mile of oil is even more impressive: 1.60*1020 joules. That's
5070 gigawatt-years of energy, nearly twice IEEE's estimate. But that's what
we [the Sun combined with primary productivity, burial and high pressure] put
in [very inefficiently, over many millions of years].
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Nick on February 28, 2007 - 6:35pm | Permalink | Subthread
"This works, if you disregard all realities except physics."
Well, if you look at the pessimistic PO web sites, you see that they mostly hang
their hats on physics. Of course, they do so with superficial analyses, but that's
where they base their arguments. If, once they've lost the physics argument, they
want to shift the discussion to cultural/psychological inertia, it suggests a
predilection for pessimism more than anything rooted in realism.
"very inefficiently, over many millions of years"
very, very, very inefficiently. Like, .00000000001% efficiency. It's not really
relevant to what we can do today.
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Dave Cohen on February 28, 2007 - 8:03pm | Permalink | Subthread
Re: ... you see that they [doomers] mostly hang their hats on physics ...
?
Sorry, I don't get what you said.
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Irreplaceable buried sunshine, biological limits, economics, energy in forms
necessary to be converted to useful work, cultural & psychological inertia (as
you say), etc. Various realities.
I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't refer to some people (not you) as "Mr. Free
Lunch". Mr. Amory Lovins and Mr. Ray Kurzweil come to mind, among
others. Not to mention Dr. Carl Sagan, who many think was a scientist but
who, really, on examination, turns out to be a mystic. Let's all chant it in
unison — TechoFix! Thanks, but no. I'll stay part of the reality-based
commmunity and watch 2001: A Space Odyssey later tonight.
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 7:31pm | Permalink | Subthread
"Sorry, I don't get what you said."
I mean that many sites say: renewables can't supply the energy we need.
They say it flatly, don't give any backup, and then go on to speculate on
the manner of collapse.
For instance, James Hanson goes into great length and detail about solar,
and then dismisses it in one sentence as "too dilute". Others dismiss wind
as "intermittent", with no analysis, no numbers, no backup.
Why is this important? Because some people actually act on what they
learn on sites like those, and this. They move to a rural retreat, or not
have children. I think a lot of people would just shut down their thinking
on the topic, and do nothing, but others might take drastic steps like that,
if they really, really believed that nothing could be done to prevent doom.
What we do here is actually important, and we should take care to be
realistic. That means looking at data, not making assumptions. I've
looked at the data, and I see real problems, but no reason to expect
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collapse.
When someone objects that oil can't be replaced, and I show them that it
can, and then they move to an argument that
social/political/psychological obstacles will prevent it, that looks to me
like a conclusion in search of an argument.
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eric blair on March 2, 2007 - 12:10pm | Permalink | Subthread
It's not really relevant to what we can do today.
And yet the 'tomorrow' is going to be viewed though the lens of the expanding
economy, better sick care, leisure opportunities, food 'always being there' (if
you have some money VS no food at any price), and the lens will be colored
by the WAY cheap price of oil in the past.
So exactly HOW are all these changes going to be done so
the .00000000001% efficient generation of the past will be seen 'as good as'
whatever-you-think-is-doable-today?
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Nick on March 2, 2007 - 1:47pm | Permalink | Subthread
hhmmm. I'm not sure what you're asking.
My point was that some people look at the very long time required for
fossil fuels to be created, and think that tellls us something about the
difficulty of replacing them. My point is that it does not - the geological
processes that produced FF were astonishingly inefficient, and tell us
very little about the practicality of non-FF energy sources.
Those sources include wind, solar thermal and PV, nuclear, geothermal,
wave/tide, and biomass. Wind and nuclear are already essentially equal in
cost to fossil fuels, and the rest are developing: solar costs will almost
certainly fall into the same range, while the others will likely play niche
roles.
Electrification of ground transportation and home heating will allow the
replacement of most uses of oil. In the long run air and water shipping,
and petrochemicals may use biomass for liquid fuels; improved
electricity storage; or direct synthesis of liquid fuels without biological
processes; it's not clear to me how these will compete cost-wise, but
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biomass is the cost leader at the moment, at probably twice the cost of
FF-derived kerosene. In the short run jet fuel is likely to simply outcompete other uses for dwindling oil supplies, and in the medium term it
may use CTL.
In the long run coal will be replaced by renewables and nuclear. I expect
the complete replacement of FF to raise electricity costs by about 20%
(depending on the mix - a lot of nuclear might be a little cheaper), reduce
ground transportation costs by something similar, raise air shipping costs
by 30-50%, and water shipping costs by less than 1%.
Does that help?
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ET on February 28, 2007 - 10:22pm | Permalink | Subthread
This works, if you disregard all realities except physics.
Love it!! This has to be the quote of the week!
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 2:32am | Permalink | Subthread
I fully intend to disregard overcome all realities except physics. Everything else is
equivalent to geocentrism; people may have an emotional attachment to it, but
they'll come around to reality eventually.
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Dave Cohen on March 1, 2007 - 8:54pm | Permalink | Subthread
Re: I fully intend to disregard overcome all realities except physics...
What are you, the Messiah?
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Engineer-Poet on March 2, 2007 - 12:54am | Permalink | Subthread
Just another truth-teller. E pur si muove, and the truth cannot be denied
forever.
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eric blair on March 2, 2007 - 12:33pm | Permalink | Subthread
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I fully intend to disregard overcome all realities except physics.
Oh, pray tell how will you do this?
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jimvj on February 28, 2007 - 8:07pm | Permalink | Subthread
The Livermore Labs put out Energy Flow Diagrams that give a birds-eye view of energy
usage by input, useful output, and waste. PDF File.
Those should make a good starting point and representation for such "what-if" analyses.
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oldhippie on February 28, 2007 - 9:31pm | Permalink | Subthread
That's a great chart. Please note the huge losses in distributing electric power. Power
should be generated near where it gets used or this is gonna happen. Installing huge
generators and huge transmission grids alone is no solution.
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Laurence Aurbach on February 28, 2007 - 10:45pm | Permalink | Subthread
I think the losses are mostly in power plant conversion inefficiencies, not
transmission. If I recall correctly, electricity transmitted 500 miles has a
transmission loss of seven percent.
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 1:45am | Permalink | Subthread
IIRC, the average transmission and distribution loss in the USA is about
7%. All the other losses are in conversion from fuel to electricity.
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Rethin on February 28, 2007 - 9:55pm | Permalink | Subthread
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
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Khebab on February 28, 2007 - 11:17pm | Permalink | Subthread
Check this one:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
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The Oil Drum | That cubic mile
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Rethin on February 28, 2007 - 11:46pm | Permalink | Subthread
I don't quite understand the electricity generating loss here. According to
the chart 38.2 quads of energy results in 11.9 quads of distributed
electricity. That's only 30%? Why is this so low?
To get the 5.3 quads of energy needed for transportation you need 17
quads of energy at that rate. Nearly as much oil as we are using now.
What would be the point of switching to EVs then?
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 1:46am | Permalink | Subthread
The average heat rate of thermal plants in the USA has just dropped
below 10200 BTU/kWh, which is about 33% efficiency. After
T&D losses, 30% is dead on.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
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Rethin on March 1, 2007 - 2:17am | Permalink | Subthread
So where is the advantage in switching to EVs?
If we took all the oil we burn in our cars (utilizing 20% of the
energy) and diverted it to electricity generation (utilizing 30%
of the energy) we end up just barely ahead (there are losses
involved with the batteries etc).
Am I missing something here?
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 2:27am | Permalink |
Subthread
The advantages are several:
1. Today's well-to-wheels is 12.4%; if we could
increase that to even 25%, we'd need half as much
input energy. We could probably beat that handily
with modern IGCC coal-burners.
2. The efficiency of intercooled simple-cycle gas
turbines is now about 50%. In combined-cycle
service, they'd hit about 65%. Even burning oil in
such turbines, we could triple our well-to-wheels
efficiency by going electric.
3. With nuclear-electric, wind or PV, busbar-to-wheels
could be on the order of 80% efficient. Compared
to 12.4% with oil, the raw energy requirements are
reduced by over 84%.
There's an amazing amount of low-hanging fruit, heavy
and sweet, almost begging to be picked. Just Do It.
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Rethin on March 1, 2007 - 2:56am | Permalink |
Subthread
1. You say well to wheels is 12.4%. But on the
above chart it looks more like 20% (5.3/25.6).
2. You say gas turbines is 50-65%. But just a post
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before told me that the 30% is dead on for thermal
plants.
3. If nukes, wind or PV are so efficient at generating
electricity why are we still using coal,NG to
generate almost all of our electricity? And since we
get our electricity from coal and NG its really a
moot point isn't it?
I'm not trying to be a PITA here, I just don't
understand.
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 3:13am |
Permalink | Subthread
1. You don't say which chart you refer to,
and they're too squished to read.
Besides, they may not be very accurate.
Try right-clicking on an image to get the
URL and use that to specify what you
mean.
2. Thermal plants includes all the old coalfired steam plants chugging away at 20something percent. The EIA has
aggregate figures.
3. Sunk costs and politics have brought us
to where we are now. The political scene
is changing rapidly, though; investments
henceforth are likely to be in a very
different direction from history.
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Rethin on March 1, 2007 - 3:30am |
Permalink | Subthread
1. I meant this chart
http://eed.llnl.gov/flow/pdf/USEnFlow02quads.pdf
It says "Source: Production and end-use
data from Energy Information
Administration, Annual Energy Review
2002."
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
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2. So we see the advantages of EVs only
if we swap out our electricity generating
capabilities at the same time?
3. Just how different a direction?
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goinggreen on March 1, 2007 5:38pm | Permalink | Subthread
There is another advantage to
moving to electric vehicles other
than the efficiency gains, and that is
system robustness. Presently,
virtually all of our transportation is
fueled by oil, and we are dependent
upon the institutions that control
those sources.
With electric vehicles, you
immediately get a portfolio of
sources, of which petro could be
one of them, but it doesn't have to
be. One advantage of electric is that
it can be generated essentially
anywhere. In terms of risk
management and personal
empowerment, electric wins, no
contest. Geopolitics are
extraordinarily different if we don't
need the oil.
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paal myrtvedt on March 3,
2007 - 11:50pm | Permalink |
Subthread
'With electric vehicles, you
immediately get a portfolio of
sources'- I like this argument -
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and as most 'heavy thermoplants' (coal,nuke) run at least
at base load 24/7 - i foresee
EV's to be re-charged at night
only - when we all (most) are
in the state of ZZzzzzzzzzzz,
and commercial elconsumption are at a
minimum as such,
I think we have it - now you
tell Bush tomorrow to switch
to EV's - case closed !
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Nick on March 1, 2007 - 6:29pm |
Permalink | Subthread
Yeah, electricity is domestically
produced, except for a bit of nat gas
and uranium.
Even 100% coal powered EV's
would be much better in every way:
a little better on CO2, much better
on other pollution, cheaper and oil
independent!
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 8:14pm | Permalink | Subthread
1. That graph may only consider
engine losses, and not
transmission and brakes.
These are reduced by hybrid
technology. Regardless, I
used a 20% estimate in
"Sustainability" to be a little
on the pessimistic side.
2. We see the advantages of EV's
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and PHEV's in flexibility; we
get flexibility as soon as we
move to an energy conduit fed
by more than just petroleum.
3. One of the effects of a large
fleet of EV's or PHEV's is that
the grid will be able to absorb
a much larger fraction of nonschedulable generation such as
wind.
With electric propulsion, you can
eliminate much or all of your
transport carbon emissions by just
buying and installing some solar
panels. You can't do that with any
liquid fuel.
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Rethin on March 1, 2007 9:13pm | Permalink |
Subthread
Ok, fair enough. There does
seem to be several advantages
of EVs over ICEs.
But I keep reading that EVs
are so efficient compared to
ICEs. But I think now maybe
that's just because you are
hiding the inefficiencies.
In your article you talk about
shrinking that cube of oil by
half in all three dimensions by
just moving from ICEs to
EVs. But I'm not sure that's a
fair thing to say when you
count the inefficiency of
thermal electric plants.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
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You still have to generate that
electricity somehow. You still
have to replace that cubic mile
of oil EVs or no EVS.
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Engineer-Poet on March
2, 2007 - 12:37am |
Permalink | Subthread
I keep reading
that EVs are
so efficient
compared to
ICEs. But I
think now
maybe that's
just because
you are hiding
the
inefficiencies.
Okay, let's hide nothing.
In your article
you talk about
shrinking that
cube of oil by
half in all
three
dimensions by
just moving
from ICEs to
EVs.
If you are comparing
electric output to oil
input for transport, that's
exactly what happens.
And not all oil is used for
transport either.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
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But I'm not
sure that's a
fair thing to
say when you
count the
inefficiency of
thermal
electric plants.
And why is that wrong?
The original comparison
measured the output of
those plants, after all
generating losses were
taken.
You still have
to generate
that electricity
somehow.
Quite right, but the
appraisal of the required
electricity should be
based on more realistic
assessments than the
analysis behind the IEEE
graphic. Hauling out an
envelope...
If we consider only
gasoline and only the
USA for a moment, the
country burns about 140
billion gallons/year in
vehicles averaging about
22 MPG; the
corresponding annual
mileage is 3.1*1012. If
we assume a fleetaverage energy demand
of 300 Wh/mile for
electric replacements
(cars like the Tango and
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tzero use around 200, the
RAV4 EV uses about
300-330, a bigger truck
would use more) the
same mileage would
require 930 billion kWh
of energy per year. This
could be generated by:
z
z
z
107 1.1 GW nuclear
plants at 90%
capacity factor.
45 billion gallons of
fuel oil (140,000
BTU/gallon) fed to
intercooled simplecycle gas turbines at
50% efficiency.
Less than 20% of
the combined windenergy potential of
the top 5 US states.
The smart way would be
to start building the
vehicles as fast as
possible (starting with
PHEV's) plus the nukes
and wind, using oil-fired
turbines to fill in as
required. This would
also make the grid very
robust while cleaning up
huge amounts of air
pollution; three birds,
one stone.
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Rethin on March 2,
2007 - 10:50am |
Permalink |
Subthread
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
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Thanks for taking
the time to discuss
this EP
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Engineer-Poet
on March 3,
2007 - 3:04am
| Permalink |
Subthread
No, thanks for
the peerreview. If the
concept can't
be defended, it
isn't worth
anything.
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oldhippie on March 1, 2007 - 4:05am |
Permalink | Subthread
I'm with you Rethin. When 50-65% efficiency
rates are on the table even dinosaur utilities are
not hanging on to plant operating at 30%. And
to get an average like 30% there would have to
be many plants at 15% or 20%. If there were
utilities and management teams perpetuating
THAT, yeah that would be some low-hanging
fruit.
Transmission losses of 3% or 7% are possible
in engineers dreams. And were sold and
promoted and sold some more when the power
market was deregulated, when electric power
became a commodity that was magically
transported enormous distances to make
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spreadsheets happy.
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AlanfromBigEasy on March 1, 2007 - 8:02am | Permalink | Subthread
The blue-grey bar in the upper right is mis-labeled. Transforming and
Transmission (or Distribution) losses in the US are about 8%. (I think
this 8% excludes transforming losses inside the electrical generating
plant).
Best Hopes,
Alan
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chrisale on March 1, 2007 - 12:06am | Permalink | Subthread
So... that flow chart raises a really interesting question for me.
If we switched the transportation sector to electricity (batteries), and redirected
the energy for petroleum from transportation to electricity generation, would
we not potentially save a whole whack of petroleum use?
someone else mentioned current vehicles get about 150mpg.
That's 6-8x better than what we get now.
Same goes for natural gas for heating... NatGas furnaces are less than 100%
efficient, heatpumps are 200-300% efficient. That again is a major
improvement.
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PaulS on February 28, 2007 - 9:49pm | Permalink | Subthread
Joules, BTUs, Quads—Let's Call the Whole Thing Off
Now that I'm actually noticing that title, it's giving me a good laugh. Right. Let's fix the
problem by piling on yet another obscure unit. And let's not use anything remotely
related to SI units. And this is an engineering institute. Sheesh.
And then we have actual text from the article:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
4/5/2007
The Oil Drum | That cubic mile
Page 108 of 109
To obtain in one year the amount of energy contained in one cubic mile of oil,
each year for 50 years we would need to have produced the numbers of dams,
nuclear power plants, coal plants, windmills, or solar panels shown.
So that's four Three Gorges per cubic mile, or two hundred Three Gorges per cubic mile,
or four Three Gorges per fifty cubic miles? Who can tell from that tortured sentence,
without doing an analysis? I can't. And it's a comparison of a quantity (a cubic mile) to a
flow rate (the production of a dam or a vast acreage of solar cells), so what does it
matter?
And then we can get the functional work of that cubic mile via efficiency gains, using
only 14 1.1 GW plants for 50 years, if I'm reading the lead post correctly? But so what?
Here's where I really get confused. We want that functional work every year, not every
50 years. So, even accepting the idealized calculation, don't we need an inventory of 700
1.1 GW plants? Or an inventory of 500 solar panels, not just 10, for every person? (BTW
I very seriously doubt we're going to be able to put thousands of square miles of solar
cells in places where they can be used at 25% of nameplate capacity. Just because of
NIMBYism alone, never mind that if you concentrate them in one area you're done for if
it gets cloudy there for a while, or a hurricane - however improbable it might be demolishes the patch. I think that for a long time yet, we'll do exceedingly well to pull
10-14% of nameplate panel capacity out of our actual average real-world wall sockets,
except when we hand-pick our example system with great care.)
In the end, I keep coming back to 12kW (USA) per-capita energy consumption. In some
idealized world of super-expensive hyper-efficient everything, we push that down to, say,
5kW. Meaning that after that huge expense, we still need 40kW, nameplate, of panels per
person, if we (or the nucleophobes, or is that nuculophobes) make them the primary
energy source. That's one hell of a lot of panels, about 250 square meters per person, or
1000 per family of four, the latter being much bigger than many older-city house lots.
Not to mention the as-yet-uninvented storage (there are no plans to stop the sun from
setting?), plus an abundance of transmission lines (there are no plans to prevent clouds
from forming?) Not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, and maybe not all that
"clean" either (there are no plans to make solar panels from clouds?)
My head hurts from gazing into this immiscible soup of units, this inscrutable admixture
of quantities and rates. Time to go do something else until it sorts itself out.
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Engineer-Poet on March 1, 2007 - 1:49am | Permalink | Subthread
Those units were in the original IEEE figure... which I was rebutting. You'll notice
that things get a lot more SI-friendly afterward.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
4/5/2007
The Oil Drum | That cubic mile
Page 109 of 109
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Khebab on March 1, 2007 - 9:41am | Permalink | Subthread
And then we can get the functional work of that cubic mile via efficiency
gains, using only 14 1.1 GW plants for 50 years.
I don't think this interpretation is correct (see my post above).
I think they really mean "52 new 1.1 Gw nuclear plants every year for fifty year",
after fifty years you can produce:
52*50*1.1= 2860 GW-years
But 2860 GW-years is 50% of 5720 GW-years (the energy content of 1 CMO). So
the only logical explantation is that their intent was to compare with the electricity
that could have been generated by burning directly the oil in a thermal plant at 50%
heat conversion rate (which is higher that the average of 33% for the US).
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202 comments on That cubic mile
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http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2320
4/5/2007