Oil crisis

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Originally Posted by Viro

But a car driven by water is just not going to happen. You get a net loss of energy after doing the electrolysis + combustion and that means it's not sustainable and is rather pointless.

Then by that reasoning, EVERY energy source is pointless, since, if after fuel usage, you have a net gain of energy (or even break even), you've just invented a perpetual motion machine.

[bbloke]

It's a complicated subject. As I've mentioned earlier, we don't depend on oil only as a source of energy, although that is one vital use. We also rely upon oil as part of our production process.

Besides our interest in a cheap and transportable form of energy, oil is closely associated with pesticides, fertilizers, solvents, medicines, cosmetics, plastics, lubricants, asphalt (e.g. for road surfaces), detergents, nylon, polyesters, and so on. Globalization has also meant we now transport much of our resources over long distances and much of our manufacturing is done, cheaply, abroad... and then transported. Cities in younger nations have also been developed around the idea that we have access to cheap transport. In essence, the message I want to convey is: this is not just about using more solar and wind power (also, have a look at how long our uranium will last, with regards to nuclear power...), our civilization is far more dependent on oil than most realize. It underpins so much of our current standard of living.

A few snippets I've come across...

In Canada, food travels an average of 5000 miles (8000 km) from where it is grown to where it is eaten. In the US, that figure is closer to 1500 miles. The transport of food obviously links to fossil fuels.

Written two years ago, regarding the link between oil and food:

Randall may not be certain when oil prices will level out, but it's abundantly clear to him that $70/barrel petroleum is taking a huge bite out of his business. Nearly every part of his farming operation is being impacted. The price for the diesel fuel that runs the tractors and trucks on his 4,500-acre farm have more than tripled in the last four years, rising from 80 cents per gallon to close to $3. Fertilizer prices are also up sharply. Since synthetic fertilizers are made from natural gas, they too are impacted by higher fossil fuel prices; the cost of fertilizer has gone from about $160 per ton to $460 per ton in the last three years. Smaller, organic growers are also feeling a pinch from costlier petroleum. The price for the plastic drip irrigation tape commonly used on organic fruit and vegetable farms is up 20 percent from two years ago.

More on oil and food...

Oil refined for gasoline and diesel is critical to run the tractors, combines and other farm vehicles and equipment that plant, spray the herbicides and pesticides, and harvest/transport food and seed

• Food processors rely on the just-in-time (gasoline-based) delivery of fresh or refrigerated food
• Food processors rely on the production and delivery of food additives, including vitamins and minerals, emulsifiers, preservatives, colouring agents, etc. Many are oil-based. Delivery is oil-based
• Food processors rely on the production and delivery of boxes, metal cans, printed paper labels, plastic trays, cellophane for microwave/convenience foods, glass jars, plastic and metal lids with sealing compounds. Many of these are essentially oil-based
• Delivery of finished food products to distribution centres in refrigerated trucks. Oil-based, daily, just-in-time shipment of food to grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals, schools, etc., all oil-based; customer drives to grocery store to shop for supplies, often several times a week

...

However, transport energy consumption is also significant, and if included in these ratios would mean that the ratio would decrease further. For example, when iceberg lettuce is imported to the UK from the USA by plane, the energy ratio is only 0.00786. In other words 127 calories of energy (aviation fuel) are needed to transport 1 calorie of lettuce across the Atlantic. If the energy consumed during lettuce cultivation, packaging, refrigeration, distribution in the UK and shopping by car was included, the energy needed would be even higher. Similarly, 97 calories of transport energy are needed to import 1 calorie of asparagus by plane from Chile, and 66 units of energy are consumed when flying 1 unit of carrot energy from South Africa.

...

• Commercial food production is oil powered. Most pesticides are petroleum- (oil) based, and all commercial fertilisers are ammonia-based. Ammonia is produced from natural gas
• Oil based agriculture is primarily responsible for the world's population exploding from 1 billion at the middle of the 19th century to 6.3 billion at the turn of the 21st
• Oil allowed for farming implements such as tractors, food storage systems such as refrigerators, and food transport systems such as trucks
• As oil production went up, so did food production. As food production went up, so did the population. As the population went up, the demand for food went up, which increased the demand for oil. Here we go round the Mulberry bush
• Oil is also largely responsible for the advances in medicine that have been made in the last 150 years. Oil allowed for the mass production of pharmaceutical drugs, and the development of health care infrastructure such as hospitals, ambulances, roads, etc.

In 2004, the UN stated:

The manufacture of an average desktop computer and monitor uses more than 10 times its weight in fossil fuels and chemicals, according to a United Nations University (UNU) study which has called for worldwide action to halt "the growth of high-tech trash." The study, released yesterday, shows that the construction of an average 24-kilogram computer and 27-centimetre monitor requires at least 240 kilograms of fossil fuel, 22 kilograms of chemicals and 1,500 kilograms of water – or 1.8 tons in total, the equivalent of a rhinoceros or sports utility vehicle.

So, we can't just create a few wind farms, switch to more efficient cars, and feel we've done our bit. We need to completely rethink our way of life. How many here would happily give up new computers and iPods?

When it comes to research, where do we divert the money from? Healthcare? Education? You can imagine the fuss if politicians went down this road, where the voters feel the pinch now for something that is to come in the future.

(Hang on, did I just sound a note of sympathy for the politicians?... )

In the end, it is not just about big business, corrupt politicians, or gas guzzling cars. Unfortunately, it means we need to end our utter dependence on oil; everyone one of us will have to reassess our lifestyles, and in a bigger way than we perhaps feel prepared to do at this stage.

[Viro]

Originally Posted by ElDiabloConCaca

Then by that reasoning, EVERY energy source is pointless, since, if after fuel usage, you have a net gain of energy (or even break even), you've just invented a perpetual motion machine.

You are right of course, and I should be more specific

You waste too much energy electrolysing water. The electrolysis process itself has a maximum efficiency of 85%, while conventional (very optimistic) estimates place the efficiency of current processes at about 50%. That ignores the energy loss that results in generating the electricity necessary for electrolysis in the first place.

Then you have the internal combustion engine that has an energy efficiency of 20% ... Hydrolysis of water as an energy source is not practical. Forget the conspiracies about why big businesses don't do it (they want you to be dependent on oil, of course!). Ask yourself why aren't academic institutions actively researching it if has any potential? Probably because 1st year chemists and engineers realize the unfeasibility of it.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Originally Posted by Viro

Ask yourself why aren't academic institutions actively researching it if has any potential? Probably because 1st year chemists and engineers realize the unfeasibility of it.

I'm not discrediting anything you said -- in fact, I agree -- Hydrolysis of water, with today's technology, would not yield a suitable oil substitute for powering cars.

...but then again, remember when the general consensus of "heavier-than-air flight" was that it was absolutely impossible, and we had to rely on a bunch of garage-tinkering weirdos to prove otherwise?

When one says, "It's impossible, and therefore we shouldn't even research it," then that person has just closed the doors on lots of possibilities. Hell, Viagra was meant for something completely different in clinical trials, and the popular use of it for treating that thing that so many older males use it for would have been delayed until someone went back and looked at the compound again. Ask any Viagra-treating sufferer if they thought that discontinuing clinical trials because it didn't do what it was originally intended for would have been a good idea...

Water's some crazy stuff... we hardly even know "how it works" or "why it works" the way it does. It is truly a very strange and perplexing combination of atoms and quarks and gluons and stuff, obeying some rules of physics while simultaneously and seemingly defying others.

I'm not saying we should all go out and fill our tanks up with water -- I'm just saying that descriptive words like "impossible" and "infeasible" are only relative to today's technology and only meaningful in the context of the present. Tomorrow is another day, and we may have the technology and means to do something completely different.

[Rhisiart]

Just to reminisce - and at great risk of digressing here - I took a Greyhound Bus from San Francisco to New York in July 1977. I was just a teenager (it's a long story, but it has something to with my dad wanting to make a man of me).

At the back of the bus I somehow eventually teamed up with a tree surgeon called Richard, a Bronx dude called Deuce (apparently just released from a ten year spell in prison) and a very pasty looking young undergraduate from MIT called Josh.

We all got along just great. At every stop, we sat together in restaurants or went for walks. In Cheyenne, we had a two hour break and went for a walk around the city. In no time we were pulled over by the the police and escorted to the local police station.

They couldn't work us out and eventually realised they couldn't charge us with anyhting. However whilst we were waiting, Josh told me that in the future cars would run on hydrogen and that eventually somebody will discover a way to create power out of simple water.

OK, totally anecdotal. But lo and behold, the hydrogen car has indeed arrived.

[Qion]

Originally Posted by ElDiabloConCaca

I'm not saying we should all go out and fill our tanks up with water -- I'm just saying that descriptive words like "impossible" and "infeasible" are only relative to today's technology and only meaningful in the context of the present. Tomorrow is another day, and we may have the technology and means to do something completely different.

This is exactly the type of attitude that allows for progress. It's simply not illogical to think the impossible or infeasible anymore; we're constantly discovering properties of the universe that provoke us to modify our preexisting set of scientific doctrines.

It really bothers me when the experts get so absorbed in their expertise they hinder innovation by relying on common-sense statistics.

[Viro]

So we going to start getting transmutations to gold soon? After all, if we're going to go down that route anything is possible.

[reed]

Indeed, anything is possible in this geo-chemical-micro-chip-vegetable-deep sea and outer-space world we live in..... and in which we use 10-15% of our brain capacity. I'm now looking to see how we can turn water into wine. Darn, it's been done before. Back to the drawing board.