[Frank]

What's EROEI on solar PV at present? Last I heard it was little more than 1, so all they essentially do is behave like batteries. If it takes 1TJ to construct the solar generation that produces 1TJ over its lifetime then we haven't really got anywhere.......

HomePower mag did an investigation into this allegation a couple of years ago. They looked at two specific panels pretty thoroughly. Energy payback was between 2-4 years after which everything else is "profit". Most panels are guaranteed for 30 years so it's a pretty good deal energy-wise. Sorry, can't remember EROEI numbers.

[Grimnir]

If it is possible to create oil from atmospheric CO2 at a rate comparabe to pumping using only solar power, it seems like it would be a fantastic idea. You could reduce greenhouse gasses and allow the world to continue using its oil-based infrastructure until a gradual switch to new energy sources could be achieved. True, growth would still be a problem, but flat oil production would be much less calamitous than declining production. Of course, there would still be a dozen or so other potential disasters waiting in the wings...

[Sys1]

Clouseau2 : there's very little CO2 in the atmosphere. It's not with it that you will ever rebuild oil, because there's 2 stuffs u lost in the equation :
- Only a fraction of oil extracted from ground get in the atmosphere. Cars not only make CO2. Cars are moving. Oil used in this part of the process is forever lost.
- Suppose we could create oil from another process. Let's even say abiotic crap is real. Result would be a far worse global warming (btw, there's already massive amount of methane liberated from melting permafrost).

I think mankind is doomed by global warming and lack of energy. It's now too late to save anything. I just hope my family and friends lifes will be quite decent for the years to come.

[dark-suzie]

i dis agree.
i think trying to mantain this method of existence, 's just putting off the problem.
people got to get back to living close to the soil, remember what there food is worth
i've heard all kinds of numbers about how many people this earth can supposedly support.
i think most of them are bogus.
tear down every fence in surburbia, thats alot of space for growing corn.
people wont have to go to work cus work'll be in there back yards.
course, lotta people dont take to this idea.
but whatever.
resist all you want, but no matter how far you push a pendulum out of balance, it eventually returns to its center.

[Clouseau2]

"Only a fraction of oil extracted from ground get in the atmosphere. Cars not only make CO2. Cars are moving. Oil used in this part of the process is forever lost. "

Uhhh ... I didn't major in the physical sciences but I do have enough physics and chemistry classes under my belt to see that is totally bogus.

The thing that moves your car is the chemical energy released by burning the oil. Although the energy is lost I guarantee every molecule in the oil ends up somewhere, mostly out your tailpipe in the form of emissions. It is not "lost", since combustion engines aren't nuclear furnaces.

[Grimnir]

Suppose we could create oil from another process. Let's even say abiotic crap is real. Result would be a far worse global warming (btw, there's already massive amount of methane liberated from melting permafrost).

If we made oil of of CO2 that was taken from the atmosphere to begin with, there would be no net increase. And if we left some of it sitting around unburned, there could be a net decrease.

Only a fraction of oil extracted from ground get in the atmosphere. Cars not only make CO2. Cars are moving. Oil used in this part of the process is forever lost.

As has been mentioned, it is only energy that is lost. The pyhsical carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen all goes into the atmosphere. The proposal is to use solar energy to replace the energy lost from chemical bonds when the oil is burned.

[Doly]

If it is possible to create oil from atmospheric CO2 at a rate comparabe to pumping using only solar power, it seems like it would be a fantastic idea.

It is the rate what is probably the problem here.

[Devil]

For ease, let's assume CO2 concentration is 360 ppm. That means that for 1 kg of CO2, we would have to pump nearly 2800 kg of air. This would then yield 0.4 kg carbon. To make 1 kg of a fuel, we would need twice this, so we pump 5600 kg of air, assuming 100% CO2 extraction efficiency. This weight of air would occupy ~7,000,000 litres at STP. How much energy would be required to pump that volume of air?

Then, how would you separate the CO2 from the other gases? Not an easy task. The most reliable method would be to bubble the gas through, say, a sodium hydroxide solution, but this would produce sodium carbonate, which would be pretty useless for fuel synthesis. For that matter, if it were, it would be easier and cheaper simply to mine calcium carbonate (e.g., chalk, limestone etc.).

OK, let's pretend you have separated the CO2 from the rest of the air: how do you remove the oxygen? Well, the carbon and the oxygen combined, in the first place, by combustion and it gave off a lot of energy (heat) in doing so. So, to do the reverse, it will be necessary to provide that same amount of energy plus some more to maintain the reaction. How much energy?

Now, we're getting close to our goals. We theoretically have a combustible, carbon, but we need to combine it with hydrogen to produce a hydrocarbon fuel. Fine, plenty of hydrogen in water. Unfortunately, to reduce water to hydrogen requires lots of energy. How much?

Two more stages and we're there, well almost. The first one is to combine the C and the H2, to provide CH4, the simplest hydrocarbon building block. Guess what? This also requires energy and how much of that, in practice?

Last step! we have to polymerise the methane into heavier HCs. Oh no, it's not true, it, too, requires energy.

I'd hazard a guess, counting from a standard 1 kW/m2 rule of thumb for solar energy of all wavelengths reaching the earth's surface, you would probably require at least a km² of solar panels to produce 1 kW of energy in the form of liquid fuel, enough to keep 1/200th of an ordinary average car running on a nice sunny day.

For that matter, you would obtain, by far, a much better efficiency by using your km² of panels to electrolyse water and using the hydrogen to run an IC engine directly.

[Doly]

For that matter, you would obtain, by far, a much better efficiency by using your km² of panels to electrolyse water and using the hydrogen to run an IC engine directly.

What's an IC engine?

By the way, this thread reminds me that plants do exactly that and are low-tech. Anybody knows what is the usual productivity of crops in converting CO2 into usable fuel? (I'm thinking here about stuff like oil)

[Andy]

What's an IC engine?

An IC engine is an internal combustion engine like your ordinary gasoline engine or the diesel engine.

I'd hazard a guess, counting from a standard 1 kW/m2 rule of thumb for solar energy of all wavelengths reaching the earth's surface, you would probably require at least a km² of solar panels to produce 1 kW of energy in the form of liquid fuel, enough to keep 1/200th of an ordinary average car running on a nice sunny day.

I agree in principle with what you say Devil regarding complexity of such an approach. The 1 km2 of solar panels is a gross exaggeration however. Remember, there will be some energy credit from the reducing potential of H2 especially with catalysts present. Remember 1 km2 is 1,000,000 m2. I would figure 100 - 200 m2 is the more appropriate figure. 10% solar efficiency plus; 70% electrolyzer efficiency; maybe 40 - 50% efficiency of breaking up CO2 and polymerization.

[Devil]

Internal combustion.

Photosynthesis is extremely inefficient. Work it out. 1 m² of open land will receive typically 12 kWh of energy on a sunny day, as a rough guide. According to the type of vegetation, you will get a wide variety of growth. Just to take one example of a quick growth plant, let's take a courgette, because it will occupy just about 1 m². It will crop, say, 12 kg of vegetables, while the plant with route will weigh another 3 kg, totalling 15 kg in a growing season of 120 days. Of this 15 kg, count 90% water (the fruit alone is 95-96%), so there is 1.5 kg of dry matter, of which ~half is carbon, convertible into fuel. Let's say 0.75 kg of fuel, mostly from cellulose.

So the input energy is 12 x 120 kWh x a factor due to weather, let's say 1,200 kWh. The output energy is sufficient to run a medium car about 10 km, averaging 20 kW over 10 minutes = 120 kWh.

That gives us a maximum overall efficiency of 10% and I feel instinctively I've made a mistake in my reasoning, as my gut feeling places this figure far too high!

[fastbike]

let's say it is 50% efficient. Since plants do something similar already, this is not outside the realm of possibility.

Why 50% efficient ? Plucking figures out of the air is not very helpful.

What do you think the maximum theoretical and practical efficiency (for solar PV or photosynthesis) actually is ?

[Devil]

Essentially, a PV cell is a PN junction. It requires a photon to "bridge" the energy gap across the junction to produce an electron charge, which is the source of the electricity. The photon should ideally have a given wavelength, although it is tolerant of fairly close wavelengths.

The exact opposite analogy is the LED, which is also a PN junction (not to be confused with a laser diode). It emits light of a fairly narrow spread of wavelength, whether it be red, yellow, green or blue (the white ones include several dissimilar junctions to mix colours).

Sunlight reaching the earth's surface has a wide spectrum with wavelengths of ~0.2 µm to ~12 µm (representing ~99.5% of the total energy). As a rough guide, visible (to humans) light is, in round figures, 0.4 - 0.8 µm from violet to red. The energy contained in this part of the spectrum is about 40% of the total irradiance (most is in the IR). Because the spectral bandwidth of a solar cell is narrower than that of the human eye, it is not possible to attain anything like a 40% conversion of sunlight energy to electricty. Theoretically, by having cells of varying levels of doping of the semiconductor matrix, it may be possible to obtain about 35% efficiency and I believe that ~30% has been achieved in the lab with experiments that have no practical application. Practical PV panels can achieve 15 - 18% efficiency, provided they can be kept under 25°C and this is probably approaching the peak for a single energy gap semiconductor junction. I'd be surprised if it ever significantly exceeds the 20% mark and, if it does, the manufacturing costs will increase.

Quite honestly, I haven't a clue how to measure the energetic efficiency of photosynthesis because there so many variables, starting with the colour and reflectivity of the leaves, their moisture content, their shading, the CO2 content of the air, the temperature, relative humidity, external nutrients. It would vary enormously not only between species but between individual plants. If you sow a row of beans, there are never two plants that develop identically. Then different species produce a different range of carbohydrates by the photosynthetic processes, obviously at varying rates of efficiency.

The Encyclopaedia Britannica has a long article about the energy efficiency of photosynthesis, which you may consult, but I quote one extract from it:

The actual percentage of solar energy stored by plants is much less than the maximum energy efficiency of photosynthesis. An agricultural crop in which the biomass (total dry weight) stores as much as 1 percent of total solar energy received on an annual area-wide basis is exceptional, although a few cases of higher yields (perhaps as much as 3.5 percent in sugarcane) are reported.

I believe that this is sufficient evidence that biomass energy is not a good way of using solar radiation as an energy source, unless you concentrate hundreds of thousands of years of photosynthesis into relatively small volumes of oil or coal.

IOW, man has done 15 times better than God for instantaneous conversion of solar energy, in the PV panel, compared to photosynthesis!

[funzone36]

Peak oil is when demand of oil outstrips supply or production.

Here is a look at how much oil we need to discover to keep up with our needs:



This illustrates the depletion of all hydrocarbons:



World's reserves:


Technology will not help us.Take a look at the service checklist.

"Sustainability – is it sustainable for the long term?
Bio-diesel depletes the soil unless we put some NPK back (which is also difficult without accruing an energy loss).
Gas conversions to cars will just use up the LPG faster.
A "hydrogen economy" based on natural gas will just bring "peak gas" forward that much quicker, etc.

Energy Payback — the EPR. Do you get more energy out of a device that went into making it in the first place? Have you counted all the energy costs that go into the new energy infrastructure?

Tar sands and shale oil are incredibly energy expensive means of producing fuels. (And would again contribute to the global warming crisis.)

Rare materials essential to some renewable schemes would limit the worldwide deployment of that scheme.
EG: Electric Vehicles (EV’s) hold great promise, but what are the world’s current Lithium reserves and how many generations before we experienced “peak Lithium?”
EG: Fuel cells use plantinum, and after just a few years of a fuel cell transport system we would reach peak platinum.

Volumes — are most often too low.
EG: All Australian wheat into ethanol = 9% of liquid fuels and no bread! This alarming statistic takes into account the fact that we grow enough wheat for roughly 100 million people (we only consume 20% of our wheat for our 20 million Australians.) This statistic comes from Bruce Robinson of the STC.

EG: Biodiesel... even if we managed to grow biodiesel crops without modern fertilizers and pesticides (through biofarming methods such as "crop and cow" rotation) there is just not enough arable land to grow the quantities we need. We would run out of land for food!

Some potential energy volumes are vast (just 40 km by 40 km of solar PV is all Australia's energy needs) but we have left it too little too late. In other words, our current volumes of energy from these sources are far too low... below 1% of worldwide electricity supply.

Even if there is a vast potential energy source such as solar, the following questions pretty much prevent it running what we are currently running.

Implementing the Infrastructure — is the fuel compatible with the current infrastructure? What are the issues in implementing the new fuel at filling stations? Is it easy to transport? Can it be stored easily? How energy dense is the fuel — and will you burn 90% of the fuel just to transport it to the filling station? How long will it take to implement? What other time factors are involved in converting filling stations over?

Cheap — What is this alternative going to cost society? We are not running out of oil, we are running out of cheap oil and it is throwing us into a crisis.The costs for a solar to hydrogen fuel system would currently bankrupt any nation — we may as well use the original solar electricity to charge EV’s rather than bother wasting energy making Hydrogen. What the alternative costs is extremely important, and is the basis of the peak oil crisis.

Even supply of energy — Is the energy supply constant?

The sun doesn’t shine at night, and the wind does not blow for long periods. We need a system of energy that is reliable, or the power grids start to fail. How do we adapt to the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources? What backup energy mechanisms are there? How expensive is this, and how do we adapt society to live in the new realities of more expensive energy?"

http://eclipsenow.org/facts/service-checklist.html

No working alternative energy pass that test.

You need to know the EPR and ERoEI of alternative energy. None of them compares as good as oil.

http://eclipsenow.org/facts/alternateenergy.html

7 questions you need to ask about alternatives:

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... tions.html

Thorough information about the limits of alternative energy.

http://socialwork.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/ ... NERGY.html

Another sites worth looking into :

http://wolf.readinglitho.co.uk/subpages/renewables.html

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/youngquist/altenergy.htm

http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html

"Q: We'll simply develop alternative sources of energy to keep the economy going. This won't be so difficult, will it?
A: Oil is the most concentrated and convenient source of energy available to us. It is high quality energy that burns hotter than coal and wood. Energy from oil and other fossil fuels is not susceptible to the vagaries of weather in the way that energy generated from wind and photovoltaic panels is.

Alternative sources of energy are often used to make electricity, and the energy density of batteries to store the energy does not compare with the energy density of oil. (Batteries provide hundreds of watt-hours per kilogram at best compared to 13,500 Wh/kg for gasoline.) This means that it will take more weight in batteries to do the same work as a certain amount of oil.

Alternatives can provide energy, but not in the amount it takes to satisfy the growing consumption of global industrial society. This means that it will be impossible to maintain the same level of energy use we currently have. "

http://www.communitysolution.org/peakqanda.html

"It is possible to shift a modern economy off hydrocarbon dependency, though a combination of conservation technologies, renewables, changes in patterns of logistics, and other measures. However it has been calculated that a change of this magnitude requires long-term planning and incremental application over a period of some half century."

http://www.oildepletion.org/roger/Solut ... utions.htm

Fission:

Umm, fission is the technology that is promising. I can't find any disadvantages with it.

Fusion:

"The inventors of the device emphasize that it cannot generate power because it does not support a self-sustaining thermonuclear reaction."

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2005/2005-04-28-03.asp

It has not yet proven that it works.

A tritium leak:

http://www.ccnr.org/tritium_1.html

The first operational commercial fusion reactor is 2050. Unfortunately, we're not going to have a year called 2050 because:

Earth 'will expire by 2050'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/internat ... 83,00.html

Biofuel:

"To run our cars and buses and lorries on biodiesel, in other words, would require 25.9m hectares. There are 5.7m in the UK. Even the EU's more modest target of 20% by 2020 would consume almost all our cropland.

If the same thing is to happen all over Europe, the impact on global food supply will be catastrophic: big enough to tip the global balance from net surplus to net deficit. If, as some environmentalists demand, it is to happen worldwide, then most of the arable surface of the planet will be deployed to produce food for cars, not people. "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1357370,00.html

Even if we import it, it will increase deforestation.

"Forests paying the price for biofuels"

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns? ... 825265.400

Deforestation increases carbon dioxide emissions.

" Irrigation of farm land also increases the sodium, calcium, and magnesium in the soil. This process steadily concentrates salt in the ground, decreasing productivity for crops that are not salt-tolerant."

http://www.answers.com/topic/arable-land

bioenergy production can have potential negative environmental impacts such as acidification, eutrophication or summer smog. The production of energy crops can also have negative impacts due to the agricultural methods used.

http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/what_we_ ... /index.cfm

Ethanol:

"Study: Ethanol Production Consumes Six Units Of Energy To Produce Just One"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/03/050329132436.htm

Without fertilizers/pesticides, agriculture will suffer.

Genetically modified foods:

"Some fear that certain types of genetically engineered crops will further reduce biodiversity in the cropland; herbicide-tolerant crops will for example be treated with the relevant herbicide to the extent that there are no wild plants ('weeds') able to survive, and plants toxic to insects will mean insect-free crops. This could result in declines in other wildlife (e.g. birds) which depend on weed seeds and/or insects for food resources. The recent (2003) farm scale studies in the UK found this to be the case with GM sugar beet and GM rapeseed, but not with GM maize (though in the last instance, the non-GM comparison maize crop had also been treated with environmentally-damaging pesticides subsequently (2004) withdrawn from use in the EU)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_engineering

Hydrogen fuel cell:
" If we were to build a similar infrastructure to deliver hydrogen it would cost $200 trillion."

http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=940

Wind:
"A single 555-megawatt gas-fired power plant in California generates more electricity in a year than do all 13,000 of the state’s wind turbines"

http://canadafreepress.com/2005/driessen012905.htm

"Wind power not all pleasant breezes"
http://www.energybulletin.net/3125.html

Solar:

"If you want to gather enough solar energy to replace the fossil fuel that we’re burning today—and remember we’re going to need more fossil fuel in the future- using current technology, then you would have to cover something like 220,000 square kilometers with solar cells."

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4287300/

Wave:

"there are only five states with good tidal flows and maybe eight states with good waves" "Waves are powered by winds and uneven solar heating, he says, and wave energy works best in ocean depths of at least 50 meters, before waves lose energy to the friction of a shallow sea bottom."

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/8240/8240energy.html

Geothermal:

"While this appears to be an exciting breakthrough, we must remember that so far very little electricity has been provided by this form of geothermal heat, and even if successful, it will probably be decades before it is contributing significantly to the world grid."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/the-power-beneath-our-feet/2005/09/26/1127586753959.html

Nanotechnology:
"A Nobel Prize-winning chemist says the impending world energy shortage requires several miracles of science that nanotechnology can help to deliver."

http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/19812/

"Economic disruption from an abundance of cheap products
Economic oppression from artificially inflated prices
Personal risk from criminal or terrorist use
Personal or social risk from abusive restrictions
Social disruption from new products/lifestyles
Unstable arms race
Collective environmental damage from unregulated products
Free-range self-replicators (gray goo) — downgraded as a risk factor
Black market in nanotech (increases other risks)
Competing nanotech programs (increases other risks)
Attempted relinquishment (increases other risks)"

http://www.crnano.org/dangers.htm#economy

"Nanotubes Highly Toxic"

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/nanotubestoxic.php


Hydropower:

"Hydroelectric power's dirty secret revealed"

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7046

OTEC:

"Such a small temperature difference makes energy extraction difficult and expensive. Hence typically OTEC systems have an overall efficiency of only 1 to 3 percent."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion

Tidal power:

"The change in water level and possible flooding would affect the vegetation around the coast, having an impact on the aquatic and shoreline ecosystems. The quality of the water in the basin or estuary would also be affected, the sediment levels would change, affecting the turbidity of the water and therefore affecting the animals that live in it and depend upon it such as fish and birds. Fish would undoubtedly be affected unless provision was made for them to pass through the barrage without being killed by turbines. All these changes would affect the types of birds that are in the area, as they will migrate to other areas with more favourable conditions for them."

http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/01-02/RE_info/Tidal%20Power.htm

Carbon Sequestration:

The earth's core can heat the carbon liquid and then the carbon can slowly escape to the atmosphere.

Turn CO2 to Stone:

Requires the burning of fossil fuels which is running out.

Fertilize the ocean:

Plankton blooms could absorb all oxygen and nutrients from the ocean.

Filter CO2 from the air:

Requires the burning of fossil fuels.

Enhance Clouds to Reflect Sunlight:

It will increase droughts.

Deflect Sunlight With A Mirror:

Plants can't survive with less sunlight.

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/aviationsp ... crd/4.html

Thermal_depolymerization:

most of the waste input (such as plastics and tires) requires high grade oil to make in the first place.

http://www.spinninglobe.net/crash.htm

Also, since the method is to turn waste into oil and gas, you will still use oil and gas. It's not an alternative to oil and gas. If you continue to use oil and gas, carbon emissions will continue to go up.

All alternative fuels only supplies electricity. Fossil fuels offers plastics, fertilizers, artificial rubber, coke for metal extraction, and pesticides.



Graph taken from: http://www.uic.com.au/opinion6.html



Chart taken from: http://www.umich.edu/~gs265/society/nuclear.htm

Renewables do emit more CO2 than nuclear (non-renewable).

Now for storage of energy

using hydrogen:


"Recently, there have also been some concerns over possible problems related to hydrogen gas leakage. One issue, which may become more important as hydrogen usage becomes more widespread, is permanent hydrogen loss. Molecular hydrogen is light enough to escape into space. It has been hypothesized that if significant amounts of hydrogen gas (H2) escape, this may eventually cause an abundance of oxygen and a lack of water. However, it would take a lot of leakage to engender an appreciable and permanent loss-related effect. Alternately, hydrogen gas may form water vapor as it reacts with oxygen and cool, or, due to ultraviolet radiation, form free radicals (H) in the stratosphere. These free radicals would then be able to act as catalysts for ozone depletion. A large enough increase in stratospheric hydrogen from leaked H2 could exacerbate the depletion process."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy#Electrolysis

Also, the ocean acts as a reservoir of CO2. Less water will lead to more CO2 in the atmosphere. Plus, water vapour is also a greenhouse gas. Increased water vapour increases the intensity of storms. Now, you also have the problem of excess oxygen. Breathe in higher concentrations of oxygen will expand and blow up the brain. 100% oxygen is also highly flammable.

" Researchers from the University of Warwick have produced a startling calculation that any move to replace the UK’s oil burning vehicles with greener hydrogen powered cars and trucks would require the erection of 100,000 new wind turbines or 100 new nuclear power plants."

http://www.physorg.com/news1471.html

Using batteries:

"There are severe limitations of the storage batteries involved. For example, a gallon of gasoline weighing about 8 pounds has the same energy as one ton of conventional lead-acid storage batteries. Fifteen gallons of gasoline in a car's tank are the energy equal of 15 tons of storage batteries. Even if much improved storage batteries were devised, they cannot compete with gasoline or diesel fuel in energy density. Also, storage batteries become almost useless in very cold weather, storage capacity is limited, and batteries need to be replaced after a few years use at large cost. There is no battery pack which can effectively move heavy farm machinery over miles of farm fields, and no electric battery system seems even remotely able to propel a Boeing 747 14 hours nonstop at 600 miles an hour from New York to Cape Town (now the longest scheduled plane flight). Also, the considerable additional weight to any vehicle using batteries is a severe handicap in itself. In transport machines, electricity is not a good replacement for oil (Jensen and Sorensen, 1984). This is a limitation in the use of alternative sources have where electricity is the end product."

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/youngquist/altenergy.htm

Although electric cars like tzero has proven to work with personal transportation, note the amount of raw materials needed to build cars from scratch for massive large scale distribution.

Raw materials needed for alternative energies are depleting:

Copper:
http://www.kitcometals.com/commentaries ... 2004p.html

Lead:
http://www.kitcometals.com/commentaries ... 12004.html

Helium:
http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals ... 6chem.html

Silicon:
http://www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782 ... ry_related

Phosphorus and potassium:

And stocks of important minerals, such as phosphorus and potassium, are quickly approaching exhaustion.38"

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... g_oil.html

Platinum:

http://www.theminingnews.org/news.cfm?newsID=800

rhenium:

"There are limited applications of rhenium due to its shortage and the high cost of production."

http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/education/ele ... /re_e.html

Most metals:
http://www.purchasing.com/article/CA436066.html
http://www.tdctrade.com/report/mkt/mkt_041102.htm
http://www.nealloys.com/pdfs/InsiderOct0405.pdf

Also, the materials from landfills will be lossed too:

"they permanently remove various raw materials from economic use. All of the energy and natural resources (such as water) that were used to produce the items "wasted" are lost."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landfill

Now, for depletion of renewable resources:

Trees:
If deforestation continues at its current rate, the world's tropical rainforests will be wiped out within 40 years.

http://travel.howstuffworks.com/rainforest5.htm

Arable land:
http://dieoff.org/page40.htm

Fresh water:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/hea ... 825281.500

Species:
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html

Because the development of alternative energies need fossil fuels to extract and transport raw materials, they will be more expensive.

How do I know they need fossil fuels?

"use some of the world's remaining fossil fuel reserves as an investment in renewable energy infrastructure such as wind power, solar power, tidal power, geothermal power, hydropower, thermal depolymerization and biodiesel "
http://www.unexplainable.net/artman/pub ... 1589.shtml

"Critics argue that if conventional oil and natural gas become more expensive, alternative energy source development and increased technological efficiency research will become more expensive to the same degree."

http://www.unexplainable.net/artman/pub ... 1589.shtml

"People tend to think of alternatives to oil as somehow independent from oil. In reality, the alternatives to oil are more accurately described as "derivatives of oil." It takes massive amounts of oil and other scarce resources to locate and mine the raw materials (silver, copper, platinum, uranium, etc.) necessary to build solar panels, windmills, and nuclear power plants. It takes more oil to construct these alternatives and even more oil to distribute them, maintain them, and adapt current infrastructure to run on them."

http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html

"the fact that the components require substantial amounts of energy to manufacture and the probability that they can't be manufactured at all without the underlying support platform of a fossil-fuel economy."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.inf ... le8380.htm

"Phosphorus Is currently mined using oil." "Potassium is currently mined using oil."

http://www.eclipsenow.org/facts/consequences.html

Experts say we're about to run out of oil. But we're nowhere near having another technology ready to take its place.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature ... 0_401.html

"A prominent physicist warns in a new book that the world is running out of oil and we’re not doing anything to stave off the coming crisis"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4287300/

""What people need to hear loud and clear is that we're running out of energy in America," said Bush in May 2001. "We can do a better job in conservation, but we darn sure have to do a better job of finding more supply." He added, "We can't conserve our way to energy independence."

http://www.reason.com/rb/rb072104.shtml

Oil production could peak next year:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/ ... 50,00.html

"The chief economist of Morgan Stanley recently predicted that we have a 90 percent chance of facing “economic Armageddon.”
http://www.airliners.net/articles/read.main?id=81

"So who are these nay-sayers who claim the sky is falling? Conspiracy fanatics? Apocalypse Bible prophesy readers? To the contrary, they are some of the most respected, highest paid geologists and experts in the world. And this is what's so scary."

http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/peak_oil.html

"alternative energies are simply not capable to replace fossil fuels at the scale, rate and manner at which the world currently consumes them. The public, business leaders and politicians are all under the false assumption that oil depletion is a straightforward engineering problem, but humankind’s ingenuity is unlikely to overcome the basic facts of geology and physics. Fossil fuels allow us to operate highly complex systems at gigantic scales. Renewables are simply incompatible in this context and the new fuels and technologies required would take a lot more time to develop than available and require an abundant fossil fuel platform from which to work.

http://www.airliners.net/articles/read.main?id=81
"In 1992, both the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society of London warned in a joint statement that science and technology may NOT be able to save us:

"If current predictions of population growth prove accurate and patterns of human activity on the planet remain unchanged, science and technology may not be able to prevent either irreversible degradation of the environment or continued poverty for much of the world."

"The future of our planet is in the balance. Sustainable development can be achieved, but only if irreversible degradation of the environment can be halted in time. The next 30 years may be crucial."

Never before in history had the two most prestigious groups of scientists in the world issued a joint statement!"
http://www.eclipsenow.org/facts/Humanity-stressed.html

About global warming:

"Thousands March in World Cities for Action on Climate Change"

http://www.livescience.com/environment/ ... hange.html

"In 1995, 2,500 climate scientists serving on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a new statement on the prospect of forthcoming catastrophe. Never before had the IPCC (called into existence in 1988) come to so unambiguous a conclusion. Always in years past there had been people saying that we didn't yet know enough, or that the evidence was problematical, or our system of computer simulation was subject to too many uncertainties. Not this year. The panel flatly nnounced that the earth had entered a period of climatic instability likely to cause "widespread economic, social and environmental dislocation over the next century." The continuing emission of greenhouse gases would create protracted, crop-destroying droughts in continental interiors, a host of new and recurring diseases, hurricanes of extraordinary malevolence, and rising sea levels that could inundate island nations and low-lying coastal rims on the continents."

http://www.eclipsenow.org/facts/Humanity-stressed.html

I think Peak Oil will eventally solve global warming since after peak oil, people will not consume as much.

I haven't mentioned hydrocarbon alternatives (hybrid, tar sands, coal, natural gas, oil shale, methane hydrates) because generally, they all will worsen global warming. Also, they are non-renewable; they will eventually peak too.

"But the total production of all hydrocarbons (oil plus gas, both conventional and non-conventional) is likely to peak fairly soon, probably around 2015."

http://www.oildepletion.org/roger/index.htm

Natural gas is likely to peak a decade after oil peaks. Coal is expected to peak by 2035 if we use kerosene as an alternative. Take a look at this graph:



Graph taken from: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/w ... _peak.html

If you look at this site below:

http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/courses/geog100 ... nkNetE.htm

you will understand that the remaining conventional oil reserves simply cannot be harnessed because the EPR of oil will be negative.

In short, technology won't help us through the aftermath of peak oil. This also includes any new technology whether promising or not.

Worse, we are running out of time to develop alternatives:

"World Running Out of Time for Oil Alternatives"

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0818-04.htm

IMPORTANT: This does not mean that we should stop developing alternative energies. We should continue to develop them until we can't (when it's too expensive or the resources to build them runs out) because they do have the ability to generate electricity. My point is that they will not help peak oil because they can't be implemented on a large scale.

[some_guy282]

I like those charts. Great first post.

[dukey]

yeh good post
didn't read it all tho
i think the guy at life after the oil crash has reached somewhat similar conclusions

people never seem to consider changing their life style as a great way to save energy. Its always some hope of new technology etc, or tar sands etc.

[killJOY]

Amazing!

Ever think of starting your own website?

Now back to reading....

[orz]

This read like a summary of LATOC all over again- even using the exact same sources in some cases. Some points are correct, but several crucial ones especially those involving nuclear power and solar have already been quite substantially disproved by members here.

I can see you put a lot of effort into this, but in all honesty there is nothing here that hasn't been brought up before.

[Daryl]

Typical doomer stuff. On and on about tar sands, hydrogen etc, but brushes by nuclear with a link to infoplease that says nuclear generation is expected to decrease. Great analysis!!! Electric battery powered vehices are a proven alternative personal tranportation. For those of you new here, read Starvid's posts on nuclear and Toecutters posts on EV's

[jtmorgan61]

Good first post. In the spirit of sharpening your analysis, I'll point out what I see as missing:

Regarding alternate oil production methods, it seems like you don't have anything about coal liquefaction or thermal depolymerization, one or both of which IMO are likely to be the big guns as far as early mitigation of decline rates. (Check out the US gov'ts Hirsch report, which recommends liquefaction and predicts some shortfalls over the next 20 years).

Also, very little about oil sands and oil shale. Oil sands are seeing a tremendous amount of investment right now, and although volumes will not replace all of the oil they will slow the decline substantially.

As far as transportation analyses go, I don't see anything about plug-in hybrids as a transition technology for slowly reducing oil consumption. I think you also need to take account of falling (though still far too high!) fuel cell prices, and the fact that platinum has been circumvented for a while now.

Regarding electricity generation, the article I followed up on wind power seems to be from a hard-right perspective. I think there needs to be more done to account for the steadily decreasing price of wind power. The analysis of fission doesn't seem to take account of breeder reactor technology, which would be slightly more expensive but feasibly produces electricity for thousands of years or more.