[Listentome]

Here are some great links of the fuels for the future (for anyone who is sitting on the fence), have you ever wondered why none of the peak oilests have mentioned any of these sites? Doesn't that seem like someone who has an agenda, rather than promoting solutions? Something stinks behind this whole peak oil fad, and I'm glad I noticed early on and didn't get taken in. Feel free to add links to this. This post is for the alternatives only, not more redirections back at crap like http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... eyoil.html

http://www.iogen.ca/HTML/3000.html

http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/19/hydrogen040119

http://www.fao.org/NEWS/1997/971202-e.htm

http://www.federallabs.org/servlet/FLCI ... 8-140-Item

http://newsletter.dri.edu/1998/summer98/Fuels.html

http://www.nef1.org/ftf/af3.html

http://www.stuartenergy.com/main_h2_economy.html

[Listentome]

Hydrogen Highway on the way already in Canada.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040401/15829_1.html

[cthulhu]

Hydrogen is an energy carrier. http://www.iaea.or.at/inis/aws/htgr/abs ... 27279.html
So are we going to use oil and gas to fuel the hydrogen economy? or uranium? or extended thanks-giving seasons?

You remind me of a hysteric, unable to acknowledge a truth, which for you is just too awful to contemplate. I suggest you grow a pair of balls.

[Onyered]

Listentome writes:

“Doesn't that seem like someone who has an agenda, rather than promoting solutions? Something stinks behind this whole peak oil fad, and I'm glad I noticed early on and didn't get taken in”

Can anyone say “Conspiracy Theory”? I also am glad you noticed early and didn’t get taken in. Do you think calling Peak Oil a fad is the correct terminology?
As my contribution to your noble efforts I give you “VHEMT”. Most of what they say on their site went right over my head, about all I got out of it was “Stupid people shouldn’t breed”, but I could be wrong. Can you cut through the hype and give me the lowdown?

http://www.vhemt.org/aboutvhemt.htm#vhemt

Quote from site:

“VHEMT (pronounced vehement) is a movement not an organization. It's a movement advanced by people who care about life on planet Earth. We're not just a bunch of misanthropes and anti-social, Malthusian misfits, taking morbid delight whenever disaster strikes humans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Voluntary human extinction is the humanitarian alternative to human disasters.

When every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory, and all remaining creatures will be free to live, die, evolve (if they believe in evolution), and will perhaps pass away, as so many of Mother Nature's "experiments" have done throughout the eons. Good health will be restored to the Earth's ecology...”

[Guest]

More links: link As for the post about an energy carrier. So what?? Hydrogen can be produced using renewable electricity via electrolysis. Gee, imagine that, a free fuel in everybody's backyard vs. paying for oil. Sounds pretty damn good to me.

[Opticallylimited]

Listentome, Onyered gave a solution! Isn't that what you were looking for? Solutions!

I have a solution. Everybody admit that we are going to run out of petoleum products and begin rationing and looking for/changing to other energies asap.

To many greedy people in the world for this. Thinking what about me!

[cthulhu]

More links: link As for the post about an energy carrier. So what?? Hydrogen can be produced using renewable electricity via electrolysis. Gee, imagine that, a free fuel in everybody's backyard vs. paying for oil. Sounds pretty damn good to me.

From this statement I can see you know nothing about hydrogen use as a fuel. Notice this on your link? The world energy economy became progressively more global during the twentieth century as the world turned to oil. It promises to reverse direction and become more local during the twenty-first century as the world turns to wind, wind-generated hydrogen, and solar cells.

Seems they are talking about pretty radical changes to society. Also the manufacturing and maintanence of all these wind turbines and hydrogen solar cells, where are they going to get the energy for that?

[Listentome]

Jay Hanson is that you?

Another typical peak oilest. I'm sorry but the "where are they going to get the energy to produce X" argument has gone completely stale, because it holds no foundation. Peak Oil is the turning out in price / production, not the complete disappearance in it as a form of energy. Sorry but that doesn't work with me chief.

[cthulhu]

Chairman Mao is that you? Yeah, I saw your crappy little analogy, sand castles in the sky. Yes, and the neighbour uses coal to make hydrogen, but because of government funding it is "cheaper". So we are all smiling.

It doesn't need to completely disappear you smuck. It is about the threshold (ever hear of chaos theory) where system failure occurs because of inadequate supply regardless of how much money you have in your wallet. How much does a herd of a million elephants cost in antarctica?

[Aaron]

The name calling is entertaining, but also pretty useless. Go to yahoo if flaming is your intention, you will find plenty of vulgar and insulting folks there to argue with.

My 2 cents... It should be obvious to everyone that there is no shortage of energy, and never will be. Energy is all around us in many forms. Your own body produces energy through metabolizing organic material. Photosynthesis alone converts more energy into matter and back again, than all other examples combined.

The real question is net energy of course. Effort X vs. Output Y. The devil is in the details. Absent a planned transition from oil to alternatives, we will experience an unplanned transition. Forced to implement less efficient energy sources, we cannot hope to maintain the growth model we currently enjoy. And that is the whole point.

[Atr0p0s]

Alternatives.
We've talked about bikes as an incredibly efficient way to convert energy. Couldn't we theoretically power small, personal generators with bicycle machines?

Stupid point, I know. But it's been gnawing at me. Maybe one would have to get up a little early to generate their daily electricity on a bike turbine, or spend some more of their free time on one.

[OilWatch]

Wow, this is an exciting new technology as well. link

and a good article about it: link

Amazing stuff. Solar panels that can be "painted" onto a billboard or bus. Absolutely incredible.

[Atr0p0s]

"Nanosolar: Based on the economics of plastic."

Pretty self defeating if you're looking for oil alternatives.

[OilWatch]

How exactly is it self defeating? As you produce it, the same time you're eliminating a small bit of dependence on oil.

Explain how after peak oil, even though it'll be more expensive (maybe) that anything using oil will immediately fall off the face of the earth.

[Aaron]

The same way fertilizer companies in the US are going out of business today. They cannot afford the NG they need because it's too expensive for them to make a profit. Apply this same logic to any system which depends on ANY material, same result. In the above example, NG price increases because fertilizer price increases which cause produce prices to increase ect... It's the seven degrees argument all over... everything is related.

Almost no one I have read who has studied this issue seriously doubts the economic impact of switching to more costly alternatives; they simply differ on when that change will occur. The entire global economy is made possible by a simple to exploit energy source... sweet light crude oil.

Found a nice little web tool at BP's website - http://production.investis.com/bp2/ia/stat/#

Given the time to perfect and implement oil alternatives would indeed eliminate most of the bad parts of the peak oil argument. Serious analysis of both global oil reserves and alternative energy strategies include fuzzy logic or math. By applying heuristic models, we gain some insight into the possibilities, and some idea of probabilities. Most of these I have read pretty much describe a foot-race between oil reserve depletion and global energy demand growth. So it really just boils down to this... We are not discovering as much oil as we consume. We are therefore living off existing resources. How much do we know we have in light crude? Not sands, or coal, or anything else; light crude.

Since that is impossible to know with any certainty, we are left guessing. There are two basic camps of thought. Economists predict that increased prices will generate increased production. Geologists (mostly), try modeling known fields and estimate actual reserve amounts.

This is why clues surrounding reserve estimates and reporting practices are so significant. -see parallel posts on Shell.

[OilWatch]

Aaron I think that's a bit of an overstatement, here's why:

The only reason why the world is using light sweet crude so readily is because it is the cheapest economical from of energy at the current time.
However, once the price of light sweet crude reaches a certain level, it makes other alternatives affordable. I.e.

Shale oil..

So let's say at a price of $35 / barrel, shale oil becomes economical to extract. The bell curve that the total recoverable light sweet crude follows, has now been drastically increased because shale oil is now economical to produce. So before, let's say there was 1 trillion barrels of recoverable light sweet crude, now there are 2 trillion barrels of recoverable oil (or maybe even more, some sites say there are 3 trillion barrels of recoverable shale oil) Doesn't this drastically change the peak?

Peak oil is based on the fact that light sweet crude is the only source of oil out there, when it isn't.

[Atr0p0s]

I heard somewhere that extracting shale oil produces huge amounts of greenhouse gas and pollution. Seeking to back up this point, I have found this well researched link:

http://www.greenpeace.org.au/climate/pd ... aleoil.pdf

Anyone who has been crying for a source than is non-partisan, I think a greenpeace website should settle the issue, because they of all people would love to see a new form of alternative energy to replace the relatively dirty crude oil.

[Aaron]

Aaron I think that's a bit of an overstatement, here's why:

The only reason why the world is using light sweet crude so readily is because it is the cheapest economical from of energy at the current time.
However, once the price of light sweet crude reaches a certain level, it makes other alternatives affordable. I.e.

Shale oil..

So let's say at a price of $35 / barrel, shale oil becomes economical to extract. The bell curve that the total recoverable light sweet crude follows, has now been drastically increased because shale oil is now economical to produce. So before, let's say there was 1 trillion barrels of recoverable light sweet crude, now there are 2 trillion barrels of recoverable oil (or maybe even more, some sites say there are 3 trillion barrels of recoverable shale oil) Doesn't this drastically change the peak?

Peak oil is based on the fact that light sweet crude is the only source of oil out there, when it isn't.

Exactly... other, less desirable, forms of oil become viable at a high enough price. Shale, Tar & sand fields are abundant, and the process of extraction is well understood and feasible. This is the same as saying that they are less efficient energy carriers than sweet crude. I agree… This margin is the real peak oil argument. Being forced to less efficient alternatives means for each percent of efficiency lost, a matching loss in capability must follow. It is simply not possible to maintain the growth economic model we have enjoyed this last century with a decrease in net energy available.

The transportation sector is a good example of this concept, as it relies almost exclusively on oil and gas as an energy source. The entire global economy is based on transporting goods and people where they are profitable. Each incremental loss of net energy returns, translate into higher commodity prices. So it costs more to deliver goods and services than it did before. The problem is that most sectors of economic activity are predicated on the current level of net energy return, and must change to accommodate any significant losses. That sounds all nice and sterile, until we equate this reasoning with reality.

Anyone care to comment on what sort of changes might be required to handle the move to a stable social model which can tolerate sharp and lasting decreases in available energy?

[Pops]

http://www.museletter.com/archive/135.html

This article shows 3 options:
Plan War
Plan Powerdown
Snooze

Snip…
“Why is it so important that people be disabused of rosy hopes for Plan Snooze? Everyone loves an optimist, after all, and nothing smothers investment and commerce like talk of doom and gloom. Yet with each passing year, the adoption of Plan Powerdown carries ever-greater political and social costs. It has an expiration date. If transition efforts are undertaken when societies are still relatively well off, the work (or pain, depending on how one looks at it) can be spread around more easily. There are still surpluses that can be channeled in new directions. The longer we wait, the more of us there are to take care of, the fewer surpluses are available, and the fewer are our options.”
-------------------

Reading PeakOil.com for a month shows just how hard it is to convince people, many of who understand the “Peak” concept, that plan Snooze can only result in ultimately implementing – further – Plan War.

Pops

[Pops]

Found this interview with the same guy:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle ... temID=5351

Pops