[big_rc]

Hey I need some help understanding something that has been floating around in my mind for a while. Alot of people present energy technologies such as wind, solar, fuel cells and nuclear as potential saviors for our soon-to-be post peak world. Can this really be true? All of these technologies produce electricity. Can electricity as a potential energy carrier replace oil which is a wonderful energy source? Last time I checked oil is not used to produce electricity in any major amounts. Am I the only one who thinks oil and other savior energy technologies are not equivalent? Please help me to understand this concept.

Thanks

[pip]

Electricity is no oil alternative. It is, however, a good alternative to walking.

[PhilBiker]

Electricity is only an energy carrier, kind of like Hydrogen (but not nearly as efficient as hydrogen). Our battery technology is pitiful and rudimentary but it does work. If there's no choice, we can use electric vehicles for much, most notably rail transport for freight and people.

[big_rc]

Yes I know electricity is only an energy carrier but then that begs the question, why do people present nuclear, wind, etc., etc. as potential replacements in a post-peak world? Can that even be logically and honestly argued on sound scientific logic?

[big_rc]

I think I might not be making myself clear here so let me attempt to try again. To make myself as blunt as possible, I'm beginning to think all of this talk of replacing oil with wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal and fuel cells is starting to sound like complete bullshit because those technologies produce electricity and electricity is FUNDAMENTALLY different from oil. Can someone please prove me wrong because I really want to be wrong on this topic!

[Devil]

Well, let's look at oil as a fuel source (forget the petrochemical and lubrication sides or the asphalt for making roads, for the moment).

What are the uses of oil as a fuel? To produce heat. Heat may be used to make your home warmer in winter; so can electricity. Heat may be used to drive your car or a locomotive; so can electricity via batteries, hydrogen etc.. Heat may be used to generate electricity (and yes, a lot of the world's electricity IS generated from oil, especially in oil-rich countries and others where it is convenient to do so). As one example, virtually 100% of the electricity on this island comes from oil. This could be replaced by nuclear and a judicious mix of renewables, if we had a government that had more sense.

So if I heat my home or drive my car from electricity, it is still using oil as my fuel source.

So, there is a certain interchangeability. Oil is a source of biomass energy made naturally but very inefficiently millions of years ago. Electricity, no matter how it is generated, is a source of energy that is made by man instantaneously to meet the demand. Theoretically, any form of energy may be converted to any other form of energy, but the efficiency in doing so may be high (e.g., a good electric motor may have an efficiency of 95% or more) or it may be abysmally low (e.g., to convert elemental carbon and hydrogen plus electricity into useful fuel hydrocarbons). Therefore, the practical interchangeability is limited. Most practical means of energy conversion, except electromechanical, have efficiencies in the order on 20 to 50%.

Does this help?

[big_rc]

Cool. Thanks Devil for the info. Learn something new here everyday.

So can one arguably make the point that a wholesale switch to electricity could allow us humans to carry on with business as usual because we would gain much more by using high efficiency electric systems? (Although we would need ALOT more electrical generation in the process). I guess I'm trying to flesh out exactly how much interchangability there is between oil and electricity. I know it's not one-to-one but is one markedly better than the other?

[mgibbons19]

OTOH here in the US, oil goes to transport mostly. Some home heating, but mostly transport. An oil crisis here IS a transportation crisis. If we are going to use electricty from any source at all, we are going to need a signficant shift in our infrastructure for electricity delivery. It also may be the case that electricity generation cannot match the demand for energy for transport, even with the appropriate infrastructure for delivery. Someone who is familiar with the specifics can chime in, but these seem like the issues that will matter.

[JoeW]

i think that if you look at it from a standpoint that you have to replace all oil-based transportation with electric vehicles, you are trying to solve a problem that is different from what we face.
the real question is whether power generation from other sources can be used as a *partial* substitute to help mitigate the effects of peak oil.
i believe the answer to that question is yes. google "plug-in hybrid" and see what you find. in the face of rising gasoline and diesel prices, alternatives will emerge! in all likeliness, they will not necessarily be sustainable alternatives, but they will help to mitigate the immediate effects of peak oil.
i have stated before that i believe a gradual increase in oil prices is very much preferable to rapid increases, and that a small year-over-year increase of a certain dollar amount in crude prices is probably sustainable in the US economy for a lengthy period of time.
i think that the powers that be are in agreement with this, and are also in agreement with the hypothesis that alternative transportation technologies (and i am going to ignore the wise-ass adidas and schwinn comments) will play a role in shaping our future. it doesn't solve the sustainability problem, but it may delay the eventual results.
we don't have a sustainable solution. we have a lot of things we can try until we do, and you can take that to the bank. every option will be explored:
technology
conservation
regulation
(and more)
their level of success probably cannot be predicted. i, for one, am crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

JW

[PhilBiker]

plug-in-hybrids are a brilliant way to use the electrical grid for transportation. The beautiful part is that they recharge at night when typically most electrical generation plants are throwing away energy because they can't "power down" the generators enough to deal with the lower requirements. So you end up with a lot of "spare capacity", but only at night. Plug-in hybrids use that spare electrical generation capacity to fuel transportation.

Still, large scale motorized personal transportation is one of the first things we'll see go IMO.

[small_steps]

plug-in-hybrids are a brilliant way to use the electrical grid for transportation. The beautiful part is that they recharge at night when typically most electrical generation plants are throwing away energy because they can't "power down" the generators enough to deal with the lower requirements. So you end up with a lot of "spare capacity", but only at night. Plug-in hybrids use that spare electrical generation capacity to fuel transportation.

Still, large scale motorized personal transportation is one of the first things we'll see go IMO.

I wouldn't say that these plants are "throwing away energy", they are running at a slightly elevated heat rate, but operating as efficiently as possible, given the load. Optimal dispatch, and penalty factors are used to operate the regional grid as effectively as possible.

You do have spare capacity at night, but bringing this online will consume more energy that otherwise, and new baseload plants would likely have to be built to satisfy the increased load.

Also the load profile may not vary greatly, depending on the business/industrial/residential makeup of the area.
A fairly static profile can be seen:
http://www.midwestmarket.org/page/Real-Time+Info

[big_rc]

Finally a story that helps to explain the difference between OIL and electricity (in this case nuclear power). As I thought, everyone on this forum needs to be really careful in saying that electricity generation methods will be a full replacement for oil based products. That means all of this talk about nuclear, wind and solar is somewhat misguided.

(This is a NYTimes article so registration is required)
When It Comes to Replacing Oil Imports, Nuclear Is No Easy Option, Experts Say

[Caoimhan]

It also means that the people who say "Don't invest in biodiesel, invest in nuclear!" are also barking up the wrong tree. We need a renewable replacement for oil for transportation purposes.

Nuclear, wind, hydro, solar, and all the other electricity generating renewables are great to replace that portion of the fossil fuel economy that goes into electrical generation, but for transportation, the answer will likely be a combination of:

1. Biodiesel/Ethanol Fuel
2. Hybrid power systems (esp. "plug-in")
3. Ultra-efficient engine designs (how many people really NEED over 150 HP?)

Finding a replacement for jet fuel will be the hardest, but not impossible. Refining methods are being researched to make "bio-kerosene".

[johnmarkos]

So in the realm of transportation, it seems unlikely that we can find a "new oil," something as energy dense and as cheap as petroleum. However, do we really need a new oil?

In the applications where oil is necessary for its energy density, perhaps we can get along without it. Cars, or automobiles for personal use, are a luxury, not a necessity. The same is true of jet travel for most people.

For what other applications is oil (as opposed to electricity) required? For what applications do we require dense energy (like jet fuel or gasoline), as opposed to just electricity or heat?

Lately I've been thinking that a general reduction in energy density might actually be good for society in the long run, as long as we had abundant non-dense energy in the form of electricity. We could restructure society along the lines described here, by gg3.

The best part of this change (to lower energy density) is that it doesn't require any new laws or investments: it is a natural outgrowth of more expensive oil, which most of us agree is coming no matter what we do.

[Dezakin]

It also means that the people who say "Don't invest in biodiesel, invest in nuclear!" are also barking up the wrong tree. We need a renewable replacement for oil for transportation purposes.

Sure, except the cost of synthesizing hydrocarbons from nuclear or solar electricity vs biofuels is not exactly certain. Direct hydrocarbon synthesis is certainly more energy efficient and more scalable than biofuels. In any case, coal will be converted to liquid fuels for decades before either become large players.

For what other applications is oil (as opposed to electricity) required? For what applications do we require dense energy (like jet fuel or gasoline), as opposed to just electricity or heat?

Space travel for at least the next fifty years.

Other than that the gradual upward trend in fuel costs will enlarge the cities, push more shipping onto the railways, and drain the rural heartland and suburbia. Politically, this may not be a bad thing at all.

But we wont see the scenario gg3 envisioned because biodiesel is a winner only in as far as waste management, and in the forseeable future coal liquefaction will be more competative. After fifty years the robots take over and the shape of the future is unknowable.

[Caoimhan]

Direct hydrocarbon synthesis is certainly more energy efficient and more scalable than biofuels.

I have no idea what you're talking about here. Algae? What can directly synthesize hydrocarbons (especially in a useful, dense, liquid form), that is more efficient AND scalable than biofuels?

[Dezakin]

Direct hydrocarbon synthesis is certainly more energy efficient and more scalable than biofuels.

I have no idea what you're talking about here. Algae? What can directly synthesize hydrocarbons (especially in a useful, dense, liquid form), that is more efficient AND scalable than biofuels?

Getting hydrogen from water and carbon from limestone and synthesizing hydrocarbon chains such as diesel fuel in fischer-tropsch style reactors using either solar or nuclear energy.

What I mean by being more energy efficient is that photosynthesis is a horribly inefficient converter of solar energy. What I mean by more scalable is that there is a far higher production capacity for direct synthesis because of the limitation of suitible biomass production based on suitable areas for farming it.

It is definately more cost effective to do this with coal as the source of both hydrogen (water shift reaction) and carbon than to use biofuels, because we have the economic studies and test plants that show the numbers. So where biofuels really come into play is when coal gets so expensive that biofuels are no longer using recycling of waste and clever farm subsidies as their feedstock, when we start to know the true economic cost of biofuels. I suspect eventually we'll just go with direct synthesis where liquid hydrocarbons are necissary, but biofuels will play a role while the technological infrastructure for direct synthesis is too expensive.

[Starvid]

Well, biofuels do have one pro fischer-tropsch hasn't.

It doesn't increase global warming, saving us from a fucked up climate.

[Dezakin]

Well, biofuels do have one pro fischer-tropsch hasn't.

It doesn't increase global warming, saving us from a fucked up climate..

It depends where you get the carbon. If you're insistant about being carbon neutral you can pull it from the CO2 in the oceans.

[highlander]

Oil=transportation, very little used in electrical generation
electricity=conveniences and toys
emerging nations are using nuclear and coal to produce electricity.
large cities can get by without cars, but not electricity. Look at large Chinese cities to see your cloudy coal powered future.