[tkn317071]

I hope the fact that no one seems to be talking about improving efficiency (minimizing waste) as one strategy (for coping with the peak) is because it is taken for granted. I think it was Amory Lovins who spoke about "negawatts" (saving electricity) as an important component of achieving a sustainable energy regime. It seems only logical that the same concept would apply to oil.

Isn't part of the problem simply that we are way too wasteful with our resources right now? In the face of peak oil, it shouldn't be politically untenable to actively promote and enforce efficiency.

I don't know if determining the viability of alternatives such as hydrogen, ethanol, methanol, etc. on the assumption that demand (for fuels) remains the same and increasing, is reasonable.

Or am I wrong in my assessment that we are currently very wasteful and in fact we are very efficient in our use of petroleum?

[Chicagoan]

Society has to commit itself to reducing energy consumption. Only then will consumtion decrease.

[Mark_i]

A picture often tells one more than 1000 words...
Who wastes most energy can easily be seen here, as brightness should be proportional to the product of energy-use and population density:
if you're looking for a quiet piece of land without too many people living there, this should be helpful in most cases, too::twisted:

[khebab]

Do we have an estimate of the amount of energy wasted by these lights? in particular those placed on deserted roadways?

It seems to me that there are potentially huge energy savings we can make here? or is it peanuts?

[Licho]

Public lights really eat only minimal energy

But this image looks cool, I'v seen it long time ago. Notice how Nile shines or how North Korea is not visible at all while South Korea shines brightly.. Interesting..

[Terran]

Seems like developing countries have more people but they don't give off more light, because they don't consume much. Look at the industrialized countries they're really bright. Vegas is the brightest city in the world, from what I heard.

And notice the long lines going across Russia, thats the trans-Sibarian railroad.

[Carmiac]

We have a huge one of these on a wall at work. I love picking out things on it.

Some of my favorites:
The town I live in is just barely visible.
The Nile River
The Midwestern US grid of towns
Trans-Siberian Railroad
India-Chinese border
Isreal

[lotrfan55345]

Japan looks so "out there".

[Terran]

Yes, they're cities are covered with lights. Look at Tokyo with a population of over 28 million, and the streets are filled with neon lights.

[Kingcoal]

Who wastes most energy can easily be seen here, as brightness should be proportional to the product of energy-use and population density:
if you're looking for a quiet piece of land without too many people living there, this should be helpful in most cases, too::twisted:

Well Mark, if you're using nighttime lighting as a guide to finding peace and quiet, it looks like you're shit out of luck in Europe:
Europe
Just another case of the pot calling the kettle black...

[Schneider]

Hmm,Cubans are really alone in the dark ..

Hey,Quebec province seem to have a lot of place to hide (good for me) !

Schneider
French-Canadian

[Bytesmiths]

if you're looking for a quiet piece of land without too many people living there, this should be helpful in most cases, too

Yea, I think I'll move to Saharan Africa or North Korea... sometimes, "quiet piece of land" is overrated!

[frankthetank]

The water enters the first video and then empties right behind me (about 10-15feet or so) with about a drop of 6-8ft. The flow right now is around 30,000CFS.

Couldn't this be converted easily to produce hydoelectricity?

Click here to watch free-energy

Click here to watch free-energy2

The arrow shows where the video was taken.

[Starvid]

I can't open those links, but maybe this can give you inspiration. http://www.otherpower.com/scotthydro1.html

The energy you can get per second is E=m*g*h.

m is mass, and since one litre water weighs one kg you only have to measure litres per second to get value m. g is the gravity acceleration constant, approximately 9,8. h is the height of the drop, called head. If the drop is 6 feet, that's 2 meters.

30 CFS is 30*28= 840 litres.

OK, let's count.

m= 840 kg

g= 9,8

h= 2,0 m

E= 840*9,8*2,0= 16464 joules/second = 16 kW.

Not bad at all.


edit: Implemented 30,000 CFS


edit2: Is the flow 30 or 30 thousand cubic foot per second? If it is thirty thousand the effect would be 16 MW.

[frankthetank]

The water flowing through these videos is mostly Mississippi river water with another river (maybe a 2-5miles upstream) adding a little or a lot depending on its flow (Black River). There are 2 of these spillways and one lock and dam. The other spillway is older.

I wonder why no one has thought of using this for power use?

[frankthetank]

Thousand...the video is hosted by putfile and it .wmv format. Around 4-7mb...I could host it on google video if its not working for people.

[Devil]

The videos are far too slow to download. After 2 min, only 3% is buffered.

The theoretical power available as calculated above should be divided by 1.3 to 3 to represent the conversion efficiency, depending on the turbine design, in turn depending on the constancy of the flowrate. A small head like that does not really lend itself to high efficiencies.

[Elan_Rasa]

Observation: We tend to waste oil and don't use it responsibly (especially the US).
This point can be argued, but when you consider that about 3% of the world's pop is using 25% of the world's oil, I consider most of it's use as wasteful. Consider that most of the oil goes towards transportation purposes and maintaining an infrastructure (suburbia) that is a waste of most of our resources.

Bear with me for a moment. Suppose that you agree with the first point. Why do we waste so much? Are we, as a nation, inherently wasteful? Why do we consume so much and end up throwing so much away? Why did we build an infrastructure (extensive highway system with suburban sprawl) that is not sustainable?

Before giving my opinion, let me share a little about my background that guides my views on this. I was born in a "third world country" and lived a simple life (my family were mostly farmers -- really small scale, enough to live). While living there, nothing was wasted (even chicken feet were made into soup). Then I moved to the US when I was a child (and I consider myself fortunate to have done that). Though we didn't have much, relatively speaking from my past experience we had a lot (food, clothing, etc) and tended to waste more (buy more food than needed, clothes, etc). Later I became a poor college student (full time student and worked 30hrs per week to pay for tuition, supplies) and I tended to be very careful with my money and was very frugal... cheap, some would say. Once I started working I still saved alot and it wasn't until later that I noticed that I would also waste a lot of my money on silly stuff.

This brings me back to my original question. Why do we waste so much oil? To put it simply, we do it because we can. We built a suburbian nightmare b/c we had the means. We had tons of fuel inefficient cars b/c we had plenty of cheap oil. If each person tends to waste more as they accumulate more resources, then collectively as a nation we will waste more of everything (come on, bottled water!)

There are two problems with this argument. One is that it is based on my personal experience. Second, not everyone is the same (there are some rich individuals who are very frugal). However, as a whole, a society that has more will waste more. If so, then this wasteful behavior that has put us in such trouble, has occurred in other societies in the past and could have occurred anywhere today (misuse of oil).

Thoughts? Have you observed similar things?

[rogerhb]

It is because we are a greedy selfish species who do not know the meaning of the word "enough", heavily discount the future, expect tomorrow to always be like today only better and avoid thinking like the plague.

We also think that those we elect will, for some bizarre reason, look after our interests.

[Spartan2]

Waste is what keeps our jobs. If we stop buying the "silly stuff" then the people who work on the making of that stuff will lose their jobs; if we drive less (by walking more or using more public transit) then we won't need to buy as many cars and the auto industry and all the other industries that depend on it will be hurt; if we stop suburban sprawl then the construction industry will suffer, etc...

The fact is we need to consume more if we want our economies to grow.