Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Pops wrote:I just reject that analysis out of hand, Kub

I dare you to build a Ford Taurus solely via manpower (or little Chinese girl-power for that matter) for 90% of the cost of one built using FFed infrastructure - how silly.

Your point comes a day late and a dollar short Pops! I made it myself earlier in this thread.

kublikhan wrote:But then there is another way to look at it. Let's say we had no fossil fuels. You have to pay someone, at minimum wage, to do the work equivalent of that 46 barrels of oil. So you pay a bunch of guys to pedal on bike generators. If we use the above example of $110k for the value of minimum wage work in a barrel of oil, that comes out to about $5 million. That's just for the cost of the embedded energy. So add that to the cost of the rest of the Yacht.

$5000 worth of oil allows you to sail around on $5 million worth of fossil fuel energy slaves. Nice leverage you got there!

Oops, nevermind.

LOL!

kublikhan wrote:Let's say we had no fossil fuels. You have to pay someone, at minimum wage, to do the work equivalent of that 46 barrels of oil. So you pay a bunch of guys to pedal on bike generators. If we use the above example of $110k for the value of minimum wage work in a barrel of oil, that comes out to about $5 million.

Why not just switch to solar, or nuclear power instead of paying people to pedal on bike generators? The electricity would be a bit more expensive then it is today, but still a lot cheaper then paying thousands of human gerbils to pedal or run on treadmills forever.

Well of course we would do that. It was just an illustration to help people visualize how much energy is in a barrel of oil. Exactly how much energy is in 46 barrels of oil anyway? $5 million worth of human gerbil labor that's how much!

Jeeze Plant, don't you get it? FFs make PV & Nukes affordable just like they do Taurases! I believe it's doubtful they can replicate themselves on their own power let alone anything resembling the modern world.

That's the whole point of PO: Petroleum is the Grand Enabler, from the pop in yer Rice Krispies to the Do in your Doo Wop.

Pops wrote:Jeeze Plant, don't you get it? FFs make PV & Nukes affordable just like they do Taurases! I believe it's doubtful they can replicate themselves on their own power let alone anything resembling the modern world.

No doubt energy will be more expensive in a FF-free world. Germany's energy costs have gone up about 50% since they started their massive build-out of wind and solar energy. A 50% increase in energy costs doesn't mean the end of civilization.

Pops wrote:That's the whole point of PO: Petroleum is the Grand Enabler, from the pop in yer Rice Krispies to the Do in your Doo Wop.

Of course. All I'm saying is that after peak oil we can do better than to treat humans like gerbils and hook them up to treadmills and bicycle generators etc. to make electricity. Why not be think this through and take advantage of the wind, sun, etc. and make electricity that way?

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Pops---Nice to hear from you. How's the house sale going? Hopefully you've sold the farm and bought that RV you were talking about and are happily on the road by now.

I was just reading about all the folks staying in their RVs and tents out at the counter-culture Burning Man festival in Nevada and wishing I was there---but I'm pretty busy putting up firewood and getting ready for winter here in Alaska. Hey---I'm wondering if you are there....have you bought your RV yet? What kind did you get? I can just picture you all comfy in an RV at Burning Man, spreading the word about peak oil, and rubbing shoulders with the counter-cultural elite


RV at "Burning Man" counter-cultural festival

pstarr wrote:
As a sign painter I do all my work by bicycle. In fact I paint signs while astride my recombinant bike. The signs dry faster that way. And when I blow on my tuba I always strike the Downward Dog pose. It helps my breathing and so I emit less carbon. I am one of the very few who still actually dines on carob-chip cookies.

Are you serious you think painting is to lower your carbon footprint, you seen a paint factory lately, chemicals, oil, transportation, the cans in comes in also has its own pollution problems, the oil made to make your bike tires in China where also the bike was made in a China city where people cant see the sun because of pollution and you think your green by blowing in a TUBA..

I think my all American made Motorhome is a very green thing by the way, no hotels are built for my vacation, no lights left on by motel 6 adds, no employees driving to work at a hotel, no cleaning of hotel rooms and laundry, excess electric with few spending the night, no excess water use, my Motorhome has a solar panel, I use less water than any hotel person, my fuel use is less because I drive little because of 7 mpg, I use far less than staying at a hotel and I eat in my Motorhome so no excess waste from Denny's and fast food joints because of hotel travelers..

Yeah Burning Man, I don't get it, LOL I'm more of a Telluride Bluegrass kinda guy.

But it does remind me of the old saying familiar to any "head" of a certain age:
Dope without money is better than money with no dope
Or some such.

Replace "dope" with "energy" and you may get the point: oil is not replaceable with any "renewable" source. Renewables are a product of a technological society, not the other way 'round.

If PV were "self-replicating" you could simply seed energy-poor, non-electrified mud-hut villages of the world with a few of them then go back in a few years to find a Cuisinart on every granite countertop and the kids sitting under the A/C playing XBox.

--
No haven't sold yet, I took OF2's word that the economy was going to boom this year but it fizzled instead.

The easy way to understand what embodied energy means is to take some well known commodity and calculate what it would cost to produce it using only recycled materials and renewable energy.

When you examine that most well-known of electric vehicles from that perspective, a Tesla Model S becomes a totally unaffordable $8M vehicle. Even a new high-end golf cart with lead-acid batteries becomes a $60,000 vehicle, and would sell little better than a Tesla Model S does in the present economy.

Those on Middle Class incomes will dream of sleek new bicycles with electric assist. But most will never afford them because they have to eat first.

Indeed a world without FF is a very different world.

timmac wrote:I think my all American made Motorhome is a very green thing by the way, no hotels are built for my vacation, no lights left on by motel 6 adds, no employees driving to work at a hotel, no cleaning of hotel rooms and laundry, excess electric with few spending the night, no excess water use, my Motorhome has a solar panel, I use less water than any hotel person, my fuel use is less because I drive little because of 7 mpg, I use far less than staying at a hotel and I eat in my Motorhome so no excess waste from Denny's and fast food joints because of hotel travelers..

Or you could just skip the travel stuff, and spend the extra money to make your place into something you want to stay at.

careinke wrote:

timmac wrote:I think my all American made Motorhome is a very green thing by the way, no hotels are built for my vacation, no lights left on by motel 6 adds, no employees driving to work at a hotel, no cleaning of hotel rooms and laundry, excess electric with few spending the night, no excess water use, my Motorhome has a solar panel, I use less water than any hotel person, my fuel use is less because I drive little because of 7 mpg, I use far less than staying at a hotel and I eat in my Motorhome so no excess waste from Denny's and fast food joints because of hotel travelers..

Or you could just skip the travel stuff, and spend the extra money to make your place into something you want to stay at.

Sorry can't do that I am wonder lust and was born in the back of a greyhound bus, my birth star is a wondering star..

KaiserJeep wrote:The easy way to understand what embodied energy means is to take some well known commodity and calculate what it would cost to produce it using only recycled materials and renewable energy.

When you examine that most well-known of electric vehicles from that perspective, a Tesla Model S becomes a totally unaffordable $8M vehicle. Even a new high-end golf cart with lead-acid batteries becomes a $60,000 vehicle, and would sell little better than a Tesla Model S does in the present economy.

Those on Middle Class incomes will dream of sleek new bicycles with electric assist. But most will never afford them because they have to eat first.

Indeed a world without FF is a very different world.

I get the basic concept, it's just that the application to the example was so far put of wack for my gut understanding of how the world works I think something is being missed.

23 bbls x 42 is about 900 gallons, or $2,300 dollars. But the hull weighs 4,000 pounds, made of epoxy and cloth. If epoxy is just 25% of that weight ( I think it's more) then 1,000 pounds of epoxy is roughly 200 gallons @ $60/gal is $12,000. So clearly there is a bust here somewhere.

To simplify....oil is $100 a bbl, epoxy is $3,300/bbl. somewhere there is a shitload of embedded energy in that epoxy.

Recently I have replaced my hvac systems with the efficient ones. My hvac contractor from havc service manalapan has told me how inefficient hvac systems emits a lot of co2 and also they consume lot of energy. Therefore I replaced my inefficient hvac systems with the efficient ones. In lowering the carbon footprint I have also started saving water at my home and started planting trees in my garden.

I seldom use my car, I walk everywhere other than long distances. I buy locally and generally follow the sort of life I did when I smallholded in Orkney.