Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Googolplex wrote:

Starvid wrote:Sadly, stirling solar is impossible in Sweden. This is not exactly sunny California (Uppsala is on the same latitude as Anchorage, I am not kidding).

One of the cool things about sterling engines though is that they work off of temperature differentials, not just high temps. Sure your sterling engines hot sides might only get half as hot, but as long as the cold side, cooled by your arctic air, is twice as cold, you can still get as much energy!

That's good, only problem is because of the Gulf stream, we don't have arctic air. We have warm air and scarce sun. Oh well, maybe the Gulf stream shuts down.

This is just too good to be true. If the solar power can be generated at 2.2cent/watt and the electricity of entire US can be supplied by a 100x100 mile solar farm, there won't be any energy crisis any more. We don't need to spend countless hours debating on this board! Solar power at 30% efficiency at low cost. This is just incredible.

Anyone wants to make some negative comments on this technology before I open a bottle of beer to celebrate our world is saved?

Who said anything about 2.2c/KWh?
It is 6.6c/ KWh and quite likely will be 9-12 with storage (storage is not explicitly addressed in the current proposal; the usual BS ... they use the renewables but do nto invest the money to go 100% renewable).
It is not a Photovoltaic ... it is a Stirling Engine ... therefore it does convert 30% of incipient solar radiation to heat->electricity where the PVS would demonstrate half the efficiency.

EnergySpin wrote:Who said anything about 2.2c/KWh?
It is 6.6c/ KWh and quite likely will be 9-12 with storage (storage is not explicitly addressed in the current proposal; the usual BS ... they use the renewables but do nto invest the money to go 100% renewable).
It is not a Photovoltaic ... it is a Stirling Engine ... therefore it does convert 30% of incipient solar radiation to heat->electricity where the PVS would demonstrate half the efficiency.

I visited the company's web site and they claim that if mass produced, the cost can be brought down to 2.2c/kwh. Storage is not a big problem since the peak usage is during the day time anyway, and hydro/nuclear/coal can be used for the night and cloudy days. If this technology can supply 60-70% of the electricity we use, other renewable and remaining fossile fuel can easily supply the rest 30-40%. Of course we might develop electric bullet train and electric cars as well, but those are just technical details. As long as most of the electricity can be cheaply supplied by solar power, all we are going to face is just a lifestyle change instead of a doomsday scenario.

EnergySpin wrote:...and quite likely will be 9-12 with storage...

The storage problem is not as big as you think. These don't just shut off when the sun goes down. They run on heat, not light, and they run on heat differentials to boot. With the use of thermal masses, combined with the cool night air to boost the differential, they could continue to produce reduced power for some time after sun set.

Im not saying they will necessarily produce all night (or that they won't), but a good thermal mass on the hot side will make power production MUCH more consistant and predictable then PV, making energy storage much less of a problem.

I haven't checked the web-sites, but has the company said anything about the seals yet? The small stirling engines that I have studied require expensive seals to make the system work. It is these seals that wear out quickly, especially if it is pumping fast and constant - they will wear out faster and become more inefficient over time.

Sounds like a great project though, but if it uses seals, then it will most certainly require more than polishing mirrors to keep them running.

neo wrote:As long as most of the electricity can be cheaply supplied by solar power, all we are going to face is just a lifestyle change instead of a doomsday scenario.

Absolutely wrong. Peak oil in NOT an energy crisis, it is a liquid fuel crisis! (Or really an energy carrier crisis).

We already have practically unlimited cheap electricity in the shape of hydro, wind and nuclear power. This is not the problem. Oil is the problem. Cars are the problem. Transportation is the problem. Solar stirling electricity will not change this. At all.

Yes. There is. There are a hundred of liquid fuels that could replace oil. It's not a liquid fuel crisis. It's a cheap liquid fuel crisis.

JudoCow09 wrote:Yes. There is. There are a hundred of liquid fuels that could replace oil. It's not a liquid fuel crisis. It's a cheap liquid fuel crisis.

Of course cheap, but that is of course what I mean! What does it matter if you can buy $ 10 000 a barrel Saturnus oil?

edit: What I am saying is that there is no energy crisis. More energy, from whatever source, won't solve this problem. Solar stirling will not affect peak oil to or fro.

Things in this world still run on oil for electricity to power homes. Right now though, the world still uses a lot of oil to power itself, so in theory it could provide a cheaper alternative to...well other alternatives.

Starvid wrote:

neo wrote:As long as most of the electricity can be cheaply supplied by solar power, all we are going to face is just a lifestyle change instead of a doomsday scenario.

Absolutely wrong. Peak oil in NOT an energy crisis, it is a liquid fuel crisis! (Or really an energy carrier crisis).

We already have practically unlimited cheap electricity in the shape of hydro, wind and nuclear power. This is not the problem. Oil is the problem. Cars are the problem. Transportation is the problem. Solar stirling electricity will not change this. At all.

Of course you are factually correct, but you are still wrong. Not being able to use our cars as much is hardly a doomsday scenario! Its a very significant and painful forced lifestyle change that will severly affect nearly all parts of our lives, from where we can work to the cost of our food, but he is quite right to say that as long as the electricity keeps flowing we're a LONG way from doomsday. Our society runs on electricity, its the only truly universal energy form. Other forms of energy, such as liquid fuels, are in the end mostly used as portable surrogates. Secondary sources for when its more conveniant and/or cheaper then powerlines or batteries.

pstarr wrote:Portable surrogate? Is that a sperm donor on a skateboard?

pstarr stop touching yourself , you will go blind/deaf

Not to mention you'll kill several kittens.

Anyhow, so did you just say our society will not end in a firey explosion but rather a depression like thing? Will the country crumble(if something does not replace gasoline), or would that be doomsday?

pstarr wrote:You are confusing me. That hurts my head

I meant the facts you pointed out were correct, but that your interpretation of the facts that it will be a doomsday type scenario was incorrect.

pstarr wrote:The fact that you used the word "run" just above should tell you something. "Run " pretty much describes the movement of goods and services. This "running" is almost exclusively powered by petroleum.

But the movement of goods and services COULD be accomplished without petroleum. Assuming sufficent electricity, we could power our farms electrically and produce bio-fuels, power electric vehicals for local distrobution (including trains), produce hydrogen, and even power TDP plants if we had to.

On the other hand, without sufficent reliable electricity, we could have an infinate supply of oil and society would still be set way back. When the traffic lights, office lights, computers, phones, and internet go offline; when the electric grid fails us, then we are TRULY screwed.

To put it simply: Electricity can be made to accomplish anything. If we have enough electricity, we can convert it to any other form of energy we may need. Their is also no substitute for it. It is the only energy form that our modern society is truly 100% dependant on no matter what, and can never function without.

Electricity is everything.

pstarr wrote:You need to understand that much of our electricity is generated from fossil fuels including coal, petroleum, and natural gas, which is also peaking. Petroleum comes first, then electricity.

Of course, I completely understand. That has nothing to do with my point however.

pstarr wrote:All of the alternative energy souces you mentioned...

I didn't mention any alternative energy sources. Are you sure you are looking at peoples names when you read posts? I did mention many forms of energy that electricity could be converted to, some fairly efficiently, some at significant losses.

pstarr wrote:...depend on cheap petroleum for their creation. Virtually all the crops we plant, harvest, process, and ship owe their existance to petroleum fertilizer, biocides, and production. This includes bio-fuels like methanol and bio-diesel and agricultural waste products in TDP

They only depend on those things in order to maintain the current volume. If they depended on those things to be produced at ALL, then we would have had to be pumping petroleum and running refineries back in the hunting and gathering days, millenia ago.

What does this have to do with our modern societies dependance on electricity?

pstarr wrote:You also stated that "movement of goods and services COULD be accomplished without petroleum." That is a very big COULD. Right now most of the transport infrastructure is depends on petroleum. To convert to electric cars, trucks, cranes, forklifts, loaders, long-distance trains, etc. would take a project larger than any attempted. Do you see anyone starting this? How long would such a project take? Peak oil is not waiting for your good intentions.

Yes, it is a VERY big could. Most such attempts to convert would come at or after the affects of the peak. Once again, what does this have to do with my point?

You still seem not to see at all how much we are dependant on electricity. You claim that I need to "understand that much of our electricity is generated from fossil fuels including coal, petroleum, and natural gas", yet you yourself don't understand the significance! Don't you see, electricity is so central and necessary to our society that we expend massive amounts, most in fact, of our valuble and irreplacable fossil fuels to supply it!

I STILL disagree with your assurtion that peak oil, or peak [insert energy source here] will result in a doomsday scenario. The only thing that will do that is failure to generate sufficient reliable electricity. Will peak oil cause this? Perhaps, but you stated that "we already have practically unlimited cheap electricity in the shape of hydro, wind and nuclear power". If that is the case, and we CAN keep the electricity flowing despite peak oil, then you are simply wrong in my opinion, and neo was correct. Its not a doomsday scenario, its a lifestyle change. A terribly painful one with lots of starvation maybe, but our modern society, business, government and all, will continue to function.

Ask yourself, if all the petrolium using vehicals disappeared tomorrow, would society colapse? No, I don't think so. What if all the electricity generators and batterys disappered, leaving us with no computers, phones, lights, refridgeration, traffic lights, and really no communications or appiances of any kind? Even if our cars were still there, gased up and ready to go, could you possibly imagine our society continuing to function at all? How?

Face it, our society is totaly and uniquly dependant on electricity. The fact that fossil fuels are our primary source of electricity is why peak oil is such a big deal, not because we need it for our cars. Loosing our petrolium based transportaion system would be devistating, but the problem of electricity generation is the REAL matter of life and death.

[EDIT] Corrected last paragraph to say what I originaly intended, that fossil fuels are our primary source of electricity, not petrolium which I accidently put instead.

Googolplex wrote:

Starvid wrote:

neo wrote:As long as most of the electricity can be cheaply supplied by solar power, all we are going to face is just a lifestyle change instead of a doomsday scenario.

Absolutely wrong. Peak oil in NOT an energy crisis, it is a liquid fuel crisis! (Or really an energy carrier crisis).

We already have practically unlimited cheap electricity in the shape of hydro, wind and nuclear power. This is not the problem. Oil is the problem. Cars are the problem. Transportation is the problem. Solar stirling electricity will not change this. At all.

Of course you are factually correct, but you are still wrong. Not being able to use our cars as much is hardly a doomsday scenario! Its a very significant and painful forced lifestyle change that will severly affect nearly all parts of our lives, from where we can work to the cost of our food, but he is quite right to say that as long as the electricity keeps flowing we're a LONG way from doomsday. Our society runs on electricity, its the only truly universal energy form. Other forms of energy, such as liquid fuels, are in the end mostly used as portable surrogates. Secondary sources for when its more conveniant and/or cheaper then powerlines or batteries.

You are right. Doomsday is not approaching. Lifestyle change is.

JudoCow09 wrote:Things in this world still run on oil for electricity to power homes. Right now though, the world still uses a lot of oil to power itself, so in theory it could provide a cheaper alternative to...well other alternatives.

Almost no one use oil to generate electricity. Oil only generates 8-9 % of all electricity.

Googolplex wrote:I STILL disagree with your assurtion that peak oil, or peak [insert energy source here] will result in a doomsday scenario. The only thing that will do that is failure to generate sufficient reliable electricity. Will peak oil cause this? Perhaps, but you stated that "we already have practically unlimited cheap electricity in the shape of hydro, wind and nuclear power". If that is the case, and we CAN keep the electricity flowing despite peak oil, then you are simply wrong in my opinion, and neo was correct. Its not a doomsday scenario, its a lifestyle change. A terribly painful one with lots of starvation maybe, but our modern society, business, government and all, will continue to function.

He didn't say "we already have practically unlimited cheap electricity in the shape of hydro, wind and nuclear power". I did. And I do not believe in the silly doomsday scenarios.

Googolplex wrote:Face it, our society is totaly and uniquly dependant on electricity. The fact that petrolium is our primary source of electricity is why peak oil is such a big deal, not because we need it for our cars. Loosing our petrolium based transportaion system would be devistating, but the problem of electricity generation is the REAL matter of life and death.

Petroleum is not our primary source of electricity. Coal is (38,4 %), followed by hydro (17,9 %), nuclear (17,1 %), natural gas (16,1 %) and then oil (8,9 %). Only other (1,6 %) is smaller than oil. It was a different matter in 1973, when oil generated 24,5 % of all electricity.

My statistics are from 1998, so they are not completely up to date.

Petroleum is important for tranportation which comsumes 60 % (IIRC) of all oil.

Well, we could always use a way to get off coal, which provides most of the power in the US...well at least half I think. So I guess it really is a liquid fuel crisis. You'd think all those farmers would start modifying their tractors to run on cow pies.

Starvid wrote:He didn't say "we already have practically unlimited cheap electricity in the shape of hydro, wind and nuclear power". I did. And I do not believe in the silly doomsday scenarios.

My, how embaressing! Still, he did disagree with my response to your post, so that statement is important to the context of that response.

Petroleum is not our primary source of electricity.

Im sorry, you are correct. That was a mistype on my part. I meant 'fossil fuels', as in oil, coal, natural gas, et al. Sorry bout that! I'll correct it in my original post.

I still stand by my conclusion though, that electricity is the key, and its availability will determine the fate of our modern world, not fossil fuels.