Big Dave and I started talking about future energy sources in the thread General Strike 9/11/07, but it seemed like it needed its own thread.

I don't think there's anyone who will deny that we are running out of oil and that changes will have to be made in the near future. There are, as I see it, three separate issues that need to be addressed:

1. Energy Usage
2. Energy Production
3. Energy Storage

Do you agree with this breakdown? What do you think would be the optimal combination?

Thanks for re-homing this discussion, Charbucks.

I'm going to stand by my suggestion of nuclear power for electricity generation. I don't see anything wrong with it, and the resources of radioactive material we have, whilst not infinite, are very abundant on earth.

We need to consider fuel for transport. Cars, planes, trains and boats all run on hydrocarbons - all direct derivatives of crude oil distillation. This is where the possibility of fuel cells and even the electrolysis of water to burn the hydrogen-oxygen gaseous mixture produced arises. This is an area which needs a superfluity of research put into it. I'd theorise that the next alternative fuel source proposed for the aviation industry will be hydrogen-oxygen liquified fuel - that's the same stuff the Space Shuttle uses.

I guess you could say we've been running out of oil since the day we began pumping it. You could also say we haven't even hit the apex of production yet.

How long until we run out in your opinion? What time frame did you base that sentence on? At the current rate, what do you believe is the longest there'll be oil available for drilling?


Usage. We may as well continue to use oil until its gone. The sooner its gone, the sooner the innovaters will come up with an alternative. Not to say the research shouldn't continue now - just that by the time we run out of oil, demand for an alternative will have driven the producers to come up with one.

Production: Keep government out of it and protect free trade to preserve efficiency. Open up areas like ANWAR and the Gulf for drilling NOW so we can get our rigs in there before someone else does. Ooops, too late.

I have no idea how long until we run out. Various different predictions have estimated "peak oil" to occur between 2005 and 2040, which, as you said, will mark the apex of production. However, if it only takes 100-150 years to reach the "peak", then I can't imagine it'll last for much more than 100 years after that, especially since our consumption isn't exactly declining. When I said "near future", I meant several generations, give or take a hundred years. It doesn't really matter though, because we are going to run out of oil faster than it can be produced.

True enough. However, one of the major criticisms against sustainable energy sources is that they can't keep up with current demand. I think that we will eventually need to be more efficient in our usage. That doesn't mean that our lifestyle need be significantly affected, I just think that we could accomplish the same level of creature comforts with less energy usage.

And then when the oil does run out (in 1, 2, 3 centuries, whatever), what do you think will be the most viable alternative? Obviously, there may be technology that we don't know about right now, but that's not very fun to talk about.

I knew you'd say that. Put it in perspective. We've only been drilling for a generation or two. It's not the emergency you implied in your earlier statement wouldn't you agree?

You have that backwards. There's no demand right now for sustainable energy sources. Once there is, nothing will stop production of new sources so long as the government stays out of it.


They'll come up with something. Demand will drive it.

The problem with oil in my opinion is that even if it will only run out in 50 to 100 years, new sources may be on hostile or at least "foreign" ground which makes you depending on others when it's running low on or rather under your own soil, while renewable energies usually are present everywhere.

Nuclear energy still has the problem of ultimate waste disposal and high costs for maintenance and safety. Just imagine terrorists crashing a plane into a nuclear power plant in Luxembourg. Central Europe would turn into hell.

Yet we still have to do research to improve efficiency and production of wind, solar and tidal power plants.

Glad to be predictable, I guess. However, it is somewhat of an emergency, I think. If we wait until it's gone before we seriously start making changes, then we're going to be up shit creek. If we used the energy we have now to start implementing changes that will ultimately save energy in the long run, then it could be a gradual adaptation. Instead, imagine trying to build new infrastructure and develop new technology during an energy crisis.

When something's in season, you harvest it and store it away for the winter, you don't gorge yourself all summer and then starve when it stops producing.

What I'm saying is that there are two approaches to the problem, producing more energy and using less energy. We waste a lot of energy, and we could use it more efficiently. That's a lot easier to do than producing more, but it's not profitable so it's not happening.

You must be completely baffled by the fact that the U.S. continues to refuse to drill in ANWR.

I thought you didn't believe in the terrorist threat? You've belittled me in the past for stating there is a terrorist threat.

Now that you believe in terrorists again, how do you like the idea of them controlling the areas that supply oil now?

As for the safety of nuclear energy - compared to its efficiency, its about as safe as you're gonna get. Doesn't the EU already have a lot of nuclear plants?

I have nothing against more research. Just keep it profitable and it will happen.

I can't see a link between that and my post. Do you might explaining it?
It would still make other depended of one country, so I don't see the point in posting this.


I know that there's a terrorist threat, I just don't believe they are terrorising us for fun but for a reason and that reason imho is how we treated and treat them. You can reread other posts of me, I for example disagreed with 9/11 being an inside job.

EDIT: Oh those don't have to be your beloved islamo fascists, just imagine there could be something like militant vegetarians in 20 years.

I never said there are now nuclear power plants in Europe hence the example with luxembourg.

I don't have to support things just because they are "European" which isn't maybe that clear because usually inner European issues aren't discussed much on this forum.

Oh and Italy already got rid of them and Germany's will be shut down until 2012

Seems like we'll need a separate thread on combating the growing threat of vegetarian terrorists, or not. Thanks for the levity. The rest of this post is not responding specifically to MRiGnS, since I generally agree.

A laissez-faire attitude will not necessarily solve the energy problem. It may... if we get to a cost level that motivates clever science and industry soon enough to keep society stable. Dynamic systems like energy supply and demand are not necessarily stable systems. They can crash and burn if things go badly. This is similar to why we have a Fed, to keep the stock market from crashing so deeply that we can't recover in a generation. In the case of energy, if we don't create a practical alternative before we lose what we have we might lose the capacity to produce the alternative.

Eventually the forces of nature and economics will come through, but that might be after a return to the dark ages reduces population and standard of living enough to compensate. Do we want to wait for another Renaissance? It may not be so dire, but why not hedge our bets? Jared Diamond's book "Collapse!" has many examples of unstable ecological situations that produced bad ends.

I'm for making petroleum energy much more expensive now through either taxes or a carbon credit marketplace. We have to sometimes tickle the marketplace to strive for certain desirable aims. People just aren't going to change without a bit more incentive. The marketplace will still get to pick the best alternative.

Italy only had a handful of reactors to begin with. Germany is chock-full of environmental peaceniks, who are on the hypocritical side to say the least: they oppose coal/oil-fired power stations, and nuclear power stations. Can't do right for doing wrong.

France generates 60% of its power from nuclear fuel. They are commissioning more nuclear plants as we speak. Whatever you want to believe, they're less a part of the global warming problem than Germany is.

The UK has about 20 nuclear power stations, I believe. We have about 30-40% of our power generated by nuclear power. Unfortunately, very little money is put into building new nuclear plants. Hence, our nuclear plants are growing old, and no new ones are being built to replace them. The now-departed Tony Blair did speak of replacement power plants, but I don't know the state of those plans now.

I thought I'd already debunked this myth?

The thing that makes me hesitant in supporting nuclear is that it just doesn't seem like the best possible long-term solution. I understand that it is perfectly safe under strict regulation and with the help of technology, and maybe it can even be sustainable in a human timeframe if there are enough advancements in the technology. However, I just don't understand why we should go to all this bother. Shoving the nuclear waste under a mountain in Nevada? Okay, maybe it's contained. But nature can do some crazy things, and it's amazing how things change in 20,000 years. Also, humans make errors. The whole process is dependent on technology and being really careful.

On the other hand, the main arguments against renewables are that they're intermittent and that they don't provide enough energy to meet the demand fully. They are intermittent, that is true, but when they are all combined there is considerable overlap. Also, when energy storage technology develops further, I don't think that it will be an issue any longer. Similarly, if we continue to develop renewables, they will become more efficient and will be able to meet our energy demands. Also, we don't need to be using nearly as much power as we are - a little more effort put into conservation would be a big help.

It seems to me that we can pour energy and resources into working on either, and end up with a good supply of energy. Both systems have the potential to be sustainable, reliable, and efficient. However, I think that nuclear has more "cons", so why not go for renewables?

Oh yeah, and my favourite argument against renewables: "Wind turbines and solar panels are ugly". Yeah, and that nuclear power plant would make an ideal honeymoon destination.

Nuclear fusion would be nice.

Solar and Wind power are great. When I get around to buying a house, I'm going to look into both to supplement my power needs.

Nuclear fission creates some issues. The radioactive waste is around for centuries. I have reservations as to our ability to safely store the waste.

The dirty secret is that we have enough oil for at least 200 years. They can charge much more for a commodity that is perceived as being scarce, so they've perpetuated the myth that we're in danger of running out. While oil based energy is dirty and undesirable, we won't run out of oil in our lifetime or our children's lifetime, for certain.

IMO usage will have to decrease before anything can be fixed.

Virtually everything in our culture seems to have at least 90% waste of energy, and industries built around that waste wasting even more, and so on ad nauseum. We just don't have a sustainable mode of living.

If usage doesn't decrease, it's very possible the shit will hit the fan. The problem with our system is there's really nothing keeping consumption in check ... but rather is rewarding it.

I remember a semi-factual anecdote about a company that built a great product that never broke, and never had any problems. Unfortunately, the company went out of business, since they couldn't sell more than one per household. Our system is really built on creating consumption, not permanent solutions.

No, you didn't. when a plane crashes into one and nothing happens, we can talk.

If the cooling facility is destroyed instantly melt down is unavoidable

I think we need to be a little careful about analyzing risk, e.g. with nuke plants. A lot of the discussion seems irrational, because of how scary the worst case scenarios seem. But if an alternative pollutes more or has a greater negative impact on climate change is it really safer? Can't the slow and steady certainty of these effects be just as disastrous as nukes over the course of a century?

We need to compare best guess expected results, rather than how dire the worst case scenarios are. I don't know the best answer, but I have a strong suspicion that people don't give nuclear energy a fair chance. We shouldn't rush into it, but I'd hate to see it off the table because we imagine possible disasters without looking at possible solutions.

Are you saying that solar and wind pollute more or have greater negative impact on climate change than nuclear?

In general, I don't think people are worried about the potential of nuclear explosions. The problem is that the radioactive material doesn't go away, and it has to be stored somewhere for hundreds and even thousands of years. Right now that isn't a huge problem because there's so little nuclear waste in existence. But if we really pushed nuclear power, there would be many times more and we don't have a good way to dispose of it.

the only way that alternative enegy will work is if we use less enegy, shut off everything witch is not vital, avertising signines, all that crap on american caseno citys

I've already been through how difficult it would be to hijack a plane after 9/11. The 9/11 hijackers had a difficult time finding New York - some of the most densely-populated airspace in the world. They'd have a hell of a time making it to a nuclear power plant.

And, guess what? Once the plane got there, they'd have real difficulty trying to get through the reinforced concrete shielding around a nuclear reactor. The shielding is designed for exactly this sort of purpose.

"Instantly?" You sure? Boron control rods are used for a reason. And, most power stations have more than one "cooling facility" - you don't think they build nuclear power plants without redundancy in the systems, do you?

Huh?

1) "Alternative energy" sources work regardless of what they're powering. Do you mean to say that they will only be able to provide all of our energy needs if we conserve power for necessary applications?

2) Do you not enjoy the Blackpool Illuminations? I don't know what "American casino cities" have to do with this.