Move past era of oil, experts say

[Thom Little]

By Greg Gordon
Raleigh News & Observer
Friday, Nov. 25, 2005


Former CIA Director James Woolsey paints a dire scenario: A terrorist attack causes a months-long, 6 million-barrel reduction in Saudi Arabia's daily petroleum output, sending the price of oil skyrocketing past $100 a barrel.

.......

Even if nothing disrupts the projected flow of Middle East petroleum, Energy Department consultants warned earlier this year that "the world is fast approaching the inevitable peaking" of global oil production -- a problem "unlike any faced by modern industrial society."

.......

This month, a bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators proposed legislation to accelerate the nation's shift to new energy sources in the transportation sector, which accounts for two-thirds of America's oil consumption, guzzling 14 million barrels of oil each day.

Warning of a potential crisis, they proposed billions of dollars in tax incentives to spur development of vehicles powered by electric batteries, diesel, ethanol and exhaust-free hydrogen fuel cells. In the House, 16 co-sponsors want all U.S. gasoline to contain a 10 percent blend of renewable fuel, as only Minnesota requires now.



http://www.newsobserver.com/110/story/371106.html




http://www.newsobserver.com/110/story/371106.html

[Kolesar]

1. There's that "Potemkin-facade" fuel cell again

There's no distribution infrastructure & no way to store enough fuel onboard.

[johnaries]

3. The infrastructure is a problem with ANY alternative fuel source,

which is why Congress needs to act ASAP to give incentives to companies to change/develop a new infrastructure.

As for fuel cells, there are problems with the storage and transport of pure hydrogen, that is true. Also, the production of pure hydrogen requires energy.

However, fuel cells can use hydrogen from many different hydrogen sources, not just pure hydrogen. For instance, fuel cells can use hydrogen retrieved from ethanol through a chemical process that doesn't require huge amounts of energy and can be performed on-board. Effectively, the fuel cell can run on ethanol.

Therefore, we could develop an infrastructure for ethanol, and begin producing ethanol fuel cells. At a gas station, the ethanol could be blended in a 10%-90% mix (just as most stations today blend regular and premium at the pump to create mid-grade) for conventional combustion engines, and a pure 100% ethanol for ethanol fuel cell vehicles.

The infrastructure would be relatively easy to develop. I believe this would be an excellent mid-range solution until pure hydrogen technology could be perfected. Once it is, existing ethanol fuel cells could easily be converted to pure hydrogen cells.

[democracy eh]

2. the REAL Project for the new Century

will be moving beyond fossil fuels

The final stage of the journey has begun. Which path we choose is up to us. It will dominate everything.

The calls are already going out from industry, farmers, homeowners for governments to subsidize the energy costs and provide relief. You think this winter's prices are high? What is the next step? Will North Americans, when they are paying $5 or $6 or $7 a gallon for gas, swallow their moral outrage and accept the wars in the Middle East as an unfortunate and necessary evil that they must hold their nose to in the faint hope that their execution will lead to the return of cheap energy?

I really believe that the next couple of years, the NeoCons will start to un-mask the beast and start to openly justify the Wars as securing energy stocks from 'terra' and 'rogue states' and whose control over those resources threatens the American dream.

morning rant over

[NJCher]

4. Use of scare tactics

Isn't it interesting how they consistently use scare tactics, even with subjects like this, where a strong case can be made for alternative fuels because of global warming? Is it because they don't know any other way?

I honestly think it might be. I think there are some people who are just hardwired to react to fear. Gun control people are like this--constantly thinking someone is after them and that they might need to protect themselves.

Also, wonder why they didn't tell us the names of the senators.




Cher

[Pavulon]

5. Lots of good alternatives.

We need a manhattan project to pick one and retool.

Every transport truck, along with most heavy diesel equipment, on the road could run b50 biodiesel or better tomorrow.

If we move to switch our power generating capacity to nuclear, like the french, we would have the power online to crack hydrogen for mass consumption.

Oil will have to decline. Time is the only variable.

[robbibaba]

6. I use biodiesel

to run my car. And it's very expensive! The reality is, however, that there is NO WAY to continue our current auto centered way of life. There really is no replacement for cheap oil and once it's not cheap anymore every thing we've built up on that cheap oil platform--from suburbia to globalization to agribiz--is going to crumble.
The good news is that most of what will crumble is already killing us (physically, moraly, culturally). The bad news is that lots of folks are going to starve to death.
That said, if we had the political will, we could really soften the impact, even at this late date. I've read a proposal to make billions of gallons of biodiesel using seawater ponds to grow oil rich algae out in the barren desert. It would certainly cost a lot less than occupying Iraq!

[newyawker99]

7. Hi robbibaba!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[yurbud]

8. I used to buy gasahol (90% gas, 10% alcohol) and it was cheaper

biodiesel and alcohol fuels are cheap in places where it's mass produced and unlike oil, both can be processed on a small scale if preferred.

Hell, somebody showed how to squeeze the oil out of crops with a car jack.

Here in LA, some guy was driving around a bus run on used french fry oil.

He put it in a 55 gallon drum on the back of his bus, added a handful of chemicals and a heating coil, let it cook over night, and he diesel fuel he could run in his bus.

alcohol and biodiesel could work with the right crops and if it was given the same tax advantages petroleum was.

That's the rub though. Oil companies are not going to use their infrastructure to sell a product that will put them out of business.

[rayofreason]

9. Go nuclear...

...no greenhouse gases, and you can produce hydrogen as fuel.

Biofuels, solar, wind, and geothermal can all help out, but they can't do it all. And eventually fusion will provide unlimited electricty with no greenhouse gases.