Faster than any oil or coal

[Braggi]

This is a government project to put 1,000 megawatts of solar power in effect within two years and all in the Southwest. That leaves the rest of the country. How much solar can we install in total in two years? Drilling in ANWR or off the coast won't get us power for a decade or more. Coal gasification will take 20 years or more. Nuclear??? Solar power is now.

https://www.nrel.gov/csp/1000mw_initiative.html

Southwest Concentrating Solar Power 1000-MW Initiative

NREL, working through SunLab, supports the U.S. Department of Energy's goal to install 1,000 megawatts (MW) of new concentrating solar power systems in the southwestern United States by 2010. This level of deployment, combined with research and development to reduce technology component costs, could help reduce concentrating solar power electricity costs to $0.07/kilowatt-hour. At this cost, concentrating solar power can compete effectively in the Southwest's energy markets. ...

[czLine]

Nothing will bring down prices today except a tipping point in perception. Getting off our asses and doing something to increase out petroleum supplies would be an improvement. Letting Cuba drill the Gulf is about par for the course. Any speculation in petroleum markets is justified by our record of ignorance in defining a cogent energy policy. And now our U.S presidential candidates Obama and McCain are talking about it, the issues surrounding recent discussions on US offshore drilling for oil has significant impact for all Americans. US Offshore Oil Drilling- McCain vs. Obama

[Braggi]

Nothing will bring down prices today except a tipping point in perception. ...

What does that mean?

... Getting off our asses and doing something to increase out petroleum supplies would be an improvement. ...

Reducing our consumption will improve the situation equally in the short term but more substantially in the long term because we won't have the ongoing need. Alternatives make so much more sense than continuing to invest in a technology that is truly dying, and is based on and enforced by so much death and misery.

There is no long term way to increase the oil supply. It is finite and we should do everything we reasonably can to reduce demand short of going nuclear.

Offshore drilling won't save much money for individuals (you and me) but it will make a few people very rich (oil companies and the politicians in their pockets).

McCain is surely a worst case scenario for energy independence just as Bush is.

-Jeff

[Lenny]

Quote:
czLine wrote:
Nothing will bring down prices today except a tipping point in perception. ...

What does that mean?

Pheww. I thought it was me!

Reducing our consumption will improve the situation equally in the short term but more substantially in the long term because we won't have the ongoing need. Alternatives make so much more sense than continuing to invest in a technology that is truly dying, and is based on and enforced by so much death and misery.

We can't reduce our consumption. I mean the price of gas will reduce it, but then prices of EVERYTHING else will go up, which will reduce our consumption even more. IOW, market forces will reduce it, as we won't do it voluntarily. Been proven. Go ahead, get gas to $1 and see if folks stop buying Prius' and purchase Hummers.
Alternatives will not come to the fore until MARKET FORCES bring them; key word here is FORCES. Ain't no other way.

There is no long term way to increase the oil supply. It is finite and we should do everything we reasonably can to reduce demand short of going nuclear.
Offshore drilling won't save much money for individuals (you and me) but it will make a few people very rich (oil companies and the politicians in their pockets).

There is no term way to increase oil supply. All the oil in the universe, like the water, has already been created. AIN'T NO MORE, so I've no idea what you mean by your first sentence; unless you mean coal gassification?
You know, the right wind mouths say differently about saving oil by drilling off shore, ANWAR, shale oil, etc. Somebody sent me this:

https://www.aier.org/research/commen...problem-is-a-g

I really don't care of others get rich, as long as the standard of living increases for the rest of us.

McCain is surely a worst case scenario for energy independence just as Bush is. -Jeff

There you go again, with the "above all, hate Bush" routine.
All of them are evil, bad, wrong. ALL OF THEM.
"No, not one"

[Braggi]

...
We can't reduce our consumption. I mean the price of gas will reduce it, but then prices of EVERYTHING else will go up, which will reduce our consumption even more. ...

Lenny, every time someone replaces an incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent a little energy gets saved. If someone takes the Honda instead of the Hummer a little gas gets saved. These are "easy" ways and it's been an ongoing process for some time. If we put up a 500 megawatt solar power plant we can shut down a 500 megawatt oil fired or coal fired or natural gas fired plant until the sun goes down. That saves a whole lot of barrels of oil or equivalent.

Solar, Lenny. Conservation and solar. And wind. And all the other alternatives. It won't happen overnight but it is happening all the time in ever increasing increments. That's how we reduce our consumption. By substituting energy from other sources while conserving and becoming more energy efficient. This isn't that hard. We do have choices.

As we reduce consumption the price of oil will stabilize and begin to fall, assuming a steady dollar value. We have to throw the spendthrifts out of Washington to accomplish that and I know that's pretty rich. Ha!

...
... All the oil in the universe, like the water, has already been created. AIN'T NO MORE, ... Somebody sent me this:

https://www.aier.org/research/commen...problem-is-a-g

Note how the "proven" reserves went way up in Canada which accounts for a majority of the total "increase." Bah! Canada has no proven reserves to speak of. That's tar sands that made it on that list and using tar sands (which we are buying now) is an environmental disaster of its own. It's a terrible source of "oil" and no better than coal gasification which is far from "clean." Your chart is flawed and worse.

The other thing is: we're killing our environment with fossil fuel burning and waste and we need to stop it!!!! Got that? We're committing global suicide. We need to stop burning oil and get our energy from the original Source. The Sun. The Sun of God. Got that! His name is Ra!

He even has a chant:

We have a fun God!
He is a Sun God!
Ra! Ra!
Ra! Ra! Ra!

...
... There you go again, with the "above all, hate Bush" routine.
All of them are evil, bad, wrong. ALL OF THEM.
"No, not one"

But Bush is so easy to hate. Won't you let me uncle Lenny?

McCain I fear, is even more hateworthy. And stupider.

-Jeff

[PeriodThree]

I accidentally replied privately to Jeff, here is my post:

Jeff,

I _think_ that Lenny's point about not being able to reduce consumption is that we can't voluntarily reduce our consumption, that the only way we will reduce consumption is by being forced by market forces.

He didn't express that very well (nor did I, really :-) but his emphasis on 'force' makes me thing that was his point.

And I sort of agree with him, at least partially :-) I think that at least 2/3rds of our behavior around consumption comes from pure price signals.

Most of us want to do what is right, but mostly we make relatively short term decisions based on what is best for us at that moment.

It sort of sucks, but it seems to be human nature.

I don't think the price of oil will ever again go below $90 a barrel, but I don't think that matters much. If we ignore global warming (a pretty big thing to ignore, I admit!) Our American way of life can go along pretty much unimpeded with oil even up to $200 a barrel.

And I don't think it can go much over $200 a barrel - somewhere between $50 and $200 a barrel a _lot_ of alternatives become reasonable.

I pay 11 to 30 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity, depending on time. My quality of life would not change in any real way even if I paid 90 cents a kilowatt hour... But somewhere around 25 cents more or less a kilowatt hour it becomes practical to use lots of alternative tech, like solar, to generate electricity.

And of course, then you can power your electric car for transport...etc :-)

Lenny, every time someone replaces an incandescent bulb with a compact fluorescent a little energy gets saved. If someone takes the Honda instead of the Hummer a little gas gets saved. These are "easy" ways and it's been an ongoing process for some time. If we put up a 500 megawatt solar power plant we can shut down a 500 megawatt oil fired or coal fired or natural gas fired plant until the sun goes down. That saves a whole lot of barrels of oil or equivalent.

Solar, Lenny. Conservation and solar. And wind. And all the other alternatives. It won't happen overnight but it is happening all the time in ever increasing increments. That's how we reduce our consumption. By substituting energy from other sources while conserving and becoming more energy efficient. This isn't that hard. We do have choices.

As we reduce consumption the price of oil will stabilize and begin to fall, assuming a steady dollar value. We have to throw the spendthrifts out of Washington to accomplish that and I know that's pretty rich. Ha!



Note how the "proven" reserves went way up in Canada which accounts for a majority of the total "increase." Bah! Canada has no proven reserves to speak of. That's tar sands that made it on that list and using tar sands (which we are buying now) is an environmental disaster of its own. It's a terrible source of "oil" and no better than coal gasification which is far from "clean." Your chart is flawed and worse.

The other thing is: we're killing our environment with fossil fuel burning and waste and we need to stop it!!!! Got that? We're committing global suicide. We need to stop burning oil and get our energy from the original Source. The Sun. The Sun of God. Got that! His name is Ra!

He even has a chant:

We have a fun God!
He is a Sun God!
Ra! Ra!
Ra! Ra! Ra!

But Bush is so easy to hate. Won't you let me uncle Lenny?

McCain I fear, is even more hateworthy. And stupider.

-Jeff

[PeriodThree]

Alternatives will not come to the fore until MARKET FORCES bring them; key word here is FORCES. Ain't no other way.

Lenny,

I agree with you about the power of MARKET FORCES, but the market is not the only force.

For example, if we could agree that a certain behavior was better than another we could create tax, regulatory, and social forces which could augment or counter the pure market forces.

I believe, but I respect it if you disagree, that creating non-petroleum alternatives is worth investing a significant amount of economic and social resources.

As a nation we have _frequently_ used the power of the government to encourage behaviors which were considered socially beneficial, or used government money to invest in research or production of things which 'we the people' found worthwhile.

For example, without getting all leftist noam-chomsky on you, our whole Military-Industrial system has encouraged investment in certain lines of research and development because 'we' (the broader national we :-) valued the results of that research.

My response to those who criticize government spending with the argument that government can't do anything right is to point at the incredible accomplishments of our totally government funded and managed military.

In my almost obligatory jab at both the conservative anti-government call, and at Jeff's anti nuke feelings, I quote wikipedia:

"The U.S. Navy has accumulated over 5,400 "reactor years" of accident-free experience, and operates more than 80 nuclear-powered ships."

There is no term way to increase oil supply. All the oil in the universe, like the water, has already been created. AIN'T NO MORE, so I've no idea what you mean by your first sentence; unless you mean coal gassification?

As a matter of Chemistry both of your statements (oil and water is constant) are not really true.

It is trivial (if you have a specialist education :-) to create any particular useful part of 'oil.' And it is absolutely trivial to create water! (and trivial to split water into oxygen and hydrogen!)

It takes energy to do this, but life is all about building up chains of Carbon, Hydrogen, and Oxygen, and then breaking them down.

Simplified a bit, plants take a bit of water and carbon dioxide and some light and produce glucose (C6H12O6) and water and oxygen...

We take glucose and make Adenesine Triphospate, and then break that down into ADP and even AMP to extract the chemical energy which was initially put into forming those molecules via photosynthesis.

It is all magical and wonderful and frankly stunningly beautiful!

And we can make all of it we want - if we have 'energy' :-)

We mean so many things when we talk about 'oil' that it would be useful to sort of split things out about what 'oil' is...

Oil is about 85% Carbon, 14% Hydrogen and 1% Oxygen. (these are really ranges, see the wikipedia article for more :-) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum

There are lots and lots of hydrocarbons in oil (hydro - hydrogen, carbons - carbon :-), all sorts of mixes. The most common are 'alkanes' which are only hygrogen and carbon in mixes like CnH2n+2.

I can't help quoting wikipedia tonight :-)

"The alkanes from pentane (C₅H₁₂) to octane (C₈H₁₈) are refined into gasoline"

There is literally no real technical challenge in creating whatever configuration of Hydrogen, Carbon, and Oxygen molecules which we want for whatever purpose.

It is all an economic and engineering challenge.

There you go again, with the "above all, hate Bush" routine.
All of them are evil, bad, wrong. ALL OF THEM.
"No, not one"

I just disagree. energy and metabolism and gassification and all are more interesting to me, but there really is a difference between Bush and the party he has created and everyone else. Bush _is_ evil in a way which no other politician in America (at least, no other politician elected to the presidency or the house or senate) has ever been.