Will the "Peak Oil" Pinheads FINALLY Shut the Heck Up?

[RaspberrySurprise]

Hydrogen and oxygen atoms get lonely when they don't have a buddy to bond with.

[geronimotwo]

yea, they are big, but still finite.  again, where do the hydrogen atoms come from? (aside from splitting water)  i know we can manufacture it, but it is not economically feasable to replace fossile fuels.  does it occur naturally like oxygen?  

[sumpnz]

g2 - When the hydrogen is burned it isn't destroyed.  It combines with oxygen to produce ... water.  That water is typcically in vapor form.  That combines with the other water vapor in the atmosphere and eventually precipates out as rain.  Thus refilling the oceans from whence it came.

Hydrogen is the single most abundant element in the universe.  The only thing that would reduce our supply of hydrogen is fusion type nuclear reactions (e.g. the sun, H-bombs).

[geronimotwo]

i understand that the emissions are hydrogen and oxygen,  but something needs to be destroyed to create energy.  am i mistaken in thinking that we can't get energy for free?  aren't some of the hydrogen atoms used?  since they are so prevalent, can anyone tell me where they come from?

[Tallpine]

i understand that the emissions are hydrogen and oxygen,  but something needs to be destroyed to create energy.  am i mistaken in thinking that we can't get energy for free?  aren't some of the hydrogen atoms used?  since they are so prevalent, can anyone tell me where they come from?

No, but we have to put energy into the process in order to create a portable fuel.

The H and the O are neither created nor destroyed:  We put energy in to separate them from water, and then they release energy when recombined (burned) into water.  There will always be more energy put in than we get out.

Think of the H & O like a battery....

[Perd Hapley]

Aren't we wasting a whole lot of electrons and pixels in this discussion? Once they're gone, they're gone!

[geronimotwo]

that's my understanding.  so where do we get new ones from?  they must come from somewhere? or perhaps hydrogen has just been here forever with no repleneshing?

[Tallpine]

Not to mention all the gravity that we are using up 

The US is the worst offender.  With 4% of the world's population, we use up 67% of the world's gravity consumption.  One space shuttle launch uses up more gravity than the entire world used during the 1800s 

[Iain]

Not to mention all the gravity that we are using up 

The US is the worst offender.  With 4% of the world's population, we use up 67% of the world's gravity consumption.  One space shuttle launch uses up more gravity than the entire world used during the 1800s 

I wouldn't worry, as the US population is both larger and, err, larger, than it was, you're adding to gravity all the time.

[Perd Hapley]

Not to mention all the gravity that we are using up 

The US is the worst offender.  With 4% of the world's population, we use up 67% of the world's gravity consumption.  One space shuttle launch uses up more gravity than the entire world used during the 1800s 

Yet Big Corporate Media never reports on this.

[never_retreat]

you would advocate using our atmosphere to replace oil?  i thought it was bad enough that we consider splitting H20. 

It might lower the ocean levels that the tree huggers are complaining about.

[roo_ster]

I have a problem with this title.  The oil industry was looking pretty scary not too long ago and the peak oil folks had some valid arguments.

Do tell.

I'll be over in this corner tuning my 200MPG carburetor awaiting a reply.

sorry, seriously, where does the hydrogen come from,  our finite supply of water?

The Earth is a closed system.  Unless converted to energy via fission or fusion, matter is conserved as matter. 

[roo_ster]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/business/energy-environment/using-water-to-turn-wood-chips-into-motor-fuel.html?_r=1&ref=science

A fascinating article on what may be a relatively cheap and environmentally-benign way to turn cellulosic waste into hydrocarbon feedstocks. 

Boy, if this can be economically done with less energy input than the feedstock output, how exciting.  In a nutshell, it uses supercritical water under pressure. 

My question on this effort is a big, fat WHY?

More specifically, why ethanol?

Biomass & such can already, today, produce methanol at prices equal to or better than (on an btu/$ basis) ethanol, despite all the ethanol subsidies and mandates.

IMO, the alcohol that has a better chance of being an economically viable motor fuel without subsidy is methanol.

If only Iowa were forested with wood pulp trees from end to end, methanol might have a chance to duke it out with corn squeezings.

[kgbsquirrel]

that's my understanding.  so where do we get new ones from?  they must come from somewhere? or perhaps hydrogen has just been here forever with no repleneshing?

Since the H, O and C are just being recycled through the process, atmosphere, ocean, fuel, etc. what is actually being consumed is the energy required to extract the H, O, and C from the atmosphere/oceans and then rearrange them into fuel form. After which the fuel is burned and the H, O and C are returned to the environment, neither created nor destroyed. As for the energy source in order to do the extraction and rearranging, one suggestion was the fissionable isotopes available, in which case we would be consuming a quantifiably finite resource (but one with a much higher energy density than other common energy resources). The other potential is to get this energy from "renewable" sources (which are really just sources so vast that they have no practical limit for our application): geothermal, tidal generator, hydroelectric, wind turbine, solar, et alii.

[sumpnz]

that's my understanding.  so where do we get new ones from?  they must come from somewhere? or perhaps hydrogen has just been here forever with no repleneshing?

I think there's a fundamental lack of understanding here.

Hydrogen (H) has, for all practible purposes, always been here, and always will be.  With the exception of fusion nuclear reaction (that turns H into Helium) H is not destroyed, or used up, or otherwise made unavailable for future use.  It is merely combined with Oxygen (or whatever), and can be separated from Oxygen (or whatever) again.  And again.  And again.

E.g. Let's say that we wanted to obtain H from water.  Water is H2O.  That means it contains 2 hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule.  Zap that water with enough energy and that separation will occur.  Once separated from O, the H's remain separate from each other (they bond with the O but not with eachother).  To produce energy from that H that you've separated you have to recombine them with O again.  This chemical reaction of recombing the H and O is very hot, and produces the visable flame we all know and appreciate as fire.  The end result of the fire is another molecule of H2O.  Which can then be split again to start the whole process over.

The downside to doing this is that, as mentioned by others above, it takes a lot of energy to produce H as a fuel this way.  More energy that what you get back out it.  However that is the case with all forms of fuel.  The only reason oil is so cheap and handy as a fuel source is that nature expended all the energy necessary to transform ancient organic material into petrolium as we know it today.  Now all it costs us to use it the energy it takes to pull it out of the ground and refine it into the various useable portions that it contains (crude oil contains gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and lots of other stuff that is "refined" or separated by distillation) and then transport it to the end user.  

If we didn't need portable fuels none of this would be necessary.  But electricty (straight from the grid) is useless for transportation.  So some way of storing that energy in the vehicle is necessary.  The most common form of that is gasoline and diesel.  A few vehicles are using batteries.  But since eventually gasoline and diesel (as produced now from petrolium) will probably become too expensive to use as a fuel something else will be needed to take its place.  Batteries are unlikely due to the recharge time and lifespan (and cost) they require.  So either a synthetic version of gasoline, or something like a Hydrogen fuel-cell (these combine the best parts of electric and internal combustion engines - the effeciency, performance, simplicity and "greenness" of the electric, with the fast refueling of a gas engined car) are the most likely alternatives.

But either way you will need a vast source of cheap energy to make either of those viable alternatives in our lifetimes.  Queue nuclear.

[CypherNinja]

From the article:

The American energy boom, Jaffe says, could endanger many green-energy initiatives that have gained popularity in recent years. But royalties and revenue from U.S. production of oil and natural gas, she adds, could be used to invest in improving green technology.

"We don't have the commercial technology now," she says, noting the recent bankruptcy of American solar companies like Solyndra.

"The point is you can't force a technology that's not commercial. Rather than subsidize things that are not going to be competitive, we need to actually use that money to do R&D to create technologies — the same way that the industries created these technologies to produce natural gas and it turned out so commercially successful."

Can I get an AMEN on that? One could only hope other greenies are waking up as well......

[KD5NRH]

More specifically, why ethanol?

Even more specifically, why alcohols from crops that are already commercially useful? Kudzu, johnson grass, mesquite and dozens of other weeds already take over tens of thousands of acres without the effort of cultivation.

[Scout26]

Even more specifically, why alcohols from crops that are already commercially useful? Kudzu, johnson grass, mesquite and dozens of other weeds already take over tens of thousands of acres without the effort of cultivation.

Because I can't sell you the kudzu and sawgrass growing along side the road, but I can sell you the corn and beans in my fields.

[wacki]

What is a "denier," please?

Skeptic = open to changing opinions based on empirically falsifiable evidence.
Denier = Willing to support any argument that fits their preconceived notions... no matter how silly that argument is.   Once their argument is debunked with overwhelming evidence they modify their arguments so they can continue to support their preconceived notions.   Typically this change is temporary as most deniers will suffer from amnesia as soon as they talk to a different group of people and forget about the evidence that is inconvenient to their preconceived notions.



Apply the above definitions to the whole "guns cause crime" argument put forth by many liberals and you should be able to figure the rest out.  Feel free to reread my original post and with the above definitions in mind.

[brimic]

Denier:

Units of textile measurementFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  (Redirected from Denier (unit))
Textile is measured in various units, such as: the denier and tex (linear mass density of fibres), super S (fineness of wool fiber), worst count, and yield (the inverse of denier and tex). Yarn is spun thread used for knitting, weaving, or sewing. Thread is a long, thin strand of cotton, nylon, or other fibers used in sewing or weaving. Both yarn and thread are measured in terms of cotton count and yarn density. Fabric is cloth, typically produced by weaving or knitting textile fibers, and is measured in units such as mommes (momme is a number that equals the weight in pounds of a piece of silk if it were sized 45 inches by 100 yards), thread count (a measure of the coarseness or fineness of fabric), ends per inch (e.p.i), and picks per inch (p.p.i).

Thread made from two threadsDenier is a unit of measure for the linear mass density of fibers. It is defined as the mass in grams per 9,000 meters. In the International System of Units the tex is used instead (see below). The denier is based on a natural standard: a single strand of silk is one denier. A 9,000 meter strand of silk weighs one gram. The term denier is from a French coin of small value (worth 1/12 of a sou). Applied to yarn, a denier was held to be equal in weight to 1/24 oz (this does not have units of mass per length!).

The term micro-denier is used to describe filaments that weigh less than one gram per 9,000 meter length.

One can distinguish between Filament and Total denier. Both are defined as above but the first only relates to a single filament of fiber (also commonly known as Denier per Filament or D.P.F) whereas the second relates to a yarn, an agglomeration of filaments.

a unit of fineness for fibres


The following relationship applies to straight, uniform filaments:

D.P.F. = Total Denier / Quantity of Uniform Filaments
The denier system of measurement is used on two and single filament fibers. Some common calculations are as follows:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denier_(unit)#Denier
1 denier = 1 gram per 9 000 meters
 = 0.05 grams per 450 meters (1/20 of above)
 = 0.111 milligrams per meter

In practice measuring 9,000 meters is both time-consuming and wasteful. Usually a sample of 900 meters is weighed and the result multiplied by 10 to obtain the denier weight.

A fiber is generally considered a microfiber if it is 1 denier or less.
A 1-denier polyester fiber has a diameter of about 10 micrometers.
Denier is used as the measure of density of weave in tights and pantyhose, which defines their opacity.

[RaspberrySurprise]

i understand that the emissions are hydrogen and oxygen,  but something needs to be destroyed to create energy.  am i mistaken in thinking that we can't get energy for free?  aren't some of the hydrogen atoms used?  since they are so prevalent, can anyone tell me where they come from?

Bonds are what are destroyed, if I am remembering my chemistry correctly. You cannot outright destroy matter, but you can convert it into quite a bit of energy (E=MC² [energy equals mass times the speed of light squared])

In short when you burn something it is not really destroyed its form is merely changed.

[StopTheGrays]

Oil is so 20th century. Thorium is the future.
http://www.geekosystem.com/thorium-powered-car/
The key bits of the article

He believes that 8 grams of the rare-earth mineral thorium, lasers, and mini-turbines could solve that problem by providing the equivalent of 60,000 gallons of gasoline, enough to take a Hummer 960,000 miles, all with no emissions.

Stevens’ technology could prove to be a game changer because not only is it greener, but you would never have to pay for fuel of any sort ever again and that’s a huge selling point from an economic and convenience perspective.

It is cheap. If the government was really interested in "green" jobs, it would promote this technology rather than wind and solar.

[geronimotwo]

My question on this effort is a big, fat WHY?

More specifically, why ethanol?

Biomass & such can already, today, produce methanol at prices equal to or better than (on an btu/$ basis) ethanol, despite all the ethanol subsidies and mandates.

IMO, the alcohol that has a better chance of being an economically viable motor fuel without subsidy is methanol.

If only Iowa were forested with wood pulp trees from end to end, methanol might have a chance to duke it out with corn squeezings.

i loath the use of any alcohol in internal combustion engines.  as i see it gasoline has lubricating qualities, alcohol is a non lubricating solvent.  putting a solvent into the top end of an engine seems assinine.  i would rather see a vegetable based diesel, or some of the biologically produced fuels taking the place of fossils.

as far as the H2O energy, i must have a complete lack of understanding.  it makes no sense to input energy to split the molecules and allow them to rejoin thereby producing the same amount as was input minus losses of the process.

[MechAg94]

Maybe I should post an article on the hundreds of air separation plant around the world that suck in air and separate it into pure nitrogen and oxygen for use in industry.  How soon will we us it all up?   

[dogmush]

as far as the H2O energy, i must have a complete lack of understanding.  it makes no sense to input energy to split the molecules and allow them to rejoin thereby producing the same amount as was input minus losses of the process.

It gives you portability.  You input the energy somewhere where it's cheap. (Like at or near a power plant) ant take it out somewhere that you need energy but power lines are inconvenient. (like in a car)

The battery is a really good analogy.  You input energy into your cellphone battery where it's cheap and plentiful (a wall socket) and take it out where it's less plentiful (in your pocket).  You just accept, or are unaware of, the energy loss in transferring it because it's worth it to have the portability.  No electrons are destroyed in your phone, just rearranged.

Hydrogen is like the worlds best, most energy dense battery.  (sorta, it's an analogy, let it go guys)