A real energy future....
 

As I have grown tired of discussing fantasies of 300 years of oil from an Saudi sized reserve. I have decided to start a topic to discuss REAL LIFE solutions to the current energy crisis outside of the crap from the oil industry.

What is a fantasy you ask? A fantasy is thinking that remaining Oil reserves on the planet called earth are enough to keep current or reduced prices online for over 100 years when factoring in costs to develop and sustain extraction.

A fantasy is thinking hydrogen alone will save us. That it can be "mined" or "extracted" easily.

A fantasy is thinking some perpetual motion machine will come online and save us.

A fantasy is thinking China will stop growing anytime soon.

A bigger fantasy is thinking they will "go green" and save us.

A fantasy is thinking coal is clean in any way shape or form. And yes thinking that we can click our heels and make coal use vanish in 10-20 years is also a fantasy (Sorry Al Gore)

etc...

So with that in mind what is "Real" Real is research and development. Real is accepting that current solar and wind technology is just "not good enough" Real is the understanding that we need a better storage solution.

So with that in mind let us discuss! What is the big breakthrough you are currently looking forward to? What changes do you think need to happen? What amount of involvement is .gov needed in this?

The greatest fantasy is to assume that by invention of new tools and discovering new reserves we can afford not to change our ressources-wasting way of life.

The greatets challenge will not be new technology. the greatest challenge will prove to be changing our mental attitudes, and redesigning our way of life - and very far-reaching so.

People keep on thinking that everything will change for the better, just they themselves have not to change at all, and have not to accept reducing their claims and expectations. But that is a lethal mistake. The earth can sustain only so many people with this living standard. If it becomes more people, the living standard has do decline. If you want more living standard, there have to be less people.

Unlimited economic growth is also a fantasy. Physically it is not possible to have unlimited growth within a system or environment of limited dimensions. Also, the more industrial growth, the more energy needs - the more pollution - the more problems the more people there are, with growing material expectations.

Medicine has a term for unlimited growth. It calls it cancer. and that is what human civilisation is behaving like.

Don't try to change the world. change yourself and your expectations first. A changing world then will come all by itself. Trying it the other way around will only lead to what we already experience in excessive dimensions: bringing our old problems to ever newer, ever greater proportions.

For my points I want to talk Short and Long term.

Short Term Problem: Believe it or not it is storage. Reason? Li-Ion batteries for cars can cost more than the cost of the car itself.....

The sun is not up for 24 hours and the wind does not always blow. So because of this we need to produce "excess" and store it or rely on nasty fossil fuels to power during the dark and calm times.

Solution: EEstor........

As you can tell I am a BIG fan of ZENN and EEstor. The reason being that EEstor is new and designed from the onset to be used in large load applications. It is not super toxic like the battery tech today. It is LIGHT compared to even Li-Ion. And mass production means prices that can open up the road again to the lower middle class. And on top of that. For short term Auto use... It moves the pollution to the power plant. Where emmission controls are MUCH more advanced than the converter on the average car today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EEstor

And some news http://media.cleantech.com/3174/eest...itor-milestone

Long Term: We either fix the energy Crisis or go into Depression. Need it any clearer?

Solution?: Fusion, Yes FUSION! Before you go into your bahs and "What about solar" Keep in mind I said LONG term. As there are multiple projects on the way with chances strong that one of them will show sucess by 2030.

Fusion can be powered with a number of different fuels. Including He3 if you want to take a mining trip to the moon. Tho its better with PB11.

I am a fan of EMC2 fusion. http://www.emc2fusion.org/ As I feel that with time it will be the reasonable solution. No giant plasma super plants. Just plants for counties and small countries suppling the energy needs without the danger and expence of current fission.

What? You think we are going to say "Screw it" to modern way of life? Who makes that decision?

One step at a time here... Lets fix the current crisis then work on getting offworld. The resources in space are great and the ability to use them grows. Hydroponics for instance can mean that people can live and work in space. And while I don't believe my generation will live in a giant space station. I do believe man will go to the stars before just saying we have grown enough. Can you imagine the wars if someone tried to tell another that we can't reasonably grow anymore?

While EEstor sound slike being a thing to go for, the ZENN car does not sound convincing at all. Range 80 km? Loading batteries over 8 hours? Speed of 45 km? That is inferior to the air car in the other thread in every way! :p If this is the status of electic cars, they still have to go a long way. It also consumes obviously much, much more electric energy, costing you more money per one filling.

Their current model uses a puny battery for around the corner trips. The next model is what is going to use the EEstor battery for MUCH improved range, Quick Charge times, and Highway Speeds.

I must not say or imagine that: growth rates realises themselves. and actually, we already have wars over ressources. And plan for wars about things like sweet water. Western man lives excessively beyond what Earth support, and what can be replkaced in ressources, and what serves man well. the symptoms are many, from pollution over oceans empty of fish to individual and sociological neuroses. I do not say "stop teczhnological developement", so do not make it appear like that. I say that it will not save us if we fail to "modernize" our state of minds and our attitudes at the same time. We will not directly jump into a happy and bright new world. We and our chiuldren will need to pass through a phase of transition first, and nthat will be a time of deep crisis and bitter conflicts, like all times of major transormations are.

and it is not a given that we survive that: we may battle against each other until we have killed our selves, or we fall by being exposed to the long-lasting consequences that we already have triggered in the past and who have a self.-dynmaic that is beyond our immediate control. But nothing hinders us to try at least, so - let's become wiser AND technologically more competent as well. Both is needed, not just one. Engineering probölems are a reality. But so are problems of sociology. Religion. Environment. Zeitgeist. Tradition. City planning. Time windows widening or closing. For example what worth is it to have fantatsic tezhcnological possibilities, if the latest wave of relgious fundamentalism has turned into a flood meanwhile carrying the world away and forbidding technology as tool'S whose use is against the will of any god? What use is it if we could have fusion power in x year, when we do not have the breath to hold out that long to build the needed knowldge and industrial basis, or run out of energy meanwhile, or pollution kills us? When famlies in the present have no more the money to pay for heating in winter? and wosh - the wide field of complex economics enter the arena and share the same space with relgion and technology.

Yopu cannot afford to foc us on just one, and ignore the other factors.

Let'S fix the crisis and then go offworld, you simply said. Yeah - easy. Im free next saturday, then we can leave. ;) I have just a feeling that it will not run so smoothly.

Ok but bring some soda. Damn Pluto is running out again!

I get what your are saying but it is not something my generation can reasonably face so it is not my problem. When space runs out of resources and all the planets are filled to brim.. THEN we will have a problem. But until then we will have to adapt and evolve.

On the DU forum there was this person saying he opposed advanced energy technology because he feared the explosive growth rates that will result from it. I simply responded with a story of a possible energy depression.

A town surrounded by trees and streams. Energy depression hits, The trees fall and go into steam generators for energy. The streams are netted for every scrap of fish. And the water diverted for the steam and drinking water. Without regard to the ecological damage. Even the birds eggs would be cooked and the nests thrown into the fire.

Desperation means the death of environmentalism. Therefore I refuse to face the desperation I refuse to think about "limits" I know there is an amazing power in fusion that can give us "time" to think about what is next. And by the time the population starts going critical is the time we hopefully can leave this rock. Or die. Or whatever..

And yes if it was possible billions of people would choose to leave. Namely because there is untold riches in space. The other being space is well space and to make your "house" bigger you mine some roids. Therefore we can reasonably save what little of mother nature is left at that point.

Or nature saves what little is left of us. I love Science fiction, but that is what we talk about from today'S perpsective. when I was at school, landing a man on Mars was projected to happen by the mid- or late 90s. but then budget cuts set in. Different orientations. Politcal changes. Etc etc. To cut it short: there can be no doubt that until today NASA has not landed a man on ars. Nor have the russians or the Chinese. The technology exists, although it remains to be a "Himmelfahrtskommando." But still it does not happen. Obviously reality man creates is oibject to more than just variables of logic, reason, technology and engineering. Money is such a factor. and how money isn spend is not decided by engineer, but by corportations and politicians. these can but must not have knoweldge aiout engineering. and if they have, they can but must not have interest in it, and may choose other priorities. This happening also is part of man'S reality.

until we get a new welath of energy, we will need to learn to manage energy running low, I'm sure. Peoppe already have become aware of diferences in their bills for heating if they waste heating headlessly in winter with open windows - or start to isolate theirt houses and windows. a profane example - but it illustrates how real progress sets in: not with fanafres and stampedes in the toewn hall, but slowly, unspectacular, often dictated by needs to scrifice, and enduring. I do not ruole out fusion powre in the future, I can't becasue I do not know enough aboiut it. what I know is that it still is many many years away, and is not a certainty. What to do until then? Oil becoming exopensive. Pollution going throzgh the ceiling. wind needing another 20-30 years before the now planned German Nordsee-Windpark will be finished. Building new nuclear powerplants due to the monumental hidden and follow-up costs of nuclear energy not really being an economic option, if you only look close enough. Gas meaning high dependency on producers again. Well, one recommendation that is obvious is: starting to save energy. that wins us time. This is one way of interpreting "sacrifice". Or to give up the demand to always travel by airplane, and have long-range voyages for holidays three times a year, so that you have enough money left to pay heating in winter. Not to run three cars in a family household, when one or two would do. The factor behind all this is: money. and on that, engineering cannot help you to avoid financial realities. people will chnage - but possibly not before lacking money forces them to do so. If that then will still be in time, is somethign different.

I do not know if we will ever do space mining. The task is huge, the challenge is right that: a challenge. Possible that it comes that way. Possible that we will not get there. Let'S wait and see. But what if we would make it into space right now, with our current state of mind? what different would that be than exporting our self-made problems to the stars, infesting them with the pleague of human spirit in infectous, lethal disorder and blowing our suicidal attitudes to stellar levels? I don't want that. i mean i would want to go to the stars eventually, but not as long as our mind is so seriously in disorder. I do not wish us to behave like the Aliens in Independance Day. also, as long as we do not use forieng ore on foreign worlds, but bring it to earth instead, it means to contribute to the already existing pollution of earth by injecting foreign potential pollutants into earth's system. and if we have no second earth to evade - what kind of life then? I strongly believe that every level of knowledge, technological as well as other wise, needs a level of sense of responsibility that can only come from mental evolution. but our mental developement already serious lags behind our current technological ponteitals and knowledge. this gap is what has brought us and planet Earth and all species living on it into the mess we are in.

Ok now you are talking about things that are just plain weird.

Lets keep it simple. I don't care about how we are infectious bacteria or whatever. I care about the culture and how I want it to continue.

As for the slow stuff? That was nice in the past when the population growing by a million was a BIG thing. Not so much anymore. Either we find solutions or people are going to "improvise" by tearing up the environment.

If a wind park is slated for 20-30 years of dev it is no better then these "magic" oil fields that supposedly will save us but take decades to develop. Again this is why current solar and wind tech is not enough.

For those two tho I prefer to focus on home solar mainly because what is one of the biggest power hogs in the home? The Air Conditioner... And when is it mostly used? When it is hot and sunny... Perfect time for solar panels.

WARNING: the following may contain another excessively verbose and possibly boring head-butt with skybird. Reader discretion is advised.


1) Actually, we can. For a brief period covering the entire span of human history, technology has provided the ability to do things that were impossible before. By your logic, we would all be hunter-gatherers because agricultural revolutions wouldn't solve our problems.

2) That's already happening. Consider gas for a moment. In the U.S., infamous for its' SUV's and prior to that, gun-boat Oldsmobiles and the like, people are making drastic changes to cope with rising fuel costs. But it isn't because some forward thinking environmentalist told them to do it, it's because fuel economics are hitting their wallets. Once again, the market is the determining force.

3) Everything WILL change for the better. All that is needed is a proper motivating force, like money. When people begin to suffer deleterious effects in terms of economics or environment they simply change the way they live and that becomes the new "standard". Examples include (insert country name here)'s industrial revolution and subsequent reforms of industry, China's resorting to "Special Economic Zones", the fall of the Soviet Union, the Great Depression, the 70's "Gas Crunch" etc etc ad infinitum.
Additionally, the argument that "If you want more living standard, there have to be less people." is untrue. The prosperity of some thrives at the expense of others. So, theoretically, as long as we maintain billions of deprived and/or dying people, the rest of us can live well. Increasing the number of suffering people directly translates into more of us having a first-world standard of living. As terribly heartless as that sounds, there is nothing any of you can do to change it significantly, short of eliminating competition for resources by making all resources unlimited. It's a cruel world and if you have a computer and internet access you are not part of the suffering and dying majority.

4)"Unlimited economic growth is also a fantasy. Physically it is not possible to have unlimited growth within a system or environment of limited dimensions. Also, the more industrial growth, the more energy needs - the more pollution - the more problems the more people there are, with growing material expectations."

No unlimited economic growth is not a fantasy. Who put limited dimensions on our system? The lives of those of us discussing this topic today are unimaginable by the standards of people even a thousand years ago. Once again, you underestimate the adaptability of humans, the power of science, and the omnipotent power of slef-interest.
It is true that obscene numbers of people may die from the "progress" of civilization and the effects thereof, but how is that any different from the rest of human, and natural, history?

5) Does cancer, at any stage, create a greater amount of order and prosperity in the body than exsisted before?

Granted, you can say that progress is leading us to destruction, but all evidence thus far disagrees, because we are still here and have a greater number of prosperous people and countries than ever. The view that our lifestyles are leading us to imminent destruction has been around for millenia.
I will agree that the "Western" world probably faces a significant downfall in the future for a variety of reasons, but humanity itself is in no immediate danger of being destroyed.

6) Wishful thinking at its' worst. Yeah, if only all 6 billion of us could subscribe to a peaceful and earth-friendly lifestyle wherin the vast majority of people were not denied prosperity for the gain of others. Sounds good. On paper. Sounds like communism, and we all know how well that works out.

In summation, not only is continiuing on our present course our best hope, it is also the only thing that will happen. Even if one was to introduce a New World Order wherein we all lived in a peaceful and "green" society, it would promptly be destroyed by the first group to point guns at some other group's heads and say "give us all your stuff or you die"

What you are proposing, skybird, is nothing short of changing human nature. A feat which could only be acheived via genetic manipulation and artificial selection, and I have a good idea how you feel about that already.

It is not weird. It is the complete picture that you decide to ignore. And that is exactly the attitude of human mind that has brought us into our present mess - not looking beyond the end of one's own nose. i mean no personal attack, but if you insist on just sticking to technological developement alone becaseu that is your prfession maybe and while having a hammer you want to see evertyhing as a nail, you will find yourself 1.) running out of time, and b.) will find yourself wandering on exactly the same path that has brought us to this pass. It is also the excuse by wehi9ch the Us blockaded and prevented many obligatoryx climate proptection agreements on international level: never coinbsiderign one's own way of life, never thinking baout the madness of unlimtied growth, but asusming one can continue like in thre past forever, and solve climate issues by assumed later technology alone. I am surprised. In the other thread you have just hammered it home that we will not drill our way out of the current energy crisis. but here you insist on sticking to the idea that it is all about technology alone, and evertyhign else than that is "weired".

It cannot continue for much longer if it does not chnage and adapt to signifcantly chnaged environmental and economical variables. We need to chnage and understand that we cannot continue like this, like we just have done for the past decades. we were living on tic, and beyond our capacitiers, and beyond what earth can afford.

yes. Too many people. and eventually, nature will take care of that, when it becomes too much. By starvations. Epidemics. Floodings. Or by wars. In the end ,nature does not have a problem with us, it juist reacts to disturbances of its relöative state of homeostasis. Man has a problem with nature. the globe is what it is. the bone with serious problem is not the globe, or the biosphere, but us. If the biosphere chnages, it chnages. If the biposphere chnages too much, man dies. If man dies, it means almost nothing to the biosphere. Maybe relief, that just nobody takes note of.

So what to do? live on like usual, waiting for things to come and wasting energy like in the past? A clever man would starst sviong his ressources as the first immidiate measurement, in order to buy time.

air conditioners are not so comon in germany, his is still not the tropical region of the globe, although it becomes hotter. however, I have already described in I think two threads the economic madness especially Germany has created with it's once worldwide leading production of solar panels. I cut it short and say that we have trapped ourselves in suicidal subsidy practices that ruin the economical calculation from a perspective of state and national community, and only reward investors from outside germany, and asian producers. Economially, it is a nightmare. But that bis germany'S fault. Practically we are massively subsidizing overcapacities we had created, with two-digit billions per year. this is a loss for the tax-payer. the profit from these subsidies for the most now lands in the Far East. It is one of my prime examples how stupidly german politicians sometimes race the car against the wall.

I enjoyed the talk, but must leave now - day's obligations are waiting. Thanks for a decent conversation. ;)

[quote=UnderseaLcpl] 1) Actually, we can. For a brief period covering the entire span of human history, technology has provided the ability to do things that were impossible before. By your logic, we would all be hunter-gatherers because agricultural revolutions wouldn't solve our problems.

Nonsens, you are exaggerating. Why is it that these themes always trigger black-white-reactions? the current climate chnage takling place (as long as you do not deny it), the massive gap between the rich and the poor worldwide, the fact that we have global problems that derive from the industrialization of only the Western world, but now the much greater part of mankind claims the right to reach for the same living standard we enjoy (who can deny it to them?) gives clear signlas that we cannot continue by a principle of business as usual. Climate changes, respsurces getting thin, even food.

I made the finacial and economic argument to Zachstar. He called it and more like that "weired". :D

Colunter arguments are the fact that the west for centuries has formed its wealth at the cost of the third world, Russia has formed its wealth on the backs of the famrers, then the working class and small people, and china'S massive ignoration of social suffering party'Y economic prjects causes, and especially the infamous Three Gorges Dam. You quote from the ideal theories of past economic textbooks here. reality - proves to be more than just a bit different.

While we say the same on the fact, we could not be more apart nevertheless. maybe you are willing to accept the comndtion quo and leave it untouched for you prfit from it. I certainly must and will not agree with that attitude. It certainly is wrong.

Earth, and knowledge.

I know that for my living standard, people are dying, and for every man living at my standards, several other men live in poverty and misery. we live on tic, and by blood diamonds in the wider meaning of the term - we all in the industrialized world(s) do.

Should that be an excuse?

Is material esxssive wealth of the West really always for the best of people? As I see it, it corrupts a greater and greater part of our young, and brings more and more people to turening into egoists and brings out more and more sociological neurosis and psychosis all over the place. there are more items being producedk, than thirty ysears ago. But still, life has become more unpersonal, jarder, more brutal, colder.

and the gab between the few having more and more, and the many having less and elsser, becomes wider. In the US - and in Europe and Germany as well.

I have not said that, never, nowhere. Again, disagreeing with what you and part of what Zachstar said, immediately triggers black-white-thinking.


Last time I checked UN statistics on global populaion and their social living conditions, they disagreed with you. Democracies are in decline. More people than before live in poverty, and increasingly get exposued to climate.-chnage-caused natural desasters. We live our life you celebrate by having expoited them and their countries for long time, and still do so in many, many cases. we deny them equal chances, just look at the fights the WTO had seen abiout agriculture again.

Possibly not, if ignoring some nasty pandemcis. but human civilisation is at risk very well, and if it falls, man will not be anything more than a number of bands wandering around.

Now you really try hard to distort what I said and mean, do you. I refuse to honour that with a reply.

Rome has spoken (... before it fell)

You assume quite lot about me in recent paragraphs what I allegedly should have said or meant, but actually havent, and that makes me a bit angry now. You and me, as well as the the typical American and the typical european disagree on a lot of things, yet share we the same key genes nevertheless. the cultural climate you live in just is very different than the one we live in over here. That points at the importance of education, not only schools, but the self-understanding that is propagated. and by that, people can learn to chnage. To be more presice: they already have started it, but you seem to be unaware. many people'sliofe have chnaged in your country, they have lost homes, become poorer, others feel the increasing costs for gasoline, and chnage their habits to cope with that. awareness for environmental issues is rising, even in america, sometimes lowoly, sometimes faster. Schwarzenegger, about whom I mocked at first, has launched a number of "green" policies that have catapulted California probably into the lead of american change in this regard.

One principle thing: I tend in discussions like this to not stick to any preferred utopia of mine, and what I hope and wish (as long as i do not explicitly say so), but focus on a style that could be described as "if we do this, the consequence probably will be that, and if we don't do it, then this will be the result." I do that without morally or subjectively judging, no matter if discussing nuclear strikes against Iran, environment or cultural issues. If I think this or that option is desirable or not, is something very different. that is why all your mentioning of communism, and me hoping this or not hoping that, is pointless. You can disagree with the likelihoods I see regarding events, but I would be thankful if you leave it to that, and not worry about my alleged personal preferances and wishes and hopes and desires so much, as long as I do not mark them as that: my wishes, hopes and desires.

all in all i must reject your comfortability by which you arrange yourself with the status quo and consider it to be okay to continue like that, forever, and in ignorration of dangerous disbalances and potentials for conflicts.

Damn, time is fleeting.

Ok I don't know how it got THAT derailed so can we return to the actual stuff that makes the *buzz* and bright blue light when it arcs?

Ya that is like teh power!!111one!

http://www.dailytech.com/New%20LiIon...ticle12531.htm

http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/8817_lithium_ion.jpg


A new type of Li-Ion, less storage cap but seems to have the ability to be produced FAR cheaper than current Li-Ion packs that could cost you hundreds just to run one of those kids cars you see at wall mart. Much less a full size sedan...

Since this is a conversation only between Zachstar and Skybird, maybe you guys can keep it in PM? :hmm:

-S