Once of the best presentations I've ever seen

[lurker]

China, USA and Germany are perfectly happy burning coal , which I assume is much worse than oil.
In each case we buy their goods so are importing a carbon load.

 

[Just4Fun]

Possibly the discrepancy is caused by the 8% being 8% of total energy needs including transportation etc while the 34% is a % of current electricity production which does not of course cover most transportation. Or not; I haven't read the quoted sources in great detail.

 

[MikeG.]

China, USA and Germany are perfectly happy burning coal , which I assume is much worse than oil.
In each case we buy their goods so are importing a carbon load.

Coal use in USA is plummeting.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

The adoption of electric vehicles will happen. The decarbonization of our electricity supply, and of transportation more generally, must happen. Coal was the power for the 1800s, oil and gas for the 1900s and wind, tidal and solar - possibly with nuclear fission and/or fusion, plus storage, will power the 2000s. Fossil fuels are currently (pun intended) providing about one third of UK electricity. This is an interesting channel to watch too https://m.youtube.com/user/fullychargedshow/videos

The FT had an(other) article the other day about 'stranded assets' being expensive oil wells producing black sludge that nobody wants. Bring it on, I say...

 

[whiskywill]

The only constant thing is the tide.

I have always found that it comes and goes.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

constantly.

 

[Fitzroy]

BP Review of World Energy

Comprehensive analysis of sources and uses of energy.

The growth curve of renewables, specifically wind, is staggering.

It’ll never be nuclear (fission) that is the solution. Society is less and less tolerant of risk, as a result nuclear will only ever get more expensive.

Fitz.

 

[Tris]

Would we be better to look at hydrogen fuelled vehicles rather than battery? My understanding is that petrol engines can be adapted to run on hydrogen, as can domestic gas boilers, or using hydrogen fuel cells. Can't help thinking we could use the surplus electricity to produce hydrogen from water rather than digging up toxic things to make batteries.

 

[Fitzroy]

Problem with hydrogen is storage, it’s a small molecule and loves to escape, or permeate into materials and damage them. Also gases stored under high pressure contain and enormous amount of potential energy, in a crash if a hydrogen storage tank blows it’s effectively a bomb.

Fitz.

Edit. Adding hydrogen to natural gas supplies is however an effective way of decarbonising the gas supply.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Problem with hydrogen is storage, it’s a small molecule and loves to escape, or permeate into materials and damage them. Also gases stored under high pressure contain and enormous amount of potential energy, in a crash if a hydrogen storage tank blows it’s effectively a bomb.

Fitz.

Edit. Adding hydrogen to natural gas supplies is however an effective way of decarbonising the gas supply.

The other problem with hydrogen is that you have to make it, and it's hugely energy intensive to make through electrolysis. Currently almost all hydrogen is manufactured from fossil fuels :-(

 

[Trainee neophyte]

BP Review of World Energy

Comprehensive analysis of sources and uses of energy.

The growth curve of renewables, specifically wind, is staggering.

It’ll never be nuclear (fission) that is the solution. Society is less and less tolerant of risk, as a result nuclear will only ever get more expensive.

Fitz.

Nuclear power is actually fairly silly technology - it's all brute force and unnecessary risk. I only used it as an example of the insane amount of energy we need to find to replace oil, because people can get their heads around building one nuclear power plant per day as a big undertaking. Is the world currently creating one nuclear power station's worth of solar panels every single day? I think not. Will there be enough silver and rare earth elements to make all these solar panels?

In other words, someone said above "we must", but the real question is "can we?" I'm not convinced. It may not be a realistic target to aim for. Also, as alternatives become more prevalent, oil will drop in price, making alternatives less competitive, so less incentive to change. The video posted at the top suggests that there will be huge savings, but will there be? Are alternative energy sources cheaper than oil? Without extensive subsidies, that is. (Oil gets its own subsidies, but that's another conversation).;

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see electric car usage increase in leaps and bounds, and the current electricity infrastructure start to creak and groan in response. Also the government is going to panic over the loss of fuel tax, so electricity and/or car ownership is going to get expensive. Making your own electricity may also be taxed.

 

[Fitzroy]

Yup to quote company line, it’s the dual challenge. The world wants more energy, and it wants it with less carbon emissions.

Appreciate you were using nuclear power plants as a metaphor for the staggering level of change required to achieve the level of decarbonisation that’s required.

Fitz

 

[MikeG.]

There are a number of algae which off-gas hydrogen in certain circumstances, so water + sunlight = hydrogen with no energy input. The difficulty for scientists is to increase the efficiency of the process to commercially viable levels.

The blanket ban on the sale of vehicles with internal combustion engines may actually stifle a really promising area of research, because there are other algae which in controlled circumstances produce bio-diesel with no energy input or fossil fuel content. Again, water + sunlight = diesel. Commercialisation of the process, which isn't easy, could produce a limitless fuel with no CO2 emmissions used directly in a current vehicle without modification.

 

[Fitzroy]

This all got me thinking. So from BP report all energy use equates to 14 billion tonnes of oil equivalent in 2018, which is 5.8e20J (exajoules). This matches well with other sources on the web. Equating this back to power this equals 18terrawatts of installed power use.

In 2018 65gigawatts of new wind power was installed. It would take 280 years to install enough wind to displace all other sources, or we need to increase wind power installation rate by 10 fold to achieve this in 28 years.

At $2million/MW installed capacity for wind a total investment cost of $36 trillion. Worldwide investment in energy projects in 2018 was c. $1.85 trillion. Converting all spend to wind we could be carbon neutral in 19 years.

So actually the maths would work! Which indicates to me that at a macro level we have the industrial capacity and capability.

However!!!!!!!!
- It would take a monumental aligned cooperative global effort.
- Oil and gas projects return 10%+, renewable projects are more like 3%+ so raising finance in today’s markets would not be possible.

Money and politics will get in the way.

Fitz.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

There are a number of algae which off-gas hydrogen in certain circumstances, so water + sunlight = hydrogen with no energy input. The difficulty for scientists is to increase the efficiency of the process to commercially viable levels.

The blanket ban on the sale of vehicles with internal combustion engines may actually stifle a really promising area of research, because there are other algae which in controlled circumstances produce bio-diesel with no energy input or fossil fuel content. Again, water + sunlight = diesel. Commercialisation of the process, which isn't easy, could produce a limitless fuel with no CO2 emmissions used directly in a current vehicle without modification.

The algae fuel looked really promising, but unfortunately it just can't make the jump to being commercially viable. When oil was at £140 a barrel it all looked good, but now the future is cheap oil and low demand, which is making it tough for new energy products. https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles ... uel-bubble

I really want to find a new energy source. Unfortunately it seems that we need to rewrite the laws of thermodynamics to make something more economical than oil.
https://ecat.com/ These people have been promising free energy for years now, and any minute now they will have a commercially viable cheap, inexhaustible energy supply. There are plenty of others with similar madcap plans, that never quite manage to make it to reality. Unfortunate really, because we all want a free lunch.

To quote Larry Niven, TANSTAAFL.

 

[MikeG.]

......... but now the future is cheap oil.......

I'll have a little bet with you........

 

[Trainee neophyte]

......... but now the future is cheap oil.......

I'll have a little bet with you........

Ok. What do you have in mind? I am only a poor farmer, but I will risk a £ or €.

My thinking is that the world economy can not afford high oil prices - too much debt, no possibility of growth,etc. Options are 1) stagger on as we are, with zero growth, zero interest rates, and oil bumping along at $50 a barrel, or 2) we have 2010 recession 10 years late, with a colossal shakeout of bad debt, bankruptcies, depression etc, and oil prices bumping along at $50 a barrel for the depression that follows. A big war in the middle East which destroys all the infrastructure would spike oil, cause instant world recession, and oil will bump along at $50 a barrel, after an initial hiccough.

That's my tea-leaf prognostication. Of course, if the chap in the video at the beginning of this thread is right, in ten years there won't be a market for oil, and we will all be driving rainbow-powered magic unicorn effluent burning robocars, and life will be perfect, except for Toyota and Ford.

 

[RogerS]

..... we need to increase wind power installation rate by 10 fold to achieve this in 28 years.

....
Fitz.

If we built enough wind farms inland then perhaps we could sail the country to somewhere warmer ? Just a thought.

 

[lurker]

IF global warming comes to be, can we use all the wind turbines to create a cooling breeze?

 

[RogerS]

IF global warming comes to be, can we use all the wind turbines to create a cooling breeze?

They already do that. The larger ones have to keep turning else the bearings seize as I understand it. So on a calm day they need electricity to turn.