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Edited on Mon Nov-26-07 04:49 PM by Leopolds Ghost
Enrergy reserves are all either solar, biomass, fossil, or nuclear.
Nuclear:
* There is a peak uranium supply too, and the waste products and security issues are daunting. Even in France, ONLY 50% of power to power a post-war lifestyle is nuclear. Guess where the other 50% comes from?
* Geothermal is an untapped nuclear energy source with limited application since it is confined to unstable volcanic zones. Magma is difficult to work with.
* Fusion has not succeeded in producing more energy than it consumes. However, the world of endless energy promoted by futurists which fusion would engender runs up against a hard and fast barrier: we are running out of unimproved natural resources (petroleum, steel, and copper) with which to build stuff, and we are running out of biosphere with which to house people and more importantly, feed them, in the proposed Sao Paulo-style megaplexes. The Green Revolution required to feed 6-12 billion people depends on using up an ever-increasing share of the world's surface (biosphere) in order for humans and domesticated animals bredc solely for human consumption to consume an ever-increasing share of the world's biofuel. Which brings us to the next issue.
Solar:
All other forms of energy on Earth are solar in origin. This includes:
* Direct Solar * Indirect Solar (hydroelectric, wind) * Biomass (biofuel, including resources formerly consumed by wildlife) * Fossil (fossilized biofuel repressenting 60 million years worth of present day biofuel at 1000x the energy density of present day biofuel)
To support 6-12 billion people consuming 3-4x as much energy as the US alone did in the 1930s (hardly an uncivilized period in history), including 3 billion Chinese and Indians consuming 2-3x as much energy as they do today at lower wages than those posessed by the average American (which pro-road and pro-trade New Democrats are openly advocating for),
...the world is currently using 60 million years' worth of accumulated solar energy in the form of fossilized biofuel.
Fortunately for civilization, we've only used a tiny portion (1/4? of accessible fossil fuel, the remainder being in environmentally unpalatable reserves of strip-mined coal and strip-mined tar sands that require natural gas burnoff.
(Hydrogen is a form of natural gas that requires burnoff of large quantities of methane to separate it from the remaining methane, which must first be produced and then exported for consumption; because of the high energy density of methane vs. the low molecular density and volatility of hydrogen, the resultant natural gas supply will always remain 90% methane to 10% hydrogen in terms of energy available for use. Moreover, isolating hydrogen from water is energy-negative, meaning it is an energy storage device bordering on an uneconomic energy sink in times of scarce oil nd gas, not a supply.)
Canada and Montana are a "new Saudi Arabia" of coal and tar, containing as much as Saudi does in conventional oil (as does Venezuela, which the US will doubtless seek to control politically after Chavez is gone; the Anglo-American investment banking structure already controls Canada's energy investments).
Which will nevertheless require a hellish extraction process; think "mountaintop removal" in West Virginia, and vast refineries using up 50% of Canada's natural gas supplies to produce a smaller quantity of usable petroleum in Alberta.
However, given the energy that has to be input in the process, in the absence of cheap petroleum these resources may become swiftly uneconomic. The graders needed to mine for coal, for instance, are diesel-powered; other fuels will becomre more expensive due to demand if petroleum runs out, causing global energy scarcity.
Coal is much easier to be used by cities, e.g. for mass transit and centralized electric grids, than for the modern automobile society.
Coal powered cars are an unlikely alternative: The concept of an electric car depends on cheap coal or nuclear electricity, however:
Cars and other petroleum fuel users use up 50% of the world's energy demand, and coal and nuclear plants are only able to sustain present day electricity demands (which are vastly greater than twenty years ago thanks to so-called "clean" technologies such as mobile phones with their constantly-running low-voltage charger transformers and computers like the one I am using.)
In other words, the price of electricity will keep pace with the price of petroleum as energy demands increase and more people switch to hybrids and electrics, due to the lack of available coal and nuclear plants (we'd have to more than double the number of traditional coal and nuclear plants).
This will result in an equilibrium point, where Americans stop conserving energy by buying hybrid electrics and start simply paying more to drive in order to support their unsustainable highway oriented lifestyle, as they are already doing now.
The result will be a permanent 2nd-world economy of the sort Britain was sliding into before Reagan and Thatcher brought the North Sea oil on line -- the sort Brazil exists in today.
Indirect Solar: Hydroelectric indirect solar is the only economic means to provide energy to the lifestyle YOU anticipate keeping, a lifestyle of near-free energy where we can drive limitless miles on hybrid electrics powered by the sun. And hydroelectric can only be tapped by building dams or dikes that destroy wetland biomes. But it is not available most places.
Solar / Wind: Wind power is a fraction of the available maximum solar energy per square foot that comes from the sun.
The problem with all forms of direct or indirect solar other than hydroelectricity (which includes biomass) is that it cannot be concentrated.
Moreover, even if it were concentrated, WE ARE CURRENTLY USING MORE ENERGY PER DAY TO POWER OUR LIFESTYLE THAN IS ECONOMICALLY POSSIBLE TO EXTRACT, PRE DAY, FROM THE SUN, FOR A GIVEN SQUARE FOOTAGE OF LAND TURNED OVER TO HUMAN (NON-WILDLIFE) USE. In other words, there is a theoretical limit to how much power can be obtained by solar/wind even if every acre turned over to human occupation was covered by the most efficient solar panels. The alternative is to use currently wild areas for solar panels.
///bottom line: The fossil fuels we are using every day represent about 1,000 days' worth of GLOBAL accessible solar energy we are getting from the sun right now, at the maximum theoretical efficiency, for a given square footage of land (Jurassic forests/present day cities and farms).
Biomass: As mentioned, our energy "needs" (3-4x what our "needs" were before WWII, and 3-10x the energy requirements of a Chinese or Indian peasant whose children are producing those petroleum-based plastic goods) match or outpace the daily energy reserve which is accumulable from the entire non-human biomass.
In other words, to power 6-12 billion people on solar or biomass, we would have to usurp the solar energy demands of the other 99.999% of earth's species in order to fertilize our crops, feed our cattle, and power hybrid electric vehicles running around our cities on aimless, politically-determined paths like soldier ants in order to justify a "mobile lifestyle" in which the freedom of movement is 0% once you step outside your vehicle.
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