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Umm... it is possible that eventually, it will take more energy to extract the oil than we will get out of it. That point will be reached in less than a decade. At that point, we have two choices: we start getting our energy from elsewhere, or watch as our society collapses as we run out of electrical power to run our homes and pump our water.

TMLutas wrote: I don't think that we're going to be vulnerable in 20 years. If we can get past the next 10, we'll be ok. Hydrogen seems to be en route for deployment next decade, early next decade if they rush it. That'll take the pressure off but only if we can crack water a lot cheaper than we do today.

Oh, not the hydrogen scam again. Hydrogen is dangerous to handle - either high-pressure or cryostorage is needed to get even a -fraction- of the energy density of gasoline, and it leaks -through- almost any containment material available. It's dangerous in accidents, far more than gasoline. And most importantly, there are no hydrogen mines this side of Jupiter. You have to turn something else (probably water) into hydrogen first, at a net loss of energy. And if you're going to do that anyway, why not make artificial hydrocarbon fuels from organic waste? They're safer, and the distribution infrastructure is already in place.

The only thing that hydrogen is better at than other fuels is a rather esoteric rocket-propulsion requirement called 'specific impulse', which means you get the most thrust per unit mass of fuel, and with modern materials even -that- is a toss-up when you factor in the extra mass of tankage and controls needed to handle the stuff. So for the Saturn V, hydrogen-lox fuel made sense. For an automobile, it doesn't.

Actually, there is a hydrogen mine this side of Jupiter.

It's called "the Sun". Granted, we don't have any materials capable of withastanding the heat on the Sun's "atmosphere", but it is a rich source of hydrogen on this side of Jupiter.

Actually, while you are right that hydrogen is difficult to contain, since it is the smallest molecule in nature, in an accident it is *not* more dangerous than gasoline.

See, gasoline, being a liquid, spreads out very quickly on the ground. The tank that contains the gasoline has air along with the gas inside. So, when the leaking gas ignites, flames will travel back to the leaking tank and BOOM!

Hydrogen tanks, on the other hand, are pressurized, and contain only hydrogen as a result. When it leaks, it rises very quickly and disapates. It is therefore less likely to be accidentally lit. And if it is, the flames travel back to the leaking tank and.....no boom. Just a blowtorch flame from the leak. Pure hydrogen cannot burn inside the tank. By the time the hydrogen has lost all of it's pressure, the flame will have died.

You're concentrating on chemistry and forgetting the physics. You even said it yourself - hydrogen tanks are pressurized. In an accident, or simply because the hydrogen itself makes them brittle, they will shatter more often than not. And then the hydrogen mixes with the air and conditions are right for a fuel-air explosion, because the stuff makes an explosive mixture with air at a wide range of concentrations.

Gasoline fires are hot, and perhaps more likely to ignite, but the vapor mix to get an explosion is very narrow - exploding gasoline tanks are pretty much only found in Hollywood. (Hydrogen cryotanks are brittle from the extreme cold, and in an accident liquid H2 will behave rather like gasoline, except that it -will- explode outside of Hollywood productions.)

nick012000 wrote:Actually, there is a hydrogen mine this side of Jupiter.

It's called "the Sun". Granted, we don't have any materials capable of withastanding the heat on the Sun's "atmosphere", but it is a rich source of hydrogen on this side of Jupiter.

Actually, even ignoring the temperature problem, the sun is -farther- away than Jupiter in terms of orbital mechanics. It would take a lot more rocket thrust to dive in and scoop hydrogen from the sun than it would to go out and do it to Jupiter - inverse-square law and all that, y'know. More actual miles to cover to get to Jupiter, of course, but those miles are a heck of a lot easier to cover.

Gasoline isn't 'bad', per se, but it has some undesirable characteristics for the scale of application and roles which internal combustion engines have now evolved to fill. Mainly, it get the job done, but it's dangerously flammable (not hollywood explosions, but still dangerous) and produces pollutants which become concentrated in the air. (i.e., smog)

Hydrogen is, chemically, an ideal source of energy. However, it is more dangerous than gasoline in storage and handling, and ultimately serves as nothing more than an intermediate energy storage medium. I don't think that it's merits outweigh it's risks.

Personally, I'm in favor of moving toward electricity as the storage/transmission medium, because it's already so widely spread in usage. For actual generation, I'd like to see development money funneled into improving nuclear fusion generators, which offer a very nice energy output with few risks and readily available fuel. Such reactors exist now, but they're still mostly experimental. (Though France is already building the first civillian power production fusion plant.) It won't be a quantum leap technology or utopian flashpoint, but with a little more improvement it could be ready to go into service, likely within a decade.

Catherine_Puce wrote:My opinion on that is that this oil be here for several millions of years and that we should leave her deep in the ground. There far too much polution already cause by car. The best idea is to not wait that we exhaust our reserve of oil and change as soon as possible of source of energy. Don't worry, the people working for the oil company will not all lose their job, our modern society is already far too dependant for plastic.

I seen usable alternative at work, the only problem are the persons who own the patents. It's amazing what petroleum dollars can do, nobody want risk themselves to invest and risk to lose all when they're are money to make just to by doing nothing.

Le mode de production capitaliste à ces qualités mais aussi ces défauts.

S.P.P.

Feel free to provide a patent number or two and their expiration dates. The entire point of patents is that they are no longer secret and they expire. They are also vulnerable to seizure based on various government theories. So let's hear about the alternative. The information should be public by your own account.

Zorro wrote:My Dad was an Oil Company executive so I know more than a little about the oil business.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN OIL SHORTAGE.

The only limit is what oil you can go and get for the current price of extracting it.

The amount of oil available at $100 a Barrel is pretty close to infinity. The amount you can get for $1 a Barrel is really small.

Oil will never completely end because it is used for more things than just energy. Things will continue until we find a technology that works better. The dumb "Gasoline Is Bad" mentality does nothing but make dummies feel good about themselves.

At what oil price does the PRC's economic juggling act come apart and the country disintegrate? Is it above or below $100 oil? Nobody knows. At what point do energy prices make enough agricultural endeavors uneconomic that the absolute number of calories produced drops below world requirements agains? Just because we might be able to supply lots of oil at $120/bbl doesn't mean that we escape really bad effects.

Kerry Skydancer wrote:

TMLutas wrote: I don't think that we're going to be vulnerable in 20 years. If we can get past the next 10, we'll be ok. Hydrogen seems to be en route for deployment next decade, early next decade if they rush it. That'll take the pressure off but only if we can crack water a lot cheaper than we do today.

Oh, not the hydrogen scam again. Hydrogen is dangerous to handle - either high-pressure or cryostorage is needed to get even a -fraction- of the energy density of gasoline, and it leaks -through- almost any containment material available.

You can combine hydrogen with borax or several other materials for safe hydrogen storage. There have been concept cars running on stable hydrides. Free hydrogen does leak a lot, though. Coincidentally, the US is the world's leading source for borax.

Kerry Skydancer wrote: It's dangerous in accidents, far more than gasoline.

I don't think so. Hydrogen universally goes up, it goes up pretty fast, and any combustion doesn't stick around too long. That makes it less dangerous than gasoline. Gasoline hangs around, pools, catches fire and burns persistently. You can be stuck in your car, have gasoline leaking and catch 10 minutes later burning you to a crisp. A hydrogen tank that had been leaking for 10 minutes is likely to be empty or mostly empty at that point.

Kerry Skydancer wrote: And most importantly, there are no hydrogen mines this side of Jupiter. You have to turn something else (probably water) into hydrogen first, at a net loss of energy. And if you're going to do that anyway, why not make artificial hydrocarbon fuels from organic waste? They're safer, and the distribution infrastructure is already in place.

You can make hydrogen from just about anything. It's the perfect energy carrier for a multi-fuel future. People have created hydrogen producing bacteria, thermal depolymerization of anything organic, natural gas reformation, cracking water (of course), solar to hydrogen cells, and probably lots of pathways that I've forgotten about or have never ever heard of.

All fuel production involves energy loss. You don't think that drilling and refining is energy free, do you?

Kerry Skydancer wrote: The only thing that hydrogen is better at than other fuels is a rather esoteric rocket-propulsion requirement called 'specific impulse', which means you get the most thrust per unit mass of fuel, and with modern materials even -that- is a toss-up when you factor in the extra mass of tankage and controls needed to handle the stuff. So for the Saturn V, hydrogen-lox fuel made sense. For an automobile, it doesn't.

Internal combustion engines, a specific type of carnot heat engine, have hard limits on efficiency that hydrogen fuel cells do not. Right now hydrogen's much less efficient creation numbers mean that the efficiencies are eaten up earlier in the "well to wheels" cycle but those creation inefficiencies are dropping and have no hard "laws of physics" limits that we're likely to run into anytime soon.

TMLutas wrote:

Kerry Skydancer wrote: It's dangerous in accidents, far more than gasoline.

I don't think so. Hydrogen universally goes up, it goes up pretty fast, and any combustion doesn't stick around too long. That makes it less dangerous than gasoline. Gasoline hangs around, pools, catches fire and burns persistently.

True. But hydrogen burns with a near-invisible flame, and its flammability range in air is something amazing, like between 5% and 90%. (Hmm... invocation of google...) Nope... 4% to 75%. Compare to methane, 5% to 17%. Much easier to get a fuel-air explosion or <shudder> a BLEVE with liquid hydrogen.

I don't think this necessarily makes hydrogen more dangerous than gasoline. It hazards are just ... different. And there will, of course, be some falling off of the learning curve from time to time as we learn how to use it as safely as we do gasoline.

As an aside...

A friend of mine claims to have made a VW Beetle (classic type) do 146Mpg...

First he rebuilt the engine for fuel-injection...
Then he ran it at a very, very, VERY lean mixture...
As it needed 'something' extra, he added Propane to the fuel-air mixture.
That gave him the power to maintain a decent speed, but not accelleration...
So he added Hydrogen injectors, for when he needed the extra power.
The hydrogen is 'produced' in the car, and is stored in a small container the size of an orange.

Unfortunately, he lived down south and the car was damaged beyond repair during a hurricane or another, and he cannot afford to build another, or even to set up a workshop to do it in, at the moment.

Patent-detectives may be able to find the system in the archives somewhere. (Search for 'tri-fuel' )

maxgoof wrote:If I wanted natural gas, I'd go the Massachusetts.

They have two Senators there that produce a whole lot of it.

Come on....lets give credit where credit is due....

ALL the other states (and Every political party, liberal, conservative, in between, and miscellaneous) produce their own gas/political bs.

Think of it this way....Due to politics, all the out of work dishonest door to door salesman have something to do, with the only needed talent being for telling lies.

MikeVanPelt wrote:

TMLutas wrote:

Kerry Skydancer wrote: It's dangerous in accidents, far more than gasoline.

I don't think so. Hydrogen universally goes up, it goes up pretty fast, and any combustion doesn't stick around too long. That makes it less dangerous than gasoline. Gasoline hangs around, pools, catches fire and burns persistently.

True. But hydrogen burns with a near-invisible flame, and its flammability range in air is something amazing, like between 5% and 90%. (Hmm... invocation of google...) Nope... 4% to 75%. Compare to methane, 5% to 17%. Much easier to get a fuel-air explosion or <shudder> a BLEVE with liquid hydrogen.

I don't think this necessarily makes hydrogen more dangerous than gasoline. It hazards are just ... different. And there will, of course, be some falling off of the learning curve from time to time as we learn how to use it as safely as we do gasoline.

Well I have no argument with physics. I was just trying to put down the scaremongering. Yes, hydrogen can be dangerous. Steam can be dangerous too and also in a different way than either hydrogen or gasoline.