On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 04:55:53 GMT, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Sun, 22 Feb 2004 17:29:48 -0500, Gary Coffman
brought forth from the murky depths:

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 17:52:28 GMT, Larry Jaques wrote:
Aren't you going to tell us which?

I really don't feel up to addressing all of the points raised on that
site today. But I will try to hit a few high points.

Okie doke. Thanks.


While Peak Oil is a real issue, it isn't clear that it is as near or as
dire as the website states. The 2000 dip wasn't unusual, there
have been a number of production dips throughout the 20th century
(and cries that we were immanently running out of oil as far back as
the 1920s Standard Oil scandals).

Don't you agree that we should be pursuing alternative fuels
much, much more than we are now? If nothing else, reliance on
fossil fuels makes us too dependent upon the external sources.
Add smog and toxic wastes to that and it's pretty clear.

What alternatives would you propose? The website does a fair
job of explaining why alcohol, biodiesel, etc aren't viable. We've
known how to make synthetic gasoline from coal for 60 years,
but the costs, both in dollars and in environmental effects, make
that unattractive.

Bush is proposing $1 billion for the hydrogen economy, but we've
understood the chemistry and physics involved with that for nearly
a century. It is the daunting cost of switching over the infrastructure
that's the hold up there, and a billion won't begin to touch it. Besides
what we really need to make the hydrogen economy go is plenty of
nuclear power. That's not happening.

With reprocessing and breeder technology, we can use plentiful
U238 and Thorium as our raw materials. Using technologies we
have on the shelf today, we can confidently predict that nuclear
fission could economically supply all of our energy needs for the
next 100,000+ years. The issues surrounding nuclear power are
not primarily technical or economic, they are political and emotional
(ie nuclear hysteria).

Nuclear waste disposal is a high-level ongoing problem.

Only in the minds of those who already oppose nuclear power anyway.
If you took all the high level waste from every commercial nuclear reactor
since the beginning of the nuclear age and piled it up 3 feet deep, it
would barely cover one football field. Of course that would be a silly
thing to do, since reprocessing it will turn it into more fuel, but it gives
you a feel for the scope of the issue. If we desired, we could simply
pile it up in a desert somewhere, put a fence around it and walk away
for 500 years. At that point the radioactivity would have decayed to
the level of the original ores dug out of the ground.

Now there *are* large quantities of *low level* waste. But we've set
the standards for that so strictly that it makes no sense at all. The
concrete blocks in your foundation are more radioactive than most
of what is classified as low level waste. Yet the rules say we have to
entomb low level waste forever. Nonsense.

The big disadvantage of hydrogen is that it is a low density energy
transport medium. That means bulky tanks, large pipelines, and
high pumping costs. Those issues aren't intolerable for most uses,
but they do mean that hydrogen isn't likely to be a viable mobile
energy transport medium until oil hits about $40 a barrel (in constant
year 2000 dollars) and stays there. That should occur sometime
after 2040 barring unforseen political events.

They also didn't mention that most vehicular hydrogen for use
today is produced with considerable amount of electricity being
passed through yet another fossil fuel source: natural gas.
There's a definite net loss of energy the way it's done now.

No, hydrogen is not made by electrolysis of natural gas. Water
is the source of hydrogen using electrolysis. Hydrogen from
natural gas is produced by steam reforming over a hot iron
catalyst. We do need large quantities of electric power to make
hydrogen by electrolysis, that's why we need to be pushing nuclear
power plant construction in a big way.

Some of what the site says about coal, tar sands, shale oil, etc
is right on target. Some of it ignores newer technologies. There
is a huge readily available supply (several thousand years worth
if we consumed it for energy generation), but there are heavy
environmental costs associated with it. IMHO the best use of
this resource is as feedstocks for the chemical and agricultural
industries. This BTW negates most of the concerns expressed
about running out of cheap oil for such uses.

I'm thinking we might be better off without many of the
chemicals and fertilizers being used nowadays, so downgrade
the need for oil in that use, too.

Then you condemn the world to starvation.

Gary