Fossil Fuels finally beat?

[Coombs]

of course they arent. but nuke dregs are really bad. as i said im in favor of nuke plants, as i feel they offer the best yield overall in terms of energy and environmentally, but it does pose some very specific hazards not shared by others

The hazards are manageable with correct procedures though. All of the nuclear advancements that could have happened over the past 6 decades has been almost been halted due to social stigma. Sad times and the transition probably won't happen for further decades.

[smelltheglove]

The hazards are manageable with correct procedures though. All of the nuclear advancements that could have happened over the past 6 decades has been almost been halted due to social stigma. Sad times and the transition probably won't happen for further decades.

oh, im with you. i just believe that things get dangerous when we pretend there are no hazards involved (not that you are).

[Coombs]

oh, im with you. i just believe that things get dangerous when we pretend there are no hazards involved (not that you are).

It's definitely dangerous to have them in natural disaster prone areas or near large rural areas. I think most people think that a nuclear explosion can happen if something goes wrong, which is sad. And even when you tell them that nuclear power is really just steam power they don't listen.

[smelltheglove]

It's definitely dangerous to have them in natural disaster prone areas or near large rural areas. I think most people think that a nuclear explosion can happen if something goes wrong, which is sad. And even when you tell them that nuclear power is really just steam power they don't listen.

blew my mind when i went to power school. a nuclear plant is a fucking steam engine?!? lol

but yeah, if set up correctly something has to go very very badly for a nuclear plant to fail. funnily enough they are actually inherently safer on a ship than on land due to a ship being able to design around exploiting all of the water around them (sounds idiotic, but it is actually true, lol. just the explanation isnt worth typing out)

[DEATHETERNAL]

An alternative to fossil fuel energy return wise isn't the next big step; we have that already with nuclear. Mobility as well as efficiency in a power source is currently required, and a room temperature super conductor would remove the mobility requirement. What we need is an energy source that can be as mobile as fossil fuel while still being efficient (and nuclear is the antithesis of mobility), and we aren’t realistically close to anything remotely like that. Figure out room temperature superconductors on the other hand, and we can just electrify the roads themselves to power cars with current energy sources. Without the mobility of fossil fuel or super conductor technology to remove the mobility requirement, a new power source would have to be ridiculously cheaper to make switching to it entirely worthwhile.

blew my mind when i went to power school. a nuclear plant is a fucking steam engine?!? lol

It is kind of funny that after developing nuclear science, we had to go back to a steam power interface to make it work.

[Manabomb]

And there are no non oil companies to outcompete them and take away all the surplus profit those companies get? Apple, Google, Wallmart all want to pay high energy prices and don't jump an opportunity to become producers of alternative energy and get all the benefits? It doesn't happen, because it is not worth it yet. Welcome to economics 101

Why would non energy companies take the high risk high reward gamble of dabbling into trying to take down oil tyrants? It's like David and Goliath. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Walmart all of these companies make tons of profit in their own fields because they either have a corner of the market, they have simply been around long enough to establish a loyal customer base or they have bred competition selling similar products. Plus with patents on many of the alternative energy "solutions" out there, it would take these companies tons of market research and simply wasted profit to make a venture into a field that they are not experts in.

I'm not saying it'd be impossible for Walmart to start Wally's Fusion Fuel Co. and buy the rights to WALL-E as their mascot and possibly drive the oil industry to the ground, but at such a high risk it would simply be a bad business move. Again, welcome to business 101.

[Hypasonic]

No, lets keep pumping the earth dry and polluting the atmosphere with chemicals that can ease the global population crisis and charge poor people extortionate prices to keep themselves warm thus easing the already over-populated area's of the world and sod any renewable sources of energy because they are clearly "far too expensive!!"

Yes, seems legit

[DEATHETERNAL]

Why would non energy companies take the high risk high reward gamble of dabbling into trying to take down oil tyrants? It's like David and Goliath.

You forget who won that battle, and the reward for winning that battle in this case would be the same as in David's case. Wealth beyond imagination. If a better energy source existed and was within our grasp, someone with money would make unimaginable money off of it.

[smelltheglove]

You forget who won that battle, and the reward for winning that battle in this case would be the same as in David's case. Wealth beyond imagination. If a better energy source existed and was within our grasp, someone with money would make unimaginable money off of it.

maybe, maybe not. oil companies do so well because the number of entities that have the funds or capabilities to drill, transport, and refine are extremely limited. if 20 different companies are able to produce the tech off the bat that already cuts in hard the second the patents expire. at that point another 100 startups jump in on the same cash cow. not saying that a lot of money wouldnt be made, but it wouldnt be anywhere near the dominance the oil companies are enjoying

[Deleted]

Nothing is beat here.

Batteries are not producing energy, they just stock and release.

Like someone said before, electricity still have to be produce somewhere with a generator using fuel, nuclear, wind power, your bike, etc...
Even if you equip your car with this new battery, you will have to recharge it, and so you will have to burn fuel.

Next is the problem of efficiency. You CANNOT produce more energy than the link before in the chain. Also 100% efficiency does not exist because of the Joule effect and others things. Fuel engine and Nuclear power plant are virtually at the same efficiency today at about 30% to 45% (just google it) but improvements are made constantly especially in nuclear.

Don't get me wrong, getting a battery with 99% efficiency is surely great, but it won't solve the energy problem (ex: 99% of 45% fuel energy is 44.55%, you still lose 55.45% of base energy)

[Reeve]

As someone who lives in Houston and works in the oil industry, there are very very few people who don't believe that oil will eventually be outstripped by something else. Most of us aren't even against that happening. Hell, I just spent a couple hours at a bar not 15 minutes ago talking to a guy who worked in the oil industry his whole life, whose wife is currently in the oil industry, who writes and energy industry newsletter and is extremely excited about the upcoming battery technologies.

---------- Post added 2013-04-27 at 01:03 AM ----------

Nothing is beat here.

Batteries are not producing energy, they just stock and release.

Like someone said before, electricity still have to be produce somewhere with a generator using fuel, nuclear, wind power, your bike, etc...
Even if you equip your car with this new battery, you will have to recharge it, and so you will have to burn fuel.

Next is the problem of efficiency. You CANNOT produce more energy than the link before in the chain. Also 100% efficiency does not exist because of the Joule effect and others things. Fuel engine and Nuclear power plant are virtually at the same efficiency today at about 30% to 45% (just google it) but improvements are made constantly especially in nuclear.

Don't get me wrong, getting a battery with 99% efficiency is surely great, but it won't solve the energy problem (ex: 99% of 45% fuel energy is 44.55%, you still lose 55.45% of base energy)

And that would be an issue if you could get a nuclear reactor on a car. The batteries are still good because they allow for portability and storage of the energy. They allow for things like electric cars, personal electronics, and someday grid storage that can make things like wind power viable.

[Deleted]

And that would be an issue if you could get a nuclear reactor on a car. The batteries are still good because they allow for portability and storage of the energy. They allow for things like electric cars, personal electronics, and someday grid storage that can make things like wind power viable.

Yes, but the trick in that is "nuclear reactor on a car", or more generally the energy production side. Energy distribution is strongly limited by physics.

People seem to underestimate just how much of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels and how economic they are. This is not just oil, it is coal and natural gas too. These are enormous proportions of both current and new energy systems even in the most developed countries with the possible exception of France (75%+ nuclear).

Fossil fuels are also almost always simultaneously the cheapest energy source, the cheapest, easiest and fastest to design and build (compare that to 15 years to build a conventional nuclear reactor), as well as providing the largest variety of energy matching needs, e.g. can be designed for 24/7 baseline demand or for only peak demand or for backup generation (including at nuclear and other types of non-fossil fuel plants). They are also highly portable and have huge readily available infrastructures in place making them suitable for many energy needs by all types of users, including private use.

Fossil fuels are ubiquitous for many reasons and proven extremely difficult to supplant.

Batteries are just energy storage. Even if you could store an infinite amount of energy and discharge it perfectly efficiently over any period of time you liked, you still have to generate and distribute that energy in the first place!

[Reeve]

Yes, but the trick in that is "nuclear reactor on a car", or more generally the energy production side. Energy distribution is strongly limited by physics.

People seem to underestimate just how much of the world's energy comes from fossil fuels and how economic they are. This is not just oil, it is coal and natural gas too. These are enormous proportions of both current and new energy systems even in the most developed countries with the possible exception of France (75%+ nuclear).

Yup, I'm all about increasing the presence of Nuclear power though, and of developing strong grid-level storage in order to make solar and wind more viable.

Batteries are just energy storage. Even if you could store an infinite amount of energy and discharge it perfectly efficiently over any period of time you liked, you still have to generate and distribute that energy in the first place!

There's nothing "just" about energy storage though. Highly efficient energy storage is the holy grail at the moment.

[Deleted]

There's nothing "just" about energy storage though. Highly efficient energy storage is the holy grail at the moment.

Sure. But not in the context of fossil fuel replacement.

[smartAXE]

You can pull electricity out of the air. Electrons are just floating around, trying to find that connection with an atom, unless you say "hi!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJdLA4w3w58
There are also SEG's, and similar machines that produce energy, or even reduce the weight of objects via gravitational fields. The exposure "film" Sirius has a little info on it.

[The Riddler]

I'm not saying it'd be impossible for Walmart to start Wally's Fusion Fuel Co. and buy the rights to WALL-E as their mascot and possibly drive the oil industry to the ground

I'll go ahead and say it. It's impossible for WalMart to start Wally's Fusion Fuel Co because it is technologically unattainable. The vision that all it would take is Apple or some other company to decide to put 'Big Oil' out of business by offering an alternative is nothing but a fantasy. If there was some alternative energy that was economical, monetizable, and could actually serve as a fuel for transportation then it would already be on the market.

Some people are under the mistaken impression that all you have to do is pour piles of cash into a physics problem and POOF the problem automagically goes away. It doesn't work that way folks. Fossil fuels generate tons more energy per pound than any 'green' solution, and they do it while remaining 4 to 10 times cheaper. That's just reality - based on science and physics - and no amount of flexing your kagel muscles and wishing will change it. Until we can generate energy on the order of three to four times more efficiently and cheaply than we are doing today, the formula isn't going to change. And frankly, were not even close to moving that needle. And contrary to popular belief, neither oil supplies nor coal nor natural gas are in danger of running out any time in the next 200 years.

[Reeve]

Sure. But not in the context of fossil fuel replacement.

Sure, in the context of fossil fuel replacement. If we can put batteries on vehicles that enable 2200 mile ranges with 1 minute charge times, there's very little reason not to move away from gasoline and towards electrical vehicles. And I know much of our electrical generation is currently fossil fuel-based, but with better battery technology, we could move to increasing reliance on wind and solar, or nuclear. Battery technology makes a whole lot of things possible that were never possible before.

[Garnier Fructis]

Fossil fuels generate tons more energy per pound than any 'green' solution, and they do it while remaining 4 to 10 times cheaper. That's just reality - based on science and physics - and no amount of flexing your kagel muscles and wishing will change it.

Well, if you count nuclear power as "green" than uranium pretty much blows fossil fuels clear out of the water in terms of energy density. I for one think the benefits of nuclear outweigh the negatives and that we should pursue it a bit more.

[dantian]

Understandable, and I counter with "build more nuclear power". ;-)

An incredibly difficult position to argue with for anyone.

Nuclear power rocks.

[Kaleredar]

Some people are under the mistaken impression that all you have to do is pour piles of cash into a physics problem and POOF the problem automagically goes away. It doesn't work that way folks.

Throwing money at a problem doesn't automatically solve it.

But keeping money from a problem also tends to not solve it as well.

And contrary to popular belief, neither oil supplies nor coal nor natural gas are in danger of running out any time in the next 200 years.

If you're referring to the "exploitable oil reserves in the United States," that figure only approaches 200 years (for the US itself) if the United States exploited all hypothetical oil and oil shale reserves, regardless of their location in the US, consumed the exact amount of oil we do today, and didn't sell it to any other countries.

And even if the "200 year figure" were true, the negative effects of using fossil fuels aren't "200 years away." People seem to like to ignore that.




And just to point out the fallacy of people stating "batteries wont decrease our reliance on oil, the electricity still has to come from somewhere..." The vast Majority of electricity sent through power lines in the United States comes from coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric. Petroleum-derived power accounts for a very, very tiny fraction of total energy produced... far less even, in recent years, than that of renewable power sources.