Thoughts Thread...

[Narsia Ny'Dhun]

At the cost of rapidly depleting natural resources that's going to leave us with our thumbs up our butts when 75% of the populace has no way to get to where they need to go because the few barrels of gas remaining is reserved for the final NASCAR race and nobody can swallow their pride and try alternative fuels.

[Alak Xiltyn]

Heres a fun one, we've known how to make synthetic oil since WWII, the problem was one of cost, it was cheaper to drill it out of the ground than to make it.

This stopped being the case a while ago. If it's cheaper to make it than drill it, why then are we still giving other countries money instead of beefing up on production and exporting it all over the world?

BTW I use "our" as a fairly relative term.

[Thalon Mercrow]

well, we will begin creating stinthtic oils and exploring alterntive fuel soreses when gas finnley gets to bee $100.00 a barrel

[Merinid Tlin'orzza]

[quote="Thalon Mercrow":319j9xum]when gas finnley gets to bee $100.00 a barrel[/quote:319j9xum]

Its been over that for some time now.

[Argoth]

New WR: $125 per barrel of oil. Russia, because of the war in Iraq, earned $600 mln.

[Narsia Ny'Dhun]

I think the answer depends largely on cost actually. If this synthetic oil would require new types of engines then just about every person on the planet would need a new car and the price of that would be just mind blowing. If not, and we could still use our cars, then simply put it's a matter of greed. 'people' don't want to solve the energy crisis because then they won't profit from it so much.

[Zaravir]

Synthetic oil would still be oil and thus be perfectly manageable for the average combustion engine. Once properly refined ofcourse. The real problem is somewhere in between. Nobody feels like throwing a billion $ away building a new refinery or whatever facilities it would take if they already earn bigtime. No point in outcompeting yourself.
In my oppinion the energy of the future is going to be based on battery technology. The main problem of this technology has been producing capable batteries at a price that would compete with gas. Ultimately windmills are useless if there are no one to use or store the energy they provide. This is quite a problem, especially at night, which is where batteries enter the picture. This is becoming much less of an obstacle as the gas price has been going through the roof for quite some time. In addition the idea of storing power efficiently is relatively new and has had a revolution over the last decade beginning to be efficient enough for proper use. Solar energy, wind energy and perhaps even wave energy is the future. Thermal energy is a no go as it had the nasty side effect of inducing earthquakes. Bioethanol is not nearly as efficient as a fuel as gas and produces approximately 1½ times the amount of CO2 gas does to achieve the same amount of energy, and most importantly it comes from our foodstock. My thoughts on the subject.
Hopefully I didn't kill it entirely by using too long sentences and bad punctuation.

[Alak Xiltyn]

[quote="Zaravir":2y3xotwg]
Hopefully I didn't kill it entirely by using too long sentences and bad punctuation. [/quote:2y3xotwg]

Not at all.

My post was less about the potential of synthetic oils and more about the lethargy among industry leaders and law makers, and to point out the simple fact that if anyone with the power to lower gas prices REALLY wanted to, theres a fairly straight foreword way of doing it.

[Argoth]

Sorry, after the third line I saw only "bla bla bla, look how smart I am..."



kidin'

Ok, so biofuels are too expensive in production, and there isn't a country in the world that is ready to start mass production of it. Besides, as Alak alerady said, the costs of utilising all the old cars and buing new ones are just too much.

I agree that the battery system is the most probable. But still, it's somehow ambigues. Who can tell with how much accuracy, how much oil do we actually have left? 20 years? 200? Or maybe the supplies can reproduce themselves in the deplated sites? Who knows?

[Zaravir]

Well I do know that the regeneration time of an oil molecule is about 300.000 years in atmospheric conditions once it has been reduced entirely to H2O and CO2.

As for development of new fuel it should be encouraged by governmentally supported companies. The government of my homecountry, Denmark, sponsored Windmill projects in the early 90'ies. Now one of the two involved companies delivers windmills to most of the world. It is possible if all the liberal equal competition stuff can be set out of effect in tiny isolated areas. But it does not occur spontaneously without neutralizing the effects of the free market. Sadly

[Argoth]

How much energy is delivered by the windmills? What's the percentage of the whole state's energy delivery?

[Zaravir]

That is ofcourse the next problem. For now it covers as little as 12% of the energy comsumption in Denmark. It is an ongoing process ofcourse. I know that our government aims to make that 25% by 2015. Not that I think they will make that but it is a start. Given enough time it might actually matter.

[Argoth]

Yeah, the government of my country can't build even a motorway. That's sad.

[Thalon Mercrow]

my goverment ([b:3rpk2q3x]USA!!!!!![/b:3rpk2q3x]) could probebly creat a new fual sourse in a decade, mabe less if we made it our #1 priorty.but our gloriuse esteemed leader (note sarcasem) G.W. bush has a lot invested in such oil copemneys. hopefuly with the election comeing soon we will have a presadent who can do something about the energy crisis and not just sit on his or her hands.

[Nedylene]

I think the bumper sticker says it all January 20th 2009 ..end of an error..
I didnt vote for him..just to add that in..