Re: Are nukes the answer to global warming?

From: owl (owl_at_moonlite.com)
Date: 03/08/05 

Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 17:04:06 -0500

On 8 Mar 2005 11:11:03 -0800, "Clouseau2" <eric@webmethods.com> wrote:

>owl wrote:
>> On 7 Mar 2005 20:38:36 -0800, "Clouseau2" <eric@webmethods.com> wrote:
>>
>> >owl wrote:

>Uhh, I've been researching this stuff for over a year. EROEI == Energy
>Returned on Energy Invested. Here is a chart of some common returns:
>
>http://www.abelard.org/briefings/energy-economics.asp#tarsands_table

>Note that tar sands are 1.5, Middle East oil 30+.
>
>I've read over 5 books on this subject. How many have you read?

None. I caught on to the concept with a few links. 5 books, and
you're still on the basics ... sigh ...

>> It is actually an advantage for EROEI to go down in North America
>> because at the right ROI and cost balance, it unlocks the economic
>> viability of the Tar Sands (and it's 200 years of reserves(.

>> >The return is very good for the middle east, but it is atrocious for the
>> >very mature fields in the USA.
>>
>> Yea ... duhh. Since the cost of transportation is closer to zero at
>> that point, you've really caught on to something fundamental here.
>
>Transportation is just one element that takes energy. There is
>exploration, drilling, operation of the well, etc.

>http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/transcripts/220 :

You're getting pretty boring with the 101 stuff. You can drop the
spoon whenever you want.

>You have to

<snip the long and very boring nothing>

It read like a paragraph from an intro geography book. It sounded
like something you'd read to your kid at bedtime. If this is your
mind-state with regards to oil, the industry, the technology, and the
direction, stick to something a simpler.

>So, we have at this point extracted almost half of the oil
>that's going to be extracted economically.

No we haven't. I've seen this statement rear it's funny face
repeatedly - and it always goes away when the price performance plus
technology leverage goes after new stuff and improves the yield from
old stuff.

In the early 70s U.S. raw reserves were estimated to be about 10
years. In 2004, U.S. raw reserves ... about 10 years:-

http://www.abelard.org/news/archive-oil1-2.htm#oil151202

(note: the site you quoted)

Instead of reading Book 6 on EROIE, I submit you'd get a lot more
value from figuring out how a massively expanded oil consuming market
30 years later could still have 10 years of raw reserve supply (don't
count the phony 'strategic' reserve) 20 years after it had run out of
reserves.

>It's the stuff that's easy to find

If you've really read and understood the five books you've read, then
you're quite aware of just how dumb this statement is. The world is
way past caring about where it is - the technology to get at it, and
transport it to a refinery is what matters. Forget this distraction
with EROIE, and start listening to the voices of business ROI.

This EROIE stuff looks pretty strange beside the off-shore oil
platforms in locations as remote as Hibernia. And there will be more
Hinbernia's, not less. And none of them will match up well with your
EROIE E-I-E-I-O logic.

>Oil exploration and extraction are already down to by some
>figures 20 to 1, 30 to 1, 40 to 1 in that range.

Newsflash: it doesn't matter. If it's profitable and exploitable it
adds to the reserves and will eventually get into a gastank near you.

And it doesn't suddenly transform supplies or prices - it chips away
and adjusts. In 2003, the tar sands were in decline, in 2004 they
were back in the choice investments column.

Here's the state and projection:

http://www.worldoil.com/Magazine/MAGAZINE_DETAIL.asp?ART_ID=2462

>And within the
>continental US, the activity of oil expolration has an energy profit
>ratio that by some estimates is down to about 1 to 1. In other words it
>costs as about as much energy to search and extract a barrel of oil in
>the continental US as that barrel of oil actually contains. So what
>this means is the net energy available to industrial societies is being
>reduced year by year.

It is one small part of the equation for determining the long term
price range of oil. You appear to have wasted a lot of time and money
on those books. Take a few business courses.

>> >Commutes are way up. The average miles driven per year, the average
>> >distance for a commuter from work, etc., are all up. Sprawl reins
>> >supreme, more and more communities are impossible to move around in
>> >without the use of a car. We are becoming MORE oil dependent, not
>> >less.
>>
>> Mish n mash, go take a bath. This is drift from the statement about
>> substitutions and alternatives.
>
>So you agree the above is all true. United States oil imports have
>been growing, year after year, since the oil peak in the 1970s. This
>is a FACT.

More 'so what'. You've found nothing new ... and said even less.

>> >Cars are also using MORE energy than before, CAFE has stagnated since
>> >the 80s, we are consuming MORE energy. Our oil imports are going up,
>> >our oil consumption is going up, world oil consumption is going up,
>> >natural gas consumption is going up. This will of course change in the
>> >next 5-10 years as we enter a new era of energy scarcity.

>> You're still in the mode where you throw it at the wall and see if it
>> sticks. The engines of today are more fuel-efficient, the car
>> materials user materials that require less energy to manufacture.
>
>From
>http://envstudies.brown.edu/Thesis/2002/Dyer/Transportation%20Vehicle%20Efficiency.htm:

Error 404 - File Not Found ... your Book of the Month Club membership?

>Vehicle Efficiency, New Vehicles
>
>Although the most recent data for national vehicle fleet efficiencies
>is for 1997, fuel efficiencies are available for new vehicles for as
>recently as 1999. The next table presents the national average fuel
>efficiencies for new vehicles from 1975 to 1999. The MPG efficiencies
>for new cars and light-trucks increased each year into the late 1980's,
>peaking for cars in 1988 at 28.6 MPG and trucks in 1987 at 21.6 MPG.
>While vehicle efficiency for cars remained relatively unchanged from
>1988 to 1999, light-trucks began a gradual decline after their 1987
>peak to 20.3 MPG in 1999.
>
>You might be noticing a pattern here. I actually back up stuff with
>references and data and you just say "that's the way it is".

You didn't back up anything. You're not saying anything related to a
resource bottleneck. Trucks, SUVs and vans, were beefed up in
horsepower and safety features from the 80s on. This isn't hidden
knowledge - it was done and advertised. Better performance, safer,
more comfortable.

>> Now you've dissolved into a quivering something scared of shadows.
>> The price bounces back n forth here by .10c a litre like it's on a
>> tennis court. Of course it's high right now - the market's on a run.

>I live the United States, maybe that is part of the problem of the
>miscommunication, you obviously don't. We've got the problems with
>energy.

You're assumpions are about as weak as your observations. Checking
the DNS source could help you avoid these kind of statements.

>> Well, go grab your alarmed side-kicks and start demonstrating about
>> the energy crisis coming in just a few thousand years. It'll be fun
>> to see that clip on the news.

>We've already had energy crises in the past. Oil discoveries peaked in
>the 1960s, that's 40 years ago.

Look, if you want to do grade school stuff, go find some grade school
students and feed your simplistic stuff to them.

Oil discoveries did not peak in the 60s. The major sources of world
oil - the southerns U.S., southern Russia, the middle-east, the
plains U.S. & Canada, Mexico & Venezuela - were discovered before the
60s. Iirc, the only really major field addition in the 60s was the
North Sea.

(note: to prevent a lame response, don't reply with by the 60s - it
could also be stated by the 50s, by the 70s, by the 80s ... )

The so-called 'energy crisis' of 73-79 wasn't a shortage of oil - it
was about the selling price of oil and the shortage of refining
capacity.

>> Quite simply, you're a slogan slagger without a good handle on the
>> true nature of the problem. You lack the ability to live with the
>ups
>> and downs and recognize them for just that. You appear to be
>> dominated by vague generalities, misconceived assessments, and fears
>> of the impending unavoidable collapse of human civilization. Worst
>of
>> all, you an understanding of human inventiveness and ingenuity that's
>> so low it's almost misanthropic.

>And you just say stuff without any references or data.

There's been nothing requiring pointing at sites or data. In fact,
your own statements have been visibly weakened by pointing at broken
links or referencing simple kids stuff.

>But don't blame
>yourself, most of humanity is afflicted by "Cornucopianism", even in
>the face of incontravertible facts. I suggest reading some work by
>Richard Heinberg as an antidote, starting with the interview above.

I suggest you don't know what I have or haven't read over the last 30
years.

>And human civilization doesn't have to collapse, human ingenuity can
>overcome great obstacles, as you say. However, given the path we've
>(United States) CURRENTLY chosen, things are not looking so good.
>Unless you think serially invading oil rich countries is good for the
>world.

Maybe your mom can help you sort this one out without becoming a
warmunger.

>> The CO2 (pollution, warming, other-effects-to-be-seen) problem can
>> work with a 'wait it out' strategy in your peter-panned-out world.

>> That's the real problem - we're not running out.
>
>Yup, and once goal gasification starts up bigtime, and we turn the
>planet into another Venus, the few million that might be able to
>survive will able to try "plan B" for humanity.

It appears you're incapable of dealing with problems without putting
an apolalyptic spin on them. You've referenced serial wars, venus
runaway effects, and an oil-scarce world just around the corner.

You don't get it. It reads like this is pretty new stuff for you, and
reading something about where the 'Energy Crisis' really went at the
end of 70s might help.

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