peak oil is now a mainstream headline? yeeps!!

[meow mix]

better get your road warrioring outfits ready! =)
finally, fashion will take a turn for the better...

Dried Up?
Are We Running Out of Oil? Scientist Warns of Looming Crisis

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/SciTech/DyeHard/oil_energy_dyehard_040211-1.html

Feb. 11 —
"Civilization as we know it will come to an end sometime in this century unless we can find a way to live without fossil fuels."

That's the way David Goodstein begins his book. And that's the way he ends it.

Goodstein is not an environmental extremist, or a doomsayer, or a political hack trying to make points with his constituency. He is a professor of physics and vice provost of the California Institute of Technology, one of the nation's headiest institutions.


(sorry if i duped.. couldnt find this posted anywhere)

[mhr]

1. More On Peak Oil Here

Websites of interest include:

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Home.html
http://globalpublicmedia.com/
http://www.oilcrash.com/
http://www.wolfatthedoor.org.uk/
http://www.asponews.org
http://www.gulland.ca/depletion/depletion.htm
http://www.dieoff.org/
http://www.oilanalytics.org/
http://www.greatchange.org/
http://www.oilcrisis.com/
http://www.after-oil.co.uk/
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/
http://hubbert.mines.edu
http://www.museletter.com/archive/cia-oil.html

Energy Resources
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/

Alas Babylon
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AlasBabylon/

Running on Empty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmpty2/

[waterman]

6. I saved these links the other day when you posted them, mhr....

And I only made it through the first one so far. It was unreal the way he tied it all together. Spooky stuff I tells ya. Thank you again for putting these up here.

[mhr]

7. You're Welcome, I am Just Trying To Spread The Word At Every Opportunity

Please pardon me if it becomes to repetitive.

Some of these threads do pass on very, very quickly.

[waterman]

9. No prob, I understand - just keep doing what ya doing.....

[hang a left]

81. ditto. did the same and yeah thanks alot mhr.

[Indiana_Dem]

16. Thanks so much for this info...

I didn't realize all of this. This should be the most important issue in the election. Too bad it isn't. If only Kucinich is the one to mention it then I am voting for Kucinich in my primary whether he's on the ticket or not (May in Indiana).

I just changed my avatar.

Kick.

[thermodynamic]

20. Great links, thanks!!

At this point, it seems humanity, as we know it for its innovations, is doomed.

Screw it, I'm going to party. No point in worrying, the oil companies and everybody else wouldn't rather do a thing because it'll affect their profits... so why should I?

[amandabeech]

54. DU's Energy/Science/Environment Forum

has some excellent discussions of peak oil and related topics. I encourage everyone here to check it out.

Thanks, mhr, for your list. I have visited many of those cites and found them very informative, if a little shocking.

Amanda

[9215]

109. Hi Amanda, Welcome to DU

:toast:

[Fargin Ice Hole]

79. Not hard to believe when 5 companies control all the media.

[Warpy]

2. Check out thermal depolymerization

You can read about one industrial plant up and running and another to be completed soon at http://forums.biodieselnow.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=829

Our unsightly, smelly, ground water polluting "sanitary landfills" created by decades of overconsumption fueled by cheap oil are about to become an important natural resource as the natural reserves in the US run out and the reserves in the middle east become leas and less attractive.

Old tires, dead radios, dumped computers, plastic 6 pack rings, all about to become an important resource. Who knew?

[meow mix]

4. i dont think u can feed this juggernaut on chickenscratch..

but certainly is worth the try - im all for it =)

[Silverhair]

22. The agricultural waste alone in the USA can replace ALL imported oil.

That's according to the Discover Magazine article. May 2003 issue.

[Viking12]

25. For a VERY short period only

Agriculture is extremly dependent on fossil fuels.

[Silverhair]

28. Agriculture uses mainly SOLAR ENERGY.

Plants are solar collectors. The amount of energy reaped from a field of plants is many many times more than the oil used by the machinery in working the field.

Animal feed also comes from plants so it is mostly stored solar energy.

[plurality]

fertilizer is amonium nitrate, amonia comes from natural gas

Natural gas is running out as well.

No more fertilizer, no more mega-farms.

Not to mention all the oil and other petro-chemical products needed for the huge amounts of farm equipment.

There's a reason the earth's population exploded from 1 billion to 6 billion in 150 years, and it's largely due to the thousands of uses of petrolium products that have become essential to our entire way of life.

[Silverhair]

39. Check out this month's issue of Discover Magazine

on sources of methane. One single deep ocean seep of the coast of the Carolinas produces more than 30 times the amount of natural gas that the USA uses each year. And there are dozens of these seeps around the world, maybe hundreds. We don't have the technology to exploit them yet, but they were only discovered last year or two.

[plurality]

43. I've read of this before

The problem isn't that we'll run out of fossil fuels, the problem is that we're running out of exploitable sources of fossil fuel, and that the less we have, the more difficult and more expensive it's going to be to develope the technology to reach these more difficult sources.

We may have actually hit Peak Oil in 2000. Oil production has declined every year since then, and the argument could be made that recent global crises (Afghanistan, Iraq, Georgia, etc, etc) are attempts to control the easy to reach sources before they're gone.

Another problem is that our way of life isn't just dependant on oil, it's that it's dependant on cheap oil. In the Middle East oil can be extracted for around $2-5 a barrel. In the rest of the world it's between $10-15. What's going to happen to the world economy when all we have left are these difficult to exploit reserves and the production cost shoots up to $20-30?

[Silverhair]

47. The low spot oil price for Feb 13 was $.9830 per US gallon.

Using a 48 gallon barrel, that comes out to $47.04 per barrel, current price. So if a TDP plant can produce for under $20.00 a product that is currently selling for $47.04, then I think the economics are in ripe for investment is such plants.

[plurality]

53. That's cost to sell oil not to produce it.

Plus I think your prices are a little off, here's the current listings.

http://www.bloomberg.com/energy/
PRICE* CHANGE % CHANGE TIME
Nymex Crude 34.56 0.58 1.71 02/13
IPE Crude 30.57 0.6 2 02/13
Dated Brent $ 31.21 0.74 2.43 02/13
WTI Cushing $ 34.56 0.58 1.71 02/13

Plus, how much does one of these plants cost to get operational? Mulitply that by about 5,000 and that's the kind of capital that's going to be needed for this to be effective.

[Silverhair]

56. That's still a LOT more the the cost of production at a TDP

plant. And it doesn't have to be shipped by a super-tanker. (Expensive). It would already be in our country, and could be sent to a local refinery via pipeline. It could make use of much of the already existing infrastructure.

[plurality]

61. that still doesn't answer the question of the cost to make this useful

Now I'm just guessing here, but I imagine it'll cost at least $100 million to build one of these plants, and another estimate that we'll need somewhere around 5,000, just for the US. That's around $5 trillion needed to get these things going. And let's not forget that if trends continue these need to be up and running in 10-15 years. Maybe now you can understand my skepticism?

Of course if you have some figures that are more accurate than mine (they're just guesses after all) please let me know.

[Jose Diablo]

64. An additional thought on biomass as energy source

Is the carbon released into the atmosphere is not carbon that was sequestered in the underground oil well. The carbon released is carbon that was pulled from the air by the plants. The cycle of the material used to harness the suns solar energy cycles: air-plant-oil-air. No contribution to the atmospheric carbon dioxide. Earth friendly.

[wuushew]

65. We used an estimated 20 million barrels a day in 2001

This plant produces 600 barrels a day(out of an unknown maximum capacity).


So in order to meet current demand we would need 33,333 or the equivalent of these plants. Obviously large scale plants would be used for bulk production, but I have no idea how the investment in plant per barrel would scale up.

[Jose Diablo]

67. Solving the energy problem needs more than just other sources of energy

It looks like to me, we as a culture, need to alter how we live, where we live, how we build our homes, how we get to work. In short just about our whole way of doing things.

I am not sure we consume 20M barrels a day in energy equivalent, but I will take your word for it.

We could still maintain a very good living standard consuming far less energy if we changed how we lived.

[bloom]

99. if anything

more people in the world will live more like us than us like them until we don't have any choice.

I hate Chevy commercials - "like a rock" - and like we're supposed to not care about how much we waste.

[Silverhair]

82. That was a pilot plant, to test the concept.

I could not find the output of the first commercial scale facality in Carthage, MO.

[Silverhair]

80. I don't have any estimates on the costs.

However, both Discover and Scientific American, which I hope you will consider reputable scientific magazines, have written positive articles on the process.

Nor would it be needed to build ALL of the plants before ANY benefit was realized. Profits from the first plants would be able to help pay for future plants. Also, in many places they would be build instead of an alternate type of plant. Example would be a new TDP plant instead of a new sewage processing facility, or instead of a new landfill. So the deadend cost of maintaining a landfill would be replaced a profitable TDP plant.

[Silverhair]

83. Found the cost. You are off by a factor of five.

The first commercial plant in Carthage, MO., cost $20million. That's not too bad. A plant can be completely built in only one year. As more plants are built, I would suspect that costs would come down for construction due to the learning curve.

And remember, many of these plants could be built instead of building something else to take care of the waste problem. How much does a landfill cost to make and operate, and it produces nothing. A TDP plant would likely be cheaper, definately cleaner, and would also produce a profitable product.

[Jose Diablo]

85. I think this plan's a winner

not for all the energy needs, but it's a good start.

Lets start with a 100 plants.

[plurality]

86. I'm not saying the technology isn't good, it is...

I remember when I first read about it, that I was quite pleased to learn about it, and hoped that it would be quickly implemented. It's just that I don't think that if what I've read about the potential problems of Peak Oil are true that's it's going to be our savior. Now if the information is off, then it's great that we have this technology because it's definitely beneficial and very much needed. I just hope we can get off our asses and get it in use. But from what I've seen it doesn't look like anyone's in any great hurry to get it moving. I even looked into the company to see if I could invest in it, unfortunately it's not publicly offered so unless I have several mil to pitch in I'm out of luck. It also says to me that noones in any big hurry to implement it in a widespread manner, but I could be wrong.

[Silverhair]

89. Right now, everyone is in a "wait and see" mode.

The first commercial plant just went online very recently. Like with anything new, they will probably have to work some bugs out. If the process does work as expected, and is proven to work, then CWT will be liscensing the technology. They have a patent on the process. I would suspect that there are a lot of investors watching this first production plant.

A plant only costs 20 mil and can be built in one year. I used to work offshore oil, and I can guarantee that the semisubmersible rig that I worked on cost many times that 20 mil. And drilling in Alaska ain't cheap either. (Added benefit of TDP - no need to drill in Alaska.)

[plurality]

103. yeah that's the problem Peak Oil entails...

It's not that we'll run out of oil, but that what's out there will be too costly to use.

Hopefully they can get the TDP up and going soon. I'll keep an eye on it, cause when it does go public I'll definitely be putting in on it. Would be nice to make a buck while contributing to a good cause.

[wuushew]

60. Is there any link to that article?

In many ways the natural gas shortage is more accute than the oil shortage.

People need to stop demanding that natural gas be used for power generation or some winter they are going to find a frozen house and a cold shower.

[Silverhair]

84. It isn't free online. Subscription only. n/t

[amandabeech]

50. Phosphate, another important fertilizer component,

is a mined mineral. It won't last forever. High quality deposits in the U.S., mostly in Florida, may last another 75-125 years, at today's rates of usage. Of course, all the mining equipment is powered by fossil fuels, as is the transportation to the farm. And phosphate is almost always processed.

Many people look to processing of agricultural waste, biomass all, into transportation fuel, as a means to replace petroleum in the future. However, it may be necessary to compost as much agricultural waste, including animal wastes, as possible into fertilizer to replace the nitrogen and phosphate chemical fertilizers farmers use today. Without fertilizer, chemical or biomass, we simply will not be able to continue agricultural production at any rate even comparable to what we have now. In other words, all agriculture will probably be much more similar to what organic and sustainable agriculture are now.

Of course, some biomass may be converted into fuel to power tractors and some farm-to-market transportation. We may also eventually replace some tractors with horses or oxen, and be forced to devote land now in grain production to pasture, hay fields and oat production
(oats are power bars for horses), thus reducing land available for producing food.

And yes, I've read about algae bio-diesel production and am not convinced as yet.

I will not go into soil quality problems here.

Amanda

[Silverhair]

52. Please read my post on why fertilizer won't be needed.

It answers that question. Basically, you don't need fertilizer to grow weeds.

[amandabeech]

63. Yes, weeds will grow just about anywhere

but agricultural plants, those that produce food that we eat or process for fiber, etc., will produce extremely poor yields on fields that are not either naturally fertile (usually fields new to the plow--almost never found these days) or fields that are fertilized either with biomass or chemical fertilizers or a combo of both.

Agricultural plants take nutrients and minerals from the soil. The plants are then harvested, which means that the nutrients and minerals are moved off the field, and must be replaced for long term soil fertility, one way or another.

At least that's what my friends and family who are long-time farmers tell me.

I am no expert in weeds, but fields of weeds are not normally harvested. They grow and die in the same fields, and return whatever nutrients they drew from the soil to the soil together with what they make from water and sunshine. And whatever dust, debris or runoff on the fields stays there as well. I seem to recall that this principle is behind the old concept of letting fields lie fallow in order to regain fertility.

I hope that the above paragraphs let you understand my point of view.


Amanda

[Silverhair]

74. A crop of weeds can be tossed into a TDP just fine. n/t

[FlaGranny]

110. Sustainable farming requires

green crops which are plowed back into the soil as fertilizer. Manure is a pretty good fertilizer too. Farming was always done this way, once upon a time. Megafarms have done nothing but cause damage. Huge fields all planted in the same crop year after year, maintained with large doses of fertilizer and pesticides. The "old" way of farming was small farms with crops and livestock. The combination of the two can't be beat. Livestock supplies manure for crops. Chickens control the bug population on crops. Then the crops are used to feed back the livestock and people. This is a sustainable system, but it is labor intensive. Megafarms reduce prices because they reduce labor costs. Some genius efficiency expert needs to come up with labor-saving methods that make small farms more profitable than big ones. That's a stretch. I wish I had an answer.

[RainDog]

75. no more mega farms? Good!

Where I live, starting in May and running through Oct, three days a week, we have a farmer's mkt.

Their produce tastes better and many of them use organic methods, so I welcome the demise of corporate farming.

As far as food production and supply, there are other ways to grow food other than depleting a field and tossing fertilizer on it, such as crop rotation and nitrogen-fixing crops and cover crops and composting and keeping a few horses on site for manure.

As far as using hemp for biomass, hemp is a weed, so you do not need to fertilize it. according to local legend and Eric Schlosser's book, Reefer Madness, Indiana has hemp growing wild all over the place because farmers were asked to grow it during WW2.

Hemp can also solve issues of deforestation because the Constitution was written on hemp paper, the sails of ships who came to America were made of hemp, so you don't need oil to make polyester when you can grow plants for clothing...

these are reasons why it is so insane for the US to criminalize something which farmers used to be encouraged to grow.

Entrepeneurial health clubs could hook up all those exercise machines to solar battery chargers and have their clients generate the energy to run the jacuzzis...

that's what makes me so sick about America...there are all sorts of creative solutions to energy problems, but people only want to look at big biz as the solutions.

two windmills can power 1000 houses. suburbs could co-op there own energy and sell to neighboring bizzes, etc.

builders could offer pkgs with solar rather than asphalt shingles for roofing, along with the information on how much energy savings people could realize by building in such a way to create rather than use energy with their own houses.

this technology is all available now.

I wish I had money, cause I would love to be able to sell this to every family in America.

[plurality]

78. i don't like them either, but unfortunately...

they're neccessary to feed the 6 billion people we have on this earth. Small organic farms can't feed that many people. No more mega-farms = mass starvation.

[amandabeech]

101. I agree with you

Little or no diesel or chemical fertilizer will very significantly reduce agricultural production. We have also lost a lot of high quality farmland to suburban housing developments and shopping centers that was in production prior to the 1940s.

I think that agriculture, as well as many other productive activities, will become more labor intensive.

Life in 40 years will be very different from now absent a miraculous breakthrough and I don't think that it's TDP, however helpful that technology may turn out to be.


Amanda

[plurality]

104. yeah, it seems there's no shortage of potential existance enders out there

But from what I've looked at, Peak Oil seems like it's the most serious. I'd like to be wrong, but the stuffs gotta run out at some point, and we do use it like it's going out of style.

I wonder sometimes what life will be like in 50 years. I find myself doubting that my kids will have as easy a life as I did, but some times I wonder if they might end up better off because of it.

After all, look at what the easy life has brought us to, Congressional inquiries about some has been singer showing her breast on the Super Bowl. So much we have here and what is it used for?

[RainDog]

106. so we need monsanto to feed the world?

maybe a related issue is the birth and literacy rates of various countries.

if we are looking at problems with feeding populations, maybe our govt should stop refusing to fund programs which actually offer counseling on birth control.

this is also a part of the issue of consumption. of course, we consume tons more than any other nation combined, but maybe, as a way to approaching issues of maintaining planet earth, we should also be on the side of the "angels" and look at trends in birth rates compared to literacy for females.

By giving females across the world a better life, more opportunities for education, we could cut some of the need for chemically-dependent farming.

but if we are looking at "peak oil" then the costs of growing that food, and then transporting that food would also, it would seem to me, make it make sense to look at alternatives to current farming practices...

because another problem with corporate farming is the lack of species variation. corporate farming has decreased the varieties of various plants which are widely available, and, since evolution is a fact no matter what the creationists say, crop pests end up with mutations which are beneficial for their survival, too, and with "monoculture" crops you could end up with massive losses due to pests, I guess I wonder what alternatives are available.

What parts of the world lack the ability to grow survival crops? Is corporate farming changing the ways in which various parts of the world, with various crops suitable for those areas, are able to sustain their own populations?

what other solutions are thinkable?

[dpibel]

108. Not so

The myth of economies of scale in agriculture is just that. The per-acre yield maxes out pretty quickly--easily at the family farm level--and their's no added production from megaculture.

I don't really expect you to take my word for it, but I'm too busy to look up the exact numbers. Maybe later.

I think Vandana Shiva has some info on this; google up her website.

[JohnyCanuck]

8. Depolymerization will help delay the effects of Peak Oil

and perhaps give us a bit more time to find develop renewables but it is only a stopgap measure which could help us delay the onset and severity of peak oil problems but it is not a panacea to all our problems.

The problem as I see it with depolymerization is that they talk of putting garbage in (e.g sewage sludge, slaughterhouse wastes etc. etc) and getting oil out. But there have to be some net losses due to the laws of thermodynamics during this depolymerization process no matter how efficient the machinery. In other words the inputs will always contain more energy than the outputs. That's just basic physics and unless someone has invented a perpetual motion machine there is no way around it. No machinery or industrial process is ever 100% efficient.


Right now the input material, even though garbage, is all heavily dependent on crude oil from fossil hydrocarbons. Sewage sludge is human waste which is digested plant material which consists of crops grown under very energy intensive conditions (i.e. factory farming). The same thing with the turkey guts that the depolymerization advocates love to use as an example of a waste product that can be turned into oil. Turkeys are raised on turkey feed which in turn is made from crops grown with very intensive use of oil and energy. The raising and processing of turkeys consumes energy in heating, ventilating and lighting the barns, shipping the turkeys to the slaughterhouse, processing the turkeys at the slaughterhouse etc.

Now as long as we have crude oil available to supply the energy needed to factory farm crops and turkeys it's profitable enough to turn the waste material left over into oil. However once the crude oil is effectively gone then you're left with processing the turkey guts into oil, taking the resulting oil, using the energy it contains and raising more turkeys as well as presumably using some of the oil to run cars, power plants, trains or whatever. That's where the thermodynamic problem will kick in because each time you process your turkey guts, you're going to effectively get less and less energy out of the system and eventually the process will grind to a halt, unless of course you can find other sources of energy to make up the deficit you loose due to the losses caused by thermodynamics.

I'm not saying depolymerization should not be used or implemented. However I think too many people believe that this is a panacea that will resolve our energy problems because they can use depolymerization as a perpetual motion machine changing garbage into oil into useful products into waste and back into oil ad infinitum. As long as we do have concentrated sources of energy in the form of fossil hydrocarbon deposits to keep adding as inputs into the chain described above sure depolymerization will be of some benefit in making oil and therefore slowing down the rate at which we draw down the fossil hydrocarbons, but it won't give us a never ending source of energy for ever. As the fossil hydrocarbons become unavailable at some point the laws of thermodynamics become more noticeable and each time we process our turkey guts the output of oil will support the raising and processing of a smaller and smaller number of turkeys. That's just physics. Don't bitch at me. I didn't write the rules under which the universe runs.

[Silverhair]

23. The flaw in your logic.

You are assuming that the farm crops consume more oil energy than they produce, but they don't. The tractor and machinery to work the fields do require oil, but the plants themselves are SOLAR COLLECTORS. For months between planting and harvest, they soak up solar energy. They use the solar energy to power photosynthesis, the process by which they turn water & CO2 and trace minerals into polymers, which the TDP plant then breaks down into oil.

So in the farmer's field there is a HUGE energy gain over the amount of oil used for the farming.

No laws of physics are broken. You just didn't factor solar energy into your equations.

[plurality]

26. You're missing something though

It requires oil products (plastics, etc) to create the depolymerization plants, and it will require thousands of these things to make a dent. Not to mention all the other garbage that would be going in (household waste) are byproducts of petrochemical products. Our world is dependant on oil, and it's going to be gone before we can change our entire way of existance.

Granted these things can delay to some extent, but it would have been better if we had done this 25 years ago when Carter was talking about it. Instead we stuck our heads in the sand and it's probably too late.

[Silverhair]

31. Actually the plants are made mostly of steel.

Further, the process wasn't discovered until recently. It was the brainchild of one very inspired person. There is absolutely no way that you can predict when inspiration will strike. You can pour money into something, but until somebody has the "Aha" moment, you don't get anywhere.

Also, most of the garbage is the residue of plants, which are SOLAR COLLECTORS. Clue: What is paper made of?

[plurality]

34. What powers the steel plants?

What about all the plastics in our garbage? Once again, what about all the fertilizer needed to grow those plants? our industrialized farms rely heavily on fertilizer, as well as industrial farm equipment. The day of hooking a plow to an ox and planting by handing while hoping the gods bless you with plenty of rain and no pests are long gone.

[Silverhair]

37. No problem on the fertilizer.

Fertilizer is used to make desired plants grow in soil that is not really suited to the plants. All soils have some natural plant that is perfectly suited to that soil, and that natural plant will make a fine solar collector. You won't need any fertilizer at all, if you are raising a crop completely destined for a TDP plant.

If on the other hand, you are raising a food crop, then you would still use fertilizer, and the waste would go to the TDP plant.

[amandabeech]

72. Yes, different plants are suited for different soils

but I don't think that there is a perfect plant for a soil that can be grown and harvested each forever without depleting the soil of minerals and humus necessary for the growth of the plant. Each time that you harvest the plants, be it weeds or food crops, you carry off nutrients like nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium that are necessary in some measure, even if small, for the growth of all plants.

Yes, the sun provides incredible amounts of energy to the plants. The plants use that energy to process minerals provided in the soil, water and air to grow. Hopefully, the plants get water every year from precipitation or irrigation and its provides, and the air is there to be used for the taking and provides carbon and nitrogen (for legumes). However, none of the sun, water or air provide phosphate, potassium or trace minerals for the plant to grow. I would really appreciate it if you would explain to me why weeds will be able to grow without any of these minerals once these minerals are carted off the field as harvested weeds, thus reducing every year the amount of minerals in the soil, and thus reducing the yield every year.

If I'm wrong about basic plant nutrients, even if in small quantities, being necessary for weed growth, I'd like to understand why.


Amanda

[Silverhair]

76. Yes, weed rotation would be needed.

My point is the fertilizers are used to keep on growing wheat (Or corn or whatever food crop.) in the same soil, year after year. That is done because of the huge demand for the crop, and there aren't that many food crops. (There are actually more food crops available, but our society has it's food predjudices.) But if you are raising a crop for its bioenergy, then you have a far wider variety of what can be produced.

Also, TDP produces fertilizer, and in large quanity. Not all of the stuff put into it is converted to oil. You also get a huge amount of carbon, (very useful) and a pile of minerals. The minerals can be used as fertilizer, (depending on what went in)

Check out the site for Changing World Technologies for more info:
http://www.changingworldtech.com/home.html

[amandabeech]

91. Crop rotation should surely help in growing weeds,

has it has been in growing any crop. It would help keep the weeds growing longer in an unfertilized field.

Are you suggesting that weed fields must be fertilized to a certain extent in your suggestion that TDP liberates fertilizing substances? I have read quite a bit about TDP since it first came out several months ago, and I have not seen anyone suggest that it will spew out anything other than calcium, magnesium or trace elements, which are beneficial, but not needed in as large amounts as nitrogen, phosphate and sometimes potassium (potatoes, alfalfa)("NPK").

NPK in pure chemical forms are easy to apply, but I have heard of only one instance of spreading pure carbon on soil in the Amazon are. Low soil carbon levels cause fertility problems in soil, and are rumored to be a problem in fields that have been fertilized solely by chemicals (as opposed to compost) for years, like some in the Midwest. However, pure carbon does not provide humus (decaying plant matter) which improves soil tilth and water retention and provides an environment for healthy and needed soil microbes and worms. Even composted sewage sludge ("bio waste") has more humus in it than pure carbon.

Perhaps if you fed chopped alfalfa or animal wastes into the DTP process, you would come up with NP and pure carbon, as well as oil/natural gas. But you can get the methane out of the animal waste through digesters on site rather than carting that heavy stuff the TDP plant. And you end up with good fertilizer, too, with plenty of hummus.

I hope that you are right in your calculation that weed biomass will keep things going when oil is scarce or non-existent. I believe that we will be so involved trying to feed ourselves at some time post-peak with depleted soils and little or no chemical fertilizer that there will be little biomass available to process into oil or gas after putting sufficient amounts of it back into the soil.

Amanda

[meow mix]

93. cool - so how much substance do you get from an acre of weed?

just wondering =)

[amandabeech]

97. Thanks for posting the enlightening info

[Silverhair]

94. The biomass that goes in would have the same stuff in it

that it would if it were plowed under, including the carbon. So spreading the mineral residue should be like spreading the original plants, minus the oil. The CWT site indicates that the carbon would be separated from the fertilizer.

Anyway, if we can get away from using pertoleum as a fuel, then there would be lots left for use as fertilizer if needed.

[amandabeech]

95. That's an interesting thought

that the nitrogen, phosphate and potassium would end up in mineral form. I'd like to see the TDP people give it a try and see what happens.

Please see my post #91 on the case for decayed plant matter rather than straight carbon in maintaining soil health.

Amanda

[Silverhair]

100. There is some info about it on their web site.

Not much on that topic however. www.changingworldtech.com

[FlaGranny]

111. Crop rotation works just fine.

Legumes add nitrogen to the soil and should be rotated with crops that require lots of nitrogen. Food crops could be rotated with energy crops and the remains of food crops still could be used for energy production. A small amount of all crops should also be tilled back into the soil and composted manures used as a supplement. This is a natural system and natural systems have sustained lush plant life everywhere on earth, except for the desert and the poles, since the beginning of time.

[plurality]

24. problem is...

It takes energy (fossil fuel) to make energy. And that whole Law of Thermodynamics thing means that you'll always come out with less than you put in.

[Silverhair]

35. But plants are SOLAR COLLECTORS.

No laws of physics are violated. I have a minor in physics. It is really very simple. I assume that you know that plants collect energy from sunlight? We use some oil in running the machinery, but we get many times more energy from the plants in the fields collecting sunshine.

You haven't addressed the solar collection aspect of this. You keep ignoring it. Fortunately, the people building the plants aren't ignoring it.

Yes, it will take a lot of the plants. No problem there. If the plants do work as advertised, and can turn waste into oil at 85% efficiency and a cost of under $20 per barrel of oil, then they will be super profitable to build and operate. That WILL attract LOTS of capital to build lots of the plants. You don't need a gov't project, just make sure that gov't doesn't get in the way.

BTW, the process is completely pollution free, and it can handle toxic wastes too. The oil that it produces is also cleaner than petroleum.

[plurality]

38. I'm not ignoring the solar aspect of it

I just don't see how with the limited supply of petroleum remaining that we'll be able to construct enough of these plants to produce the amount of oil neccessary to continue our way of life that consumes millions of barrels of oil a day.

[Silverhair]

40. Then watch while it happens.

All of my posts on this are assuming that the process does indeed work as the articles say it does. I don't have the ability to do any direct research. All the web Googling that I have done only turns up positive articles.

[plurality]

45. I hope it does

The thing is, I'm not doubting the usefulness of this technology or whether it works. What I'm doubting is whether we've waited to long for it to stave of the crisis that is coming once our oil supply starts going down. Maybe if we had found this technology 15 years ago, or if we had heeded the advice of Carter and others about the neccessity of creating new technologies and lessening our oil demand, but now I'm afraid it'll end up being too little too late. Hopefully, I'll be wrong.

[Silverhair]

51. The oil supply won't end suddenly.

That is an unrealistic view, and ignores how the market works. As prices go up, people start conserving. And prices WILL go up. Also, TDP plants aren't that hard to build. The technology of construction of a TDP plant is pretty old - its plumbing. Boilers, pipes, valves, storage tanks,etc, and some computerized control equipment. The workers don't have to be rocket scientists either. Most can be trained fairly quickly for their jobs and supervised by a few highly trained technicians, much like a current refinery.

[plurality]

57. I never said the oil supply would disappear suddenly

The problem is that it's going to start decreasing along with an exponentially increasing demand, which will cause prices to skyrocket. Think farmers not being able to afford to produce crops, people not being able to afford to pay for electricity in their homes, and gas in the $4.00 a gallon range. Oil doesn't have to disappear to make things a mess, it's just has to get more and more expensive, which it is.

[Silverhair]

59. Those are projection, are debateable, and aren't engraved in stone.

When I was much younger, in the 1960's there was a LOT of alarmist stuff written, and I believed it, and none of it happened. Paul Erlich had the crap scared out of me. Now I take all of the alarmist stuff with a huge helping of salt.

Peak oil is a real problem. I do not deny that. I just question the assumptions that make it a super crisis that it is already too late for. And I think that on that one, we do have an answer.

Sadly, there are other real problems that I am worried about that we don't have answers for.

[wuushew]

29. sounds to good to be true

"We will be able to
make oil for $8 to $12 a barrel," says Paul Baskis, the inventor of the
process. "We are going to be able to switch to a carbohydrate economy."


that means there is an immediate incentive to produce as much oil as possible as long as the cost is less than the market rate. I don't care how much tinfoil you are wearing someone somewhere would be making a mint of this if true.

Does anyone have a ethanol/hemp vs. TDP energy comparisson?

[plurality]

33. read this

scroll down a ways in the link

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Home.html

You're forgetting about biomass and ethanol. We can just grow our fuel.

In an article entitled The Post Petroleum Paradigm, retired Professor of Geology at the University of Oregon, Dr. Walter Youngquist addresses the severe limitations of biomass and ethanol. The following is an excerpt from that article:

Oil derived from plants is sometimes promoted as a fuel source to replace petroleum.

The facts and experience with ethanol are an example. Ethanol is a plant-derived alcohol (usually from corn) which is used today, chiefly in the form of gasohol, a mixture of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline. Because it is used to some extent,it is commonly thought that ethanol is a partially acceptable solution to the fuel problem for machines.

However, ethanol is an energy negative – it takes more energy to produce it than is obtained from ethanol.

Ethanol production is wasteful of fossil energy resources. About 71% more energy is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy contained in a gallon of ethanol.

Ethanol production survives by the grace of a subsidy by the U.S. government from taxpayer dollars. Continuing the production of ethanol is purely a device for buying the Midwest U.S. farm vote, and may also be related to the fact that the company which makes 60% of U.S. ethanol is also one of the largest contributors of campaign money to the Congress – a distressing example of politics overriding logic.


What about that new technology that can turn anything into oil?


"Thermal depolymerization" which can transform many kinds of waste into oil, could help us raise our energy efficiency as we lose power due to oil depletion. While it could help us ameliorate the crash, it is not a true solution.

Like all other forms of alternative energy, we have run out of time to implement it before the crash. Currently, only one thermal depolymerization plant is operational. Thousands of such plants would need to come online before this technology would make even a small difference in our situation.

Furthermore, whatever comes out of the process must carry less useful energy than what went into the process, as required by the laws of thermodynamics. Finally, most of the waste input (such as plastics and tires) requires high grade oil to make in the first place.

The biggest problem with thermal depolymerization is that it is being advertised as a means to maintain business as usual. Such advertising promotes further consumption, provides us with a dangerously false sense of security, and encourages us to continue thinking that we don't need to make this issue a priority.

[Silverhair]

44. That link IGNORES the solar collection aspect.

He assumes that ALL of the plant energy comes from petroleum, and it doesn't. It comes from the sun. I was raised on a farm, and I know how much fuel we used, and can appreciate what kind of fire you would have if a wild fire swept through the fields (I saw it once.)and what kind of a fire you would have if all of our fuel burned at once. Believe me, the fire from acres & acres of fields going up is many many times bigger than if our storage tank had burned.

No one has address the fact that plants get their energy from SOLAR COLLECTION yet. It keeps getting ignored.

[plurality]

49. That's not the main argument about this tech. in the link

The point being made is that right now there is only one of these plants in operation, and we're going to need thousands. If this technology is going to be our saving grace it needs to be implemented now, especially if we've already hit Peak Oil like many are postulating. It's going to take decades to get this technology to a level that could soften the blow, and if it's going to we need to be diverting a huge amount of resources to doing it, and it's not happening.

[Silverhair]

58. Not decades.

That is simply alarmist. First, we are not going suddenly slam into a brick wall. Rather it will be like going up a hill that has an continually increasing slope. As the price of petroleum goes up, people will slow their consumption, and the profitability of producing a TDP plant will attract more investment capital. Unless the gov't gets involved, in which case they will probably screw it up.

[amandabeech]

68. Do you have any current information

on the ratio of fossil fuel energy to solar energy in farming? I have read numerous times recently that modern farming is very significantly more fossil energy intensive than even in the 1970s.

By your moniker, I suspect that you grew up on a farm in the 1930s or 1940s, before heavy pesticide and nitrogen fertilizer use, and before tractors and other farm machinery supersized and became such immense gas hogs. My retired uncle still farms in the old way, and his fossil energy use looks to be much less than the modern farms around him. Just getting all the modern inputs to the field uses up a lot of energy these days.


Amanda

[Silverhair]

87. True, It was a loooong time ago that I was on the farm.

Hell, I remember Dad hitching up horses to some of the farm equipment. I was a little feller then. We did have a tractor. Well, the owner had a tractor. We were sharecroppers. Yes, the new tractors are awesome. I remember being on the tractor in the hot sun, with the dust rising up from the disc harrows. (After the corn was harvested - by hand - the cornstalks were cut up and put back under the soil as nutrients for the next year. We didn't use any fertilizers at all.) Now there is an air conditioned cab with stereo.
I have even picked cotton by hand. Walking between the rows pulling a sack behind me, picking the boles of cotton & putting the cotton in the sack. Backbreaking work.

The modern farm tractor does use a lot more energy, but it does a lot more with that energy too. With those huge tires they can go in softer dirt, pull more plows behind them. A farmer isn't going to pay for all that fuel, unless it is giving him more in return than the fuel bill for the old two cylinder John Deere.

And the TDP process also produces fertilizer.

[amandabeech]

96. That sounds a little like the life on the farm

that my parents describe, except they were on northern dairy farms. They used cow manure on the corn fields and chicken litter in the garden. They also had alfalfa and vetch in the hay fields which when turned over puts nitrogen in the soil. I call all of that biomass fertilizer.

My experience with harvesting is in picking cherries and strawberries by hand. I did not have to pull anything so heavy through fields, but I spent some time stooped over or crawling on the ground for strawberries or banging around with a large metal leaking pail full of cherries on my stomach. Juice seeking, stinging insects were a problem. Working at McD's was a lot more pleasant.

You have a point with the current giants, but sometimes I wonder if there isn't a little "keeping up with the Joneses" going on, too, at least in my family's part of the world.


Amanda

[wuushew]

88. here something I found

http://www.oilcrash.com/eating.htm#costs

[Silverhair]

90. TDP also produces lots of excellent fertilizer as a by-product. n/t

[Silverhair]

41. I don't have a link

but I have seen that TDP is far cheaper, is completely pollution free, and you can toss almost anything into the TDP process.

[wuushew]

46. I don't know about that

you can turn almost anything into alcohol(or hydrogren from alcohol) through fermentation and pyrolysis. Every example of TDP given lists feedstocks as fatty/heavy organic waste.

[Silverhair]

48. No. You can toss almost everything into a TDP plant.

It will even take raw sewage.

[lastknowngood]

3. The entire global economy which is based on cheep fuel

will collapse and may have already started. All of the food in this country is produced by cheep fuel, take that away and much less food think about that one. The US economy is based on consumption of resources but if those resources are finite then there will be a huge crash.

[Mari333]

5. and people are clueless

every plastic bag you use every over packaged product requires oil to make it ...polyuerathane and chemicals..the US is a wasteland filled with it..big corporations are NOT held accountable for overpackaging in the US as are the european countries that hold themselves accountable, such as the ones in Germany..
in the meantime, the party is over folks..in the US, for sure. The 5% using 25% of the worlds resources isnt going to last
I have 13 acres of woods but how fast will that be used up? I live in an area where sun is rare..and my house is an old farmhouse thats heated with gas..
so do I convert to wood, do I convert to reliving in an underground house somewhere else where Im safe and can use solar energy? There is no push at all for this phenomenon on a grand scale..people thumb their noses in the US and buy Hummers (every drop of oil is a a drop of a soldiers blood now)
do people downsize? will Hemp EVER be allowed as an alternative? why arent there cornstarch bags ?
amazingly, every time you choose a polyerathane bag in a store you are only contributing to the mess..
it wont last.and no one is talking about it.

[Kazak]

15. Paper or plastic?

Heh. I always think to myself, Hmmm, deforestation or oil consumption.

[girl gone mad]

32. One is renewable,

both are recycleable.

Most people probably don't recycle their plastic bags, and paper is at least biodegradeable.

Do any stores still offer re-usable cloth bags?

[TennesseeWalker]

10. Read "The Party's Over" by Richard Heinberg.

www.museletter.com

VERY important book. Read it, give your copy to a friend.

[Dissenting_Prole]

11. Or get this documentary

THE END OF SUBURBIA: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream

http://www.brant.net/gvmr/electric.htm

[hatrack]

14. Also good: "Hubbert's Peak", by Kenneth Deffeyes

A really good, methodical introduction to the basics of petroleum geology for the lay reader.

[jpak]

17. Another good one...

Beyond Oil: The Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming Decades

Gever et al. (1986) Complex Systems Research Center UNH

an oldie but still a goodie..

[number6]

12. b b b but the ee-rak war wasn't

about Oil :shrug: ???? ..:eyes:

http://dieoff.org/42Countries/42Countries.htm

[Product of Evolution]

13. Hey...

:kick:

[wuushew]

18. Why is it that only educated people and liberals take problems seriously?

Why is peak oil never discussed by the right. Do they actually think rapture is coming?



see freeper responses to this book
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1074502/posts?q=1&&page=1

[Viking12]

27. Freepers Scare Me

with their stupidity.

[girl gone mad]

36. They accuse..

environmentalists of being Chicken Littles over Global Warming and Peak Oil.

Yet look at the over-reaction on that side to terrorism and Iraq. We should give up basic freedoms because of 9/11, but ask them to drive more efficient vehicals because of environmental concerns or peak oil and they threaten to start a civil war.

Nevermind that more people die from air pollution than terrorism or that the vast majority of climate scientists believe CO2 emissions are causing global warming.

A bizarre dichotomy.

[KayLaw]

42. Thanks

Good points all, Girl gone mad.

[nolabels]

107. The difference is how you get people to react to fear

For the terra boogie man they can get the irrational kicked in because it is predicated on drastic surprise.

With something like a Eco-collapse one can work on such things rationally with progress and milestones to reach.

The latter don't work if you want to make a quick easy buck with Flin flam.

[RainDog]

19. good for ABC!

we need to discuss this issue and more as adults in a democracy.

we can immediately decriminalize hemp. (And I believe some hemp growing consortium just won a court battle over this very issue...tho I know the fight is not over.)

we can immediately, at the local levels of govt, look to small scale wind farms, solar fuel cells, and currently available technology, and give tax breaks and incentives for all who turn to renewable energy sources.

my city has its first soy-powered bus.

we can place a premium on large buildings which do not use alternative energy sources to discourage the continued practice of fossil fuel use...

a "sin" tax, like cigs and alcohol now enjoy.

there are so many things we can do now, if only we have people who are courageous enough to take on the fossils in the White House.

[pscot]

21. Dope will get you through times of no oil

better than oil will get you through times of no dope? Great idea. If we have to watch the end of the world as we know it, at least we can do it with a buzz on.

[RainDog]

69. sorry, but hemp is not a psychotropic

you'd have to smoke a joint the size of a telephone pole to get high on smoking hemp.

cannabis should also be legal, imo, and is merely prohibition by another name.

hate to kill your hopeful buzz, but from what I hear, compared to when I was a playa... :) ...I'm a mom of two and I'm making fun of myself, fwiw.

anyway, I hear that hybridization and other techniques have made what's now out there much more potent than what was around when I was in college.

[Karenina]

102. JEIN, Raindog.

It's a slang contracion for Ja, aber Nein. This is the "scare tactic."
Yes, some strains created with the benefits of modern tech are stronger. but NEIN. Some of that shit smuggled in way back in the w-a-y-back (especially from Asia, we're talking Viet Nam era) was "heady" stuff, which was where the sprichwort originated, "One hit, no shit." The "meme" also ignores the self-limiting nature of the FREUNDLICHE weed... When it's "too much" folks break out the Dr. Pepper, pull out the blankets, pass the chips and remote control and sleep peacefully. It's almost FOUR decades since I met the herb and in that time I have NEVER had to fight someone who was simply "stoned" for their car keys. Shall I tell you about the blood-drenched toll from alcohol?

[RainDog]

105. scare tactic? Jein

:)

I didn't say that as a negative.

From what I hear, if you go to Amsterdam, you can choose your cannabis like you'd choose a merlot or shiraz or pinot noir.

like I said, I think cannabis should be legalized, and I have no problem with people who smoke it.

like you, I've never seen anyone who was smoking cannabis act obnoxious like people who cannot hold their liquor.

there are also lots of home medicinal uses for cannabis, as well, and it's just plain idiocy that keeps it illegal at this point.

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[DjTj]

55. Caltech is my alma mater!

...and Goodstein has been writing about this for a while.

Glad to see he got a book out and it's getting press!

[boobooday]

62. It would explain a lot

About the behavior -- the Texas takeover, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan (think pipeline). The irrational, illogical screaming of junk science! at every mention of global warming and sustainability.

They're thinking about those last drops of oil. How much $$$$$$$$ will that be worth, when nobody can get any, and nobody is prepared to use energy in any other way?

What could be more important than control of those last few drops? What could make an administration willing to DESTROY all relationships with former allies.

Now I'm scaring the hell out of myself.

http://www.wgoeshome.com

Jeanette, with a chill

[RainDog]

70. but what you're saying is, sadly, true.

and we have the worst possible administration in office because, instead of preparing for the future and using tax breaks to fund renewable energy projects, these m.f.-ers are acting like oil co. execs...not leaders of a nation.

They are like Neros diddling each other's profit margins while Rome burns out.

[TennesseeWalker]

71. They're acting like they know about Peak Oil.

I think they do, and they've known it for a LONG time. It explains stolen elections, war, Homeland Security, the Patriot Act, and everything else. Disaster looms.

[RainDog]

77. disaster looms because they're so greedy

we do not have to face disaster. if we had courageous leaders, innovative leaders, rather than the empty warheads who now occupy the executive, legislative and judicial branches, we could look at energy independence as the new "man on the moon" goal for Americans.

dems could talk about a return to "small town values" where locals, rather than corps, created energy farms.

Places in cities that are blighted now could be turned into gardens and people who are on food stamps could also learn how to grow their own produce, which would be healthier for them, and which also gives something to people's hearts when they participate in the cycle of life via learning to garden and cook with the seasons.

America-corp could work on retro-fitting existing bldgs to use renewable energy forms.

rather than dumping crap into the great lakes, wind farms would generate clean energy. entire lakes are not needed for this...it would not have to be like a traffic jam of windmills.

the states in the southwest could generate solar energy fuel cell battery power and they would not have to have Mr. Peabody's coal mining on sacred Hopi territory to light freaking Lost Vegas.

I wish I could work with people who want to make this a reality in our lives right now. I don't have the scientific wherewithall, but I think I can frame the issues in such ways that families and towns would want to change the ways they think about energy creation.

[amandabeech]

73. Have any of the Democratic candidates mentioned Peak Oil?

I've seen the concept mentioned on the Dean blog, but no other. Kerry features the need for renewables, but only to replace middle eastern oil. Since middle eastern oil is probably going to be the main source left in 20 years or so, this is either a cover for preparing for peak oil, or Kerry and his advisors have no clue.

Amanda

[FlaGranny]

112. G.W.* is all ready for the coming

oil shortage, you know. His "ranch" has all the latest energy saving gadgets. I'll bet a lot of his oil buddies are ready too. Somehow, that makes me even more frightened.

[Raster]

66. why the hell are we giving tax breaks for hummers???????

According to Environmental Attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, senior counsel for the National Resources Defense Fund:

If we raise fuel efficiency standards in American cars by one mile per gallon, we would get more oil than would be in two arctic national wildlife refuges

Raise it by 2.7 miles a gallon to eliminate all the oil that we import from Iraq and Kuwait combined

Raise it by 7.6 mpg, we eliminate one-hundred percent of our gulf oil imports into this country

[amandabeech]

98. So that people who want to drive a military vehicle

and pretend to be a soldier every day won't have to do it in a war zone, and will be able to purchase the military vehicle with enough money left over to make campaign donations to lots of repug politicians.

Amanda

[NashVegas]

92. They Want Our Complicity in the Oil Wars Now

well at least it's out.