What Happens when Oil Runs Out?

[yeshuaslavejeff]

I agree that the greed will take us to the brink. Glad I won't be around to see it.

oops....
too late......
already way way way way way way way way way ...
... ... ... ... ... ... .... ...
... ... ... ... .... ... ... ...
... .... .. ... ...
way way way way way way way way way
...
past the brink for most all the world.

(unless, of course, someone moved it)

 

[Radrook]

oops....
too late......
already way way way way way way way way way ...
... ... ... ... ... ... .... ...
... ... ... ... .... ... ... ...
... .... .. ... ...
way way way way way way way way way
...
past the brink for most all the world.

(unless, of course, someone moved it)

Possibly very true. But since I don't have that much longer to live the devastations described won't be during my lifetime. That extremely somber scenario is for our grandkids to experience.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

THAT is very optimistic --- and our grandkids have SUFFERED HORRIBLY because of the devastation effects of greed , society today (always) , war, pestilence, famine, drugs, culture, science,
for instance the OLIVE LEAF - wonderful to use,
but not legal since 1955 or thereabouts,
and things like it would replace or illuminate the lack of need for disease or for 'legal' manmade poisons injected into the grandkids bloodstream (for example only here)...

and the many plagues and fears and worries of so many - zika , ebola, small pox, arthritis, diabetes, hbp, itching, scratching, psoriasis, emphesyma, cancer, migraines, dementia, etc etc etc etc etc

 

[Monna]

Ever wonder how ANYONE understood Hebrew with NO Capital leTTers, and no puncu- ation & ?

Often. I have lived close to multiple languages and to translators. There are still languages today that have minimal punctuation and only one case for letters. (Arabic has no capitals, and in most ordinary writing e.g. newspapers, even skips short vowels). So I can understand why one can get so many different interpretations from the same original hebrew, or aramaic manuscripts. Bt if I wrte wtht vowls you wll prbly B able 2 undrstnd the sntnce - as long as the first and last letters are there.

 

[Radrook]

THAT is very optimistic --- and our grandkids have SUFFERED HORRIBLY because of the devastation effects of greed , society today (always) , war, pestilence, famine, drugs, culture, science,
for instance the OLIVE LEAF - wonderful to use,
but not legal since 1955 or thereabouts,
and things like it would replace or illuminate the lack of need for disease or for 'legal' manmade poisons injected into the grandkids bloodstream (for example only here)...

and the many plagues and fears and worries of so many - zika , ebola, small pox, arthritis, diabetes, hbp, itching, scratching, psoriasis, emphesyma, cancer, migraines, dementia, etc etc etc etc etc

Well, that is true. We inherit what our selfish irresponsible elders leave behind.

I remember that during our first grade classes we had regular air raid practice where we would be told to duck under our wooden school desks ad huddle quietly. Of course we really didn't know what it was all about but felt very safe under those desks. Whether the teacher herself believed that we were actually safe I don't know. Some videos that appear during those times immediately after WWII speak very casually about civilians surviving a nuclear attack. Perhaps it was a deliberate misinformation campaign to assure the civilians that the propagation of those God awful weapons wasn't really as bad as might have been imagined? I really don't know.

We were also constantly trained to march in gym class during the second and third grade. Of course we thought it was all in fun. But now I realize that our elders were training us for a possible WWIII or some other military conflict such as the Viet Nam War where marching would be demanded. So our elders who would leave a world of their own making behind when they died, started us off very early. In fact, I still sometimes find myself performing marching motions without even thinking about it. That's how thorough the training was.

So no, I am not in any way justifying that we leave a world full of problems for the future generations.

 

[Ophiolite]

Bt if I wrte wtht vowls you wll prbly B able 2 undrstnd the sntnce - as long as the first and last letters are there.

Tht crtnly s crrct.
i oe o i ou ue o oe (It doesn't work if you use only vowels).

 

[doubtingmerle]

This particular company has been working with the forestry industry for some years, has a special refinery for the pine oil, prior to shipping it to their large, regular refinery where it is further processed and mixed with fossil based diesel.

Understood, and this mixing with diesel fuel is what allows us to use biofuel without modification of the engine. Pure biofuel is called B100 and requires special engine modifications. See Alternative Fuels Data Center: Biodiesel Blends .

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

QUOTE="Ophiolite, post: 71189172, member: 234799"]Tht crtnly s crrct.
i oe o i ou ue o oe ....[/QUOTE
old macdonald had a farm eieio !

 

[Radrook]

Yes, all effort to prepare for the unavoidable depletion are appreciated.

It is difficult for me to see how anything will replace the tremendous convenience we have with petroleum. There is nothing like putting 10 gallons in your tank and having at your command energy far beyond the dreams of people in the past. Nothing on the horizon has near the potential of gasoline.

Personally I fear that we are headed for a low energy era. Without gasoline we will likely head back to a life similar to the 18th and 19th century. Hopefully we can save computers and telecommunications. But we may be riding around in buggies as we email each other on our smart phones. I suspect we will be there in 100 years.

Going back to that simple lifestyle doesn't sound like a bad thing.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Well, that is true. We inherit what our selfish irresponsible elders leave behind.

So no, I am not in any way justifying that we leave a world full of problems for the future generations.

Going back to that simple lifestyle doesn't sound like a bad thing.

And who today is going back to a simpler lifestyle at least.... even just to have homegrown quality food, (while still living in a big modern house) ?

We can't change the world ...

 

[doubtingmerle]

And who today is going back to a simpler lifestyle at least.... even just to have homegrown quality food, (while still living in a big modern house) ?

We can't change the world ...

We continue to splurge, but it seems that this lifestyle cannot continue.

When one thinks about going back to a 19th century lifestyle, the question is how we do that with 7 billion plus people. When we had the horses of a billion people defecating in the streets, it was a major health hazard. What will the streets look like if the horses of 7 billion people are on the streets?

And before coal and oil, people burned wood to keep their houses warm. As a result, much of Europe was deforested. If, after fossil fuels, we go back to wood to heat our homes, how will we possibly get enough of it?

 

[eclipsenow]

Nuclear power can run the world for a billion years! Uranium from seawater is plentiful and replenished by continental erosion, and breeder reactors eat nuclear waste / transuranics, so that we get 60 to 90 times the energy out of it. For example, America has enough nuclear waste to run her for 1000 years and the UK enough to run her for 500 years, and most greenies think nuclear waste is a problem! I'm an Eco-modernist. That's an ultra high tech nuclear-greenie. I'm very optimistic that we already have the technology to solve climate change, it's easy! The hard part is the political willpower. Every government on earth should be assembly line building breeder reactors like the French did in the 1970's, building out about 3/4 of their grid in just 15 years! (The other quarter was already hydro). They have the cleanest power in Europe and export more electricity than ANY other country on earth!

 

[doubtingmerle]

Nuclear power can run the world for a billion years! Uranium from seawater is plentiful and replenished by continental erosion,

Your billion year figure is way off, but yes, there appears to be enough nuclear material to last the lifetime of everybody living today.

Traditional reactors produce toxic radioactive waste that we don't know what to do with. Combine that with safety concerns, and the result is that there have been almost no reactors built in the last 40 years. If we get desperate we can do this, but the risk is high.

And how do we use nuclear to replace gasoline? You can't put a nuclear reactor in your car. You could make electric to charge batteries, but batteries are notoriously low in energy density compared to gas, and the materials to make quality batteries are in short supply. Seven billion people driving long distances in cars powered by batteries seems very impractical.

and breeder reactors eat nuclear waste / transuranics, so that we get 60 to 90 times the energy out of it.

Ok, but breeder reactors have a whole new set of problems. The sodium used to cool them is an immense fire hazard, and the reactors frequently find themselves shut down for repairs. Further the reactors are not intrinsically safe. If they lose coolant, the reaction can go critical and cause a nuclear explosion. And the plutonium they breed is easily used in weapons. Although this has been tried many times over decades, none has been a commercial success. See http://fissilematerials.org/library/rr08.pdf .

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

And before coal and oil, people burned wood to keep their houses warm. As a result, much of Europe was deforested.

I don't think so.... can anyone find out ?
I think it was more like the 'good ole' usa - the indians/ native americans --- just like natives in other lands also: eskimoes, africans, indonesians, etc etc etc
used the land and resources wisely, so they were not diminished.

Power hungry, money hungry, 'corporate type entities' (anti-christ), came along
and devastated the land, the people, the cultures
INSTEAD OF caring for it, or for them, instead of bringing the "GOOD NEWS" they brought death, robbery, and destruction...

If, after fossil fuels, we go back to wood to heat our homes, how will we possibly get enough of it?

< shrugs > simple.
as always.
trust God, return to His Word, Pray (INSTEAD OF PREY), and obey Him.

 

[eclipsenow]

Your billion year figure is way off, but yes, there appears to be enough nuclear material to last the lifetime of everybody living today.

Not so! A breeder reactor gets 60 to 90 times the energy out of each kg of uranium. 1 kg of uranium is enough to supply 1 person's LIFETIME of energy, including all the energy required to manufacture synthetic fuels for diesel, flight, and even recharge electric cars. 1 kg in a BREEDER reactor = 60 to 90 human lifetimes supplied with abundant, reliable energy. The ocean already has vast quantities of uranium, but not only this, erosion tops it up faster than we could use it. Uranium is 'renewable' in this sense, but we have about 50,000 years of uranium and thorium to burn on land, so we might have fusion or space-based solar power by then anyway.

Traditional reactors produce toxic radioactive waste that we don't know what to do with.

Not true! Waste = fuel! The final waste called 'fission products' (after 60 to 90 times the energy is extracted) is simply vitrified into waterrpoof ceramic bricks or plates, and buried for 300 years. Then they're safe. DONE! No risk whatsoever!

Combine that with safety concerns, and the result is that there have been almost no reactors built in the last 40 years.

Not true! Coal kills 3 million people a year, or 2 Chernobyl's a day! Sorry, but nuclear power is VASTLY safer than coal, and only public perception of risk is in the way. They're already moving people back to within 4km of the Fukushima reactor!

If we get desperate we can do this, but the risk is high.

Dr James Hansen calculates that nuclear power in America has already saved 1.8 million lives by displacing coal. Sorry, the risk is too high NOT to adopt nuclear power.

And how do we use nuclear to replace gasoline? You can't put a nuclear reactor in your car.

Great question, and one I used to panic about! Indeed, ALL your questions have been great, and you sound like me 7 years ago!

Dr James Hansen says believing in intermittent, unreliable renewable energy like wind and solar is like believing in the Easter Bunny or Tooth Fairy. Hansen warns not to drink sustainable energy Kool-Aid

He also says the world should build 115 reactors a year.Nuclear power paves the only viable path forward on climate change
Now, 115 reactors a year sounds like a lot, but if you break it down to a fraction of reactors to GDP, the French already beat this in the 1970's under the Messmer plan, so we know it's doable. It's not too fast. The other good news? This clean electricity grid could replace about half our oil use! Oil breaks down into 2 main categories, light vehicles and heavy vehicles. Light vehicles burn gasoline (aka petroleum) in family cars, garbage trucks, city buses, and light delivery trucks. The *great* news is that America's NREL have concluded that today’s grid and power plants could *already* charge 84% of all light vehicles (if those power plants were all run at maximum). https://goo.gl/gt21CX City designs in European countries use far less oil, and so it would probably be about 100% of all light vehicles. That means Dr James Hansen's 115 reactors a year would *directly replace* gasoline.

But what about diesel? Diesel powers heavier vehicles like long-haul semi-trailers, harvesters, and mining trucks. Also, what about jet fuel for airlines? This is where "Blue Crude" comes to the rescue. This is fuel from seawater. American nuclear-powered aircraft carriers wanted to be able to generate jet-fuel while at sea so they could eliminate logistical concerns about fuel supply while on missions. They've cracked it! With enough electricity, they can now suck CO2 and hydrogen out of seawater and mix them to make diesel. Not only that, it's economical. Yes, we will need more nuclear power plants to run this process. The electricity to split water and CO2 out of seawater is *not* included in Dr Hansen's 115 reactors per year. But that's not a problem! The cost of the *extra* nuclear power plants required to power "Blue Crude" is included in the end price of the diesel. It’s affordable. Synthetic diesel As "Blue Crude" ramps up, so will the nukes that run it. That means both halves of the oil world, gasoline and diesel, can be replaced economically with *existing* technology for tens of thousands of years on known land-reserves of uranium and thorium. Indeed, there might even be cheaper and more efficient ways of having hot thermal nuclear reactors crack the water directly in thermochemical reactions rather than generating electricity to do it. As nuclear power and electric cars scale up while fossil fuels scale down, we will save millions of lives from fossil fuel pollution let alone the horrors of rampant global warming. We will finally have a sustainable grid and transport system that will not suddenly run out of resources. Job done!

Ok, but breeder reactors have a whole new set of problems. The sodium used to cool them is an immense fire hazard, and the reactors frequently find themselves shut down for repairs.

EBR2 ran well for decades without incident, and easily passed far worse power outages than Fukushima!

Please watch this 7 minute video of the test.

Further the reactors are not intrinsically safe. If they lose coolant, the reaction can go critical and cause a nuclear explosion.

I'm going to assume you meant a nuclear 'meltdown', because no nuclear reactor ANYWHERE can EVER cause a nuclear explosion! A reactor is not a bomb! It CANNOT cause a nuclear explosion! No reactor ever has, or ever will, cause a nuclear explosion. Chernobyl and Fukushima were not nuclear explosions! Fukushima was a giant 'squeaky pop' test! (Remember those in High School? A test tube of hydrogen?) The water coolant split in the high temperatures of their reactor melting down. Hydrogen then built up OUTSIDE the reactor, and a spark went BOOM! And they're becoming intrinsically safe. EBR2 was intrinsically safe because the liquid metal coolant was NOT water, and did NOT split, and eventually dissipated the heat. It survived WORSE conditions than Fukushima's power outages. GE have a reactor called the S-PRISM ready to deploy in the first country that will let them.

And the plutonium they breed is easily used in weapons. Although this has been tried many times over decades, none has been a commercial success. See http://fissilematerials.org/library/rr08.pdf .

"The so-called pyroprocessing that occurs at an IFR site is quite unlike the PUREX (Plutonium and Uranium Recovery by EXtraction) reprocessing, which isolates weapons-purity plutonium from a thermal reactor’s spent fuel. During the entire relatively simple pyroprocess within the confines of the IFR, the plutonium is always in combination with elements that make it impossible to use for weapons without further, PUREX-type processing, and is so radioactive that the entire operation is done remotely behind heavy shielding. Once the new material that we want to dispose of is added from outside, it too is removed from possible weapons use once and for all. Thus all the actinides in spent fuel from thermal reactors, as well as weapons-grade material we wish to get rid of, can be sent to IFRs. Instead of being a plague on future generations, the energy potential of the actinides is fully utilised in the production of electricity. Consider, if you will, what this means in terms of energy availability. Nuclear “waste”—which in today’s terms can now be seen to be a gross misnomer—from LWRs128 still contains about 95% of the fuel’s original energy. IFR plants can burn, in time, all of the actinides that have been mined, not just those that make it into the LWR’s fuel. None of the actinides that enter the site will ever leave it, until the time comes that all the plutonium from thermal reactors has been used up, and excess fissile material must be bred and transported to new reactors that need an initial loading. As we’ll see later on in the book, for all the worry about the long-lived nuclear waste building up all over the world, we can easily use it all up in IFRs. And once it’s all used up, all we’ll need to keep the then existing IFRs operating is U-238, the principal component of depleted uranium (DU), which is a byproduct of uranium enrichment and the main component of all reactor fuels. We have so much of this already available that it could provide all the power needs of the entire planet for hundreds of years before we need to mine any more uranium. This is the same depleted uranium that is currently being used in both defensive and offensive weaponry, primarily by the United States. It would be a great improvement if we’d use it for generating electricity instead of shooting it at people."
From bottom of page 137, Prescription for the Planet, recommended by Dr James Hansen. It's free to download now.
http://www.thesciencecouncil.com/pdfs/P4TP4U.pdf

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

If only it weren't for that pesky few millions tons (plus or minus) of toxic radioactive waste .... already , and of course the greed motive.... (to hide , cover up, and dismiss the damage already done, and inevitable) ....

 

[eclipsenow]

If only it weren't for that pesky few millions tons (plus or minus) of toxic radioactive waste .... already , and of course the greed motive.... (to hide , cover up, and dismiss the damage already done, and inevitable) ....

What on earth? Did you even read my post above? If not, here's a summary.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

I have no reason to believe nor to trust the sources of that.
I know there are a lot better ways for what is needed,
just not as profitable, so they were 'scrapped'.

 

[eclipsenow]

No reason to 'believe' unless you bother to actually read outside your comfort zone! The anti-intellectualism of Americans that just turn within for 'truth' anytime the outside world dares intrude on their precious 'opinions' really amazes me. So why don't you read a little wikipedia? Don't go on about wikipedia being an unreliable source either: if you're big enough to post in a forum on the internet, then you're big enough to read and discern wikipedia's sources.

Breeder reactors burn the longer lived actinides in nuclear waste, eventually burning the nuclear waste down to the fission products which only stay hot for 300 to 500 years.
Breeder reactor - Wikipedia

Breeder reactors have been tested and are only a decade or two away from full commercialisation, and in the meantime today's Generation 3 reactors can be built. They have walk-away passive safety systems that don't even need an operator present to survive Fukushima scale power outages. Gen 3 reactors make the perfect fuel for breeder reactors! And when the GenIV breeders finally arrive, they'll burn through all the material the Gen3 reactors made. Many nations and companies are in a frantic race to commercialise the breeder reactor physics that we have tested thoroughly. We have over 400 reactor years experience with the fast-reactor category alone, and some nations already have them in operation (see list below).
Fast Neutron Reactors | FBR - World Nuclear Association
There are two main categories of breeder reactor.

CATEGORY ONE: Fast Neutron reactors.
Fast-neutron reactor - Wikipedia

Russia had the old BN-350, and then built the Bn-600. Note: the Japanese paid Russia a billion for the technical specs on their old BN-600, and “The operation of the reactor is an international study in progress; Russia, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom currently participate.”
BN-600 reactor - Wikipedia

They just opened the BN-800 (and sold the plans to China).
BN-800 reactor - Wikipedia

They are building 11 new normal reactors over the next few years, including 2 whopping great BN-1200's BREEDERS!
Russia to build 11 new nuclear reactors by 2030

G.E. have the PRISM ready for commercial prototype testing (as the original proof-of-concept testing was done decades ago in the EBR2). They are basically ready to deploy in the first country that will let them.
PRISM (reactor) - Wikipedia

China will mass produce breeder nukes cheaper than coal in just 6 years!
China seriously looking at supercritical water cooled reactors – they could be low cost enough to get China to stop building new coal starting in 2025 | NextBigFuture.com

CATEGORY TWO: Thermal (slow neutron) reactors run hotter
My favourite thermal reactor is the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor which CANNOT 'melt down', as it is already a liquid! See China's plans!
China-U.S. Nuclear Collaboration, Though Controversial, Moves Ahead

ENOUGH FUEL?
America has enough nuclear waste to run her for 1,000 years and this has been estimated to be worth $30 TRILLION dollars!
The Integral Fast Reactor – Summary for Policy Makers

The United Kingdom has enough waste to run her for 500 years.
New generation of nuclear reactors could consume radioactive waste as fuel

When we finally run out of today’s nuclear waste to burn in 500 years my guess is we might not even need fission reactors any more. But if we do still need to use IFR’s and LFTR’s, what then? Uranium from seawater is 'renewable' in the sense that erosion constantly tops up the uranium particles floating in the ocean, 3 times faster than we could use it. It will last us a billion years.

WASTE? Once the actinides are burned out, the fission products only stay 'hot' for 300 years. Just vitrify it into waterproof ceramic blocks, and store in carpark depth bunkers. Done. Trivial. Not an issue!

 

[doubtingmerle]

I don't think so.... can anyone find out ?
I think it was more like the 'good ole' usa - the indians/ native americans --- just like natives in other lands also: eskimoes, africans, indonesians, etc etc etc
used the land and resources wisely, so they were not diminished.

The deforestation of Europe is documented many places. For instance:

during the period 1750-1850 forests in Central Europe had been decimated, causing a serious lack of timber. Some contemporary reports even spoke partly of desert-like landscapes at that time...

In the Black Forest huge quantities of timber were tied together to form rafts and exported to the Netherlands, where the wood was needed for shipbuilding. Farmers have overexploited forests for centuries through grazing and to make straw. At the end of the 18th century, there were hardly any forests left in Germany (see Deforestation). Wood eventually became so scarce that, in winter, fence posts, steps and all kinds of wooden objects, that were expendable in the short term, were burned as firewood. [source]​

Europe turned to widespread use of coal only after the forests that they had depended on had been decimated. With the widespread use of coal and petroleum, it was no longer necessary to burn wood to heat homes. The forests grew back, often with non-native trees.

Again, if the oil and coal is gone, and if a billion people relying on wood for heat decimates the forests, how are you going to find enough wood to heat the homes of 7 billion people?

< shrugs > simple.
as always.
trust God, return to His Word, Pray (INSTEAD OF PREY), and obey Him.

And one should say that to his kids when he goes camping? "Shrug, we didn't bring any food, or tents along, just trust God and pray." One would think that such preparation is inadequate.