DailyDirt: Peak Coal And Other Energy-Related Stories
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Nuclear fusion technologies always seem to be about 30 years away from practicality. Meanwhile, cheap fossil fuels keep getting an extended life span. But it looks like the predictions of Peak Coal may be kicking in again -- though, new mining techniques might still throw a wrench into the estimates. How many times can the "peak oil/coal/etc" folks cry wolf?Coal prices are on the rise -- according to a scientist. So maybe getting a lump of coal in your Christmas stocking isn't such a bad thing. I'm just waiting for "Cash4Coal" infomercials now... [url] Curious to know what Chernobyl looks like now? Take a tour! The Ukraine plans to start selling tickets to see one of the worst nuclear disasters -- so pre-order your tickets now, before they're all gone. [url] Really small lithium batteries could help improve battery designs. If we can understand how anodes degrade, that bunny with the drum will really keep going and going (and we'll be able to store energy more conveniently). [url] Here's what Peak Coal/Oil/Gas looks like in a graph. Remember to revisit this graph in 2030 to see how accurate its predictions were. [url] The European Parliament rejected a fusion financing plan for Iter. Achieving controlled fusion in the 2020's might not happen, but no one is really surprised by the news. [url]
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Duracell had a bunny first....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaF6FxmixJk
/have one of those toys on my desk
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Re: Duracell had a bunny first....
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Tour Chernobyl
"I got Lymphoma from reactor No. 4" bumper stickers
"Make a wig from your own hair" kit for when it all falls out
"I'm with stupid" radiation suits
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Re: Tour Chernobyl
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I wonder if he's still as convinced.
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The chart is bullshit
It presumes that there is a shift away from coal to other sources.
It has nothing to do with "peak" coal (which is all about supply and not usage).
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Re: The chart is bullshit
This is typical greenwash, dressing up an artists impression to look like a statistical chart.
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It's completely unarguable to say peak coal and oil hit peak at the same time, coal will last at least 10 to 15 longer years than oil for "obvious" peaks.
If you'll believe the bullcrock that administrations feed themselves on Washington coal will last 450 years longer than oil before peak. Of course a laughable number of flaws.
The fact of the mater is that all energy production/demand will continue to go up till it can't, ALL forms. Just happens that the more expensive and cleaner forms will increase faster than we've seen in the past.
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Speaking of peaks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountaintop_removal_mining
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Best article I have read on peak oil
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Re:
The Oil Drum | Does Peak Oil Even Matter?: "In sum, although it is technically feasible to increase the production of 'oil,' peak conventional oil, as it was first envisioned by Hubbert in 1956, has manifested itself almost exactly as predicted.[7] As Campbell described, peak oil will bring about short bouts of economic growth and contraction as oil demand and prices play tug-of-war, creating what has been referred to as an undulating plateau.[8] We seem to be experiencing these economic conditions right now. So the question is no longer 'when will peak oil occur,' but 'how long will the effects of peak oil last?'"
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The chart is way off ...
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Re: The chart is way off ...
Luckily the Chinese do have the financial resources and inclination to develop clean tech, even if there's no short term payoff. When the US is ready to move into solar, wind, and electric vehicles in a big way, the Chinese will waiting for us. Just as Japan developed the small car market while Detroit continued to make big vehicles, the Chinese are moving into clean tech while we're still tied to old energy models.
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Re: Re: The chart is way off ...
If we wanted to go to all 'clean energy' right now, with the methods available (including nuclear power, which IS a clean technology when you take into account that 'spent' waste can be reused in another reactor of a different design for multiple periods)..... we would have to cut back on a lot of the things that make life worth living today.
No TV's, no computers, no radios, no refrigerators, no etc.
Until then, we have to realize that coal and oil are going to be our major sources of power (which the latter is apparently renewable, judging by them going back to old, tapped out oil fields and finding that they have refilled a substantial amount with the old techniques that were first used on it), and move on to making those technologies cleaner.
CO2? Not worried about it, we are already past the concentration of CO2 that acts as a 'thermal blanket' to the planet. Pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere will NOT make the world heat more, because at any higher concentration, it doesn't have more of a thermal blanket effect.
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Re: Re: Re: The chart is way off ...
We've known since 1973 that we didn't have full control over oil prices. But rather than finding ways to wean ourselves off of oil, we've just imported more of it. We don't have to wait until it gets really painful, but we will.
We've had a bit of a taste for it lately. When the economy goes down, we cut back on consumption. If the economy gets worse, so much the better for the environment because we won't have the money to drive or fly as much.
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Re: Re: Re: The chart is way off ...
And there are ways right out of sci-fi that could provide us with lots of energy. For one a solar satellite or group of satellites that converts the non-stop solar energy from space into some type of focused beam towards a giant collector dish on earth that converts it to usable electricity. We have the technology to do this, albeit it would take significant resources(ie. people, brainpower, $$$) and we would have to show that we are not building a giant weapon in space(a collaborative effort between the major nations - china, russia, US, europe, india, etc perhaps would do the trick)
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The chart is way off ...
Here are just a few articles, for those of you who haven't seen them yet.
Silicon Valley’s Solar Innovators Forced to Retool - NYTimes.com
Federal Money for Alternative Energy Is Drying Up - NYTimes.com
China Wins in Wind Power, by Its Own Rules - NYTimes.com
China’s Push Into Wind Worries U.S. Industry - NYTimes.com
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Maybe by the time I am ready to kick the old bucket, they will have it 60 years in the future.... not until then.
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For years Linux was on the verge of taking over the desktop in 1 or 2 years but never actually accomplishing that goal.
For years I posted articles on how a desk top take over could be accomplished with negative results.
I did learn something though. It is people can be irrational a lot longer than I can financially afford to oppose their irrationality.
Besides Linux this psychology applies to energy, global warming, coal, nuclear, and other mass historical psychologies.
Now I do not even try to express a counter valuing opinion I simply observe the idiocy and bet against it in the market.
Doubled my money last year.
All I can now say is thanks for psychlogical financial bubbles. They are most profitable.
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Tour of Chernobyl
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-revisited/
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On the other hand, these researchers might discover there is an insurmountable barrier to increasing energy densities once they get to the bottom of things.
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Peak fossil fuels
And the fact that the climate is changing, and that nearly irrefutable evidence shows that when the present levels of carbon dioxide existed, dramatic changes were created, really isn't happening?
Get real.
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Energy and the Decline of the US
How America will collapse (by 2025) - U.S. Economy - Salon.com: "Despite remarkable ingenuity, the major oil powers are now draining the big basins of petroleum reserves that are amenable to easy, cheap extraction. The real lesson of the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was not BP's sloppy safety standards, but the simple fact everyone saw on 'spillcam': one of the corporate energy giants had little choice but to search for what Klare calls 'tough oil' miles beneath the surface of the ocean to keep its profits up."
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Re: Energy and the Decline of the US
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Kid of Speed, Relative Prices of Coal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Filatova
Now, about coal, the thing you have understand about it is that the value of coal is very low. Here are some very approximate figures, which are subject to change.
Coal royalties, per ton: about $1
Cost of mining, ditto, Powder River Basin, $5-10
Cost of shipping, by rail, to the Midwest or Texas, ditto: $20-30
(the railroad runs on oil, not on coal or electricity)
Subtotal, per ton: $25-40
Value as wholesale electricty,
(PRB coal at 8,500 btu/lb, 17 Mbtu/ton,
combusted at 35% efficiency, yields 1700 KwH @ 3cent/KwH): $51
Value as retail electricity, @ 8 cent/KwH, at the meter: $136
The actual mining, and the scarcity value of the coal, is a fairly minor component of the electricity's total cost. Something like a geothermal heat pump, or a solar water heater, makes financial sense mostly because it economizes on the electric utility's plant, eliminating the need to build new generators and new power lines and so forth, not so much because it saves fuel.
Cost of an equivalent quantity of oil, with the same heat value
(@20,000 btu/lb, or 120,000 btu/gal, 3.37 barrels @ $70/bbl) $236.
or of gasoline (142 gal, @ $3/gal) $480
Cost to deliver 1700 KhH to a drive shaft,
assuming a gasoline engine of no more than 25% efficiency: $2000
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://en.wikiped ia.org/wiki/Powder_River_Basin
See also, Richard C. Dorf, _Energy, Resources, and Society_, 1978
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Re: Kid of Speed, Relative Prices of Coal.
What is kind of crazy, given these economics, is the coal industry lobbying for clean coal technology usage and investment. Rather than trying to phase out coal altogether, they want to find ways to continue to use it.
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RE: Kid of Speed, Relative Prices of Coal.
Cost to deliver 1700 KhH to a drive shaft,
assuming a gasoline engine of no more than 25% efficiency
should be : $672
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Interesting that the quote doesn't mention that often that graph tends to end with a final and irrevocable downward plunge from which there is no upward spike.
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Re: Re: Kid of Speed, Relative Prices of Coal. (To: Suzanne Lainson )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellus_Formation
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Re: Re: Re: Kid of Speed, Relative Prices of Coal. (To: Suzanne Lainson )
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Kid of Speed, Relative Prices of Coal. (To: Suzanne Lainson )
Utilities Shift to Gas-Based Plants as Alternative to Coal - NYTimes.com: "“It’s a turning point,” said Bill Johnson, chairman and chief executive of Progress Energy, the parent company. “We’ve been a coal-based generator for decades, and until a few years ago, we thought we would remain largely coal-based and nuclear until people started talking about carbon regulation. We decided we had to do something about it.”"
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Some useful stats
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hearing an explanation
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