CBS report: Earth's resources are running out.

[BassyBill]

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”
― Albert Einstein

Imagine when that first Locomotive designer said:
"we ought to put a diesel motor on here and use it to power an electric generator then we can use that electricity to run a electric motor that we can use to propel the train"

I bet they all thought he was nuts!




today.......... every train runs like that.

That's the first law of thermodynamics alright, but it predates Einstein by at least 100 years or more. He probably said it himself at some point, though.

Nothing about the diesel train mechanism you mention contradicts it, of course. Nobody who understands thermodynamics would have said that the idea was nuts, either. Why should they? The useful energy out is less than the total energy in.

 

[BassyBill]

At the beginning of the Automobile Era, there were both electric and petrol powered cars.
the choice to use gasoline was what you said, it's high energy content.
but not for the amount effort it takes to produce, it was for the the portability of the fuel in the car.

Lighter, smaller, etc....

That, and the fact that engineers realised that batteries use a secondary energy resource and fossil fuels are primary energy resources, maybe?

If anybody starts mining batteries, we're all sorted.

 

[MatticusMania]

It is time for Tesla2.0

 

[Rockin Mike]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_point_energy#Free-energy_devices

 

[NWB]

nortonrider - think this one through. If extracting fossil fuels did somehow use more energy overall than we got out of the fuel, where have we got the energy from to extract them for the last couple of hundred years?

You seem to have a bit of a misconception about how energy transfers and energy resources work. Fossil fuels' commercial value is entirely based on their very high energy content in comparison to the energy needed to bring them to market.

You can't just switch from using coal and oil to using hydrogen and batteries. Where're you going to get the energy for making the hydrogen and the batteries?

You are right Bill. But nortonrider is on the right track to consider all of the energy inputs needed to access other energy sources. Using his line of thinking, there probably are grades of coal and/or very deep deposits that may require more energy than you'd get out of them.

The US has vastly more petroleum than Saudi Arabia in the Green River Shale formation. Why can't we just dig that up and process it into useable oil?

Because to separate the petroleum from the rock requires somewhat more energy than you'd get out of it. Energy return on energy invested. Not to mention limitations on the significant amounts of water needed for the process. The deposits are located in an arid region.

Returning to the concept of energy return on energy invested provides some insight on currently high oil prices. More energy (and capital) is needed to access the remaining oil reserves. Getting oil from the current deepwaters, arctic regions, and oil sands is much more expensive than shallow on-land sweet crude reserviors that are reaching depletion limits.

 

[BassyBill]

Just for clarity...

Primary energy resources include solar energy, wind, waves, hydroelectricity, fossil fuels, biomass, tidal, geothermal, nuclear... have I missed any out? You could argue that all but the last three are different forms of solar energy anyway.

(You could even argue that those last three are stores of potential energy arising from processes inside stars if you took a real stretch of a long term view, but I digress.)

Secondary energy resources like hydrogen gas and electricity are either directly or indirectly generated / liberated / manufactured using primary energy resources. They are therefore dependent upon the things in the first list and not alternatives to them.

 

[NWB]

If anybody starts mining batteries, we're all sorted.

Or pumping hydrogen out the ground.

 

[BassyBill]

NWB - All correct, and none of post #125 breaks the first law of TD (of course).

Any currently useful primary energy resource is one where the commercial value of the energy obtained from it usefully exceeds the current cost of exploiting it.

 

[MatticusMania]

The US has vastly more petroleum than Saudi Arabia in the Green River Shale formation. Why can't we just dig that up and process it into useable oil?

We're saving it for later.

 

[NWB]

Secondary energy resources like hydrogen gas and electricity are either directly or indirectly generated / liberated / manufactured using primary energy resources. They are therefore dependent upon the things in the first list and not alternatives to them.

That's why I like to think of them as "energy carriers".

Electricity carries the kinetic energy generated from a dam turbine to your home and into your bass amp.

Of course working back, the dam and reservior is the potential energy which gets its water from the sun-driven hydrologic cycle. And the sun uses fusion...

Who says we can't get power from fusion?

 

[BassyBill]

We ought to change the thread title.

"CBS report: Earth's resources are finite."

I'd probably bet decent money that someone, somewhere would still say "Nonsense".

 

[nortonrider]

This thing runs on hydrogen and oxygen.

Since NASA used electricity to separate and collect those molecules,
We coulda just hooked up a long extension cord to the Shuttle and done away with the liquid fuels all together.
Right?


FWIW, there was a tremendous amount of energy used to make the oil and coal that is in the ground and millions of years of it.

like I posted earlier,
As a species, we must start thinking outside of the hydrocarbon box.
just saying: "No that wont work", isn't going to work!

 

[BassyBill]

That's why I like to think of them as "energy carriers".

Electricity carries the kinetic energy generated from a dam turbine to your home and into your bass amp.

Of course working back, the dam and reservior is the potential energy which gets its water from the sun-driven hydrologic cycle. And the sun uses fusion...

Who says we can't get power from fusion?

Exactly. Energy from fusion has been exploited on this planet for about 4 billion years.

 

[NWB]

We're saving it for later.

I'll give you all of my basses, amps, and guitars if you can scientifically demonstrate how that would successfully work out on both a physical (thermodynamics) and commercial basis.

 

[BassyBill]

This thing runs on hydrogen and oxygen.

Since NASA used electricity to separate and collect those molecules,
We coulda just hooked up a long extension cord to the Shuttle and done away with the liquid fuels all together.
Right?


FWIW, there was a tremendous amount of energy used to make the oil and coal that is in the ground and millions of years of it.

like I posted earlier,
As a species, we must start thinking outside of the hydrocarbon box.
just saying: "No that wont work", isn't going to work!

I get what you're saying. But I'm not sure you get what I'm saying.

If we think outside the hydrocarbon box (as we have to, I agree) then we need to replace that primary energy resource with another one, like solar energy. The alternative primary energy resource to fossil fuels is the solar energy and NOT the hydrogen that we liberate using it. Do you not see the distinction?

 

[nortonrider]

I get what you're saying. But I'm not sure you get what I'm saying.

The alternative primary energy resource to fossil fuels is the solar energy and NOT the hydrogen that we liberate using it. Do you not see the distinction?

I agree,
but what I an saying is there are viable uses where using that hydrogen as a carrier of the solar energy has many benefits.
Just think of it as a battery made out of gas.
lighter, cleaner and more plentiful than lithium , lead, NI-cad, and gasoline.

 

[Horny Toad]

Reboot.

 

[BassyBill]

I agree,
but what I an saying is there are viable uses where using that hydrogen as a carrier of the solar energy has many benefits.
Just think of it as a battery made out of gas.
lighter, cleaner and more plentiful than lithium , lead, NI-cad, and gasoline.

Yeah, okay. That makes sense, energetically speaking.

I'm not saying that there are no advantages to hydrogen gas as a fuel. Quite the reverse. But what I am saying is that hydrogen is not an answer to an energy shortage as it is not a primary energy resource (like I tried to make clear in my list above, post #126).

 

[MatticusMania]

I'll give you all of my basses, amps, and guitars if you can scientifically demonstrate how that would successfully work out on both a physical (thermodynamics) and commercial basis.

Scientifically? Im a philosopher, not a scientist. I can only answer the why's, not the hows.

 

[NWB]

Just think of it as a battery made out of gas.

That is a good way to think of it.