A New Manhattan Project for Clean Energy

[erich]

Uncle Al is right, wood won't cut it. However I feel he gives short shift to the potential of quantum effects to PV and other energy conversion technologies. The dirt, grime and water hasn't seized up the digital revolution. " There is plenty of room at the bottom" Richard Feynman

Professor G. L. Kulcinski's paper shows just how important a new Manhattan project is.
Do the calculation of a billion Chinese with our oil thirst.

[damocles]

Why don't yout ell us how much 47 million bbl of oil weigh?

http://www.eppo.go.th/ref/UNIT-OIL.html

It varies by density and temperature, so I chose Kerosene.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

CONVERSION FACTORS FOR OIL
-----------------------------------------------------------------
At 86°F (30°C)
----------- Approximation -------------------
Liters Liters A.Gallons A.Barrels
Product per per per per
E.Ton M.Ton M.Ton M.Ton
-----------------------------------------------------------------
L.P.G 1,864 1,835 484.6 11.54
JP.4 1,355 1,333 352.4 8.39
Jet A-1 1,274 1,254 331.2 7.89
Premium 1,375 1,353 357.5 8.51
Regular 1,440 1,418 374.5 8.92
Kerosene 1,293 1,273 336.2 8.00
Gas Oil 1,197 1,177 311.2 7.41
Diesel Fuel 1,177 1,159 306.1 7.29
Fuel oil 80 CST 1,082 1,065 281.2 6.70
Fuel oil 180 CST 1,067 1,050 277.4 6.60
Fuel oil 230 CST 1,064 1,047 276.6 6.59
Fuel oil 280 CST 1,061 1,044 275.9 6.57
Bitumen 994 979 258.5 6.15
-----------------------------------------------------------------

5,875,000 TONS more or less. I wouldn't be all that surprised that with all the mixes and grades of fuel if it were six to six and a half million tons or more.

Calculated another way;

PETROLEUM SPECIFIC GRAVITY VOLUME PER TON
----------------------------------------------
Degree Specific Barrels * Long tonne
API gravity per metric
tonne
----------------------------------------------
25 0.904 6.98 7.09
26 0.898 7.02 7.13
27 0.893 7.06 7.18
28 0.887 7.10 7.22
29 0.882 7.15 7.27
30 0.876 7.19 7.31
31 0.871 7.24 7.36
32 0.865 7.28 7.40
33 0.860 7.33 7.45
34 0.855 7.37 7.49
35 0.850 7.42 7.54
36 0.845 7.46 7.58
37 0.840 7.51 7.63
38 0.835 7.55 7.67
39 0.830 7.60 7.72
40 0.825 7.64 7.76
41 0.820 7.69 7.81
42 0.816 7.73 7.85
----------------------------------------------
* Approx. figures 60°F

Specific gravity = 141.5/131.5 + °API

6,412,005 metric tons based on a specific gravity value of 8.60 for the oil.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Determining oil tonnage used depends on if you are specifying refined or crude?

If it is crude, then you still have problems. Pennsylvania crude, Texas crude and Saudi crude don't weigh the same by the barrel.

When you go into the millions of barrels those kilograms of difference per barrel per source pumped just add up.

[geokker]

I have no clue how much oil is left and whether it will last for another 60 years or 60 days. I do know that it is a limited resource. Eventually, we will have to switch to an alternate for all of our energy needs. I also know that there is no substitute for forward thinking preparedness and anticipation. So, we must make a concerted effort to explore alternate energy sources. This is all obvious to me but what is out there?

From a painfully unqualified perspective, I will list some possibilites for your delectation:

1. Solar power. On the ground this seems unlikely to meet the planets needs for power. Possibly, orbital collector and transit facilities may suffice, but it sounds difficult, costly and fragile.

2. Nuclear energy. This is tried and proven technology. It's relatively clean but further research and investment must be mobilized to increase efficiency, safety and ease of waste reprocessing.

3. Fusion energy. Sounds promising. This seems like the path governments are on. Potentially, it would provide near limitless clean power from negligible reactants. Costs are high but then, no cost is too high when we're talking about essential energy. It may never happen though.

4. Wind power. No way. This just isn't feasible in my opinion. It just can't scale. The energy required to make enough windmills would drain the planet of oil.

5. Wave power. This is like wind power, but getting closer to the source - cutting out the middle man. Every time I see a wave crashing I can feel the immense power behind it. It's a no brainer to harness that baby.

6. geothermal power. This sounds quite straightforward. Sink a pipe until you hit heat, pump down water, until it turns to steam which is piped up to push a turbine. The Earth is a big, churning mass of friction after all.

7. Gravitational power. It seems to me that the reason the planet is active is largely due to the huge gravitational influence of the moon. Its orbit needs to be utilized. Don't ask me how.

8. God power. As there seem to be so many religious types out there (still), I guess I can't discount God coming down and saving us all from a chilly, oil-less future. Perhaps through death? Maybe prayer itself will warm us?

[Tagred]

Originally Posted by UncleAl

"I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today." The US burned the equivalent of 47 million bbl of oil today, yesterday, and tomorrow. Promises of a fairy dust future Eden don't cut it when somebody flips a lightswitch. Why don't yout ell us how much 47 million bbl of oil weigh?

I dont understand what point you are trying to make. The point of sustainable development is that resources are used effectively and efficiently. Weight means absolutely nothing in these terms. The fact is that the energy resources we currently have cannot sustain human baing for an indefinate period of time. Of course, we dont need to worry about it now or for the next 50-75yrs or so, why should we, we will be in the ground.

The fact that oil reserves are limited, means that sometime in the future humans will have to find alternative cleaner technologies to solve the problem. None of the new technologies that may solve the problem will appear overnight, and probably not be economic for at least another couple of decades, couple that with the vested interests and lobbying of energy producing companies, it will take longer. When there are brownouts and blackouts such as you see in the American eastern seaboard, and when they become more common than not, then there will be moves towards finding these technologies. But why not do the work now of being able to have the ability to solve these issues before they become real major problems.

Like all technologies they have to start somewhere, and they will not be efficient enough at the beginning, but they will be. Almost all technologies improve and evolve through time, it is far better to plan than to be forced into it. Of course we could use nuclear technology, which pound for pound is 1million times more efficient than coal or oil. But then, do you want a nuclear waste facility in your back yard?

The spotted owl is an endangered species. No gene-geneered Franken-forests. No active pest management- toxic! No clear cutting! No cutting forests that suck up carbon dioxide. Wood is off-limits. No wood.

Clearly you do not know what sustainability is. Managed forests do not exclude fauna, nor should they. It would be appreciated if you could take the post within its context. Wood, is a good example of sustainability, it has zero net loss of carbon, indeed in some farms there is a net lowering of carbon to atmosphere. The cycle when managed correctly has little atmospheric impact. I used wood as an example of sustainability, in no way am I proporting that that should be used as an energy resource. You stated that sustainability is Luddism, care to explain how? Im sure people said exactly the same thing with the spinning jenny. Technologies move on, more effective and efficient systems developed. That is what sustainable development is partly about.

MIRACLE! Grantology. A nano-whatever is all surface area and no volume. Tell us how to run a machine whose power output is less than the surface tension of water. Dirt and wet seize them solid.

Yes it is. How would you propose to develop a technology that will have clear benefits? Surely we cannot just make a nano-bot to manipulate on the atomic scale from scratch? We have to start somewhere, and as it's developed more applications will be realised. I'm sure you would appreciate that without minimisation and downscaling that we would still be sitting at our desks using Coloussus to surf the net. Nanotechnology is being researched in biotechnology as well as electronic applications, it is achievable and given time will be done.

Do you have any idea how much energy the US uses/year? It has held reasonably steady at 60 bbl oil equiv/capita. 1 boe = 1700 kWhr-thermal. There are 290 million US folk or

1.74x10^10 boe/year, or
2.96x10^13 kWhr-thermal/year, or
1.065x10^20 joules/year, or...

...or the equivalent of 1.2 metric tonnes of matter 100% converted into energy each year, E=mc^2. Are ya gonna alternatively burn algae, git, or catch wind?

THEY LIED TO YOU. "Shut up and calculate," Richard Feynman.

http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/neep602/lecture4.html

So? The USA is the world largest energy consumer and worlds largest waste producer. By developing nuclear fusion technologies, wind, wave power or any other cleaner technologies, the energy requirements could be easily fullfilled. What is going to happen to the USA when the reserves of oil in the Middle East, and southern US start to run dry? It is simply not sustainable, when its gone, its gone. Surely it would be better for the future to have something to turn to when the USA can no longer invade or economically strangle another country for its energy resources, but that's a different thread.

[Tagred]

Originally Posted by geokker

I have no clue how much oil is left and whether it will last for another 60 years or 60 days. I do know that it is a limited resource. Eventually, we will have to switch to an alternate for all of our energy needs. I also know that there is no substitute for forward thinking preparedness and anticipation. So, we must make a concerted effort to explore alternate energy sources. This is all obvious to me but what is out there?

From a painfully unqualified perspective, I will list some possibilites for your delectation:

1. Solar power. On the ground this seems unlikely to meet the planets needs for power. Possibly, orbital collector and transit facilities may suffice, but it sounds difficult, costly and fragile.

efficiencies are increasing on a yearly basis. You can get approx. 60% energy conversion in some small cases at the moment. For a national use it is a way off yet to be viable

2. Nuclear energy. This is tried and proven technology. It's relatively clean but further research and investment must be mobilized to increase efficiency, safety and ease of waste reprocessing.

1million times the energy in coal per kilogram. Although I agree, waste could be an issue. Maybe good for short term use.

3. Fusion energy. Sounds promising. This seems like the path governments are on. Potentially, it would provide near limitless clean power from negligible reactants. Costs are high but then, no cost is too high when we're talking about essential energy. It may never happen though.

Exciting prospects, probably still 30yrs or so to go (if possible) but i believe it is something worth investigating, at least so we can prove that it is feasible or not.

4. Wind power. No way. This just isn't feasible in my opinion. It just can't scale. The energy required to make enough windmills would drain the planet of oil.

10% or UK's energy is derived from wind power. Which will be rising to 20% by 2015. Limited to certain geographical areas though, and not good for many places. FYI, currently 20% of UK's energy is derived from nuclear power.

5. Wave power. This is like wind power, but getting closer to the source - cutting out the middle man. Every time I see a wave crashing I can feel the immense power behind it. It's a no brainer to harness that baby.

Studies in the UK are delivering good results from wave power, but huge areas are needed. If it can work then I agree with you.

6. geothermal power. This sounds quite straightforward. Sink a pipe until you hit heat, pump down water, until it turns to steam which is piped up to push a turbine. The Earth is a big, churning mass of friction after all.

Already used in Iceland to generate electricity and hot water. The Icelanders do not have electric bills.

7. Gravitational power. It seems to me that the reason the planet is active is largely due to the huge gravitational influence of the moon. Its orbit needs to be utilized. Don't ask me how.

I would have no idea so wont comment on that.

8. God power. As there seem to be so many religious types out there (still), I guess I can't discount God coming down and saving us all from a chilly, oil-less future. Perhaps through death? Maybe prayer itself will warm us?

Apart from giving us a warm feeling inside, i think its pretty unlikely. The chap seems to like to drown us once in a while though :P

[Skippy]

Originally Posted by UncleAl

The spotted owl is an endangered species. No gene-geneered Franken-forests. No active pest management- toxic!

UncleAl, I can agree that wood is not a viable source of energy for many of the reasons you listed... but this one is nonsense. Cutting down trees is not the biggest factor affecting the spotted owl. Remember the pictures of spotted owls in Kmart signs after select cutting in Oregon was allowed? Something else is affecting the spottred owl, and most likely it is not man.
"Scientists are not sure what is causing the declines, but possible factors include invasion of the spotted owl's habitat by the barred owl, an aggressive cousin from Canada that often drives them off, Lint said. Habitat lost to past logging, as well as wildfires, climate changes and insect infestations are also factors, he said.
The plan also failed to provide the expected timber supply and replace lost timber jobs with jobs in small towns near federal forest lands as promised, said Thomas Quigley, director of the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station.

"Many of the impacts were different than predicted," he said."

[geokker]

10% or UK's energy is derived from wind power.

The Icelanders do not have electric bills.

I find these hard to believe, what are your sources?

[Boerseun]

Harvesting power from the Moon is easy.

Build a large, shallow dam close to a spot at the coast where the tidal difference is pretty high.
Let high tide fill your dam, and at low tide let the water empty again through an array of turbines.
Because the drop won't be far enough to really make it worthwhile in terms of output, you need a heck of a big dam with a helluva lot of turbines.

But that, in effect, will be tapping energy from the Moon.

Maybe there's some desert somewhere that's useless for anything else that can be converted into a huge tidal reservoir, but the energy input in emptying the hundreds of square miles of sand required for your dam will probably nullify the output from your dam, which'll have only a few meters' drop, usable only for a couple o' hours every day.

Bad idea.

A much better idea will be to have cheap, erosion-resistant (say, carbon-fibre or fibreglass) turbines dropped in the sea.

Imagine:

They're lighter than water, so they wanna float. If not, attach the necessary floats. Then you add an anchor (say, a cheap block of concrete) to it, strung to a cable so that you can set the required height off the seafloor, and have a generator attached to two counter-rotating turbines (so as torque isn't an issue) with a vertical and horisontal stabiliser (like a plane's tailplane) so that they'll always be facing the stream. Obviously, your turbines should be pretty big, 'cause they'll turn only as fast as the stream is moving. But you have a step-up gearbox at your generator, so the generator will be turning at a fair clip.

And then, you dump hundreds of these suckers into the sea where there's a strong stream. I'm talking Agulhas current, the Gulf Stream, places where the global streams are bottlenecked, like Cape Horn, south of Cape Agulhas, between North and South Islands in New Zealand, Hokkaido in Japan - there's plenty places.

Then you waterproof a couple of sturdy cables, connect them all together, and run the current to the nearest land where you've got distribution centers, etc. The technology developed with undersea intercontinental phone cables suggest that this won't be too much of a hassle.

There's more than enough torque in seawater travelling at a few kilometers per hour to make that gennie spin at thousands of RPM with a proper gearbox included. And this can be done so cheap that in my mind, it really makes for a strong contender in the future energy game. If the output of an individual generator is relatively small, so what? Go with the economy of scale! Chuck in thousands more! They're cheap!

You need to buy ZERO land for this, there's ZERO polluting, it's out of sight, ceramic bearings can be utilized so that there'll be minimal failure and minimal maintenance, it's predictable - at a wind farm, you're stuffed when the wind stops. At a solar collection plant, you're stuffed when the sun sets. Using this, you have energy 24/7, which is actually just solar energy, but with much higher, more usable torque than what wind gives you. And those streams I mentioned runs 24/7, come rain, sleet or snow... At night, during the day, winter, summer, they just keep on chuggin'.

The input making the world's oceans churn, is the sun. The same input for wind. But wind is flaky, weak energy density, and windfarms spoils the scenery, apart from using up acres of land.

This, to me, makes sense. Much more so than nuclear-, coal- oil- or gas-fired power plants. Or many of the proposed alternatives, for that matter.

[geokker]

I was thinking of hurling up a lasso.

I agree that harnessing the motion of water due to lunar gravity is compelling. Water has a lot of mass. Trying to stop a large body of water from moving is a difficult task. There is literally the power of the moon in the oceans - this is the lasso.

I also agree that millions of small, cheap turbines would be more effective than few, huge jobbies. Connecting all the nodes to a grid sounds like a challenge though. Considering that 99.99994%* of the volume of Earths waters are empty, it's a good idea to put them (it?) to work.

Yes, I made this up.

[Tagred]

Originally Posted by geokker

I find these hard to believe, what are your sources?

OK, not free but close :P
For Iceleland their average domestic cost in 2003 was $130p.a http://www.statice.is/?pageid=1253&s...lur/neysla.asp

For the UK electricity, i got that completely wrong, I apologise. There is a target to achieve 10% wind energy by 2010 rising to 15% by 2015.

Think I should really check my sources properly next time :P