7 replies to this topic

[rwac]

Everything you've heard about fossil fuels may be wrong

The future of energy is not what you think it is
By Michael LindAre we living at the beginning of the Age of Fossil Fuels, not its final decades? The very thought goes against everything that politicians and the educated public have been taught to believe in the past generation. According to the conventional wisdom, the U.S. and other industrial nations must undertake a rapid and expensive transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy for three reasons: The imminent depletion of fossil fuels, national security and the danger of global warming.

What if the conventional wisdom about the energy future of America and the world has been completely wrong?

As everyone who follows news about energy knows by now, in the last decade the technique of hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," long used in the oil industry, has evolved to permit energy companies to access reserves of previously-unrecoverable “shale gas” or unconventional natural gas. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, these advances mean there is at least six times as much recoverable natural gas today as there was a decade ago.

http://www.salon.com...bd_fossil_fuels

[niner]

Some of the many problems with Lind's article are addressed in the comments at Salon.

[rwac]

I can't find a rebuttal of the basic premise that there's lots of accessible fossil fuels, if only we had the will.

[maxwatt]

The ratio of energy recovered to energy expended in its recovery keeps getting lower, so the fuel grows more expensive. And do we really want to radically alter the carbon cycle of our planet and continue to increase the CO2 content of the atmosphere, with consequences 97% of our scientists say are most probably disastrous?

Besides, GE Sees Solar Cheaper Than Fossil Power in Five Years

and it will be possible to generate hydrogen with solar cells at low cost:

MIT chemist Daniel Nocera has unveiled details about his long-awaited “artificial leaf”invention, a small solar cell that mimics photosynthesis and has the potential to produce low-cost electricity for individual homes — an advance that could be particularly valuable in the developing world, where many people lack electricity. About the size of a playing card, the solar cell — which uses inexpensive and widely available materials like silicon — is able to split water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen. Placed in a gallon of water in bright sunlight, the device could produce enough electricity to supply a house in a developing country with electricity for a day. The hydrogen and oxygen gases produced by the artificial leaf could be stored in a small fuel cell, which would use the gases to generate electricity. Nocera, who has been working on the technology for several years, released details about it during the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society in California. “Our goal is to make each home its own power station,” said Nocera. While U.S. researchers had previously developed a so-called “artificial leaf,” Nocera’s recent discovery of inexpensive catalysts, including nickel and cobalt, has made the technology more efficient and cost-effective.

Edited by maxwatt, 03 June 2011 - 01:09 AM.

[e Volution]

I'm with maxwatt, who cares? The Stone Age came to an end but not for a lack of stones...

[Alex Libman]

I agree that Earth has many orders of magnitude more fossil fuel reserves than we'll need, but space solar is definitely the future, and the sooner we switch to it the better. We live in a solar system 99.86% of which is this huge power plant spewing mind-blowing amounts of free energy in all directions - all we have to do is tap into it. Solar energy infrastructure produces no pollution liabilities, and once it is built it can provide power almost indefinitely.

And, regardless of the energy source, vehicles powered by on-board internal combustion engines are inherently inferior to electric ones - more complex, less safe, higher maintenance costs, slower acceleration, less compatible with underground tunnels, etc.

[JLL]

Nice to see you back on the forums, Alex!

[Alex Libman]

Bah, I don't like the new interface. So javascripty and pointy clicky... I miss the good old days of Usenet and IRC...

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