What happens after the oil is gone?

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Fossil fuel will not be needed in the new Messianic Millenium, soon to emerge after soon coming Armageddon, with King Jesus in the global drivers seat.

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If King Jesus is in the drivers seat, but there are no fossil fuels, is his car going to be one of those Flintstone footpowered cars?Most of this worry is overblown anyway, right? I mean it only took a couple of thousand years for the dinosaurs to become oil, and so all those animals and people that died since then will be oil pretty soon too, right?Okay end of comedy... I find it interesting when end of oil is considered almost apocalyptic. While it will be apocalyptic for anyone trying to hang onto their stocks in oil futures, other sources of power, lubrication, and polymer creation (for materials) are available and will come into play (and costs will come down).The greater question is what sources should be moved into with a long term strategy, rather than banking on the next "reserve". Even growing crops for ethanol is not a real solution as population growth continues (making it harder to farm for both food and replacement for oil). I suppose what I am saying is that we need to come up with strategies for replacing oil AND keeping population growth in check so it will not eventually outpace resources.I have to say though, even if we all ended up having to live like the Amish, or the people of Pompeii (other than the volcanos), feudal japan, angkor wat, and to some extent Greece , Rome, and Persia... I don't think it will necessarily be all that horrific (lifestyle wise).------------------
holmes[This message has been edited by holmes, 11-13-2003]

Holmes, no sweat. Super climate similar to preflood will make the planet super productive with little need for motorized equipment, especially with every family growing own food.

Actually I am curious. Have you ever been to an Amish community, and/or have you ever considered trying to become a part of one? This is not an insult, just wanting to know because they seem pretty simple and devout and that would appear to be something you'd like.------------------
holmes

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... Amish community,...have you ever considered trying to become a part of one?

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Great idea! I'm out of this nut house.Amishymooseusps: Used computer for sale. Comes complete with administrative powers.

Population increase. Political instability. Cultural and social decline the western world. Global warming. Climate change. Decimation of the ocean food stocks. Upsurge in fundemntalist religion.To name a few.

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In the case that we do run out of oil, do you believe that humans will go extinct, revert to stone-age existence, or will science overcome all?

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Why should humans go extinct or revert to a stone-age existence over this?Although oil reserves may peak in this decade according to some experts, that's not necessarily the end of the age of oil. Canada is currently producing (albeit at high financial and environmental costs) oil from tar sands. The U.S. has a huge resource in that area as well located in western Colorado, though those fields are far from being productive anytime soon. Other non-conventional sources will likely be considered and put into production.The fact that oil production is estimated to peak in this decade is most likely the reason for the Iraq invasion, in my opinion. Iraq's estimated oil reserves are double that of Saudia Arabia. Our current administration thinks it would behoove our country to control that oil.In the meantime, I am willing to bet more and more car manufacturers will be investing in alternative energy research programs since they don't want to loose customers when the oil crisis does hit - or perhaps they can stave off the coming crisis by investing a lot of money now.I suspect we'll have several troubled years when the energy crisis is at it's worst, but by then, I think we will be in a transitioning period to another alternative energy method.

Hey Rej,There are some really gloomy doomsdayers out there, and there are some "don't worry, everything will be fine" optimists, too. I'm pretty much in the middle, although I sometimes swing back and forth.You seem to be more on the optimistic side. Would you be willing to defend your positions? I'll swing over to the doom-n-gloom view for a while.First, your point about world grain production:

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The world produces about 1,900,000,000 tons of grain per year. That's enough to feed 11 billion people for a year if we weren't wasteful - on grain alone.

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Here's a very revealing chart that shows that consumption has, indeed, exceeded 1900 million tons, but production topped out at 1880 million tons in 1997. We have run a deficit for four years straight...
http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update27_data.htmConsumption grows every year, but increasing production seems out of our reach at the moment. Could this be because 60 years of petrochemical fertilizers have boosted yields far beyond the long-term carrying capacity of the soil?If oil is peaking, then cheap fertilizers will be a thing of the past. Food production will undoubtedly fall drastically if the poorer nations are unable to afford fertilizer. Look at the agricultural record of North Korea and Cuba when they lost access to ammonia fertilizers produced by fossil fuels.One could reasonably argue that modern agriculture is a convoluted and inefficient way to convert fossil fuel calories into sugars, fats and proteins. Declining oil production equals declining food production. Hubbert's bell curve of oil will be followed quickly by a population bell curve.Your point about reclaiming farmland from deserts and tundra:
Both require large amounts of energy, mostly the high quality forms of petroleum, and desert agriculture requires water.Water shortages will soon return much of the Americal Midwest back to steppe and desert. The Ogallala aquifer is nearly tapped out. Same story in China and India. Those fossil water reserves require large amounts of fossil fuels to pump them to the surface, too.Ethanol:
I have yet to see a serious study of ethanol that finds the net energy out to be greater than the energy inputs required to produce it. All the other renewable, alternative energy sources have the same probelm - negative or only marginally positive Energy Return On Energy Invested. There is no other widely available energy source that can match Cheap Oil and Cheap Gas (meaning the easy stuff we have already pumped first) for its EROEI (50 or more).Our econony and culture are built on exponential growth. The fuel of that growth is exponentially increasing amounts of plentiful, cheap energy. If the production of the remaining oil, gas, nuclear and renewable sources cannot maintain that exponential rate of increase, as they have in the past, then the economy will just stop growing, or even decline.That's the bad news, but I agree there is hope from technological advances for improving the EROEI of renewables and ramping up their deployment. But is there any movement in that direction?
Not yet - solar contributes 1% of 6% of the total US energy budget. That's 0.0006
Any policy statements from the federal government? Shouldn't we have a Manhatten Project effort already underway to be ready for the Cheap Oil rollover and decline?[This message has been edited by AdminAsgara, 11-25-2003]

Ah, some intelligence and hard data in the debate. Let's begin.

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Here's a very revealing chart that shows that consumption has, indeed, exceeded 1900 million tons, but production topped out at 1880 million tons in 1997. We have run a deficit for four years straight...

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Consumption grows every year, but increasing production seems out of our reach at the moment. Could this be because 60 years of petrochemical fertilizers have boosted yields far beyond the long-term carrying capacity of the soil?

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That's a very short-term and seemingly insignificant decline; I doubt it would show up with any sort of statistical significance. We need a lot more data before we can show that we're actually in any sort of chronic deficit as opposed to yearly fluctuations. Grain has 3,500 calories per kilo, so 1 metric ton provides 3,500,000 calories and an english ton has about 2,800,000 calories. With 11 billion people, that would put about 1300 calories per person from grain alone; a sustinence level just from current grain production. The main issue is waste (such as feeding cattle, a very inefficient use of calories). This assumes no growth, something I find very doubtful.

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If oil is peaking, then cheap fertilizers will be a thing of the past. Food production will undoubtedly fall drastically if the poorer nations are unable to afford fertilizer. Look at the agricultural record of North Korea and Cuba when they lost access to ammonia fertilizers produced by fossil fuels.

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How much did U.S. agricultural products rise in price in the 1970s during the embargo? I don't recall the exact numbers, but it wasn't devastating - certainly nothing to hold a great deal of fear over.Also, it all depends on the cost of energy as a whole, which will be determined by how much alternative energy sources advance during the time period; they have a (reasonably) long time, and have been advancing at a very fast rate.

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One could reasonably argue that modern agriculture is a convoluted and inefficient way to convert fossil fuel calories into sugars, fats and proteins. Declining oil production equals declining food production. Hubbert's bell curve of oil will be followed quickly by a population bell curve.

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According to here, farm energy use in the US is about 1% of the US's total energy use - a pretty trival amount. Fertilizer and transportation are another 1.9% - still rather small. Again, most of our energy and industrial production goes into "wasteful" luxuries.

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Your point about reclaiming farmland from deserts and tundra:
Both require large amounts of energy, mostly the high quality forms of petroleum, and desert agriculture requires water.

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It depends. As I showed, at least in the US most of our energy, by far, has nothing to do with agriculture. So again, it's all about priorities. Desert ag. has been managing pretty well in places that have used it (israel and the occupied terrotories, for example). There's always options such as desalinization as well, yet another technology that has been making great advancements.

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Water shortages will soon return much of the Americal Midwest back to steppe and desert. The Ogallala aquifer is nearly tapped out. Same story in China and India. Those fossil water reserves require large amounts of fossil fuels to pump them to the surface, too.

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Concerning Ogallala, punish Texas Texas has tons of other sources of freshwater, and yet overuses Ogallala severely. Also, Texas mostly uses it for cotton, a less essential food product (and very water intensive) (we're back to the
priorities issue). States like Nebraska actually recharge Ogallala more than they use it. Also, I don't think Ogallala qualifies as a "fossil water reserve", as it does get recharged (albeit not as fast as some states use it); Saudi Arabia's water, however, is - it's water trapped between a layer of rock, from prehistoric times.I don't know enough about China and India's water use, although I think few would dispute the term "overpopulated" to describe those countries

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I have yet to see a serious study of ethanol that finds the net energy out to be greater than the energy inputs required to produce it.

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That's a common, and long disproven myth - sorry. It's based on very outdated, and often incorrect information. Here's a list of references:Renewable Industries Canada (RICanada) for a richer and cleaner Canada
http://www.cleanfuelsdc.org/issues/newUSDA_studies.htm
Stromvergleich umsonst - Kostenloser Stromanbieter Vergleich
Preliminary Evaluation of the Potential  of Ethanol Production from Sugarcane
USDA ERS - Error PageIn the US, ethanol is currently produces about 24% more energy than we put into it - and we use rather inefficient methods compared to what is possible ( we could get upwards of 70% more if needed, using current tech alone - and that's from corn ethanol, not cellulose ethanol, which is even better).Even if it *did* take more energy to make than it produces, there's another advantage: ethanol can be produced from converting a non-mobile source of energy (such as burning agricultural waste - dried corn plants, for example) to a mobile source (ethanol). You can't put corn husks in your gas tank, but you can burn them to heat a vat for cooking up ethanol or for running a steam-powered grinder. The agricultural waste's energy would otherwise be fed to bacteria, instead of being productive for humanity.

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All the other renewable, alternative energy sources have the same probelm - negative or only marginally positive Energy Return On Energy Invested.

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Not even remotely true. They produce more expensive energy because of the cost of building the generation system, but not more energy - not even remotely close. Nuclear produces thousands of times more energy than is required to mine, ship, and separate the uranium isotopes. Hydroelectric pretty much ran the Northwest's entire power grid for a while after Grand Coulee Dam was built (it's kind of silly to think that a plant that produces 825 megawatts, and has run for over 60 years, would take more energy to build than it produces). Even solar cells, due to how thin modern silicon cells are, are rather cheap (and there's cheaper methods on the horizon, such as solar furnaces).

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There is no other widely available energy source that can match Cheap Oil and Cheap Gas (meaning the easy stuff we have already pumped first) for its EROEI (50 or more).

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Corrections:1) "That can match it for price"
and
2) "That can Currently match it for price"

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Our econony and culture are built on exponential growth. The fuel of that growth is exponentially increasing amounts of plentiful, cheap energy. If the production of the remaining oil, gas, nuclear and renewable sources cannot maintain that exponential rate of increase, as they have in the past, then the economy will just stop growing, or even decline.

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That is true. Economic strength is directly tied to energy cost. But very little of our economy goes to producing food, and we often spend a lot of our food towards feeding meat.

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That's the bad news, but I agree there is hope from technological advances for improving the EROEI of renewables and ramping up their deployment. But is there any movement in that direction?

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Movement will come when it's cheaper than oil - i.e., when its price drops, or oil's rises. We need to look at efficiencies.

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Shouldn't we have a Manhatten Project effort already underway to be ready for the Cheap Oil rollover and decline?

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Yes. But we won't get it from Bush. Did you see their recent energy policy? It's a disgrace BTW, read about solar chimneys. Neat idea, eh? They don't mention it, but they also double as greenhouses. There are so many great projects being worked on right now, it's hard to be pessimistic... they've got tidal power working in places, there's the amazing solar cell advances that are in the labs right now (and some are going into production), there's been great progress on fusion, there's the Thermal Depolymerization Process, there's wind turbines whose blades bend in the wind (allowing for much lighter and cheaper turbines), biofuels are dropping in price, there's oceanic conveyor power on the horizon.... Once we get cheap access to space, there's even more options that become good. That's why I don't see any major problem.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 11-15-2003]

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That's a very short-term and seemingly insignificant decline; I doubt it would show up with any sort of statistical significance. We need a lot more data before we can show that we're actually in any sort of chronic deficit as opposed to yearly fluctuations.

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Your idea of "insignificant decline" must be different from mine. The world has used up more than half of its grain reserves in the last few years of poor harvests. When/if the remaining reserves run out in a few years, will that be enough data to demonstrate a serious problem?

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How much did U.S. agricultural products rise in price in the 1970s during the embargo? I don't recall the exact numbers, but it wasn't devastating - certainly nothing to hold a great deal of fear over.

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This is an apples-to-oranges comparison. The oil embargo did not reduce oil consumption in the US. Per capita oil consumption actually increased during the decade. As did food production. Everything is easier when you apply more cheap energy to a problem. With declining energy consumption, food production will fall. North Korea is the prime example.Energy is not the only non-renewable resource involved in food production. Topsoil is eroding faster than it is created by weathering. Farmland is lost to development. The nutrient levels of the soil are falling faster than synthetic fertilizers can replace them. Lower levels of organic matter in the soil increase erosion further. Water tables are falling worldwide, soil salinity is rising.We are now totally dependent on fertilizers produced by non-renewable fossil fuels.It is true that agriculture directly consumes only a small amount of petroleum, but the embodied energy in all the inputs and infrastructure is considerable. When the cost of all the agricultural inputs goes up, and the amount of fertilizer required to just to maintain yeilds also increases, due to the other factors mentioned above, it is no wonder global grain harvests are smaller every year. Yields per acre have increased, as knowledge and technology increase, but the total number of acres inevitably declines, as soil erosion, development, water shortages, and salinization remove farmland from production every year.Your data about ethanol proves my point exactly. Ethanol produces marginally more energy than is required to produce it, when measured by some people. Measured by others, it does not break even. From your links, the study that showed the worst energy return (Pimental) was the only one to include the energy costs of the steel for the tractors, concrete, and other infrastructural elements. So the positive return of 25% ignores some of the total energy costs.But lets use the 125% return figure. How much corn would we need to grow to replace our current oil imports?Assumed corn yield = 122 bu/ac
Ethanol conversion = 2.53 gal/bu
Area currently planted in corn = 80 million acres
Total possible net ethanol yield on today's crop = 322,000 barrels per day (if it was all converted to ethanol)
Total oil imports = about 10 million barrels/dayTo replace our oil imports would require planting 30 times more acres in corn. Such an amount of additional/idle farmland simply does not exist - it is more than the total arable land in the US. Even putting all the marginal farmland into corn production would tip the net energy balance strongly into the negative - yields are, by definition, lower on marginal land.Just to produce the huge amount of additional farm equipment needed to farm 2400 million acres of corn would require a huge investment in energy. Where would we find the farmers?Nuclear:

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Nuclear produces thousands of times more energy than is required to mine, ship, and separate the uranium isotopes.

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That is only part of the total energy required. When you include the other energy costs, it is positive by only a factor of 5 or 10 - much worse than oil.The same is true of the other non-fossil energy sources, except hydro-electric. That one has the only really good energy return, but is not going to increase enough to make a difference. Photovoltaics, wind, tidal, etc... all have much lower energy returns compared to oil. That means our future energy economy will be much different than it is today. If we don't get to work investing our current plentiful oil into the low-return renewable sources, we will also have a much bleaker future. Less energy means less food means less people. Fewer people will be achieved by means of war, famine, and pestilence.Loss of topsoil, lack of water for irrigation, and/or increasing salinity has historically been the downfall of every major civilization so far. We are next. The difference this time around is that petroleum has allowed us to vastly overshoot the natural carrying capacity of the Earth. When the oil runs low, we will fall all that much harder, having ballooned up to about 5 billion more than the planet can support.

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Your idea of "insignificant decline" must be different from mine. The world has used up more than half of its grain reserves in the last few years of poor harvests. When/if the remaining reserves run out in a few years, will that be enough data to demonstrate a serious problem?

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Your data on the world's grain reserves? You showed a graph of consumption vs. production, showing a minor dip in the past couple years.

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How much did U.S. agricultural products rise in price in the 1970s during the embargo? I don't recall the exact numbers, but it wasn't devastating - certainly nothing to hold a great deal of fear over.

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This is an apples-to-oranges comparison. The oil embargo did not reduce oil consumption in the US. Per capita oil consumption actually increased during the decade.

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Oil prices remained high after the embargo until the mid 1980s; this led to world oil consumption falling from 41 million barrels per day in 1979 to less than 34 million barrels per day in 1985. I'd call that a decrease. ("The Politics and Limitations of Economic Leverage", Robert D. Hormats)

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As did food production. Everything is easier when you apply more cheap energy to a problem. With declining energy consumption, food production will fall. North Korea is the prime example.

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North Korea is a prime example of a horribly run economy where all of the resources are dedicated to the military. If you look at the world as a whole during the Arab oil embargo, production did fine.

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Topsoil is eroding faster than it is created by weathering. Farmland is lost to development. The nutrient levels of the soil are falling faster than synthetic fertilizers can replace them.

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I'll agree to the first part. I haven't seen anything remotely conclusive about the second part.

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Water tables are falling worldwide, soil salinity is rising.

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That's completely regional. In certain levels, water is falling, in others it's rising. There is a concern when places (such as Saudi Arabia) overuse a relatively non-renewable resource, but in the US, our water is renewable.

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We are now totally dependent on fertilizers produced by non-renewable fossil fuels.It is true that agriculture directly consumes only a small amount of petroleum, but the embodied energy in all the inputs and infrastructure is considerable.

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I included those inputs in my last post; it's still a tiny percentage. It's not at threat at all.

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it is no wonder global grain harvests are smaller every year.

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Only in the last few years. It's a statistically irrelevant fluctuation - you'll need at least 5-10 more years to have any sort of relevancy.

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Yields per acre have increased, as knowledge and technology increase, but the total number of acres inevitably declines, as soil erosion, development, water shortages, and salinization remove farmland from production every year.

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Not true - you're not factoring in new acreage that comes into usage due to better farming methods and technologies.

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Your data about ethanol proves my point exactly. Ethanol produces marginally more energy than is required to produce it, when measured by some people. Measured by others, it does not break even.

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"Measured by others" - you mean by people who incorrectly use out of date information. My father works in the oil industry, directly competes with ethanol, and hates the government-mandated ethanol subsidies - and still admits that they produce well more energy than goes into them. In short, if you're willing to use incorrect, horribly out of date information, then be my guest in continuing to state that it has less energy than goes into making it.

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From your links, the study that showed the worst energy return (Pimental) was the only one to include the energy costs of the steel for the tractors, concrete, and other infrastructural elements. So the positive return of 25% ignores some of the total energy costs.

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They're also using current, inefficient ethanol production tech. Which is advancing very quickly. By the way, Pimental is an *oppnent* of ethanol.

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But lets use the 125% return figure. How much corn would we need to grow to replace our current oil imports?

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Your calculations are completely incorrect.1) You don't burn ethanol to produce ethanol. You burn agricultural waste - energy that would get wasted anyway (ok, in some places they burn other non-mobile sources such as coal, but rarely ever do you have oil or gas-fired ethanol plants, and I've never heard of an ethanol-burning ethanol plant. Also, some use energy from decomposition - such as methane from manure). As a general rule, though, you get near 100% of the energy yield from the ethanol at the plant end, and only have the costs of production/maintinence of farm equipment and fertilizer.2) Ethanol conversion ratios are also rising. The USDA has a lab process which converts the outer fibrous layer of corn as well to raise rates to 2.8; in Wisconsin, a test bed is underway that uses whey (a waste product of cheese making) in with the corn to increase yield to 3.3 gallons per bushel. In early experimentation are processes that turn all kinds of agricultural waste itself into ethanol.This means that there's an *actual* yield of 6 to 6 1/2 million barrels of ethanol per day. The US averaged 10.6 million barrels of oil per day in 2001. Gasoline has 114100 BTUs per gallon; ethanol has about 80,000 for the same mass (which takes up a larger volume, but mass is what is critical here). Thus, the US is importing about 2.25 times more energy than its corn (alone - ignoring all other renewables source) is worth. However, about 70 of US corn right now goes to livestock feed (as does over 50% of all of our grain). So, right now, if we were to cut our consumption of meat for more efficient food energy sources, we could cut our oil imports by a quarter to a third - with *current* technology levels (which are continually advancing).As I've mentioned several times, the world isn't at threat - only our current priorities.

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That is only part of the total energy required. When you include the other energy costs, it is positive by only a factor of 5 or 10 - much worse than oil.

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Nuclear power is far cheaper than oil. The cost of enrichment is only about 6% of the generation costs, and most of our enrichment is done with outdated gasseous diffusion equipment (even Russia uses more modern equipment than us). The main limitations with nuclear power are people's resistance to using it. Mining uranium? We actually almost get more of it as a byproduct of phosphate mining (used in fertilizers!) than we use. And even fission power is advancing well. Probably the biggest hindrance to that is the fact that we actually have is ample *surplus capacity* in the US and much of the rest of the industrialized world when it comes to nuclear power, due to overspeculation in the 1970s.

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Photovoltaics, wind, tidal, etc... all have much lower energy returns compared to oil.

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Correct (although, again, they're advancing incredibly fast). Again, it's a matter of priorities.

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That means our future energy economy will be much different than it is today. If we don't get to work investing our current plentiful oil into the low-return renewable sources, we will also have a much bleaker future. Less energy means less food means less people. Fewer people will be achieved by means of war, famine, and pestilence.

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No. Less energy means less SUVs and less Gulfstream 4's. We'll only get war, famine, and pestilence during a time of reduced energy if Republicans control all branches of our government. It's really about priorities. I think you strongly underestimate the rate of advancement in technology - the very tech that has allowed us to get this far, and keeps increasing by leaps and bounds. I suggest you read up on recent advancements in the fields that I mentioned before we discuss this further - need links?------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Oil depletion is a huge problem and natural gas is being depleted just as fast. The problem is that there is not enough land to produce enough bio fuel to support even current levels of population. It's estimated we would need on the order of three to ten times the arable land in fuel crop production just for that alone.

I was browsing certain older topics in our EvC database when I came upon this thread. Even though many of the original participants are inactive, (Please note) I directly quoted one of them to get this conversation up and running. Is that true?Edited by Phat, : spalling

Yes, by definition. There aren't mines of gaseous hydrogen, you have to expend energy to electrolyze water.It's like charging a battery, in other words. A rechargable battery is a great energy storage system but it's not like you can just mine charged batteries; they have to be produced and then filled with energy from some other source.Hydrogen is another kind of battery, really. Oil is technically a kind of battery, too - it's million-year-old stored sunlight - but it was stored by natural processes. Using oil is kind of like spending a trust fund - much easier than getting a job.When we run out of stored sunlight, there's only the sunlight we're currently getting. That's all the "new" power we could ever have access to. But the radiative flux that reaches the Earth's surface is still several orders of magnitude ahead of the energy requirement of human civilization.

yes, as I have been told ,it is an energy conveyer as it takes lots of energy to produce it, as where oil can be converted with a net energy gain.This may not be the best explanation as it is off the top of my head, but I think its pretty close.

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"I hate to advocate the use of drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they always worked for me." - Hunter S. ThompsonAd astra per asperaNihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione.

Though technology seems to be getting close that might let us use sunlight to split the hydrogen out of water. If that process can be made efficient enough, with catalysts that are available enough (platinum and ruthenium may not be a good fit there), maybe we can separate solar-derived fuel both from fossils and from the hours that the sun is shining. Not that it will be easy....