Some Truth about Oil Shales......

[JustWinBaby]

(01-04-2017, 08:55 PM)Stewy Wrote: Fourth to get it economic for everyday use requires an entire change in the world infrastructure, and THIS is what will take time and why fossil fuels have not just a life past 50 years, but will be required for centuries to come unless you want no lubricants, no plastics, no chemicals, no Styrofoam, etc.

What I'm trying to point out is that getting rid of fossil fuels, isn't just about fusion.....it's about changing just about every aspect and convenience of our every day lives. \

Fair points.  But I'm talking specifically about energy/fuel.  Fossils will continue to be used for the byproducts you mention, but there's really no issue there.

Also, I specifically mentioned battery tech as being viable enough to transition to a world of "fusion".  Jet planes, probably not.  But industry, home energy, cars and trucks, sure.  And that's the bulk of man's carbon footprint (ignoring cow farts which increases directly with geometric population growth).

I'm probably wrong, but I don't see an insurmountable change in infrastructure.  Ignoring that upgrades will be made - need to be made - over the next 50 years...you produce energy over the existing grid and batteries can be charged to supply our needs.

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(01-04-2017, 08:55 PM)Stewy Wrote: A couple of things:
#1 - Natural Gas is a fossil fuel - hehe
#2 - Even if we have economically viable fusion reactors for power plants, that doesn't account for the fact transportation depends on oil at a 92% clip.  Are we going to convert the whole world to electric engines, including trains, tractor trailers, airplanes....anything that uses diesel or heavier fuels, in 50 years?  I seriously doubt it.
#3 - Just an FYI - Electricity production by fossil fuel type - https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=427&t=3
#4 - Oil Usage by product - http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/topics/encyclopedia/fossil-fuels/ - scroll down - lots of good info here.

The problem as I see it is multi fold. 
First you have to achieve, control and perfect fusion, safely.
Second you have to make it viable on a large scale
Third you have to make it economic for power generation
Fourth to get it economic for everyday use requires an entire change in the world infrastructure, and THIS is what will take time and why fossil fuels have not just a life past 50 years, but will be required for centuries to come unless you want no lubricants, no plastics, no chemicals, no Styrofoam, etc.

What I'm trying to point out is that getting rid of fossil fuels, isn't just about fusion.....it's about changing just about every aspect and convenience of our every day lives.  Fusion is just one innovation, but completely replacing fossil fuels would require separate and equally challenging innovations in multitudes of separate disciplines.  With that said my guess is that there are several cases where a particular chemical or lubricant or plastic can be created in ways that do not require fossil fuels, but they aren't economic.  It follows that if you remove natural gas from power generation (33% of total electricity comes from natural gas), that doesn't make the worlds reserves of natural gas go away, but just makes it cheaper, making it even more viable for heating, home use and industry, thus making it even more difficult for "other" products to replace them (Yes that was an awful sentence - sue me I'm wasn't an English major).

The way I see it, fusion will extend the life of fossil fuels, not end them.  But if fusion delivers on it's promise we can certainly generate of electricity in a much more clean manner and make electric cars much more viable options.  I'd say we're at least 150-200 years away from the personal use fusion seen in Back to the Future and Fallout 4 however.



I've been a fusion junky myself.  It's fascinating and frankly scary stuff.  It's kinda like when they detonated the first A-bomb and some were seriously worried about a chain reaction setting the atmosphere on fire (or was that the hydrogen bomb....or both).  No one really knows what will happen when we achieve true fusion.  My guess is likely nothing catastrophic because of the conditions and containment needed to induce true fusion (tremendous pressure, temperature and magnetic fields, etc.).  What I'm saying is the fusion reaction might run out of control, but once the containment conditions fail, the reaction will likely stop.....I hope.

Sorry for quoting this entire section, but what is the impetus for change in our everyday lives now?  Once an alternative to fossil fuel energy is viable, I believe that will spark industry to develop new technologies to incorporate into our everyday lives so they profit from it. 

If you build it, they will come. So to speak. 

[Stewy]

(01-06-2017, 11:07 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Sorry for quoting this entire section, but what is the impetus for change in our everyday lives now?  Once an alternative to fossil fuel energy is viable, I believe that will spark industry to develop new technologies to incorporate into our everyday lives so they profit from it. 

If you build it, they will come. So to speak. 

Note:  I wrote this carefully I think because I did not want you to think I was attacking to belittling you.  Below is my attempt to explain, why I do not believe it is as simple as "build it, and they will come".
_____________________________________


There are two main things that drive major change.  Someone has to want a service, good, or product made available, and then it has to be profitable for someone to provide it.  Supply and demand.  I hinted at this in one of the posts above but there are plenty of examples where technologies already exist that are cheaper than current dirtier alternatives, but aren't in huge circulation due to economics. 

The best example is Natural Gas powered vehicles.  A small percentage of trucks (pickups not diesel engines) used in Oil and Gas fields over the last two decades have been powered by Natural Gas.  You may have seen them in Appalachia working the gas fields.  These are not more common for two very simple reasons;  1)  The tanks on the vehicles have to be pressurized, thus they are dangerous, and can only be of a certain size, thus their range is limited and 2)  Due to the small number of vehicles on the road service stations won't install the infrastructure to supply Natural Gas vehicles.  It requires a special pump and special pressurized storage.  The gas producing company has to do a deal with the service station to get the infrastructure installed, so the producing company can supply their vehicles. 

This seems like a simple problem, but it is not.  Until the infrastructure is built for a technology making it equal to or better in terms of cost and convenience compared to what we already have, then people won't want it.  It isn't as simple as "if you build it they will come".  Sure if you mysteriously produced 100 billion dollars and changed out the entire countries infrastructure from gasoline to natural gas over night, then you'd run into a second problem.....the 100 billion dollars to replace every persons vehicle.  So.....it comes to this.......in this case until gasoline becomes so expensive that the people DEMAND something cheaper, it will not be economically viable to for companies to make the change.

It follows that this problem would only be worse for an infrastructure change to electric cars because in addition to the need to have electric cars in every house, there is no way the current power grid could supply the 100+ million vehicles on the road, plus there would need to be a technology boost that would allow for efficient QUICK charging at refueling stations so people can go longer distances.  However, in this case my guess would be by the time the power grid is changed out (the most onerous and expensive task I see), electric car technologies probably will have advanced as wells, making them more powerful, more efficient, quicker to recharge and with longer battery lives.  Again, it isn't as simple as "build it and they will come".  It comes down to companies will build it and people will come to buy it when it makes financial sense to do so.

Finally, there are many examples similar to the ones above where the technology already exists to replace some part of fossil fuel (yes I know Natural Gas is a fossil fuel, but changing over to NG over oil is a good and much cleaner step in the right direction) use in our lives.  They don't need to be invented  They just need to become more economic to use.

[Rotobeast]

(01-06-2017, 01:41 PM)Stewy Wrote: The best example is Natural Gas powered vehicles.  A small percentage of trucks (pickups not diesel engines) used in Oil and Gas fields over the last two decades have been powered by Natural Gas.  You may have seen them in Appalachia working the gas fields.  These are not more common for two very simple reasons;  1)  The tanks on the vehicles have to be pressurized, thus they are dangerous, and can only be of a certain size, thus their range is limited and 2)  Due to the small number of vehicles on the road service stations won't install the infrastructure to supply Natural Gas vehicles.  It requires a special pump and special pressurized storage.  The gas producing company has to do a deal with the service station to get the infrastructure installed, so the producing company can supply their vehicles.

There are a few guys, in my area, that purchased a pump to compress NG.
There are oil wells on their property and they get free NG.
I think they paid about $6,000 for a pump.

It's beneficial for them, but have the same restrictions you mentioned (distance, ect).

One guy has a map of commercial and private pumping stations.
I suppose there's websites to share this info.
He goes across several states.
That would be a bit tough to plan, as I think most are lucky to get 200 miles/fill-up.

[Stewy]

(01-06-2017, 02:00 PM)Rotobeast Wrote: There are a few guys, in my area, that purchased a pump to compress NG.
There are oil wells on their property and they get free NG.
I think they paid about $6,000 for a pump.

It's beneficial for them, but have the same restrictions you mentioned  (distance, ect).

One guy has a map of commercial and private pumping stations.
I suppose there's websites to share this info.
He goes across several states.
That would be a bit tough to plan, as I think most are lucky to get 200 miles/fill-up.

Yeah the use of NG vehicles is more widespread where NG is produced like Appalachia, Texas and Oklahoma.  Thank you for a real example of what I was saying.  But again on the positive side, this isn't a technology that needs discovered.  It exists, but cost, convenience and efficiency are prohibitive to wide spread use currently.  But it is slowly coming along.

[Stewy]

(01-06-2017, 03:26 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: Fair points.  But I'm talking specifically about energy/fuel.  Fossils will continue to be used for the byproducts you mention, but there's really no issue there.

Also, I specifically mentioned battery tech as being viable enough to transition to a world of "fusion".  Jet planes, probably not.  But industry, home energy, cars and trucks, sure.  And that's the bulk of man's carbon footprint (ignoring cow farts which increases directly with geometric population growth).

I'm probably wrong, but I don't see an insurmountable change in infrastructure.  Ignoring that upgrades will be made - need to be made - over the next 50 years...you produce energy over the existing grid and batteries can be charged to supply our needs.

I agree with you, that there will be technology advances over the next century that will make electric vehicles more efficient and viable.  But I think you under estimate the strain this amount of use would put on our power grid.  Only so much electricity can flow through the aging circuits at a time.  Also the need/cost to change out fuel stations to power recharge stations will be enormous.  Also, I think you over estimate how quickly fusion can be brought from not achieved, to "discovered in a lab" to "sustainable safely on a small scale" to sustainable safely on a large scale" to "first viable power plant" to "wide spread use".  Science never jumps in with both feet and starts running with the ball.  Fusion will require decades of testing and trials to improve efficiency and assure safety.  Science NEVER jumps in with both feet and says "Ok we discovered it today, now it's safe and efficient to use tomorrow.".  I realize you weren't being this flippant, but if you look back at the evolution of fission you may get why I am skeptical of fusions relatively quick widespread and global use in our lives post "discovery".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power
1932 Fission First Achieved - Accidentally via observations made using a proton accelrator
1942 First Controlled Nuclear Reaction - Basement under a Squash Court at the University of Chicago
1952 First Nuclear Reactor built to a power grid - USSR 5 MW
1956 First Commercial Nuclear Reactor - Britain 50 MW
1979 Three Mile Island Incident - US regulations and public perception change in Nuclear Perception - people no longer wanted a reactor in their backyard
1986 Chernobyl Accident - read up on this;  it's chilling
2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident - natures reality trumps mans caution

Regardless of what some think of humans in general, the scientific community does generally learn from it's mistakes.  Before Three mile island, scientists in the 1960's had already begun to raise concerns related to nuclear accidents, proliferation, high cost to produce, nuclear terrorism and waste disposal.  All of these concerns turned out to be absolutely justified (minus the terrorism), and together along with the accidents are why the world has essentially stopped building new fission power plants.

And it is this history along with a fear of repeating the same mistakes, which will take Fusion power from a 50 year dream to a 200 year reality, IMO.  Science, governments and the people will want caution and justifiably so considering the history.  Only the ignorant and reckless will want acceleration without consideration and caution.

[Rotobeast]

I wonder why we've never used mag-lev technology in underground tubes, to ship freight ?
I know Musk is pushing the hyper-loop, but I'd think we'd at least be running freight tunnels from docks/mines to distribution centers.
There's probably too much upkeep involved with the tech.
I haven't read on it, for a while.
I need to revisit it.


Sent from my SM-S820L using Tapatalk

[SteelCitySouth]

(01-05-2017, 07:12 PM)Rotobeast Wrote: There's a mother joke here, but I'm going to let it go.

Finally...Your poor mother needs a rest.  

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(01-06-2017, 01:41 PM)Stewy Wrote: Note:  I wrote this carefully I think because I did not want you to think I was attacking to belittling you.  Below is my attempt to explain, why I do not believe it is as simple as "build it, and they will come".
_____________________________________


There are two main things that drive major change.  Someone has to want a service, good, or product made available, and then it has to be profitable for someone to provide it.  Supply and demand.  I hinted at this in one of the posts above but there are plenty of examples where technologies already exist that are cheaper than current dirtier alternatives, but aren't in huge circulation due to economics. 

The best example is Natural Gas powered vehicles.  A small percentage of trucks (pickups not diesel engines) used in Oil and Gas fields over the last two decades have been powered by Natural Gas.  You may have seen them in Appalachia working the gas fields.  These are not more common for two very simple reasons;  1)  The tanks on the vehicles have to be pressurized, thus they are dangerous, and can only be of a certain size, thus their range is limited and 2)  Due to the small number of vehicles on the road service stations won't install the infrastructure to supply Natural Gas vehicles.  It requires a special pump and special pressurized storage.  The gas producing company has to do a deal with the service station to get the infrastructure installed, so the producing company can supply their vehicles. 

This seems like a simple problem, but it is not.  Until the infrastructure is built for a technology making it equal to or better in terms of cost and convenience compared to what we already have, then people won't want it.  It isn't as simple as "if you build it they will come".  Sure if you mysteriously produced 100 billion dollars and changed out the entire countries infrastructure from gasoline to natural gas over night, then you'd run into a second problem.....the 100 billion dollars to replace every persons vehicle.  So.....it comes to this.......in this case until gasoline becomes so expensive that the people DEMAND something cheaper, it will not be economically viable to for companies to make the change.

It follows that this problem would only be worse for an infrastructure change to electric cars because in addition to the need to have electric cars in every house, there is no way the current power grid could supply the 100+ million vehicles on the road, plus there would need to be a technology boost that would allow for efficient QUICK charging at refueling stations so people can go longer distances.  However, in this case my guess would be by the time the power grid is changed out (the most onerous and expensive task I see), electric car technologies probably will have advanced as wells, making them more powerful, more efficient, quicker to recharge and with longer battery lives.  Again, it isn't as simple as "build it and they will come".  It comes down to companies will build it and people will come to buy it when it makes financial sense to do so.

Finally, there are many examples similar to the ones above where the technology already exists to replace some part of fossil fuel (yes I know Natural Gas is a fossil fuel, but changing over to NG over oil is a good and much cleaner step in the right direction) use in our lives.  They don't need to be invented  They just need to become more economic to use.

Wouldn't economic viability fall under the larger umbrella of viability?  Also, wouldn't technological advances to improve the economics of the technology fall under necessity is the mother of invention, but MacGyver is its father?

[Rotobeast]

(01-06-2017, 04:09 PM)SteelCitySouth Wrote: Finally...Your poor mother needs a rest.  

Yes, she does.

Now that you are back to the boards, she can get some rest.
She did say that she would've gotten rid of you a long time ago, if it were not for that cute way of crawling off, when you're done.

[Stewy]

(01-06-2017, 04:14 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Wouldn't economic viability fall under the larger umbrella of viability?

Yes.  But there can be huge gaps between technical viability and economic viability.  Small scale Viability must be analyzed after invention.  Wide scale viability then follows, and lastly economic viability.  All innovation must pass through these gates for widespread use to occur.

Quote:Also, wouldn't technological advances to improve the economics of the technology fall under necessity is the mother of invention, but MacGyver is its father?

If all parts are related, yes.  But that is not the case for most innovations which will affect the mass populace.  Making fusion reactors economically viable on a wide scale, does not solve the need to have electric cars in every garage or force the innovation necessary make electric vehicles/engines (not just cars) themselves viable for most uses.  Nor does making fusion reactors economically viable travel along the same lines as needing service stations revamps, and the entire power grid buoyed for the tremendous amounts of throughput needed for 100+ millions vehicles (plus other usues) to be supplied with electricity.  They walk down the same road hand in hand for sure, but innovation in one does not assure innovation in the other.  They require separate but equally necessary innovations to make wide spread Fusion use plausible in our every day lives viable. 

However, my guess is fusion itself (which has not been achieved) will take so long to move to wide scale availability, that the rest of the industries will have moved forward by default, just due to time and in this particular case the separate but needed innovations won't be a hinderance.

[Stewy]

On a side note, I think the thread title needs to be changed ("Energy Into the Future") or something - lol. We haven't talked about Oil shales since like the 4th post. Good discussion though.

[Rotobeast]

So... kicking around a little.....

This looks interesting....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_fluoride_thorium_reactor

Quote:Thorium abundance. A LFTR breeds thorium into uranium-233 fuel. The Earth's crust contains about three to four times as much thorium as U-238 (thorium is about as abundant as lead). It is a byproduct of rare-earth mining, normally discarded as waste. Using LFTRs, there is enough affordable thorium to satisfy the global energy needs for hundreds of thousands of years.[59] Thorium is more common in the earth’s crust than tin, mercury, or silver.[8] A cubic meter of average crust yields the equivalent of about four sugar cubes of thorium, enough to supply the energy needs of one person for more than ten years if completely fissioned.[8] Lemhi Pass on the Montana-Idaho border is estimated to contain 1,800,000 tons of high-grade thorium ore.[8] Five hundred tons could supply all U.S. energy needs for one year.[8] Due to lack of current demand, the U.S. government has returned about 3,200 metric tons of refined thorium nitrate to the crust, burying it in the Nevada desert.[8]