No they aren't!
World Natural Gas isn't expected to Peak until sometime in the 22 century! Coal's World peak isn't expected until at least 2100 (some place it as high as 2150).
Now, I AM NOT saying it isn't a good thing to move off Oil, I do not necessarily think it is necessary to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
To me, it makes since to begin moving from Oil to Electricity, Electricity which we can already produce economically from Coal. At the same time (I'm also not blind to the environmental impact of Coal) we should start to diversity our Electrical production between Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear (which through reprocessing is *essentially* unlimited), mass Geothermal (from ANY place, not just Geologically active areas), Solar (both Terrestrial and Space/Satellite based), Wind, etc.
In the end, Electricity is the ONLY source of energy we know we can produce in large amounts and (through several of the sources listed above) cleanly.
This is why I don't necessarily have a problem mining Oil Sands and Oil Shale.
Detractors yell, "Oh that's useless, sense it uses more energy than it produces".
That ISN'T necessarily bad if the Energy it takes to make it DOESN'T come from the same type of energy your trying to produce.
I mean, it doesn't make any sense to use 1.5 gallons of Oil to produce 1 gallon of Oil, that's crazy.
HOWEVER, if you can use the equivalent of 1.5 gallons of Natural Gas (Yes, I know Natural Gas is measured in Cubic Feet, I'm just making a comparison), something we are pretty sure will far outstrip conventional Oil in supply, to produce 1 gallon of refinable Oil,...that actually is useful in mitigating Peak Oil.
What we are *ultimately* going to need are Nuclear, Geothermal, and Space based Solar (Which could operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, virtually regardless of terrestrial weather) producing electricity that us ONLY used to produce Hydrogen byway of electrolysis of seawater. With a Massive supply of Hydrogen, it becomes feasible to produce synthetic Gasoline, Diesel, and Natural Gas.
Now, this scenario assumes we find it more feasible to patch out current Hydrocarbon based system than to simply scrap it and use electricity directly to power our machines (though we will need *some* form of Natural Gas, or at least Hydrogen, to maintain our food levels through ammonia based fertilizers).
It is perfectly possible to power our World without Oil AND without massive price hikes, but we have to get rid of the NIMBY (not in my backyard) attitude that somehow, someway WE (that being the royal we) shouldn't have to look at it (be it Nuclear Plants, Wind Turbines, etc.)
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gmentink
16 years ago
It seems obvious that the thrust of the film has escaped many of you. The point is that we CANNOT use all the reserves that are available as we may recreate the conditions that created the oil in the first place, that being the condition of no polar ice caps, no circulation of the sea and therefore a very unproductive sea. Forget any deep sea fish, whales feeding at kilometres under the sea, penguins, polar bears etc. The coal must be left in the ground and other solutions found. Unfortunately most people are too selfish and will vote out any politicians that would introduce suitable policies to steer us in a sustainable direction, therefore the future will probably go in the direction suggested. This is going to mean a lot of human suffering and worse still the extinction of thousands if not millions of species within the next 10-30 years. The problem is that the ice caps do not have any balancing mechanism, like global warming, where the warming may be slowed by the extra cloud cover. The loss of the ice caps will probably be a runaway situation, once rocks become exposed in sufficient quantities, the changed albedo will be enough to cause loss of most ice without any extra warming of the planet.
Leave the coal where it is, buy solar hot water panels - every home should have them. Bike to work, get a job closer to home, become a vegetarian, eat local seasonal food, etc etc. You know what to do...
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heavyweather
15 years ago
Nuclear is the least favorable solution.
(As long as cold fusion aint an option...will take another 100 years probably to reasearch)
It would be possible by now to have all electricity produced by combined renewable energy plants...
The problem at this pint is the grid.
I am talking about Europe but I guess the grid problems are even bigger in the US.
Combined Plants use lots of dislocated sources to form big virtual plants. (kust like cloud computing). These cells can be waterpower, geothermical, hydropower, solarenergy, biogas, tide, offshore wind, troposphärical wind,..
A test in Germany has proven that such a plant can meet the demand.
Website is also available in English.
http://www.kombikraftwerk.de/
Another fundamental problem is that technologie is no longer public.
Patents and companys keep information and technologie hostage...
sure they will eventually come up with something...but if it was easier to use certain parts which are patented now work on solutions could be really pushed forward. There is something like open hardware...like GNU licenses for hardware.
There should also be more research funded by the government (us...the people!)
Solutions would belong to the poeple.
I will start a blog now...collecting ideas on energy. (and for my personal link site...)
http://zutopisch.blogspot.com
have a look at the kitegen project from Italy.
The basic idea behind the Dragonfly-Windturbines is also very intrueging...if it will work like they want.
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heavyweather
15 years ago
Why nuclear is out of question:
You need a certain amount of time to built a plant. In Finnland they are building the biggest plant on the planet. Olkiluoto 3 has been a desaster so far. Estimated cost is alerady exceeding the planed 3mrd€ by 50%. The reactor will start its production an estimated 4 years behind scedule.
To meet world energy demand you would have to built 10.000 of these...
The question of nuclear waste is more than problematic.
Nuclear energy is the most expansive if you calculate in all this troubles.
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nightcrawler-329
13 years ago
nucflash wrote:
In the end, Electricity is the ONLY source of energy we know we can produce in large amounts and (through several of the sources listed above) cleanly.
Electricity is not a source of energy. It is a form of energy. And coal is not clean.
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