China's influence and oil no longer priced in Dollars

sunrock said:
Nuclear power relies on uranium which is also running out.Even nuclear power and hydro and renewables will not be enough to power our homes and factories never mind providing power for electric cars for everyone ...maybe 1% of the amount of the cars on the road now.
I find this comparison between mobile phone batteries and car batteries a bit silly.We already have electric cars which are very expensive to buy and run.There is no guarantee that technology can solve our problems that will arise as oil runs out. I mean scientists have been working on possible solutions for at least 20 years and have very little progress made.
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I really think you should look more into this before you make such remarks.
 
Look into what? Please explain and debate if you have different views
 
colm5 said:
I really think you should look more into this before you make such remarks.
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I don't see anything wrong with the comment. Here are some facts:
- there are 436 active nuclear power reactors worldwide (104 in the US)
- 53 new nuclear power reactors are currently under construction, mainly to replace old ones that are reaching their end of life
- it takes about 7-10 years to build a nuclear power plant at a cost of about $13billion
- uranium reserves will last for about 80 years under current consumption demand
- estimated kWh needed to replace gasoline for vehicles in the US: 1300 billion kWh
- current US nuclear power output is 800 billion kWh
- with roughly 12 billion kWh per power plant, it would take about 110 new nuclear power plants to power all vehicles in the US (roughly $1.4 trillion)
- with an average output of 500000kwh per wind turbine it would take 2.6 million wind turbines to power all vehicles in the US (roughly $5 trillion at average cost of $2 million per turbine)

Technology and investment in alternatives to oil are way behind. Sure, it will pick up, but there is no short term solution coming our way that will replace oil. Oil production will peak at some stage; if this happens before alternatives are viable we better get our walking boots on.


Sources:
[broken link removed]
[broken link removed]
[broken link removed]
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[broken link removed]
 
Chris said:
The big question is whether electric motor and battery technology can improve fast enough AND whether roughly 800million motor vehicles can be replaced fast enough.
And even if this happens, electric motors and batteries require huge amounts of limited resources themselves.
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Like the current situation with housing and conservation of fuel and energy, emerging solutions are sorting out the problem of "replacing" existing houses.

External retrofit solutions are offering relatively cost effective methods of enormously improving heat retention and hybrid ventilations systems are dealing with additional heating requirements.

Similary with transport, most of the car is not the engine.
Even in the engine bay a significant amount of the hardware is ancillary to the motive power unit:


  • clutch
  • gearbox
  • drive shaft(s)
  • suspension
  • cooing system
  • wash-wipe pump and bottles, etc.
Thus, most of an existing car could be retained except for the actual motive unit. The complexity would arise in terms of all the individual layouts and finite element modelling which has left very little empty spacein newer models.
Ironically it may be easier to fit electric enginers in older larger saloons and estates than in family hatchbacks.
A possibly more complex issue is the installation and disposition for frash safety of the power cells/fuel supplies, but I have no doubt these issues can be dealt with.

ONQ.
 
one article for example - even US production is starting to increase again as higher prices enables companies to get oil that was previoulsy too expensive to extract. it was "predicted" that the US would have run totally out of oil long before now

"NEW YORK (MarketWatch) - This year's U.S. crude oil production is on track to show its biggest year-on-year jump since 1970, an analysis of historical data by Platts showed Friday. If the 5.268 million barrels a day of average production level, recorded in the first ten months of the year, holds through December, this year's output will rise 6.4% from 2008, the Platts analysis of Energy Information Administration data showed. This year's production level will be the highest since 2004, when output averaged 5.419 million barrels a day."
 
I am not an expert on nuclear energy or indeed how much of the raw material fuel..uranium is left in the world.YOU say that at present consumption rates there is enough uranium for 80 years.Well if oil got scarce and the amount of nuclear power stations increased 3 or4 fold then we are talking about 20 years before all the uranium is used up....but no doubt people will say that some new uranium or technology will have been discovered by then...MAYBE
Some time in the not too distant future mankind is going to have to adjust to a world where fossil fuels like coal,gas and oil and nuclear energy is going to be so expensive that it will only be sparingly used by the average citizen.
O.K. maybe some new soucre of energy will be made available to solve the worlds energy needs......then again maybe not.
 
sunrock said:
Look into what? Please explain and debate if you have different views
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Using cell phone battrey comparsions is very valid, and makes perfect sense.


National Energy
- Ireland has a 44TWh onshore wind potential and at least 10 times that for offshore Wind generation. Lets call it 400TWh. And thats it just wind power.
- Current total national electricity consumption is 27TWh
- 400/27= about 15 times our consumption.
- Current install base of wind = 1.2GW
www.iwea.com
www.ewea.org
www.sei.ie

Electric cars are not expensive to buy or run. Infact, they make good sense when you look at some numbers

Typcial battery - 24kWh
Range - 100 miles tpyically for 24kWh
cost of electricity - 15cent per kWh, night rate more importantly is about 6 cent / kWh
100 miles for 24 * 6 = 1.46euro (compare that to cost of petrol/diesel at about 9cent a mile = 9 euro per 100 miles, variable of course)

So, for financial viability, take Ireland as an example
toe imports for private cars - 2.2Mtoe/yr
cost of 1 toe is about 300 euro at a very low guess, but its hard to find out how petrol is calculated in ktoe. If its
1:1, there are about 900 liters petrol in 1 toe, = 500 euro approx, excluding vat etc....
Cost of fuel importes for cars (@ 300euro/toe) = 2.2x10^6 x300 = 660 milion/year (low estimate)

1GW of installed wind power = 2.2TWh per year (www.eirgrid.com)
Assume all batteries can be charged over night.
Assume 30kWh including losses for a 24kWh charge, which is alot.
=73000000 full charges per year @ 160km per charge at and avg of 130gCO2/km
=1.5184 MtCo2 saved per year
= 600Ktoe per year (assume 1toe = 2.5 ton Co2)
= 27% of all private car fuel usage

So over a quater of all private cars could be run with a 1GW installed power base. On shore wind costs less that 4 cents per kWh to install.

cost of carbon saved per year = 1.5 million tonnes * (anywhere between 10 -100 euro per ton)

Cost of cars = $25 -35K

So, my point is when you look into it, its not that crazy an idea and you cannot just say 'its not possible'.
An infrastructure is needed.
Grid up grades and reinforcements are under way.
Fuel imports saved per year for 1GW = 160 million, plus cost of CO2 = 200 million per year approx, which would be much better staying in the country, creating employemnt in the energy industry rather than exporting our cash for fuel. (and this is at 300 euro per ton, at 500 euro, then 350million euro.)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091116103451.htm
http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/vsa/pdfs/40485.pdf
http://www.byd.com/highlight.php?index=0
http://www.byd.com/showroom.php?car=e6
http://www.rationalwalk.com/?p=1344


my rough $0.02.
 
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heres my evidence.

oil is half the price it was last year. if it had peaked it would have risen far far higher and would still be at record levels
 
Spursman, you're chancing your arm but I really wish you were right. See here . for an Irish book on the subject and follow the links to the IEA, ASPO, Energy Watch Group and many more. Oil has plateaued for the past four years and gone up by multiples since 2000.
 
Chris said:
I don't see anything wrong with the comment. Here are some facts:
- estimated kWh needed to replace gasoline for vehicles in the US: 1300 billion kWh
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This is the problem with that calculation. Of course, if you want to run a V12, 8 litre, 6 ton, 4x4 to a Mcdonalds and back twice a day, you will need a lot of energy.

The US is extremely wasteful of energy because its cheap. When gas 'peaks' to $4 a gallon, as it did, sales of large cars collapse.

So divide everything by 4-6, or more...for fuel efficiency measures.
 
colm5 said:
This is the problem with that calculation. Of course, if you want to run a V12, 8 litre, 6 ton, 4x4 to a Mcdonalds and back twice a day, you will need a lot of energy.

The US is extremely wasteful of energy because its cheap. When gas 'peaks' to $4 a gallon, as it did, sales of large cars collapse.

So divide everything by 4-6, or more...for fuel efficiency measures.
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The source I used for the calculation of US gasoline consumption already discounted by a factor of 5: [broken link removed]
 
So they did, apologies, I didn't read it.
But I really think the rest of the information on that link should be used, as below. The US, of all places, should realise the importance of their resource. No more wars for a while?

Its a good article.

"5,200 billion kilowatt-hours / 4 = 1,300 billion kilowatt-hours

Here it is. This is how much electricity we will need in order to replace gasoline.

Let’s say we want to get this electricity from a renewable source. How does this much electricity compare to, say, wind energy? For this, we take a look at the estimated wind energy potential for the top 5 states1:

North Dakota 1,210 billion kilowatt-hours
Texas 1,190
Kansas 1,070
South Dakota 1,030
Montana 1.020

As you can see, gasoline could be almost totally replaced by the wind energy of North Dakota by itself.

The coming switch from gasoline to electricity is not lost on the big utility companies. They see electric vehicles as a major new market for electricity, and especially a market that will consume electricity mostly overnight, when the utilities have a lot of excess capacity."
 
Derek123 said:
Spursman, you're chancing your arm but I really wish you were right. See here . for an Irish book on the subject and follow the links to the IEA, ASPO, Energy Watch Group and many more. Oil has plateaued for the past four years and gone up by multiples since 2000.
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The aspo is a highly biased group. the IEA is only a group of business people. you need to speak to geologists and engineers about this. i have and none of them think peak oil is here
 
spursman said:
The aspo is a highly biased group. the IEA is only a group of business people. you need to speak to geologists and engineers about this. i have and none of them think peak oil is here
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OK, can I see their scientifically reviewed literature please ?

There are a couple of geologists and engineers here who would disagree with your mates.



I don't have an opionion either way on peak oil, but I would like to see some balanced, non OPEC, non industry, published, peer reviewed literature backing up your statements
 
colm5 said:
Typcial battery - 24kWh
Range - 100 miles tpyically for 24kWh
cost of electricity - 15cent per kWh, night rate more importantly is about 6 cent / kWh
100 miles for 24 * 6 = 1.46euro (compare that to cost of petrol/diesel at about 9cent a mile = 9 euro per 100 miles, variable of course)

So, for financial viability, take Ireland as an example
toe imports for private cars - 2.2Mtoe/yr
cost of 1 toe is about 300 euro at a very low guess, but its hard to find out how petrol is calculated in ktoe. If its
1:1, there are about 900 liters petrol in 1 toe, = 500 euro approx, excluding vat etc....
Cost of fuel importes for cars (@ 300euro/toe) = 2.2x10^6 x300 = 660 milion/year (low estimate)

1GW of installed wind power = 2.2TWh per year (www.eirgrid.com)
Assume all batteries can be charged over night.
Assume 30kWh including losses for a 24kWh charge, which is alot.
=73000000 full charges per year @ 160km per charge at and avg of 130gCO2/km
=1.5184 MtCo2 saved per year
= 600Ktoe per year (assume 1toe = 2.5 ton Co2)
= 27% of all private car fuel usage

So over a quater of all private cars could be run with a 1GW installed power base. On shore wind costs less that 4 cents per kWh to install.

cost of carbon saved per year = 1.5 million tonnes * (anywhere between 10 -100 euro per ton)

Cost of cars = $25 -35K
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I think you 24kWh per 100 miles is still a bit optimistic. The Mini E has a consumption of about 21kWh per 100km which is about 34kWh per 100 miles. Most importantly, this is for a very small car not an average family size car.

Nevertheless, your calculations are very interesting and certainly highlight the viability of electrically powered cars for some of the population. The question is how many people can and will switch to something with still a very limited range.

Of course it only makes sense to introduce electrically powered cars if the electricity is sourced from renewable energy. Per your calculation 2.2 tWh could power about a quarter of all cars (based on 30 kWh charges). Let's increase that number to allow for larger saloon vehicles and currently available cars, to 40 kWh. To make a nice easy number let's say that 2.2 tWh would fuel 20% of all cars.

So we would need to install an additional 2.2 tWh of wind energy. There are about 1100 wind turbines in Ireland, so it would take another 1100 to power 20% of cars. With demand for wind turbines greatly increasing, a turbine now costs on average about €2 million; with increasing demand that cost will only go up. So that would be an investment of about €2.2 billion to power 20% of cars. Generally speaking not a 'huge' investment, but given the state of the country, I can't see this happening in the short term.

I still believe that technology, investment and demand for electric vehicles and their power supply are far behind. This will certainly change in the future, but I won't be banking on it to viably replace oil based fuels any time soon.
 
Chris,
These are not my assumptions, go look at byd.com, or , or any other car manufacturer of EV. 24kWh per 100 miles is typcial, not extraordinary, and is for a family car. BYD have leap froged BMW and all auto makers, and plan to be the biggest car manufacturer in the world by 2025. Mr. Buffett agrees and bought 10% of the company, after they refused his offer to buy 25%. (not that this means anything, but not a bad endorsement)

The range is not limited, 70% of all journeys are < 20km. (again look at )

There are alot less that 1100 turbines. There are 1100 MW, which would be about 600-800 turbines. Turbines continually increase in capacity. There is a 3 MW on shore available, and a 5MW off shore, with a 10MW in test.

100 -200 turbines on the offshore Arklow bank would power 27% of all private cars.

Investment is made by private or semistate companies, not the state. Grid upgrades are happening regardless of private EV introduction, at a cost of 4bn to 2025.

It can already replace oil based fuels, and is already viable, so I can't agree with your last point.
 
colm5 said:
Chris,
These are not my assumptions, go look at byd.com, or , or any other car manufacturer of EV. 24kWh per 100 miles is typcial, not extraordinary, and is for a family car. BYD have leap froged BMW and all auto makers, and plan to be the biggest car manufacturer in the world by 2025. Mr. Buffett agrees and bought 10% of the company, after they refused his offer to buy 25%. (not that this means anything, but not a bad endorsement)
Click to expand...

The problem is though that any large increase in damands for batteries will increase demand and price for the rare earth metals, and other raw materials, which are expensive and also finite. No doubt this company is going to do well, as will others. I have investments in renewable energy myself, but I don't think they will deliver as much as what is hoped for.

colm5 said:
The range is not limited, 70% of all journeys are < 20km. (again look at )
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The average journey may be <20km, but the average daily distance traveled is a lot more than 20km. You need to consider the entire distance driven between the charges that would happen over night. Now 160km would be enough for my daily commute (and probably the majority of commutes), but is by far too little for regular longer journeys I make. This would mean having a second petrol/diesel based car. Or a combination like the Prius, but I can get a more fuel efficient diesel car than the Prius.

colm5 said:
There are alot less that 1100 turbines. There are 1100 MW, which would be about 600-800 turbines. Turbines continually increase in capacity. There is a 3 MW on shore available, and a 5MW off shore, with a 10MW in test.

100 -200 turbines on the offshore Arklow bank would power 27% of all private cars.
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Nope, 1032 is the number from earlier this year.
According to IWEA there are 1032 turbines in 113 farms: http://www.iwea.com/index.cfm/page/faqs
Latest numbers I have found are that there are now 119 active wind farms, so a couple more makes roughly 1100.

I agree that turbines are getting better and are able to generate more electricity. But with this also comes a higher price. The cost per MW is between $1.2 and $2.6 million dollars. More powerfull turbines are not reducing the price by much at all, so the total cost of adding the additional turbines will still be the same.

colm5 said:
Investment is made by private or semistate companies, not the state. Grid upgrades are happening regardless of private EV introduction, at a cost of 4bn to 2025.

It can already replace oil based fuels, and is already viable, so I can't agree with your last point.
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Yes, I agree, but public and private entities are not able to get the amount of investments needed in the short term.
While electricity can replace some oil usage it is not currently possible to do so on any significant scale. As I've said before this will happen gradually, but I don't think that it will happen fast enough. I also don't believe that it will be as easily possible as is being promoted. Yes, some of the necessary technology exists, but any sudden increases in demand will make renewables and electric cars a lot less attractive.
 
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