Global.....Cooling?

[guncrasher]

lol, it was supposed to be done in the '90's.  They weren't write then.

It was supposed to be done in the 2000's.... not right again.

These ultra melons making these predictions are fools.

bodhi I clearly remember back in the 70's reading that oil was gonna be gone in a  100 years.  the only time they said the 70's was in terminator or the road warrior.


semp

[Brooke]

There's your problem in a nutshell, but that's the way of things isn't it? My daydreaming was really thinking of comparative screw ups, 150 years of nuclear oops vs 150 years of things like slurry pond oops, permanent fire oops, oil spill oops and carbon oops.

You can always totally misuse something good, but then it is incorrect to conclude that it is bad.  It is bad when it is misused and good when it isn't misused.  Many things, nuclear power included, are like that.  Some current implementations were horribly bad.

Your point of how it compares, though, is a good one.  There have been a couple of bad nuclear accidents, but there have also been a large number of fossil-fuel problems that, over time, are as bad or worse.

The issue isn't that we have a choice of perfection vs. nuclear, or perfection vs. fossil fuels.  The world needs power production to survive and thrive, so using nothing or wind or only solar isn't an option that will be chosen.

[Changeup]

lol, it was supposed to be done in the '90's.  They weren't write then.

It was supposed to be done in the 2000's.... not right again.

These ultra melons making these predictions are fools.

WADR,

You have no idea what you're talking about.  Sweet crude vs sour crude.  The available reserves of sweet are well documented and well explored and they only exist in 4 places in the world.  Do your homework...

Sour crude?  Different story

[Brooke]

I don't think that we'll have any problems with fossil-fuel supplies for a long, long time.

[Changeup]

I don't think that we'll have any problems with fossil-fuel supplies for a long, long time.

It's the first time what I do for a living has ever come up on these boards, lmao!

In supply terms, no.  In cost terms yes.

Why do you suppose there was a price inversion for gasoline and diesel fuel in 1999 and why it will never go away?

Cost problem one:
85% of the worlds oil supply is sour crude.
85% of the worlds refineries are designed to refine sweet crude.
Only one US company had the foresight to setup sour crude refining.....Valero.

Cost problem two:
Over 2/3 of the worlds overall crude oil supply is under the control of OPEC and Venezuela
The US foreign oil policy is to use (import) everyone else's oil before we use our own.  Outlook has changed but as you can see at the pump and per-quart-of-motor oil, we're paying for that difference.

Cost problem three:
US companies turn producing wells OFF when market prices are below their profit models.  Capitalism.
Capitalism drives our oil imports until supply wains enough to increase domestic production.

Cost problem four:
Shale oil (fracking) is an extremely costly way to turn shale oil rock into sour crude.  
Expensive to produce, expensive to refine, end refined product is a base stock that is of much less quality than sweet crude.

Results:

OEMs will continue to have difficulty engineering engines that run on continually poor quality fuels.  The Tier 4 engines, with all of their emissions control equipment are already costing OEMs hundreds of millions in warranty work.

Refining costs will quadruple over the next 15 years as refineries begin to transition from sweet to sour crude capability.  That cost will be passed along to you.

Affordable transportation, without alternative fuels, will become a thing of the past over the next 60 years due to the costs associated with, and the opportunistic supply models currently in place.

So, if you can't afford it...it's total supply is meaningless.  It might as well not exist at all.

[pembquist]

You can always totally misuse something good, but then it is incorrect to conclude that it is bad.  It is bad when it is misused and good when it isn't misused.  Many things, nuclear power included, are like that.  Some current implementations were horribly bad.

My point wasn't that nuclear power is bad in the abstract but that the problem, as with many things, is that there is a tendency to implement things in a way that is suboptimal. You can blame bureaucracy or stupidity but it happens so regularly that I think it is best to consider it a permanent challenge. I assume that with any energy source there are negative consequences, just as there are with our lifestyles.

It's an imperfect world.

[ghi]

Philippines is getting hit hard over next hours,

http://m.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/super-typhoon-haiyan-a-serious/19561621r typhoon Haiyan just broke all scientific intensity scales

Writing for Quartz, meteorologist Eric Holthaus says that the super typhoon Haiyan about to hit the Philippines is the worst storm he has ever seen. With sustained winds of 190mph (305km/h) and staggering gusts of 230mph (370km/h), its "intensity has actually ticked slightly above the maximum to 8.1 on an 8.0 scale."

Holthaus says that Yolanda—its Filipino name—beats "Wilma (2005) in intensity by 5mph—that was the strongest storm ever in the Atlantic," which makes it a member of the select club of Worst Storms Ever in the Planet. Only three other storms since 1969 have reached this intensity.

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/super-typhon-h...socialflow

[pembquist]

Sustained winds of 190 mph?  I don't think I can even imagine what that is like.

[Brooke]

My point wasn't that nuclear power is bad in the abstract but that the problem, as with many things, is that there is a tendency to implement things in a way that is suboptimal. You can blame bureaucracy or stupidity but it happens so regularly that I think it is best to consider it a permanent challenge. I assume that with any energy source there are negative consequences, just as there are with our lifestyles.

It's an imperfect world.

True, it is an imperfect world, but there are easy designs to make inherently safe nuclear reactors.  We should do that rather than what we have been doing.

Also problems with nuclear power are not common or regular.  There have been a couple of horrible blunders, but 100 times more examples over many decades of fine operation.

Consider the fossil-fuel side.  There have been bad tanker spills and bad oil-well spills.  So, we start moving to double-walled tankers and things like safety valves on wells.  They aren't perfect, but they are an improvement over doing nothing.  We should do improvements in nuclear power.

[Brooke]

It's the first time what I do for a living has ever come up on these boards, lmao!

In supply terms, no.  In cost terms yes.

Unless the government continues to interfere in a way that greatly hampers the market, I believe that we will have fossil fuel for a long time without oil being the source of economic disaster.  I don't dispute that it might not be at $2/gallon of gasoline, but affordable enough to be our major power source for a long time to come.  I think that, as prices stay high, other means of dealing with fossil fuels (natural gas applications, more-expensive but still viable ways of drilling and refining, building more refineries that work with this or that source, etc.) and other non-fossil-fuel sources will help fill a portion of our needs.

[pembquist]

True, it is an imperfect world, but there are easy designs to make inherently safe nuclear reactors.  We should do that rather than what we have been doing.

Also problems with nuclear power are not common or regular.  There have been a couple of horrible blunders, but 100 times more examples over many decades of fine operation.

Consider the fossil-fuel side.  There have been bad tanker spills and bad oil-well spills.  So, we start moving to double-walled tankers and things like safety valves on wells.  They aren't perfect, but they are an improvement over doing nothing.  We should do improvements in nuclear power.

You won't get an argument from me on improvements.  I think the challenge of keeping technology safe is always a human problem though, or more accurately you can't always predict what the bald monkeys will do. I think you do your best but somebody is always going to make a lousy cost benefit analysis or forget to take the masking tape off the static ports.

I think safety culture is very important but is also very fragile. It gets a lot of lip service but being an advocate for it is probably not the way to garner power in any organization.

[Changeup]

Unless the government continues to interfere in a way that greatly hampers the market, I believe that we will have fossil fuel for a long time without oil being the source of economic disaster.  I don't dispute that it might not be at $2/gallon of gasoline, but affordable enough to be our major power source for a long time to come.  I think that, as prices stay high, other means of dealing with fossil fuels (natural gas applications, more-expensive but still viable ways of drilling and refining, building more refineries that work with this or that source, etc.) and other non-fossil-fuel sources will help fill a portion of our needs.

Its not entirely the government intervention...its the oil markets.   Remember, to make fuel, you must have crude.  Four years ago, US traders had limits put on their overseas contracts.  Here's how the manipulation went:


Bombay buys millions........London buy hundreds of millions...........NY buys hundreds of millions.........Japan buys hundreds of millions....Bombay sells at an enormous profit because their co-workers bought contracts all day long and drove the price up.  And then they move backwards with sell orders on contracts that never get executed...just sold for even money or a little loss.  Its all from the same firms so the money stays in house for a net win.  That drives the spot price up and to hold it there, the initial contract buyer gets back in with profit...zero exposure except to us at the pumps.

By limiting their buys, they can't manipulate it.  No one got fined because it wasn't against the law.

[sunfan1121]

We orbit a giant nuclear reactor that produces more power than we could ever use.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

We orbit a giant nuclear reactor that produces more power than we could ever use.

We need a bigger extension cord

[LCADolby]

We orbit a giant nuclear reactor that produces more power than we could ever use.

Fusion.