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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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We nearly wiped out the whales, now we'll wipe out the mineral traces of the dinos--coal and oil--in a relatively short time. We humans waste better than any other critters.
These are two of our basic problems: prodigality and greed.
Then there are ignorance and want, our children.
It's common sense to know we can't sustain our way of life without some major changes in the near future.
No problem here, Riley.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Ed,
In one day today, I saw you and another guy grabbing data from the Energy Information Administration. That site is THE source of data for the industry statistics, and is used throughout the industry as well as commodity traders.
It has some really cool articles, like "Understanding Oil Markets."
Everyone should read that one before they pop off the next time gas prices go up.
EAI.doe.gov rules. It has everything going back to the beginning of the first production and consumption. Endless data on production and consumption by all countries. It is really good on OECD countries.
Yep, we are screwed. It won't be as sexy as the Mayan apocalypse, but my son will grow up in a different world than me.
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Borut
Mountain climber
Ljubljana, Slovenia
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Can anyone find a problem with this reality?
No, no one can. The problem seems to be the disbelief this function is treated with.
What is soothing is to remember that we live from one day to the next.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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One of the many epiphanies I had while watching this video was that this is why Ed has dedicated his life's work to finding us a safe alternative energy source. Carter, a nuclear physicist, also tried to ameliorate some of the compounded growth - of course we know what occurred there.
thanks for the thought but I have to say I've recently started to do work associated with fusion, it is not the dominant theme of my career. And this particular energy source has a ways to go before it delivers kW to your home. But it is an important problem, energy, one of many.
The EIA also had a graph of USG energy use, and it is dominated by petroleum, and the dominant use is "jet fuel." In the age in which petroleum resources are being used up, alternatives to fossil fuels will be required in order to supplant that stock. My guess is that "jet fuel" is primarily used by the DoD.
Defense uses roughly 1,000 Trillion BTUs a year, 80% of that is petroleum, and 80% of that is jet fuel, so 64% of the energy the USG uses is for "jet fuel."
Interesting to contemplate where this will come from in the future and what the effect on defense will be.
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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These are pretty cool figures. [url=" https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/"]https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/[/url]
They have them by year and by state (2008 only). They show how various sources of energy are used in various sectors of our society.
[99.2, 94.6, 98, 97.3] does not fit an exponential curve... just saying.
Water use in LA peaked in 1990. Conservation alone saved over a million acre-feet of water a year. Two decades later, after a 30% increase in population, they consume about the same amount as they did in 1990.
Conservation and innovation.
Note: rejected energy is wasted energy in the form of heat, etc.
Final question: how does the amount of rejected energy compare to energy services? How might this be changed?
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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These are pretty cool figures. https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/
If you look at the numbers there's been a net increase in efficency of 1.9% from 08-11. All of the change can be accounted for from the waste energy side.
As energy costs rise there will be more pressure on the waste side of the equation and other sources developed or existing ones expanded in the input side.
Markets work!
Little items like that are why the Malthusians have continued to get it wrong ever since 1795
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Rock!...oopsie.
Trad climber
the pitch above you
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The end is indeed nigh. I am going back to the boobs thread to be soothed.
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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1.9% increase in efficiency over 3 years impresses you? That's barely more energy than we produce through solar (Solyndra!... sorry, I just love saying that around you people).
This whole time I've been thinking the fact that we WASTE 30% more energy than we USE was the impressive take home message!
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nah000
Mountain climber
canuckadia
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the problem with the tone of "this reality" is that it does not consider incentives, adaptation, and discovery.
there is no question that if we don't consider those [somewhat arbitrarily chosen] three we are "doomed", at least in the sense of collective standard of living reductions.
but the two premises that this type of argument is based on: historical population growth and the end of inexpensive fossil fuel energy sources is ultimately very reductive.
when our backs move closer to the metaphorical wall, incentives to find solutions are increased, and collectively we are motivated to make changes to our way of life.
all that this argument ultimately proves is that we are collectively going to have to change.
if one looks at this need to change and thinks it's time to become a "prepper" and prepare for the apocalypse it is due only to a lack of imagination.
if one were to look back 25 years it would be almost impossible to imagine the information world that we have collectively created and now live in.
as our backs are moved closer to the wall, the metaphorical fox news viewpoint and their fear-driven, reality-denying following, will become more obviously mistaken and irrelevant. as this happens, more human and financial energy will be placed into finding solutions. given our history and the means at our disposal, i'm actually quite optimistic that we will find solutions.
is there anyway to "prove" this optimism? of course not. at the end of the day how we view the future is based on our past experiences as individual humans and is to some degree or another "choice". we as individuals have little control over the future and even if we are ultimately destined to end up in a cormac mccarthy post-apocolyptic world, i'd rather focus my energy on searching for solutions along the road [even if it is inevitable] then trying to figure out what kind of shotgun to buy.
tl;dr: assuming that the future will unfold in the same manner as the past is as lacking in imagination, as assuming that it won't.
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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Well than, is it better then no punctuation"?
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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If it ain't used it is wasted.
From one of the authors of those figures:
"Rejected Energy often manifests itself as "waste heat." When that heat is rejected at near-environmental temperatures, it is truly waste, and cannot be re-used to create useful energy services. There are other cases where energy is rejected at high temperatures and we simply choose not to put that energy to use, and still more cases where energy is rejected in some form besides heat transfer."
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Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
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That's a pretty petty grammatical correctiction.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Also misses the point.
You'll never have a Carnot cycle without a sink or a lossless electrical transmission system. Even a superconducting one is going to have refrigeration energy costs.
Not that there isn't the potential for huge improvements. There's been a huge increase in the efficency of polyphase electric motors just in the last 10 years or so. The savings from that probably outstrip the contributions of both solar and wind together at a small fraction of the cost. Improvements in lighting efficency probably several times as much.
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Ken M
Mountain climber
Los Angeles, Ca
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Biofuels take nearly as much petroleum to produce as is created.
And when there is no petroleum we will also have no fertilizer - which will obviously be a huge double hit to food production
This assertions was on the basis of a paper writen by Pimental, widely circulated and quoted.
However, it has turned out that there were a number of assumptions in his paper that turned out to have practical implications when put into practice, that significantly shifted the efficiency equation. Not to mention the issue of efficiency of growing operations, themselves. He was also looking at certain grain crops. What they are actually using now are certain weed-type plants, that require much less in terms of fertilizer/water treatments
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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So, find a useful sink... instead of dumping the heat back into the atmosphere or streams.
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abrams
Sport climber
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energy efficiency of the new sh*t replacing old wasteful sh*t has the Energy
Generating corps sh*tting bricks.
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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So get busy finding a use for low enthalpy waste heat.
You'll be rich!
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mechrist
Gym climber
South of Heaven
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Okay, I will. OR we could focus on sources of energy that don't produce as much waste heat?
As an aside, right now, it is 17F outside. Thermostat is set at 62F, it is 81F in my house. The sun is a wonderful thing. I'm keeping my coffee warm via the heat generated from my laptop fan.
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