Safe Speed Forums

Why do we keep stressing over the availability of petrol. I used to race a car that run on methanol. even ethanol is being produced to replace petrol (E85).

Remember petrol is only £1.00 because of tax. In the US it is still under $3.00 a gallon, a much more realistic price.

The whole apocalyptic vision of the world running out of oil is just one for the movies.

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Speed camera policy Kills

Peak oil concerns. To start

Arguments against!

1) There is plenty of oil alternatives available (Biofuels, Tar sands etc)

2) Because of the high tax burden, even a rise to $500/Bbl would only translate to arround £2/Litre Painfull but survivable

However.

Oil alternatives (And "Fringe" oil wells for that matter (Ie Small, Remote or near the end of their useful lives) have an increcingly poor "Energy ratio" (EG The amount of energy you need to expend in order to produce a unit of useable fuel! Canadian Tar sands are near unity! IE they are not an "Energy source" so much as merely a way of turning one kind of energy into an other.

Similarly with biofuels, I am not sure what the enegry ratios are for bio-diesels and ethanol but I doubt that they are good.

This is not to say that using these alternatives is impractical but it does mean that we will be having to look at them in a very diferent way than the way we currently look at Oil and gas.

EG Tar sands could be turned into usefull petrol substitute using Nuclear reactors to provide the process heat and other energy required, we may be able to find ways of using nuclear or solar energy to provide the energy currently provided by fossil fuels to provide the energy required to manufacture bio-fuels.

The thing is we are talking about replaceing oil wells with *VAST* continent wide fuel manufacturing facilities! (And there are significant pollution issues, Tar sand processing is messy!)

Oil has spoilt us into thinking that abundant easily used energy is easy It isnt! it never has been!

As for the cost of oil. It isnt road transport that botherers me that much. £2/L would hurt but it would be survivable. But it would pretty well finnish international air travel and freight. Freight would go back to ships (Which can be Coal/nuclear powererd and/or augmented by sail to save oil)

It would also hit agriculture. Grain production (Which is oil intensive) would collapse. (It is actually collapsing as we speak, there are no shortages yet, but reserves have fallen year on year for about the last five years, which means the world is eating more than is being grown!) The great plains of the US (Which are only grain producing as a result of intensive fertiliser use) would likly revert to cattle ranching. The price of fertiliser (On which modern grain/rice strains depend) would rocket.

On top of that, the land that is still "Under the plough" would have competing uses Land for Bio-fuel Vs Land for food!

the near trippling of global population over the last century has taken place largly as a result of the use of cheap oil to power mechinised agreculture and manufacture synthetic fertilisers. The end of "Cheap" oil will hit this hard!

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Cheap energy:

Every south facing roof to have solar panels installed. Surplus to come onto the National Grid.

At the height of summer when we produce more than we use, the extra electric that we can't store gets used to break water into oxygen & hydrogen.... This is then burnt to fuel our cars.

Or is this too easy?

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We have a complaisant but venal judiciary and police force - all too eager to pervert the Law to satisfy their own aims

I once read that the current generation of solar panels need more energy to manufacture than they will produce in their working lifetime; how true that is I don't know.....

Why would $100 be dollars such a problem? Its only slightly higher then adjusted for inflation high of $97.50 in 1979/1980. We survived that didn't we? And now energy accounts for a much smaller propotion of GDP then it did back in the 70's.

This was something our (looking back) rather lefty tree hugging Geography teacher always instilled in us when talking about "green energy" (yes we were worried about it in the 70's and 80's) which was actually very sensible.

When looking at alternative energy sources from a "green" perspective you should always look at the net advantage. I have no idea what energy it takes to produce a wind turbine but I know a lot of energy is required to produce 1 ton of steel and 1 wind turbine uses a lot of steel.

How long does a wind turbine have to be producing "green" power before it's paid back the manufactoring cost?


edited to add:- Can any one tell me why my quotes no longer seem to work?

(now fixed by PeterE as moderator - BB code had been disabled for some reason)

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

I think you have 'disable BBCode' checked (appears below the message composition window).

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Ah yes, so I did, thanks.

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

I believe it's thirty five years.

Though of course after that period in service it would no doubt require extensive overhaul, so the true figure is probably higher.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Each windmill also needs about 1000 tons of concrete for its foundations.

I am not certain but ISTR reading that Cement Manufacture is a *Significant* annual producer of CO2. However its contribution towards (Alledged) AGW is specfically ignored (On the grounds, presumably, that as it cures it eventually re-absorbs it. However we are looking at a *long* time! decades to centurys rather than weeks or months)

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"

Yes. It seems to me that wind farms are nothing less than preposterous. A triumph of faith over fact. A blot on the landscape. White elephants surrounded by dead birds. A waste of energy.

In fact if I wasn't doing Safe Speed I might be doing 'Windfarm Madness'.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

A monument to Political Stupidity.

All they are good for is demonstrating virtually every way in which science gets perverted in the interests of politics. My favourite little "factoid" is that each one contains a clutch mechanism with no other purpose than to disconnect the rotor from the generator so that in light winds it can continue to rotate, giving the false appearance to the casual observer that it is generating when in fact all it's doing is wearing the bearings out for no gain whatsoever.

We had a damn close run herem where we nearly got the biggest one yet inflicted upon us, about 6 miles from Kendal. Thankfully it was vehemently opposed and the scheme has been shelved, though I have a nagging doubt that it is only a temporary reprieve.

Perhaps the thinking is that if we have to endure enough of the damned things we'll all come round to thinking that Nuclear Power stations aren't so bad after all...?

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Are wind farms a good example of commercial interests misleading - even tricking - government?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Quite possibly. I brought them up as my father was looking to do a PHD on improving wind turbine blade design. He looked into the problem and when he realised that 4-5 years study may bring about a circa 1-2% improvement onto something that was so costly (energy wise) to produce his efforts would be literaly like p1ssing in the wind he looked elsewhere.

This did not stop his tutor really promoting any study to do with wind turbines as his funding depended on it.

A sad, sad waste.

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It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.

Upton Sinclair

Actually I think it's worse than that - they are tricking themselves!

The way it seems to me is that they started out by announcing grandiose promises to move towards "renewable" energy, then when pushed they had to reluctantly put a number against it.

Now it is a matter of political expediency that they have to try and meet that target, which trumps any logical or economic considerations.

Of course, along the way they tell everyone they are saving the planet, so it is perhaps inevitable that after a while they will begin to believe it themselves.

I'm not saying that there aren't massive commercial issues bound up in it as well, but they are perhaps a symptom of this particular disease, rather than its actual cause.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

Fat lot of good that would do on an offshore battery – you can hardly see
them from the shore! So perhaps it’s an optimisation that has been
misunderstood. There is a discussion on wiki about why faster moving
blades have lower losses. By free-wheeling, they could continue to turn
and pick up momentum even in fairly calm conditions. That momentum
can be later accessed and converted once the loss-threshold is reached.
This would still allow an out-of-phase battery of turbines to continue
producing constantly even when there is little wind. The right place for
them is the fens. It’s flat and always blowing out there. They can fit as
many as they like – it would break up the boredom (slightly). They
shouldn’t fit them in nice places like Wales or Cumberland, though.



Yes, Nuclear Power stations are the right thing, but we should consider
putting them near major centres of population like Birmingham and
Middlesbrough - it sounds odd, but think about it - those places have
already gone to pot, and they need the jobs. Also, there would be a
strong imperative not to scrimp on safety engineering – it would show
confidence in the systems. Last, it would allow the cooling by-product to
be reused in shared heating projects for the masses – useful when the
gas is all gone!

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I stole this .sig

I can see that me and you are going to get along like a house on fire,
dusty! I've been trying to fill these optimists with Malthusian angst for
ages, but they are used to me now. Let's work together on them - our
motto will be "The End is Nigh"!

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I stole this .sig

We'd still have a tax bill if it wasn't on petrol - the yanks can't even afford
a health system. The best of both worlds is Canada - a decent general
health system, but lower petrol too. They've got almost the biggest
reserves in the world out in Alberta, so they can afford it.

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I stole this .sig

Sorry folks the peak oil scare is just that a scare. The good old USA has more oil (in sand form) than the rest of the world. Also they have proven that oil is NOT a fossil fuel both from its compounds and also what it actually consists of. They can also make oil from rubbish as well. (This on its own should tell you something.) Also when so called oil wells have ran dry they have gone back to them only to find out the the drill hole has bunged up and when they treat this more oil!
Do your research and you will find out that even the T Ford was first made to run on alcohol not oil. Then these guys found this stuff that came out of the ground. Who conrols this fuel controls power and lets face it anyone with a bit of tec can make alcohol.
Those that support peak oil and first came up with it are paid by no other than big oil those that are independant say it is bluff and bluster.
When you look at big oils profits there is one certantly they are making big money out of the trouble in the ME just look at the profits in the past few years and there alone is dodgy goings on.
Sorry but war means profits and whilst we belive in war on terror etc and dont ask questions and just belive then they have one.
It is proven fact al quida (sorry about spelling) does not exist it is infact an FBI file name now used to give a name and instill fear.
There is an old saying to instill fear gives support to instill fear and hope then you have control of the massed how true!
John (Normally in Pepipoo)

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The law is only for the law abiding subject

Re "Alternastive Oil"

re-Read my post above!

Whilst it is true that there are planty of hydrocarbon reserves remaing, many of them have a very poor energy ratio.

So although they may continue to represent a supply of "Oil" they will *NOT* represent a supply of "energy"!

Most people do not realise that an oil well goes "Dry" with as much as 60% of the reserve still in the ground! the point is that it becomes an energetic nonsence to continue to extract the oil. Indeed many wells spend the last 10% or so of their production operating at an energy defecit

(Think of those donkey engines. The electricity that they consume comes from burning gas or coal, pumping the last 5-10% of the wells oil out of the ground consumes more energy in coal or gas than the oil is worth, but because oil is more "Valuable" it is worth it, economically speaking but it no longer represents an "Energy Source")

There are many oil alternatives, but producing them in a useable form will be more of a manufacturing process than a mining one. and will be a good bit more involved that simply sucking a ,more or less, ready to use fuel out of the ground.

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"The road to a police state is paved with public safety legislation"