Oil currently powers that, because oil is our main fuel. Once the shift to alternatives starts, that'll power many of those sources.

 

There are alternatives- they can turn coal into oil for far less than $100/bbl. And we've got lots and lots of coal. But- they have to build the plant, and until the oil companies are reasonably certain oil will stay expensive they won't spend the money.

I don't know what the current value is, but there's a dollars/barrel the exploration companies use to determine whether an investment is viable, and it's usually substantially less than the spot price of oil.

Of course OPEC's not stupid- if the price of oil stays too high for too long we'll start building coal-to-oil plants. Which is why oil won't stay over $100 forever.

 

Untrue. I'd recommend that you adjust your Apocalypse meter upwards. See my above post. Solar, nuclear, wind are all very energy intensive to create, run, maintain, replace. PV cells are a non-starter. Ridiculously expensive right now. Will never significantly come down in price because of the energy required to make them. Point is, these oil-derivatives are non-competitive at 4 bucks a gallon gasoline. If they are, say, competitive at 20 bucks a gallon gasoline, assuming their price doesn't go up with oil, you get to the same end-game. End of modern society. I look at PV, Wind, nuclear as false prophets, giving false hope.

 

What does that mean? I don't understand. When diesel is 30 bucks a gallon, how will you power the excavator that is digging lithium and silicon out of the ground?

 

Currently, I could go energy neutral for power on my house for 10-20k. That's affordable if the cells will last 10-20 years at current energy prices.

 

Well why on earth aren't they? Seriously, of course they can't. They are certain right now.

 

Only if you are an extremely low energy user.
But this is my point. We can live with less and less energy, for sure. We just can't maintain what we have.

 

I'm not sure ICEs are living the modern life. It's all so, 1890s. I thought I'd be driving a delorean powered by Mr. Fusion by now.

Oil is holding us back. When its cost rises significantly money will be invested in other energy sources and transfer mediums. Until then the development money isn't coming.

When gasoline is $15 a gallon (like it is in Europe) we'll all be driving Fits instead of Ford Explorers and insulating our houses better. The rich will be driving whatever they feel like and living in drafty big houses.

When gasoline is $25 per gallon (assuming natural gas rises an equal amount) we'll be building nuclear plants like we were in the late 60s. Better battery technology will be developed. Maybe hydrogen will be used, but the lack of infrastructure is a problem. And the rich will be driving whatever they feel like (perhaps on methanol).

As for industry and agriculture. Electric vehicles (perhaps tethered to the grid), biodiesel, methanol, methane or oil. Whatever is cheaper. Maybe Mr. Fusion.

 

Consider your original statement. "Solar, nuclear, wind are all very energy intensive to create, run, maintain, replace. PV cells are a non-starter. Ridiculously expensive right now. Will never significantly come down in price because of the energy required to make them."

Much of the energy used to produce solar and wind generators comes from the grid. Since that's currently fossil fuel powered, then yeah, fossil fuels go into much of their production. Once power generation moves to nuclear, solar, wind, that won't be the case. Sure, gas will be used in some specific applications (remote, size limited, high intensity, mobile) but that's not the majority of our power use.

 

Nope. Now you're just making stuff up. My power consumption is pretty average to above average. PVs have gotten really efficient, silicon costs have trended downward, the costs are competitive with coal, etc.

 

Well he's got a point, we won't be living like we are now in bedroom communities and commuting 25miles to work. I'm all for change. We need to get back to communities where we lived close to work. Tech will enable many to work from home.

Oil and cars really didn't make this a nicer place. Neighborhoods designed in the 1910s are much more liveable than today's. Cars, parking, roads, freeways, traffic, smog and opec are a nuisance.

 

Love talking about energy and I'd love to continue this, but I have to go plant corn, trees, walk dogs, and such. Wife and kids are away. Just me and the animals and one Fit! Love the Fit!

Here's the point. If you want to run a PV grid, you are going to have to constantly be digging stuff out of the earth, transporting it, processing it, refining it, and delivering it. EVEN IF we could do all of that without FFs, the price would be so high so as to make it completely inapplicable to 99% of what we use energy for today.

That's my point.

Folks have been saying since oil was 10 bucks a barrel --- "alternatives won't be 'developed' if oil is cheap." Well. The time is now.

I say it's impossible to run modern life on any energy source BUT FFs, and specifically oil. Now that oil production in the world has been flat for 6 or so years, price has climbed, and demand has climbed, it's time for "alternatives" to either step up or be proven false prophets.

This is how I do it -

Give wind/ethanol/biodiesel/whatever a couple thousand acres. Get 'em started with a set up - tractors, windmills, PVs, whatever.

Then just do a 1 to 1 energy exchange from there on out. If they want 1,000 gallons of gasoline for whatever need they have, we deduct 1,000 gallon equivalent of energy from the end-use of their electricity. Of course, they're free to use only their own product. But, if they want to convert, we do a swap, and we figure out the cost of the energy they're burning that they're not making.

Here's what I'd suggest would happen:

1. Ethanol and biodiesel are net losers and would be a net energy deficit within a few years.

2. Wind and PV would be a net positive at the start, but that would degrade with time as replacement costs figure in.

3. Nuclear would be the best, but, as FFs deplete and more folks run nuclear, prices go up substantially. Curious - at what price of oil do you folks think . . . mining metals, running auto plants, building battery packs, running cars entirely on electric, producing electricity, with zero use of oil will be "cost effective"?

 

Oil was a hundred bucks a barrel a few years ago, then went right back down to forty.

No, the oil companies are not basing their planning on hundred dollar oil.

They will build coal-to-oil (or natural gas to oil) plants when they're economically viable.

Coal-to-oil technology existed in the nineteen forties.

 

Your basic home service is 100 Amps or 200 Amps. You're going to run a clothes dryer, an electric range, a water heater, blow driers, and so on.

For 20 grand, there is absolutely ZERO chance you can achieve that. No way, no how. Not where 90% of Americans live.

Most folks are running a 100-200 dollar electric bill each month. Even at 150 bucks, payback on your 15,000 system would only be 10 years. Plus you could offset costs by selling back to the grid. After 10 years, it's all profit.

Folks in Cali are getting killed on their electric. If they could have a 10 year payback on a system that cost 20 grand, you'd be a billionaire overnight.

You are including heating and cooling costs, right?

When I lived in DC I had a friend who installed PV systems - his quote - nobody puts a system in to save money.

The thought of running a normal household on PV is a fairy tale.

 

You just said they can make oil from coal for "far less" than 100 dollars a barrel.

Ergo, it IS economically viable. Now (if your premise was correct).

 

We don't need to worry. These guys will soon corner the market for solar: Suntech Power Co., Ltd. | China | Solar Panels | ENF.

Once home heating oil reaches 30$ we're all going to be frozen in our beds.

As far as the price of oil goes: https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/gene...price-gas.html

K_C_

 

My numbers were a bit off.

$20k in my location will buy roughly a 5kW installation. That'll put out ~600 kWh/month, whereas I use ~1000kWh/month. So it doesn't quite get to neutral, but over halfway there. Power is about $0.10/kWh here, resulting in about $60/month in savings. That'll pay for itself in ~25 years. And as the price of energy goes up, the savings will go up as well.

 

So who will be down for a Fit Hybrid when they start arriving?

 

No, not the case at all.

They can take oil out of the ground for far less than $100 too- that's why they have oil wells. As an example, Exxon's average production cost of oil last year was $74- that includes inexpensive wells and expensive wells and everything in between. With oil at $100 they're unlikely to drill somewhere if the expected cost of production is $80-- too many other, more economically-viable opportunities. Oil won't be $100 forever, it can go down, too.

They don't just crush coal and get oil- they need to build a multi-BILLION dollar plant. Average cost over the life of the plant would be less than $100/bbl.

They won't build the plant just because oil is expensive now. They will build it when it makes sense, and a temporary price of $100 isn't enough.

 

Just over 5000 and 50% on my 2011 Fit Sport!