Next fuels

[gavin]

Read this quote below about oil, somebody recently replied on a post that oil will never run out.

What will our next generation of OUTBOARDS/INBOARDS be fueled with?




This was a reply to a post about diesel alternatives,I am just quoting it to highlight a misconception we have about proven reserves , and a real problem thats out there!

Quote
Run out of diesel and petrol? NEVER!!! Oil is cheaper now than it has ever been - it's the bloody taxes that cripple! Remember diesel or petrol can be had for as little as 14p per litre wwith NO duty at all.

They seem to be finding new oil reserves all the time - oil will never run out but it may one day get to the stage where it's not economically viable to obtain - that will be a long way away.

Old oil fields actually replenish themselves to a certain extent as oil seeps back into the chambers. More of a worry is the CO2 being emmitted by ALL fossil fuels.

Of course the greens have the perfect answer - wind power............ oh and us all living in caves andd not using any energy!
End Quote





How long will it last?
Using these data (estimated reserves: 800 billions of barrels, world consumption: 76 millions per day), it looks like planet Earth has have oil for about 10,000 days, i.e. about 27 years. Assuming that consumption does not increase... If consumption increases an average 5% a year, then we have oil for about 15 years. But the US Geological Survey estimates the amount of oil that is still to be found at about 3 trillions, three times the oil reserves known today (it is not clear if "all" that oil can actually be pumped to the surface and therefore used).
But it has to be found first!

http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/oil.html

http://prorev.com/2004/06/how-much-oil-is-left.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe...lobal.warming/

http://members.aol.com/mpwright9/oil.html

[robin]

So the answer is.....

to remain a committed petrolhead for the next 15 (?) years or until your kidneys can take no more from the bashing (and the beer) then after that (or before if you are a real pessimist) learn how to sail become a WAFI buy a bicycle stick a flower in your hair.
Easy.

[gavin]

If fuel was the only thing we got from oil, it wouldnt be so bad, what about the chemical derivitives, paint products ,greases, plastics, rubbers etc etc,

[Andy Stevens]

And think of the amount we use in oil fired power stations! Everyone goes on about the dangers of Nuclear power yet are happy to sit on the beach and soak in the rays of a massive nuclear explosion (SUN)

I say move to Nuclear and the load the waste into rockets and shoot it at the sun!

Also they have developed cars that run on water yet the oil companies spend millions on buying the patents to keep oil in demand!

[robin]

So I am not wasting my time buying a petrol engine with a 3 year warranty then?

Or am I being selfish and short - sighted?

Hmmmm

[codprawn]

Originally Posted by Andy Stevens

And think of the amount we use in oil fired power stations! Everyone goes on about the dangers of Nuclear power yet are happy to sit on the beach and soak in the rays of a massive nuclear explosion (SUN)

I say move to Nuclear and the load the waste into rockets and shoot it at the sun!

Couldn't agree more - the GREENS have a hell of a lot to answer for - global warming due to CO2 is a major threat - Nuke power stations do not put out CO2!

After Chernoybyl the Germans and Swedes banned all nuclear power - they import natural gas from Russia - the Russians conserve they natural gas stocks by building more Nukes!!!! Personally I think I would rather the Germans and Swedes run nuke power stations than the Russians - where was Chernobyl again???

[ribraff]

It's going to happen one day and during our lifetimes by the looks of things, the major problem comes from an increase in consumption by China which until recently has been relatively starved of oil, the developing third world countries are also increasing their consumption so this will probably add up to sooner rather than later, reports have suggested that 2003 was the year that demand started to outstrip supply.

[Matt]

Nuclear Fusion predominantly, with some renewable.
If you've got enough power, you can synthesize almost anything.

[Rogue Wave]

Just bolt Mr' fusion onto your car.

This subject intrests me a lot as it is inevitable that oil prices wil rise and availablity will decline, this puts a lifespan on how long one can sustain a Rib charter company, and I don't think it will be more than six years.

They already have cars running in Germany on hydrogen fuel cells but it's a big hassle to refuel, I believe it needs a robot Arm to refuel, so that's gonna be iffy to install on a quayside, but it can happen.

I believe Alan Priddy involved in a round the world hydrocell powered boat for a trip next year? That will be interesting to see how it works out (I am not taking the piss here!) but it will be ground or sea breaking stuff

[Matt]

Hydrogen is a fairly good source, and very easy to produce if you have enough power. You can run much higher compression ratios than petrol, plus 0 emissions, and also run much leaner than petrol. So it's a good compromise between petrol and diesel in many respects. The downside is that for a given engine capacity, you do get less power but the easy way round it is supercharging. Ford have a prototype engine at the moment that does exactly that. It also means existing engine concepts can be used so you don't have to go back to square 1 in engine design, which fuel cells and other hybrid solutions often are.

Of course the flip side is that hydrogen is tricky to handle, and does requrie quite a lot of power to electrolyse out of water, but since it's lighter than air, could actually be safer than petrol on a boat since any leaks would vent away, rather than collect in the bilge like petrol does in an enclosed compartment.

[codprawn]

Most of the current schemes looking at hydrogen as a fuel are based on fuel cells - very different to running hydrogen in an ic engine.

WHY I don't know - the internal combustion engine as been refined over 100 years and is at a very high peak - it does NOT need replacing.

As to hydrogen being difficult to handle not really any more so than LPG.

BP has been offering liquid hydrogen at a select number of filling stations for a while now.

Yes hydrogen is expensive to produce from water but what an ideal way to use up the electricity generated by nuke power stations at night - using surplus electric to make a fuel that does not pollute and we can still use our outboards - sounds like heaven!!!

As to the current oil prices they are more down to political shit than anything else - the Russians aren't helping either.

[Rupert Bear]

I don't want more nuclear power stations, there are two up here and several being decommisioned that never supplied any power to Scotland in the first place!
Wind power is the latest craze, there are fights all over the place for enormous winds farms up and down the West coast at the moment. None of which are required for the area and are to export power siouth to make Scottish Power more money, not a good enough reason to spoil the last wildernesses in the country!
BTW Wind power is pretty poor for power generation anyway, it only works in combination with storage or other mediums. It is not the "answer" to normal power generation.
For the most environmentally friendly option that actually works subsurface tidal generation combined with pumped storage schemes is probably the answer. Unfortunately this is the most expensive to build and maintain which is why is has not been tried on a large scale yet. The good thing about tides is they are reliable and the energy can be stored in the pumped storage.
Oil will not run out in my lifetime but it will probably get very expensive as reserves get more expensive to extract.

[Matt]

Hmmm, you don't want nuclear, you don't want renewable, and oil is going to run out sooner or later?

It's also important to differentiate between existing fission stations and the fusion stations they are designing. They are completely different in every way.

[Simon B]

Come on chaps what about Monster mats of floating marine sunflowers say the entire pacific producing bio-diesel or something then all the diesel heads will be cock-a-hoop in perpetuity!

We fry in sunflower oil and when fully on line will have a greater area of fields under cultivation to produce the oil than the spuds for the crisps.

[codprawn]

Originally Posted by Rupert Bear

I don't want more nuclear power stations, there are two up here and several being decommisioned that never supplied any power to Scotland in the first place!
Wind power is the latest craze, there are fights all over the place for enormous winds farms up and down the West coast at the moment. None of which are required for the area and are to export power siouth to make Scottish Power more money, not a good enough reason to spoil the last wildernesses in the country!

TOTALLY wrong reasons I am afraid - smacks of being a NIMBY!

Nuclear power stations make less of an impact on the local environment thany ANY other form of power - at Traswfynydd it was actually quite hard to find the nuclear powerstation - Drax on the other hand is a blot on the landscape visable for miles.

There are very good reasons why Scotland was chosen for nuclear power - granite is very stable - not many earthquakes in Scotland - and plenty of water for cooling.

Also people whinge about having a nuke powerstation near them so a wilderness is much better. Makes me laugh when they French have so many just 30 miles away from the south coast!

Totally agree with you about wind power - Wales is also being targetted by these bloody things - we don't have much countryside left - why destroy it? Really annoys me that people like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace are quite prepared to allow the Brecon Beacons to be covered in these monsters.

Offshore sounds great - till you realise that they want to put them on sandbanks 2 miles out - that is NOT offshore - the things are bigger than the London Eye - will be visable for miles! Just wait until an oil carrier hits one in the Bristol channel - great for the environment!

[Rupert Bear]

I didn't say I didn't want renewable, SUBSURFACE tidal and pumped storage are both clean and renewable sources. They are just expensive to build and in the case of tide power, maintain.
Scotland has twice the generating capacity it uses and is already home to many water power schemes. The latest schemes envisage putting huge windfarms up all over the country that are not required for local generation.
I do think that any pollution causing or unsightly power generators should be placed close to where power is needed and not shunted off somewhere where there are not enough folk to object. Not a NIMBY attitude at all, if the wind turbines were needed for here I would be the last to object. What I do object to is that hundreds of turbines are planned for here to supply England with power simply because there are tax breaks to build them. There have been some wind turbines started to be instaled on the western isles recently, nobody including the islanders objected to them as they supplied local needs. However there are now plans to set up windfarms of 200-400 huge turbines on some exposed areas. They are being fought by everyone!
The sorry thing is that wind power is a poor system that is fairly inefficient.
The two nuclear power stations in Scotland could be switched off tomorrow and the only folk that would notice is Scottish power shareholders and Birmingham, nobody would see any difference here as they are completely surplus local capacity, so why are they here and not south. (neither is built on granite, they are both on raised beaches on either side of the country. They are also sea water cooled, something that is not in short supply in points south)
Fusion is also at least 30 years away with no guarantee it will work. The 3 milion degree operation temperatures and the intial power surge to start it are beyond current technologies. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't.
The fact that nuclear power stations don't LOOK like they are making a difference is not proof that they aren't. The radionuclides that are and have been released into the sea and contaminate the seabed around them are far worse than most folk suspect. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there.
BTW my degree took in renewables so I am relatively informed and not just talking out of my a**.

[Simon B]

R. Bear,

What is the theoretical maximum size for a wind turbine if they get big do the tips start to travel supersonic?

[Rupert Bear]

No idea what the maximum size is but it is complicated by the fact that in high winds they de clutch to stop damage to the turbine.
The problem with wind power is that they are only able to provide power 30% of the total time. they have to be used in conjunction with other means like natural gas stations to get 100% availability.

[DGR]

Simon B, no, the bigger turbines just go round slower!!

The 'Offshore' windfarm that they are proposing off Blackpool (4 nm from the end of Central Pier) has got 90 turbines, each the height of Blackpool Tower, with a turbine span similar to that of a Boeing 747!!

Apparently they are going to be an 'interesting addition to the Blackpool Seascape'. Hmmmmm....we'll see........

Dylan...

[Rupert Bear]

If you think they are unwelcome in an urbanised industrial landscape like Blackpool then imagine the reaction to them being placed up the road from me near Ardnamurchan Point!