When oil is no longer in demand • Hacker News Board

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#151

Post by phlo » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 2:29 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #141

Reason077 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil companies don't emit a whole lot of CO2. Not true. Refining crude oil into gasoline or diesel is itself very energy-intensive. It takes around 4.5kWh to refine each gallon of gasoline from crude. In many cases that energy is supplied by fossil-fuel burning power plants. Volts for oil: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpX-9OyEr4

You proved my point. 4.5 kWh is not a lot of energy. It's the amount of energy needed to light a 1K lightbulb for 4 hours. It's a pittance compared to what you burn in you car. 4.5Kw/h won't get you around the block :)

I think you may be mistaken about amounts of energy. Typical modern domestic-use light bulb (ccfl) are rated around 20 watts. 100 W was the typical maximum in incandescent light bulbs for domestic use, excluding some very bright halogen bulbs at around 200 W. 1000 W bulbs are mainly used in studio applications (as someone else mentioned) and for stage lighting.

On the subject of getting around the block: A kilogram of gasoline contains some 46 MJ of energy. Gasoline is a bit lighter than water, so one kilo is around 1.3 liters. 46 MJ is equal to, roughly, 13 KWh, so 4.5 KWh are around 300 grams, or around 400 ml. A Manhattan city block is around 80x280 Meters, for a circumference of roughly 720 Meters. An inefficient modern car might use 8 Liters per 100 Kilometers, so 400 ml (or roughly 4.5 KWh) will move an inefficient modern car by around 5 Kilometers.

In other words, it'll get you around the block. Not once, not twice, but slightly less than 7 times.

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#152

Post by Chuckalucky89 » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 2:47 PM UTC

This discussion should really come to the forefront of the energy conversation in the US with the Trump presidency. His commitment to ramping up oil production and reversing all of the initiatives to increase investment in alternative, sustainable energy resources will hurt the US' progress towards relying less on fossil fuels which are not sustainable. His motivations are obviously to prioritize the big oil companies making money.

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#153

Post by at-fates-hands » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 2:59 PM UTC

monknomo wrote: post #36

edblarney wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil companies don't emit a whole lot of CO2. You emit the CO2 when you use your car (almost 50% of CO2 emissions are from autos). And a bunch of other industries are responsible for most of the rest of CO2 emissions.

I think you're missing the negative externalities inherent in oil extraction, like groundwater pollution, earthquakes, above ground pipelines, etc. Not to mention it's a little like saying Pablo Escobar doesn't OD on drugs or steal your TV very often, it's the crackheads that do that...

>>I think you're missing the negative externalities inherent in oil extraction

The same can be said for the production of lithium-ion batteries. The mining and production of these batteries is just as bad for the environment. This is mainly due to the high concentration of Copper and Aluminum needed to make them work properly - which both need to be mined.

Fuel cells are a much better alternative to both combustion engines or lithium-ion electric vehicles:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-08/phones-wi...

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#154

Post by kartan » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:02 PM UTC

alivelore wrote: post #108

EGreg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if they didn't, we might have built a sustainable society faster and invested in sustainable energy sooner. It could have been done in the 80s. I know it's scary to imagine Americans driving on smaller cars and bicycles and public transport like Europeans... but we would survive it :)

Average commute time in the us is lower than almost all of europe ( https://goo.gl/r8DJqz ) and public transport not only needs billions in investment to be built but there are very few places where it doesn't run on subsidies. So yeah you're asking americans to a) take longer to get to work b) constantly subsidise a system that will keep on losing money. Based on the political makeup of the country i'd say you can k…

> b) constantly subsidise a system that will keep on losing money

If you take into account the total cost of car ownership you will see that also is heavily subsidized. From car production to roads, parking spaces, oil production... if the accounting is done properly it is obvious that when you make 100 people travel all together in the same vehicle it is a lot cheaper that using 100 different machines to move that same 100 people. Cost wise it is a no-brainier.

I agree with you that lack of political will, and also suburban landscape, are going to make it very difficult for it to happen in the USA.

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#155

Post by Reason077 » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:21 PM UTC

zrail wrote: post #144

edblarney wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You proved my point. 4.5 kWh is not a lot of energy. It's the amount of energy needed to light a 1K lightbulb for 4 hours. It's a pittance compared to what you burn in you car. 4.5Kw/h won't get you around the block :)

A 1kW lightbulb is rather bright and not used in homes, more so in studios. A better comparison might be 10 100W bulbs or maybe an average chandelier.

Even 100W bulbs are pretty rare now days (illegal in the EU), replaced with LED versions that consume far less energy.

4.5 kWh is really a tremendous amount of energy just to refine a single gallon of gasoline. And it's energy that's completely lost, just converting hydrocarbons from one form into another.

By putting that energy directly into electric vehicles instead, you'd be able to power around half of all the vehicles on the road!

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#156

Post by Reason077 » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:23 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #141

Reason077 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil companies don't emit a whole lot of CO2. Not true. Refining crude oil into gasoline or diesel is itself very energy-intensive. It takes around 4.5kWh to refine each gallon of gasoline from crude. In many cases that energy is supplied by fossil-fuel burning power plants. Volts for oil: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpX-9OyEr4

You proved my point. 4.5 kWh is not a lot of energy. It's the amount of energy needed to light a 1K lightbulb for 4 hours. It's a pittance compared to what you burn in you car. 4.5Kw/h won't get you around the block :)

4.5Kw/h won't get you around the block :)

4.5 kWh will take you nearly 20 miles in an electric vehicle. Not far short of what 1 gallon of gasoline will get you.

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#157

Post by ageofwant » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:23 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #90

toomuchtodo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All resource problems are energy problems. With enough clean energy, you can make fuel, water, fertilizer, anything. We're going to need a lot of surplus energy to sequester all of the CO2 we've pumped into the atmosphere over the last 100+ years.

> We're going to need a lot of surplus energy to sequester all of the CO2 we've pumped into the atmosphere over the last 100+ years. There is no point at which sequestering CO2 by use of electricity is going to make sense. Until the day that we burn zero CO2 whatsoever, you're better off using the electricity as electricity and thereby burning less carbon than burning it and then trying to get it back. And even at th…

> There is no point at which sequestering CO2 by use of electricity is going to make sense.

Of course there will be. Even burning a small fraction of the Thorium lying in spill heaps today will achieve that. In February 2019, when Tsinghua Uni demos the worlds first commercially viable fusion reactor, everything will change.

We will:

  - convert cubic kilometres of seawater into potable water per day and irrigate the Sahara and the Outback.
  - convert atmospheric C02 to carbohydrate fuels (while there are still need for them)
  - extract cubic killometers of C out of the atmosphere and oceans for construction material.
  - Drop the excess blocks of diamond into the mariana trench, those that we don't use for road base.
  - etc

People really do not appreciate what superabundance of energy would mean for man and our current planet. It will literally be the demarcation point between the age of want, and the ages of plenty.

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#158

Post by mr_overalls » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 3:23 PM UTC

mulletbum wrote: post #148

codecamper wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or politicians could catch a glimmer of the future & put some tax dollars towards: * battery factories * electric car incentives * open source car sharing / planning services. (get rid of the 30% uber tax meanwhile steering people towards shared services) * carbon taxes it's been said a million times, but may as well keep saying it. it'll fix the problem for good. no more wars. less environmental destruction. Cars wo…

"car pretty much lasts forever, just swap out the battery pack now & then." Not in Michigan. You will have far more problems from a car than just battery maintenance.

Electric cars don't have non-zero maintenance aside from the battery, but -- due to the lack of an internal-combustion engine, simplified drive train, and absence of emission-control equipment -- maintenance costs should be considerably lower.

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#159

Post by btilly » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 4:37 PM UTC

JDiculous wrote: post #95

btilly wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that this is a stupid policy, but there is some attempt at logic behind it. Oil production has the problem that increasing in oil production requires spending money that will only pay off if the price of oil remains high for several years. Cheap producers like Saudi Arabia know this, and so try to make the price fluctuate with enough lows to wipe out expensive oil producers, and enough highs to get rich thems…

Isn't that what oil futures are designed to hedge against?

Yes.

But the government has more economic incentives to extend those futures than other participants because they stand to earn money from taxes.

Re: When oil is no longer in demand

#160

Post by logfromblammo » Thu, Dec 01, 2016, 4:49 PM UTC

ageofwant wrote: post #157

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're going to need a lot of surplus energy to sequester all of the CO2 we've pumped into the atmosphere over the last 100+ years. There is no point at which sequestering CO2 by use of electricity is going to make sense. Until the day that we burn zero CO2 whatsoever, you're better off using the electricity as electricity and thereby burning less carbon than burning it and then trying to get it back. And even at th…

> There is no point at which sequestering CO2 by use of electricity is going to make sense. Of course there will be. Even burning a small fraction of the Thorium lying in spill heaps today will achieve that. In February 2019, when Tsinghua Uni demos the worlds first commercially viable fusion reactor, everything will change. We will: - convert cubic kilometres of seawater into potable water per day and irrigate the S…

> ...In February 2019, when Tsinghua Uni demos the worlds first commercially viable fusion reactor...

Is this your own prediction, or something that the university has announced publicly? I haven't heard anything about it.