Dude, where's my fuel?
141–150 of 191 posts
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if Peter Zeihan is right, the loss of Russian exports is just the beginning of oil supply disruption over the next decade.
If I read just one book of this author, which should I read? Or if not a book, which podcast/video? Thank you.
Geopop videos on youtube were my introduction, and are definitely the quickest way to get the gist. Then I started reading his books.
Accidental Superpower is his first, from 2014, and is the best overall introduction. It doesn't just look at current events; he applies his approach to pretty much all the great civilizations of world history, starting with ancient Egypt. Well worth reading for that alone, it's amazing. Also covers modern day, and while it's a bit out of date now, the broad strokes haven't changed. This book includes a prediction that Russia would invade the rest of Ukraine right about now. If you read just one, make it this one.
The next two books are entirely focused on present day.
Absent Superpower from 2016 has two parts. The first is probably more information than you want about the shale revolution in the US, but he keeps it interesting. Then he writes about individual countries, with more of an energy focus. This one's obviously most relevant to the tech we're discussing here, which could change everything if it scales up soon enough.
Now I'm partway through Disunited Nations, from 2020. This also goes country by country, and of course is the most up-to-date so far. He starts out with several chapters on China, and goes into more detail than the previous book on their situation, which is incredibly grim. Now I'm starting the next chapter, on Japan.
His next book comes out in June. I think he mentioned in a video that he focuses more on the outlook for various industries.
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tractor fuel produced at the foot of a wind turbine in the middle of a farmer's field, that doesn't need to be transported from a refinery, would have immediate value. Fences made of double-sided solar panels mounted a bit more than tractor-width apart, running N-S, coexist nicely with row crops, and cut water loss, improve conversion efficiency (via evaporative cooling), and often increase yield besides (via reduced…
> doesn't need to be transported from a refinery Given how much cutting edge process chemistry is involved in this fuel manufacture, it will be a long time before it's available in small units, which will of course be more capital-intensive and less efficient than large units because that's how scaling works. It's far more likely this fuel will end up simply co-mingled with the global market and shipped all over the…
According to their "need for speed" page, their plan is to build factories producing units the size of shipping containers. They think they can have three of them by 2030, each churning out a quarter million units annually.
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#144No post body was provided.
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Relevant thread - question asked by Ramez Naam on the feasibility of Prometheus: https://twitter.com/ramez/status/1516199169911713794?s=21&t=...
> Bluntly? They are a running joke among anybody that has been around the renewable fuels space for longer than a couple years. > There are no shortcuts around the physics required to assemble a molecule. So the process is viable, but the cost is prohibitive?
You can't get around the basic energy requirements, but don't we come up with easier synthesis methods all the time?
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#146This seems like a plan that's contingent on the moonshot of extremely cheap and scalable carbon capture. So far, effective carbon capture has remained elusive. "Carbon offsets" really means signing papers where a country says "we would have cut down this forest, but we won't now that you paid us." Actually taking carbon out of the atmosphere and burying it is the stuff of prototypes.
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Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
> doesn't need to be transported from a refinery Given how much cutting edge process chemistry is involved in this fuel manufacture, it will be a long time before it's available in small units, which will of course be more capital-intensive and less efficient than large units because that's how scaling works. It's far more likely this fuel will end up simply co-mingled with the global market and shipped all over the…
According to their "need for speed" page, their plan is to build factories producing units the size of shipping containers. They think they can have three of them by 2030, each churning out a quarter million units annually.
... I'll file that under "believe it when I see it". It would be genuinely transformative of the world economy if it happened.
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#148[Since a lot of people can't read the article and the format is annoying enough that even archive services haven't captured it, here's the text.] As you know, Prometheus converts renewable electricity from solar and wind power into zero net carbon gasoline, diesel, and jet e-fuels (short for “electro-fuels”) that compete with fossil fuels on price. What some readers may not know is that the process we use to do this…
Thanks, a lot of readers might not be able to load this, especially over a cellular connection. The site itself weighs 375MB, ~150MB after compression, and pins my CPU for about 3 seconds on load, using 1.70GB of real memory.
Wow. It's quite amazing that it loaded in 3 seconds on my phone over wireless connection.
... and then looked and worked like 50kB static website from 10 years ago.
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks, a lot of readers might not be able to load this, especially over a cellular connection. The site itself weighs 375MB, ~150MB after compression, and pins my CPU for about 3 seconds on load, using 1.70GB of real memory.
Oh dear. I had to visit it just to see my self and it looks like it preloads the whole site? Alot of pictures even though the article shows none. 356MB in total for just some text.
When you move around the site it has a lot of very nice, stylized 3d and cool transition effects. It's weird that it preloads nearly everything on first visit.
Re: Dude, where's my fuel?
#150I'm super curious how fast could such technology develop if it was opensourced.
Since it supposedly doesn't require large capital cost, can be done in small scale and doesn't require exotic materials (except for cheaper separation of fuel from water) it would be perfect technology for small time experimenters and small entrepreneurs in all corners of the world.