Drilling Under the Sea 174
prof_peabody writes "The IODP (Intergrated Ocean Drilling Program) is about to get rolling in a couple of days. If you live in one of these countries then your tax dollars have contributed to the construction of the giant drillship Chikyu, which was launched a little while back (project timeline). The American contigent website is loaded with info and obligatory acronyms. The first leg of the IODP will investigate how water flows through rock formations beneath the seafloor during an eight-week expedition this summer to the eastern flank of the Juan de Fuca Ridge off the coast of British Columbia. Some of you geeks with beards may remember the DSDP (Deep Sea Drilling Project) or the recently completed ODP (Ocean Drilling Program). The real advance in the new program that will cost well over a billion dollars is the IODP riser drill ship that 'will provide a way to drill into continental margins where oil and gas deposits can cause drilling safety concerns and into regions with thick sediment sections, fault zones, and unstable formations.' A good overview of the IODP can be found here, and the necessary references to Megalodon and none other than The Core."
Re:no more oil from the middle east. (Score:4, Insightful)
Worst film ever (Score:3, Insightful)
Possibly the worst (or best?) casting as the pants sniffing dog-loving guy out of road trip as a hacker who hacks the planet.
I am just suprised that they didn't send a virus to the center of the earth to fix everything
A guy has a laser that can cut through rock, in a blast of dust, but without causing huge flames.
When they hit the molten rock, how did they not just fall through it? gravity man, or do they float in molten rock?
aaaah whatever.
Re:no more oil from the middle east. (Score:5, Insightful)
To quote my latest blog entry [blogspot.com], "three of the top five importers are on the American continents." Poorly worded, in retrospect, since it should say "sources of imported oil" rather than "importers" but it's the data -- which you seem "less than familiar with" -- that is of interest.
Re:no more oil from the middle east. (Score:5, Insightful)
finding a new source of energy and creating the infrastructure to support the use of the energy should be a long term goal. for the short term we should spend money on deep drilling projects like this, government money, one.
my hermione shrine [eternalconflict.co.uk]
Re:no more oil from the middle east. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the problem. We may control nuclear energy, and we may already build very good electric engines, but _storing_ that energy for the car to use is the weakest link. By far. As energy-per-lbs goes, nothing comes even _near_ chemical stuff that burns. Gasoline packs more joules per kg than any battery. (And gunpowder packs even more, which is why soldiers still use that, instead of railguns with a battery pack.)
However, it's still not all lost. If you have another energy supply, you can make enough stuff that will burn in a car's conventional engine.
E.g., a real no-brainer is using the electricity generated by a nuclear plant to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen can be then burned in a relatively conventional internal combustion engine, taking the oxygen back from the atmosphere and giving water vapour back.
Other ways exist to combine that hydrogen with carbon from coal (of which there are far more reserves than oil), creating synthetic liquid fuel. You don't even need a nuclear plant for that.
(A lot of the panzer warfare in WW2 happened on synthetic fuel. It wasn't that cheap, but it kept the panzers rolling.)
Or in some limited cases you can just replace the fossil fuel use with electricity. E.g., see how we replaced the coal and diesel train engines with electric ones. Electric busses and trams exist already, and could eventually replace the diesel ones if the economics are right. Also, if the investment were justified, one could build a power grid along highways to support at least electric trucks.
Ultimately, though, everything boils down to economics. As long as it's cheaper to bring in oil from the middle east, than to brew local synthetic fuels, people will bring oil from the middle east. As long as it's cheaper to fill up your tank with gas coming from the middle east, than to get an expensive hydrogen powered car and hydrogen, people will continue importing oil from the middle east. And as long as electric cars will continue to be expensive _and_ have a 50 mile range, after which they need several hours to recharge (as opposed to minutes to fill a fuel tank), people will buy conventional cars.
When the economics will be right, however, expect to see someone coming with such replacements. The whole civilization collapsing into anarchy and famine as soon as we pumped the last barrel of oil out, makes a good Hollywood scenario, but ain't gonna happen in RL. More realistically we'll then start producing synthetic fuel in the short run, and pumping billions into R&D for better solutions, and life will go on. It won't be as cheap as it is today, but it ain't gonna be Armageddon either.
Re:no more oil from the middle east. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultimately, though, everything boils down to economics.
Which is why it is important that what people pay for their energy should reflect the real costs of that energy. Pollution should be cleaned up, and the costs should be part of the cost of the fuel. I don't care whether that happens by some government program or by private companies, but the problem now is that everything does boil down to economics, but the consumers don't pay the whole cost of what they consume.
Re:no more oil from the middle east. (Score:3, Insightful)
Spending money in finding new ways to find oil and gas is cheaper then spending money to find a new alternative source of power and deliver it to the customer.
I think the problem is more of resistance from established industries to adopt new technology because they don't want to lose their source of revenue. Fuel cells have been around for a while, and I can recall some story about a (Japanese?) company coming up with a special tank for safely storing hydrogen for use with hydrogen-powered cars. I think it had something to do with aluminum somehow rendering the hydrogen non-volatile while in storage. I also saw a story on the news ages ago about a Japanese inventor who created an ultrasound washing machine that didn't need detergent, then read a rumor that he was bought out by chemical companies who saw this as a threat to their products. I know this is all conspiracy theory stuff, but it's not impossible.
Boils down to selfishness (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:no no no no no (Score:5, Insightful)
Er...the Earth isn't exactly using them. To imply that the use of petroleum products is somehow 'stealing' from the Earth is silly. I could make an equally specious argument that building solar panels is stealing sunlight from the areas that they cover--not to mention 'depleting Earth's precious supplies of silicon and germanium'.
Apparently, there is still money to be made from additional drilling, even under very challenging conditions. Consequently, the attempt will be made.
I agree that finding alternative sources of energy is worthwhile, but looking for alternative energy sources does not preclude extending the current supply of fossil fuels.
If you'd like to argue on the basis of environmental impact, you've got something to stand on there. If you'd like to argue on the basis of human health impact then you've got some substance there, too. If you'd like to argue that there will be economic displacements if we're unprepared for increasing oil scarcity, that's worth talking about. Arguing that we should stop using fossil fuels now because they're going to run out eventually--er, why?
Incidentally, several of the things the parent post mentions are already being done. Many public transportation vehicles in North America and Europe are using alternate fuels; private fleet vehicles are beginning to adopt them as well. Hybrid cars--which do not eliminate, but do reduce the use of fossil fuels--are being sold to the public now.
Why push an agenda of nationalizing industry? What is gained by that? It makes rather more sense to put in place a public policy framework that rewards the use of alternative fuels (and/or penalizes the use of fossil fuels) and let the market find the optimal solution. I'd rather not drive a car that was designed by the British/U.S./Canadian government, thank you very much.
Further, taxing gasoline heavily has encouraged the purchase of more fuel-efficient vehicles already. Compare and contrast the cars driven in Europe with the SUVs sold in North America. I am also pleased to note that SUV sales in even the United States have taken a hit with the recent sustained higher gasoline prices.
Yes, I know. I shouldn't feed the trolls. I apologize.
Parent Post didnt RTFA (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:no no no no no (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
Well, the short answer is because we like to eat.
We already have engines that run on Hydrogen. Ford has been making methane powered vehicles for the past 10-15 years. We've had usable solar power devices for 20-30 years.
The problem isn't that we don't have the technology; the problem is that fossil-fuel energy is simply more economically viable. The problem is that a $40,000 solar array would have to be in service, maintainence free, for 20 to 40 years before the owner would even begin to save money on electric bills. Even if the homeowner saves money on the 20th year and keeps his house another 20 years, he's only effectively earned $20,000 in savings. Contrast this with investing $40,000 in the stock market over the same time frame - the return is in the millions.