Fossil Fuels Could Be Phased Out Worldwide In a Decade, Says Study (phys.org) 443
James Hakner, writing for Phys.org: The worldwide reliance on burning fossil fuels to create energy could be phased out in a decade, according to an article published by a major energy think tank in the UK. Professor Benjamin Sovacool, Director of the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex, believes that the next great energy revolution could take place in a fraction of the time of major changes in the past. But it would take a collaborative, interdisciplinary, multi-scalar effort to get there, he warns. And that effort must learn from the trials and tribulations from previous energy systems and technology transitions. In a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Energy Research & Social Science, Professor Sovacool analyses energy transitions throughout history and argues that only looking towards the past can often paint an overly bleak and unnecessary picture. Moving from wood to coal in Europe, for example, took between 96 and 160 years, whereas electricity took 47 to 69 years to enter into mainstream use. But this time the future could be different, he says -- the scarcity of resources, the threat of climate change and vastly improved technological learning and innovation could greatly accelerate a global shift to a cleaner energy future.There's no doubt that we will soon reach a point wherein solar and wind will be readily available and feasible to the vast majority but, the decade timeframe feels like a stretch. We must acknowledge the financial and political challenges that we face today. Private and government-backed companies have invested billions of dollars into plants that turn fossil fuels into electricity. Ditching these plants means losing a lot of capital and owing investors with plenty of explanations. There are several forces at play here.
World without oil income to middle east is scary (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You might argue that it would solve their problems.
If there was no demand for their product, the major world powers wouldn't quit injecting themselves into their affairs. With no income, they couldn't buy weapons. Without weapons, their ability to wage large-scale wars would drop off.
The whole place might not be nice, but it would probably settle back to a patchwork of tribal areas generally stable because there was no means of consolidating power or enforcing minority governance.
Re:World without oil income to middle east is scar (Score:4, Insightful)
With no income ...
what little economies they do have will collapse and that huge population of unemployed young people will go somewhere, bringing their Wahhabism with them.
Re: (Score:3)
I question that thesis.
These countries have by and large been economic backwaters forever and its required basically a state of war and anarchy in Syria for several years to kick off a major wave of migration. End the fighting and you end most of the migration. The oil economies of most of these countries don't do a lot to help the man in the street anyway, they largely depend on general internal economic activity for subsistence.
Plus you have to figure that the Europeans won't tolerate much more migratio
Re:World without oil income to middle east is scar (Score:5, Interesting)
Things are unstable enough as it is in that territory. Matters could get a lot worse if they lose their only major source of income.
The Middle East is unstable because of the oil wealth. Most terrorism comes from the wealthiest ME countries, not the poorest. If a government gets most of its wealth from oil, it has little need to be concerned about the welfare or aspirations of the people, other than to just keep them under control. So you get a corrupt and repressive elite, and seething resentment from the population. Saudi Arabia is the worst case, and has bred the most terrorists, including Osama bin Laden, and 15/19 of the 911 hijackers.
Yeah right (Score:3, Informative)
Pile on a few more conditions and you realize this is just wishful thinking. Some "think tank". Alternative energy is growing. And this is a good thing. But oil was still viable at $150/bbl. Don't think that at $40/bbl people are going to drop it. I think we're currently at or just past peak oil. Peak oil is not where oil is scarce - peak oil is where there is so much oil available that we are literally drowning in oil. Which is why we're hearing about oil gluts, and seeing plummeting oil prices.
Yes, economic slowdown in the US and China has something to do with that too. But currently we are running flat out pumping up oil from tar sands, from the bottom of the oceans at scary depths, and even shale oil from coal and barely treading water, barely producing oversupply. Once the economic slowdown reverses and demand picks up again, these gluts are going to disappear, but production will not pick up as quickly. It can't. All the "easy" oil has already been drilled. Fossil fuels will be not be phased out, there just won't be anymore. But it's going to take a lot more than a decade.
Re: Yeah right (Score:4, Informative)
Peak oil is not where oil is scarce - peak oil is where there is so much oil available that we are literally drowning in oil.
We're long past peak; that's why we have to rely on [expensive] processes such as synthesizing fuels from tar sands...
Re: (Score:3)
But we ARE drowning in oil. When they're talking about renting oil tankers just to store the stuff, there's a lot of unused oil. Therefore production currently far exceeds demand - but not because production has or can increase - because demand has slacked off. Slightly. China by 1%. The US by 2%. Every country in the world that HAS oil is trying to produce that oil. Refineries around the world are working at full capacity. Saudi Arabia has not slacked off production and is almost at full capacity. Never ha
Ridiculous conclusion (Score:5, Informative)
I haven't even read the study and can tell you the title conclusion is completely ridiculous, bordering on bad click-bait.There exists over 1 Billion cars in the world. Unless the governments of all countries in the world both fully subsidize AND legally mandate people to switch to electric cars AND build global infrastructure to support 1 Billion electrical cars, then it ain't gonna happen. Simple as that, end of story.
Re:Ridiculous conclusion (Score:4, Informative)
It's a shame you didn't read the study because it addresses your point. By "phased out" they mean all new vehicles would be electric, with a few exceptions. It's like CFCs were phased out - they didn't force everyone to replace hold fridges.
Re: (Score:2)
By "phased out" they mean all new vehicles would be electric, with a few exceptions.
Of the 75 million cars made in 2015, 540,000 were plug in EV something or others... and even most of THOSE still use gas (Prius plug in EV counts for example).
The idea that we could make all new cars and light trucks be EV only in 10 years is absurd in the extreme.
It's like CFCs were phased out - they didn't force everyone to replace hold fridges.
CFCs could be phased out because we had a ready replacement. It cost a bit more, but it largely worked in most of the same equipment doing the same job with minor changes.
If you were talking about replacing gas in cars with E85, now THAT could b
Re: (Score:2)
The idea that we could make all new cars and light trucks be EV only in 10 years is absurd in the extreme.
Why? Because we would have to build massive battery factories and infrastructure? Musk is proving we can do that, and he is one guy. The paper is arguing that it would need to be done on a massive, global scale.
Several countries have said they will ban sales of new petrol/diesel cars by 2050 (34 years), and the Dutch are looking to do it by 2025 (9 years). It's pretty far from "absurd in the extreme", it's just difficult and would require a lot of effort. Kinda like going to the moon in less than a decade.
CFCs could be phased out because we had a ready replacement. It cost a bit more, but it largely worked in most of the same equipment doing the same job with minor changes.
S
Re: (Score:2)
Why? Because we would have to build massive battery factories and infrastructure? Musk is proving we can do that, and he is one guy. The paper is arguing that it would need to be done on a massive, global scale.
There are many reasons... building all new car production is just one of them... What people WANT to drive is another, it takes time to change people's behavior, usually generations...
If this was just a new fuel type for the same types of cars, you could do it faster. EVs require that people change how they use a car. A lot of people simply aren't interested and will make sure the politicians know it.
Will my kids want EVs? Probably. But we're talking about 10 years here, not 50...
Side note: Musk hasn'
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's a shame you didn't read the study because it addresses your point. By "phased out" they mean all new vehicles would be electric, with a few exceptions. It's like CFCs were phased out - they didn't force everyone to replace hold fridges.
TFA seems to be saying that switching quickly is a possibility, but there's nothing plausible to switch to right now. Planes and shipping aren't going to be EV and of course we need a solution to energy production. We have to shift to something with sufficient capacity and it's currently really unclear what that something is.
Re: (Score:2)
More obviously, trucks that deliver food to grocery stores are not electric and can't be converted to electric in 10 years. Airlines have no alternative fuel prospects at this time (except biological fuels which pollute more than fossil fuels). Ships run on fossil fuels and a ship can operate for a lot longer than 20 years.
Ending fossil fuel use in 10 years or 20 years is not reality.
Re:Ridiculous conclusion (Score:4, Interesting)
"More obviously, trucks that deliver food to grocery stores are not electric and can't be converted to electric in 10 years"
There are already electric trucks and even electric semi trucks out there. you dont convert them, you REPLACE them.
Nissan, toyota, Mercedes, and all the other big truck makers are already doing it. Backward companies like Mack,GM, Ford,and Freightliner dont want to spend the money to make the next generation of trucks.
Re: Ridiculous conclusion (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Ridiculous conclusion (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody is going to. but when you are paying $37.50 a gallon of gas with $36.00 of each gallon in taxes, people will voluntarily get rid of their Suburban XLT.
Re:Ridiculous conclusion (Score:4, Interesting)
You do know that we have perfectly viable replacement technologies for existing motor fuels, right? Refined vegetable oil [wikipedia.org] (or "green diesel") is a direct, 1:1 replacement for diesel fuel which does not have the problems of transesterified biodiesel, and butyl alcohol or butanol [wikipedia.org] is a direct, 1:1 replacement for gasoline which is made by bacteria from any organic matter in a process that has been used for decades. The former is being produced in increasing quantities, although that could be sped up, and the latter is being prevented through the joint efforts of BP and DuPont, who are preventing GE Energy Ventures' firm GEVO from producing it and selling it on the basis of a patent which a) describes an obvious invention and b) was developed at a public university, partially with our money. As ever, the problems are not scientific, nor are they even technical. They are political, and economic. And as usual, the economic problems are not insurmountable, but they do require government involvement to run in the opposite direction. Right now, the US government is helping to prevent us from having a viable replacement for gasoline.
Adam Smith Utopianism (Score:2)
It simply won't happen until there is a compelling financial reason to do so.
Market forces always, eventually, win.
Re: (Score:2)
It simply won't happen until there is a compelling financial reason to do so.
Market forces always, eventually, win.
I'm pretty sure that if your hose is burning you won't bide your time and wait until there is a bear market in the fire extinguisher business so you can secure a fire extinguisher at the lowest possible price, you'll pay any price asked for a fire extinguisher so you can keep your house from burning down.... but then again boil a frog slowly, yada, yada, yada... (it doesn't work on frogs but apparently it will work on some free market fundamentalists).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Enter the carbon tax. Price emissions for their actual costs they incur. You know, the free market solution.
Re: (Score:3)
Enter the carbon tax. Price emissions for their actual costs they incur. You know, the free market solution.
A couple things.
First, government-imposed "social engineering" taxes such as a carbon tax are anything *but* "free market" and are nearly polar opposites.
Second, such a tax would impact lower-income people hugely more than wealthier people both directly and through increases in their cost of living. The "1-percenters" won't hardly notice, but lower income people will pay a much larger percentage of their income, drastically affecting their ability to house, clothe, feed, and prevent themselves from freezing
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
You're right. If the US government stopped it's massive oil and gas subsidies, the economy would swing toward renewables quickly.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Adam Smith Utopianism (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes the oil, gas, and coal industries possible is permitting them to ignore externalities. If you had to put the hill back to being nice after mining coal, and you had to fix all the CO2 emitted, and also somehow put all the radioactive isotopes back in the ground, and actually build refineries such that they don't occasionally^Wregularly emit deadly toxic clouds forcing evacuations (that is, build them to the same standard as chip fabs) and clean up 100% of the oil spilled and so on and so forth, none of those industries would even exist, at least not in their current forms. The oil industry would be focused on plastics, which would cost more. We'd use more composites as a result, with natural fibers perhaps. Coal just would be over. It wouldn't even be a thing. Natgas would exist, but we wouldn't be fracking, and they wouldn't be storing it in leaky underground caverns.
Permitting an industry to ignore externalities is a kind of subsidy being paid in natural capital which, in theory, belongs to all of us.
Re: (Score:2)
The government paid off the slave owners.
There's a smidge more ICE vehicles than there were slaves.
Does phased out mean they won't ever burn? (Score:2)
If the Aussie brown coal industry shut down tonight, the natural fires that they have prevented would destroy centuries worth of fuel coal by the next of the next fire season.
If coal isn't a useful resource, it isn't in anyone with money's interest to keep it from burning so natural fires will start and it will burn sometime in the future. That issue must be addressed.
Re: (Score:2)
You think you're being cute, but either you really don't understand, or you choose not to.
All the existing coal mines will require attention for some time to come, even if we stop mining, because we've opened up and uncovered coal veins that were blocked from the air for thousands/millions of years.
It was human activity that started it, we can't just walk away from the mines and leave them alone, the coal would all end up on fire and burn anyway.
Deja Vu (Score:2)
I have a Time magazine from 1948 and the cover article said the same thing.
Who he? (Score:5, Insightful)
The author of the paper, Professor Benjamin Sovacool, is Director of the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex. Confusingly, the University also describes him as "Professor of Energy Policy (SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit)". A brief search of the University of Sussex, University of Aarhus, and Wikipedia Web sites reveals that he has published a vast number of papers, given many, many talks and seminars, published books, received grants, and has a PhD in 'science and technology studies from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, where he won the “Outstanding Dissertation of the Year” award from the College of Social Sciences and Humanities'.
Nowhere, however, can I find any information about Professor Sovacool's undergraduate degree discipline. From his published biographical details, he seems to have popped into existence at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University where he received his PhD - awarded, be it noted, by "the College of Social Sciences and Humanities".
Until I learn to the contrary, therefore, I am assuming that Professor Sovacool is essentially a social science specialist who has ventured - very boldly indeed - into the topical, not to say fashionable, world of climate change, global warming, and general greenness. TFA tells us that, "In a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Energy Research & Social Science, Professor Sovacool analyses energy transitions throughout history and argues that only looking towards the past can often paint an overly bleak and unnecessary picture".
"Energy Research & Social Science". Hmmmmmmm. Professor Sovacool advances undeniably compelling (if not very scientific) arguments, such as this:
"Moving from wood to coal in Europe, for example, took between 96 and 160 years, whereas electricity took 47 to 69 years to enter into mainstream use... Ontario completed a shift away from coal between 2003 and 2014; a major household energy programme in Indonesia took just three years to move two-thirds of the population from kerosene stoves to LPG stoves; and France's nuclear power programme saw supply rocket from four per cent of the electricity supply market in 1970 to 40 per cent in 1982".
Well, there you have it. Clearly that evidence leaves no possible doubt that "[t]he worldwide reliance on burning fossil fuels to create energy could be phased out in a decade". To the satisfaction of any social science professor, anyway.
http://phys.org/news/2016-04-f... [phys.org]
Re:Who he? (Score:5, Informative)
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/be... [linkedin.com]
Education
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
PhD, Science & Technology Studies
2003 – 2006
Activities and Societies: Science Policy; History of Science and Technology; International Research; Science and Technology in Society.
Wayne State University
Wayne State University
MA, Communication Studies
2001 – 2003
Activities and Societies: Rhetoric and argumentation
John Carroll University
John Carroll University
BA, Philosophy
1997 – 2001
the article has a point (Score:2)
For example, Ontario completed a shift away from coal between 2003 and 2014; ... and France's nuclear power programme saw supply rocket from four per cent of the electricity supply market in 1970 to 40 per cent in 1982.
So with a little political will, large changes can be made to our electricity generation system rather quickly. It would mean embracing nuclear, though.
Re: (Score:2)
What did Ontario shift to between 2003 and 2014? I'm betting some other form of fossil fuel.
and France's nuclear power programme was "just" another form of generating steam for the same kind of turbines used in the past.
Renewable don't do that.
Re: (Score:2)
Renewable don't do that.
That's true, but the article isn't saying we have to shift to renewables.
What did Ontario shift to between 2003 and 2014? I'm betting some other form of fossil fuel.
From what I understand, they're mostly nuclear [cns-snc.ca]. (Seriously, it took me five minutes to find that on Google, you could have done it).
Re: (Score:2)
From what I understand, they're mostly nuclear.
Unless there was an unused nuke plant just sitting around doing nothing (or a new plant was brought online), where did that replacement capacity come from?
Of course, seeing that nuke+hydro is 94+% of their generation, maybe coal wasn't that important to Ontario to begin with.
Re: (Score:3)
Unless there was an unused nuke plant just sitting around doing nothing (or a new plant was brought online), where did that replacement capacity come from?
Wow, if only there were a global search engine brimming with information, waiting for you to type in a query. I'll bet you could find the answer to that, if such a thing existed.
certainly (Score:2)
If "feasible" means "economical", there is definitely doubt - each bit of government subsidy & market distortion is concrete proof of that.
Sounds great... except... (Score:3)
But it would take a collaborative, interdisciplinary, multi-scalar effort to get there, he warns.
Uhh, that isn't a minor speed bump, that is Olympus Mons on Mars sized speed bump...
To actually do it would require that we actually buy up and destroy most of the gas powered cars on the roads, since more than half of them are used longer than 10 years.
We'd have to shut down and destroy trillions of dollars worth of industry around the world, from oil refineries to coking coal plants that make steel, to natural gas powered appliances, etc. (in my home along, my water is heated, my food is cooked, and my home is heated with natural gas, it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to replace all that with electric).
We would somehow have to get all the nations of the world on the same page. You know, the same ones that are at war right now, declared and undeclared, the ones that fly jets 30 feet over our warships, the ones wanting to expand ISIS, and the ones building islands in the South China sea.
If you wanted to avoid nuclear, you'd also somehow have to build an international power grid and allow nations to become dependent on other counties for power. That may work for Denmark and Sweden, but do you really think South and North Korea are going to get along? How about the US and Mexico? Israel and everyone else...
---
The "think tank" either just wants money to write more pointless "reports", or they are smoking crack... Both are sad...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not like we want to avoid it, peak nuclear production is expected around 2030 to 2040.
Don't be silly, that is just counting existing refined stockpiles.
Between actually bothering to mine for more uranium and using breeder reactors to make plutonium, we could make 100% of our power from nuclear for a long time if we wanted to.
We simply don't want to.
It all depends on whether we have to change grids (Score:3)
All of the fast changes of electrical supply cited in the article were moves from one baseload source to another. But if you want to move from baseload to renewables (other than the lone baseload renewable, hydro) we will need a new grid. The envisioned upgrade, "Smart Grid" would be able to match fluctuating supplies with continually monitored and controlled loads. Yes, you will have to give your utility power to continually monitor your electrical demand and be able to switch your major appliances on and off to match the changing supply of sun and wind. Changing over to this grid will cost a few teradollars.
The very first small step in upgrading to Smart Grid is Smart Meter, the first generation of which continually monitors load for each user, but does not have the control component. In my town the hippie moms have already protested away Smart Meter on grounds that they "emit radiation" by which they mean use cellular data chips to send their readings to the utility. So around here anyway, the flat-earth lobby has already eaten its own proposed solution.
Re: (Score:2)
If you want to know how that works, look back at California's electric market deregulation in 2000/2001. Real time pricing is unfortunately very easy to game.
Phys.org??? (Score:2)
I'd like to teach the world to sing (Score:5, Funny)
At a level of global cooperation never before achieved by the human race, on a project vastly more expensive than any project previously undertaken by any nation state (or supranational governing body) humanity could achieve X in Y years for Z dollars—where the precise value of X is pretty much irrelevant, since it surely won't happen in less than Y*3 years and Z*10 dollars, in the unlikely event it happens at all.
What Coke promised: "I'd like to teach the world to sing".
What Coke delivered: global BMI inflation & Texas-sized land yachts.
Sure... at a cost. (Score:2)
Over the last 5-10 years you have had a large number of power plants re-powered from oil to natural gas and from once-through cooling to cooling tower operation. I could be way off on my numbers, but I believe the cost is around $1MM/MWh typically, and generally amortized as a 30 year investment. So, in order to pay off those expenses, you are looking at whatever the existing (wholesale) cost of electricity is, and adding the cost of new renewable sources to it (roughly triple the wholesale cost amortized
Could be != shall or will (Score:4, Interesting)
This demonstrates a POSSIBLE answer. Right now we don't think the situation is anywhere near bad enough to warrant the major problems caused by the proposed solution.
Far more likely is the complete removal of all coal plants, replaced by green technology. Combine that with a cessation of building fossil fuel burning cars, and you have a major shift.
While not as good as the possible solution from the actual post, this is a far more likely one, and would still surprise most people. The benefits would take a while to appear, but they would be real.
How your world works (Score:2)
If the 120 or so wealthy men with governments in their pockets who mostly rule commerce on this world agree, and they can be on board to receive the profits, then this would happen.
Degree? (Score:2)
Long road trips (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The idea that fossil fuels could be "phased out" in a decade is so ludicrous that I hardly know where to begin.
Yes, we'll just replace EVERY car, truck, bus, motorcycle, and every other existing conveyance that uses an internal combustion engine. No PROBLEM!
Then we'll do the same for every bit of construction equipment in the world (earth moving machines, trucking & hauling vehicles, paving and compacting machinery, lifting & material handling equipment, drilling & trenching gear, etc).
And sure,
Re:More 'climate change' alarmist bullshit... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, we'll just replace EVERY car, truck, bus, motorcycle, and every other existing conveyance that uses an internal combustion engine. No PROBLEM!
That's what I thought at first too, but the paper is talking about generating electricity, not transportation.
Re: (Score:2)
The idea that fossil fuels could be "phased out" in a decade is so ludicrous that I hardly know where to begin.
You must be new to the world of social science.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh look, another "God would never create physical laws that would allow us to damage ourselves" types. Here's the facts. CO2 traps energy in the lower atmosphere. The more CO2, the more energy trapped. Care to tell us where that energy is going, if not into raising temperatures? Go on, tell us how the lower atmosphere is exempt from thermodynamics.
Re:Very Simple Explanation (Score:5, Insightful)
If renewables are cheaper, they're going to get built.
Unfortunately, it's extremely difficult - perhaps even impossible - to say what is cheaper. Government regulations and subsidies have so muddied the water that vast fortunes can now be made out of selling power that is generated less cheaply and efficently than it could be by other means.
But that is just one extreme example of how government regulation and subsidy distorts everything. It's very ironic that the governments that boast most loudly about their wonderful free-enterprise, free-market capitalist economies are the same governments that control interest rates - the fundamental price which controls all other prices. Every time a government passes a law, crates a regulation or offers a subsidy, it distorts the economy and prevents the existence of a free market.
Re: Very Simple Explanation (Score:2)
Fossil fuels receive $5 trillion subsidy annually (according to IMF). We need to remove this market distortion.
Re: (Score:2)
As a general rule, subsidies are bad. Tax credits are much more varied.
Re: (Score:3)
Man, I wouldn't admit publicly on slashdot that math is hard. Just saying.
No, he is right...
The US Government pays 2.7 cents per KWh to wind producers for each KWh sold.
That is why sometimes Texas Wind Farms give away their power, and have at times, paid people to take it, because of government money.
There are other incentives and tax credits beyond that. Texas makes 9% of its power from Wind. That is largely because of government money, not because Wind is cheap.
Re: (Score:2)
"The US Government pays 2.7 cents per KWh to wind producers for each KWh sold."
And the coal and oil industry get 20 billions of subsidies each year, one wonders why.
http://www.ibtimes.com/us-foss... [ibtimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And the coal and oil industry get 20 billions of subsidies each year, one wonders why.
Instead of just linking to it, you should try reading it.
A direct cash payment of 2.7 cents per KWh isn't remotely the same as a company writing off business expenses on their tax return.
The report noted that, in the U.S., deductions for cleaning up oil spills allows companies to claim the cost as a standard business expense. This provision allowed British oil giant BP Plc to claim $9.9 billion in tax deductions in 2010 following the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico, where the company reportedly incurred over $32.2 billion in cleanup costs.
Companies writing off expenses is not a "subsidy", it is how tax works. The company installing the Wind Farm was able to write off all their expenses as well, yet those aren't called a "subsidy".
The 2.7 cents per KWh allows them to pay you 1 cent per KWh and still come out better than turning off the turbines. But it dist
Re: (Score:2)
So... You should move to Somolia to obtain a piece of the heaven you speak of.
Please stop posting this drivel on Slashdot.
We're beyond equating "in this one instance, government intervention might be net harmful" with "yay anarchy" here. Perhaps you were looking for Reddit?
Re: (Score:3)
There is no nice way to say this so I'm going to just come out and say it. You're an idiot.
Have you ever been to Somalia? No? I didn't think so. I have. In fact, I spent almost six weeks there. If there's one thing Somalia has, it's an overabundance of government. Yes, you read that right. No, I'm not wrong. You could even say that they're probably more strictly regulated than most other countries on the planet.
Why idiots keep repeating this, why idiots thing Libertarians are against government, is beyond m
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We can't run the whole world on nuclear because we don't trust much of the world to have it. Do you want Iran to build enough reactors to meet its energy needs? And Palestine? North Korea?
Also, how are you going to get every country up to scratch on nuclear safety and security? Even if they don't use it for weapons, can they run it without serious accidents indefinitely?
Re: (Score:2)
We don't run anything on solar, it's run on electricity. And yes we can run the entire world on electricity...and for the most part already do. The trick with solar and renewable is energy storage and that isn't there yet but will come in likely a matter of decades.
But to deal with the CO2 issues, for the next 20-50 years, yes nuclear is the only CO2 free base load source we've got. The problem is by the time you get all those plants constructed, you likely
Re: (Score:2)
Current nuclear technology requires finite resources and is nonrenewable. It would only kick the ball down the road. If you're going to invest in sustainable energy, wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal and so forth are the better long-term investment.
If and when we develop efficient large-scale fusion technology, that will be different, but simply moving our energy reliance from one non-renewable (fossil fuels) to another (uranium and other radioactive elements) really is not a great leap forward.
Re: (Score:2)
Current nuclear technology requires finite resources and is nonrenewable.
The same is true of fusion (e.g. solar) power. Everything is non-renewable. It's a nonsense comment. Technology moves faster than we run out of fuels.
Re: (Score:2)
Renewables can provide orders of magnitude more energy than nuclear or fossil fuels and can do that as of today. What they can't do just yet is store that energy to smooth out it's variable generation scale. Batteries are the next front of massi
Re: Not a good idea (Score:4, Insightful)
We have have 3 major nuclear incidents in none of them have millions died. There is a lot of hype and fud, coal kills people ever year it puts more radioactive material into the air etc etc etc and has not killed us all of yet. Look at the ecological devastation of making solar panels, sure you can do it clean but dirty is cheaper.
Proliferation is an issue, newer designs deal with it pretty well, hell some designs allow for commercial production with marginally more than uranium ore.
Re: (Score:3)
"We have have 3 major nuclear incidents in none of them have millions died."
So why aren't they able to get any insurance company to cover them?
Re: (Score:3)
http://www.world-nuclear.org/i... [world-nuclear.org]
Re: Not a good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
The space shuttle was considered pretty safe...until the Columbia disaster happened pointed out it's massive design flaw.
False. The space shuttle was considered quite dangerous, with a 1 in 100 chance of failure originally estimated. When you fly hundreds of missions, a mission failure was likely. It is true that later the chances were revised to even higher a higher chance, but by no means was the shuttle ever considered safe.
Nope, still no. (Score:3)
You are confusing the rate in a small sample with the probability of an event.
One in 100 chance does not mean there will be exactly one accident in 100 events. There might be zero; there might be ten. Might happen on launch one; might happen on launch 100; might not happen at all; might happen on launches 40 through 60 (though I agree this would be disturbing... ;)
What it actually means is that over a long series of events taken in groups of 100, the average rate of problems is expected to work out to one i
LOL *still* no (Score:3)
No. They don't. To recap:
Tossing a coin 4x and getting heads-heads-tails-heads does NOT show other than 2:1
AND:
Launching the shuttle 135 times and getting two fails does NOT show other than 1:100
Same EXACT issue: Nowhere near enough sample runs to demonstrate empirically that the calculated odds for one sample are wrong.
Re: Not a good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Millions of elderly people die from city smog every year. Their old lungs can't take the dirty air and they get pneumonia, fluid build up, and die.
Re: (Score:3)
That doesn't make nuclear a GOOD choice by any measure, but it may be the only one we can deal with for the moment.
What's your solution?
Re: (Score:2)
However, for the most part, oil (and derivatives) was used for things which had not been done before because coal was a completely unsuitable fuel for those things.
Re: Coal provides 33% of the US electricity genera (Score:3)
An EV powered by coal emits less pollution than an oil powered car. Plus, as more renewables come online, the EV becomes more efficient.
Re: (Score:2)
The coal industry is crashing. Peabody coal, the largest coal company in the US just went bankrupt [desmogblog.com]. The reason: competition from renewables and cheaper LNG, and dropping Chinese demand. China has a huge air pollution problem caused primarily by coal generation. They are moving to renewables in a big way.
Re:Coal provides 33% of the US electricity generat (Score:5, Interesting)
[coal] is still the dominant energy source in the US
Natural gas surpasses coal for electricity generation, July 2015 [eia.gov]
Now just for a month, but coal has been declining in it's percentage.
in 2010 coal was 50%. Dropping to 30% in just 5 years? that's not a 'dominant' player, that's a dead albatross on it's way down.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
China is investing heavily in renewables as well.
The world is changing whether people who own fossil fuel stocks like it or not.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Fission fuel is as renewable as fusion fuel, and all power is ultimately fusion power stored or transformed in some way.
Re:hah (Score:4, Informative)
What? No. Fissionable elements are only produced in appreciable amounts in supernovae, where they store only an infinitesimal fraction of the energy released, and we're pretty much stuck with the amount that was originally incorporated into the Earth's mass at conception(minus decay losses, plus the occasional tiny layer deposited by nearby supernovae). All the easily-fissionable elements in the Earth's crust (thorium, uranium, etc.) combined would provide only a few centuries to, at most, a few millenia of power at current energy consumption levels. (Uranium alone would only provide power for a few decades with current technology) After that there's no more fuel (yes, we could perhaps learn to mine the planet's molten core, as well as the rest of the solar system, but still, once used up, it's gone)
Fusion is no more renewable in principle, but there's many orders of magnitude more fusion fuel available - somewhere north of 99% of the mass of our entire solar system for starters, though somewhat dramatically less on Earth itself. Still at least a few orders of magnitude more total energy worth available planetside though.
And yes, most energy sources do ultimately originate from fusion, tidal, aka gravitational, being the exception (orbiting masses would presumably still exist even if fusion were impossible in our universe) , but the question for renewabilty is whether a power source can be depleted by usage. Biofuels, wind, or other forms of solar power cannot - the energy they harness is being released regardless of our usage rate, the only question is whether or not we choose to harness it. It's unlikely that anything we can do will have an appreciable effect on the rate of energy being consumed by our sun, at least not unless/until we discover some new laws of physics, or manage to harness an substantial fraction of its total output.
Oil Price Gluts (Score:5, Interesting)
The recent price crash of oil was caused by a supply glut of 2 million barrels per day. According the the studies referenced here [bloomberg.com], if electric vehicle growth continues at the rate we have seen in recent years, electric vehicles will in and of themselves create their own oil demand glut of 2 million barrels by 2023. I wouldn't want to own oil stocks when that happens.
Re: (Score:2)
We pay very high taxes on fuel here in Europe, the taxes are many times larger than the actual fuel production cost and are usually a fixed amount, not a percentage of the fuel cost, so large changes in crude oil prices only have a very small effect on consumer fuel prices in Europe.
Yeah, but the oil companies won't be making much money when the real prices drop. The recent glut has pretty much destroyed the Canadian tar sands industry. I would say that owning companies whose primary assets are oil extraction rights is a dangerous proposition over the coming decades.
Not just Iran (Score:3, Insightful)
And to weaken the United States shale oil production. Isn't it funny how they waited until so much money was invested before undercutting shale oil to less than the cost of production. Shale oil costs a LOT more to extract than the oil the Iranians are producing. The USA is getting hurt a lot more by this than Iran and Russia.
Re: Oil Price Gluts (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
China's coal use has declined for the past several years. This is a deliberate policy.
Re: hah (Score:3)
You should try thinking with your brain, not your gut. In end,what comes out of your gut is just crap.
Re: (Score:2)
My cars are 26, 20 and 18 years old and I have no plans to replace them (or at least, no plans to replace two of the three). If there are no more fossil fuels in 10 years, then I'll be running them on biofuel instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Scientific pseudoskepticism coupled with conspiracy theories. David Icke met Roy Spencer, and you're the product of that unholy union,.
Re: (Score:2)
And there are no alternative fuels for airlines. No one even has a serious proposal for any.
Re: (Score:2)
When I went to school back in 2000 I was taught the world would be out of oil by 2016. So when I hear scientist complain about resources drying up I don't believe them.
The first question to ask is, "What class was that taught in?"
Second question, "Did the author of that textbook have expertise in that subject?"
If it was in some pansy "Environmental Science" class, I'd bet hard money that it wasn't written by a petroleum geologist.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)