A Question Of Survival

1echidna

Happily retired, so have only the wife to worry about! (re time on MSE)

1echidna

ad9898 wrote: »

Not sure about that, I suggest anyone interested in this subject read 'Twilight In The Desert, The Coming Saudi Oil Shock And The World Economy', written in 2004, it predicted what has happened up until now with alarming accuracy, if it carries on being accurate, put your head between your legs and kiss your a$$ goodbye.

It mainly discusses the giant Ghawar field in Saudi Arabia, based on 20 years worth of papers written by Saudi Aramco employees, it makes very sober reading. It also discusses current technologies and how we have little chance of filling the gap between what will be needed and what can be supplied.

My feeling is almost all the worlds governments are holding out for a 'Eureka' moment by the world's greatest minds, to save us before we fall into the abyss, if I'm honest, my feeling is, they will fail.

I worked in the central engineering department of a major oil company and tend to trust my experience and gut feelings more than a sensation seeking author building a conspiracy theory about Aramco reserves. Could be wrong of course, time will tell.

Dithering_Dad

Austin_Allegro wrote: »

Oy, Drax, if the plan was to return to Earth, why didn't you just seal yourself up in your Amazonian underground base until the poison cleared? Wouldn't that have been easier than building a space station? And next time, don't get Jaws to do your dirty work!

Hmnn, underground bunker. Now why didn't I think of that? The simplest plans are always the successful plans.

I'd never hire Jaws again, way too unreliable. I now have a henceman who seems quite nice, though has a fixation with throwing his bowler hat at people. Strange chap.

darktrader

Running out of Energy is another one of those myths.

Certainly run out of Oil and Gas eventually, but there is Nuclear and hundreds of years worth of coal. (Here in the UK, under our very feet.)

(Oh, and that renewable stuff, too)

Once the lights start going out public opinion will shift away from the new religion of "Climate Change"

Conflict

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

I saw a program on Hydrogen Fuel cells where the techie guy reckoned we could all replace our boilers with HFC's powered by electricity. The HFC would convert our tap water to hydrogen which would then be burned to heat water and power our central heating and domestic hot water needs.

The obvious next step would then be to have solar cells on our roof (once the efficiencies have increased) to generate the power for the fuel cell. Not sure about this one, but the HFC idea sounded pretty good. The scientist bloke said all we need to implement it is a local source of electricity and water, both of which are already supplied in our homes.

We just need to generate electricity from nuclear, wind, tidal, hydro and other renewable sources and we would have solved the fuel crisis.

Yay!!

As others have mentioned creating hydrogen from water isn't a practical form of energy process - basic thermodynamics will tell you that in that it will require more energy to create the hydrogen then you will get out. Put it simply in order for this to work it will be going 'H2O --> H + O --> H2O' which as you can imagine will require more energy to do the transformations than you will get out. The technology to do this has been around for 50+ years and really is only muted by scam artists as its got enough good sounding to it to make the lay person believe.

It CAN be practical though if used with an unlimited energy source e.g. thermal, and if you wanted to then transport the hydrogen elsewhere but for home use its a silly idea.

Really there is no good solution to free heating in homes. Underground, Above ground and Solar heat pumps cost more long term than burning fossil fuels - but if a country wanted to reduce its reliance on imported energy they would be beneficial hence why France is subsidising every home to have one installed.

I wouldn't be surprised though if someone doesn't develop some weird piece of technology in the next decade using nano engineering which might finally be more efficient than burning fuel but it wont be via water to hydrogen - probably more to do with making the conversion from electricity to heat be remotely efficient.

mardatha

I've said for years that they would have to open up the pits again. Now if only I can live long enough to know I was RIGHT!

arcalis

the ingenuity of the human race will always see us through. We subconciously invent the solution before we realise we need it.

WTF?_2

Conflict wrote: »

It CAN be practical though if used with an unlimited energy source e.g. thermal, and if you wanted to then transport the hydrogen elsewhere but for home use its a silly idea.

What sort of conversion losses are we talking about? i.e. Could storing wind/ solar generated energy (or even cheap off peak night-time electricity from the mains) in a 'hydrogen battery' be more effective than using existing battery technologies?

I know that conventional batteries have many problems with power loss, reduced capacity over time and eventual pollution when they need to be disposed of. Maybe a hydrogen fuel cell 'battery' could be viable for electricity storage taking into account that you might be able to harvest waste heat for your heating system?

Really there is no good solution to free heating in homes. Underground, Above ground and Solar heat pumps cost more long term than burning fossil fuels - but if a country wanted to reduce its reliance on imported energy they would be beneficial hence why France is subsidising every home to have one installed.

As fossil fuels get more expensive, the cost:benefit may well change. Using some cash to install a good system now might even pay huge dividends if inflation hits and sends nominal energy costs soaring ......

Aside from that, as you say you have the benefit of reduced dependence. Personally, I'd be happy with a home system that would give me a degree of freedom from the vagaries of inflation/energy prices and a possibly unreliable mains supply.

I wouldn't be surprised though if someone doesn't develop some weird piece of technology in the next decade using nano engineering which might finally be more efficient than burning fuel but it wont be via water to hydrogen - probably more to do with making the conversion from electricity to heat be remotely efficient.

I was under the impression that production of heat is the one thing that is really efficient - given that the waste energy from most things ends up as heat.

Ian_Griffiths_Halifax

Could somebody point me in the direction of the MSE website please, I seem to have lost my way. I've somehow stumbled upon the BBC Tomorrows World forum, Doh!