Tesla factory video

[pbjosh]

Obama's administration has allowed unprecedented drilling

Actually, no, the drilling has been on private vs 'public' lands.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/04/politi...-check-oil-gas

"Overall, the percentage of U.S.-produced natural gas from federal lands -- relative to that produced from private ones -- fell significantly over the past eight years, from 35% to 21%, reported Sieminski."

"The Institute for Energy Research, a nonprofit research and advocacy group that has been critical of Obama, asserted in a September 26 report that the rate of oil and gas leasing (or licenses, as Romney stated) "has slowed by about half." It then directs readers to a chart on the federal Bureau of Land Management's website. This chart does show that fewer leases have been granted under the first three years of Obama's administration, compared to the last few years under Bush. Fewer drilling permits have also been issued, for these lands."

That being said, Oil production and just as importantly natural gas production has increased to the point the US is exporting now.

'Reserves' have gone up significantly every year, now that oil prices have increased enough that many types of oil production are now feasible. The Oil Sands in Canada for example need a $40-50 a barrel to be feasible, vs ME oil which is $30, though Kuwait was as low as $17 per barrel. At $70-90 per barrel some coal to oil plants become viable.

Though somewhere here in Texas they said they have a closed system that gets 'COil' down to $30 a barrel, making $40-$50 a barrel a viable option also.

Coal reserves:

http://www.instituteforenergyresearc...overview/coal/

"American Coal. The United States has enough recoverable coal reserves to last at least another 250 years, with reserves that are over one-and-one-half times greater than our nearest competitor, Russia, and over twice that of China.[i] America’s known reserves alone constitute 27 percent of the entire world’s coal supply.

While known reserves are high, actual US coal resources are much higher than current estimates.

Why? Because “reserves” represent coal that is readily evident as a result of ongoing mine operations, while “resources” include all those areas known to contain coal but have yet to be actually quantified by direct exposure due to the mining process. In-place U.S. coal resources (the entire estimated volume that is within the earth) totals 10 trillion short tons,[ii] and would last over 9000 years at today’s consumption levels. Alaska is estimated to hold more coal than the entire lower 48 states. (While the EIA’s estimate of recoverable coal reserves in Alaska is 2.8 billion short tons[iii], geological estimates by the US Geological Survey put the in-place figure at over 6 trillion short tons.[iv])

Combined, all these US coal resources may contain the energy equivalent of 35 trillion barrels of oil. While such figures are speculative and incorporate some coal resources that may not be economically viable with today’s technology, the future is full of promise. The US’s coal resources are clearly vast."

So - I don't see a need to switch to anything else any time soon.

That being said, hydrogen has it's own problems. Which are easily googlable. And it is not an energy source, but is energy storage in the potential for it to power something while it oxidizes into water. But you have to put more energy into breaking the chemical bond to make it ready for that then it it can deliver. When energy becomes cheap (not a focus of the current administration) then hydrogen becomes an economic option.

The big fun I think is new molten salt reactors which would make most of these arguments mute. They would be able to produce electricity at a price that makes hydrogen power for car or otherwise viable.

[Lurker27]

I worked for the company that designed the worlds largest coal liquefaction plant. If that technology ever becomes msinstream, we are in deep trouble.

I assume you mean LFTR thorium reactors - molten salt is just a term for the working fluid in most nuclear reactors. Thorium reactors are a particular class of breeder reactor, last I heard there was some concern around the ability to continuously extract the U-233 it produces. I'm unsure after Fukushima that nuclear capacity could ever be brought online fast enough. Not to be hand wavey but generally I think you are more likely to see a viable geo engineering technology in the next 30 years than conversion to fission or fusion base load, which is an absolute shame. Burning stuff is just too cheap

[pbjosh]

LFTR - I am very familiar. The inherent ability to process 'waste' fuel rods and be far more efficient then any other reactors besides fast breeders is my real interest. If we are talking Hydrogen production, I would go with pebble bed reactors - it is almost a byproduct of the cooling.

Either way, lots of options for long term power that are better then the current 1st and 2nd generation reactors like Fukushima, which is now partially back online. The smaller modular reactors are good first step options, and can walk into existing coal production plants and replace the entire boiler. Plus they are mounted in the ground, moved by rail, so many benefits above the previous reactor concepts. Sad really - so much potential energy, and so scared to use it. :/

[PBSteve]

Actually, no, the drilling has been on private vs 'public' lands.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/04/politi...-check-oil-gas

Yeah, I was a little unsure about that point, good to know and good for them.

That being said, Oil production and just as importantly natural gas production has increased to the point the US is exporting now.

We're always exporting, which is a point everyone here seems to be missing - oil prices are determined by the global market, which is not heavily influenced by US production.

When energy becomes cheap (not a focus of the current administration) then hydrogen becomes an economic option.

Hydrogen's issues are technical, I don't know what the administration could do about that.

Here's the real future of cars, IMO: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal...comms2446.html

[pbjosh]

Well, if any of the Rossi Reactor types actually work, that would be the likely car engine replacement I think!

[PBSteve]

Oh lord...

[vijil]

If any of those LENR folks get anything going it'll be the open source guys. Assuming cold fusion is even doable. I think we can safely write Rossi off as a scam artist.

Speaking of electric cars, have you guys seen this? An electric supercar - 2.8 seconds to 100kph (60), claimed 600km range if you're careful, half hour fast charge when needed. Four motors - one for each wheel. 95Kwh of battery. Of course all that tech don't come cheap since it's the latest and greatest, you're looking at $980,000 at first. To me this makes sense however - nobody is going to buy a ridiculously expensive hatchback with a 100 mile range. There is no market. An exotic however will perfectly hit those oil sheiks with more money than sense who want to stand out and have the latest of everything (and don't particularly care about practicality), and that demand will drive innovation which in turn will make the tech gradually more affordable.

Which is why I do think there is a future in electric - at the rate the tech is currently improving, electric vehicles will become cheap enough and functional enough for the average buyer sooner rather than later. Filling up on power is also much cheaper than gas - even more so here in NZ where we average $8 a gallon.



In the meantime I like plugin hybrids even if they are always going to be expensive due to doubling up the drivetrain.

[pbjosh]

even more so here in NZ where we average $8 a gallon.

Even here at $3.25 the government is making more money then the oil companies.

Looking here: http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarti...tentId=7021414

46% is cost of product, and 41% is taxes.

Well, that explains $8 a gallon.

[PBSteve]

Even here at $3.25 the government is making more money then the oil companies.

Making money or paying for the infrastructure oil companies rely on to refine and transport their product, and for consumers to use it?

That's a really narrow-sighted position you've got there.

[vijil]

We pay what we do because of our extremely remote location, small population, and blatant price fixing by providers - gas costs the same at pretty much every station in the country and when prices move they all move at once. There's a fair bit of tax in there too but that's understandable.

I read somewhere that NZ is one of only a few countries in the world where the environmental impact of generating the power for an electric car is actually lower than the impact of just using gas. Funny that. I'm not sure how they measure that though - there is plenty of room for debate over things like nuclear.

What bothers me about things like LENR and alternative fuel sources is that big oil is *big*, and has a clear vested interest in retarding the progress of alt fuels. Efforts to change seem token at best. It seems hard to believe that they'd sit idly by and watch people undermine their business models. I wonder how many genuinely excellent ideas have been bought out or shut down over the years, or to what extent they'll go to discredit people. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I can't think of any good reason why this would not be the case. It's just the nature of business.