There is no gas shortage

[RayB]

No gas shortage, but prices keep increasing, and now they're needlessly tapping into food supplies!

http://businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/apr2008/bw2008041_945564.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_businessweek+exclusives

http://finance.sympatico.msn.ca/SavingsDebt/Insight/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=6619545

 

[SavannahLion]

No gas shortage, but prices keep increasing, and now they're needlessly tapping into food supplies!

Damn right. The use of Ethanol in gasoline is a ---gosh-darn--- joke.

I'm still disappointed by just how many brain dead people out there are convinced that Ethanol is the answer (or boosts, whatever the case may be) to petroleum fuel.

I'm stunned by how few people actually sit down and consider the following. That the growing, processing and shipment of crude ethanol (corn) consumes more energy than the total energy that a gallon of ethanol can ever put out. Ethanol doesn't gain us energy or even give us zero sum energy, it's a negative drain on our total energy needs.

Consider also that corn lobbyists is one of the primary reasons why nearly all of our nations food utilizes high fructose corn syrup, even in foods that have no business utilizing such a sweetener, and sugar tarrifs make up a too large portion of the cost of cane and beet sugars in the US.

To make matters even worse, it's expected corn growers are going to plant fewer acres of corn than last year, citing the higher costs of growing said corn (DUH!) and the higher prices per bushel. Farmers don't want to flood the market with corn and drive down the prices. WTF?

[RayB]

I keep telling myself that the "gas shortage" is a clever way to manipulate people into moving on to vehicles that do not rely on oil-based gasoline, and in turn America would not need to rely so heavily on ties to the Middle East. In which case I can tolerate this manipulation. We do need to move away from gasoline! But Ethanol is not the answer.

[myntik1]

I caught a fox news show the other day touting the air car.  There was a guy from Popular Mechanics who said it wasn't a hoax.  The thing will probably cost 80 grand to buy, but the technology is out there.

[shardian]

Here is an interesting read for you:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,538412,00.html


There is a possibility that your own retirement investments have a stake in oil commodities.

[patrickl]

He might have a point, but an article like that without charts actually backing up his claims is useless. He could just arbitrarily pick two extremes and make a point that sounds a lot more dramatic than it actually is.

BTW if they make ethanol from algea there wouldn't be so much of a problem

BBTW why is this in EE and not in PnR?

[knave]

Who cares about anything else...The air engine is damn cool.  I want one now.  That second one would perhaps fit nicely on a vespa as long as there is room for a tank.

That would be cool.

[boykster]

Those air engines are way cool.  I especially like the approach taken by the guy in australia; rather than adapting a piston engine to air, devise an even more efficient model not constrained by previous design.

[SavannahLion]

BTW if they make ethanol from algea there wouldn't be so much of a problem

Algae is potentially a better solution than that of corn. However, care must be taken to ensure that the production avoids a negative return on the energy expended. In short, it doesn't make sense to expend more energy (gas, diesel, oil) to produce an alternate fuel intended as a direct replacement to existing fuels.

[shardian]

Algae is used to produce Biodiesel mainly. I don't think it is being developed as a gasoline substitute.

[patrickl]

Algae is used to produce Biodiesel mainly. I don't think it is being developed as a gasoline substitute.

They use algae for both:
Pond-Powered Biofuels: Turning Algae into America's New Energy

Strains of algae high in carbohydrates as well as oils produce starches that can be separated and fermented into ethanol; the remaining proteins can be turned into animal grains. GreenFuel hopes its pilot plant will see initial yields of 8000 gallons of biodiesel and 5000 gallons of ethanol per acre of algae.

[SavannahLion]

Algae is potentially a better solution than that of corn. However, care must be taken to ensure that the production avoids a negative return on the energy expended. In short, it doesn't make sense to expend more energy (gas, diesel, oil) to produce an alternate fuel intended as a direct replacement to existing fuels.

Thanks, Captain Obvious.  Everyone knows that.

Anything I can do to help, Subgenius Sidekick.

[protokatie]

I saw the thing on the air powered car a few years ago, and it seemed at the same level of development. Hopefully it isnt a pipe dream that ran out of funding (or worse, a fatal flaw)

BBTW why is this in EE and not in PnR?

Speaking of PnR, how come I can never access that forum? It says it is unavailable all the time... Do I have to have a minimum post count or something?

[SavannahLion]

BBTW why is this in EE and not in PnR?

Speaking of PnR, how come I can never access that forum? It says it is unavailable all the time... Do I have to have a minimum post count or something?

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=69493.0

[protokatie]

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=69493.0

Ahh thanx. I have read the rules, but I DID defeat the profanity censor once, as it prevented me from saying something simple (It was about me, not a flame). So I prolly wont be given access... Oh well...

(The word I used turns into smurfy here, and that didnt convey the meaning in the proper manner, esp since it wasnt a happy form of smurfy.. It was a bad one about my life, and anything about smurfs didnt fit)

[danny_galaga]

Those air engines are way cool.  I especially like the approach taken by the guy in australia; rather than adapting a piston engine to air, devise an even more efficient model not constrained by previous design.

are you guys talking about compressed air vehicles? nothing amazing about the technology. a company in india is set to start making these cars next year. i think its a good thing since the recharge time is comparable to filling up a tank of petrol whereas my favourite alternate (electric) still takes hours to charge up.

the compressed cars also have a little compressor on board too so you can recharge it overnight. also since the 'gas' stations need to filter the air they are compressing, the net result of operating the car is slightly cleaner air (",)

compressed air, like electric is great because it doesnt depend on any one type of energy production. could be nuclear, coal, hydro, wind, solar or whatever.

i still like EV's though because each part is upgradable. yuo can have a super efficient '57 chevy running EV if you wanted (",) . with compressed air though, you have to build the car around the technology.

still, whichever of those two becomes popular- bring em on!

[ark_ader]

The US amil in Southern California used to have electric vans to do their deliveries.  We are talking like 20 or more years ago.  Now they are run on Natural Gas.  Why the major leap backward?

[protokatie]

The US amil in Southern California used to have electric vans to do their deliveries.  We are talking like 20 or more years ago.  Now they are run on Natural Gas.  Why the major leap backward?

Cost. Electric isnt that cheap, the cost of electricity isnt the problem: Batteries and whatnot is. Also, NG powered vehicles are underpowered (Portland maine: talked with the bus drivers and they said it sucked) but electric power is even worse: IE no pickup)

Until things change: Electric powered vehicles arent a solution at all. (Around here, we may as well call them coal powered, since that is how we get our electricity)

[danny_galaga]

Until things change: Electric powered vehicles arent a solution at all. (Around here, we may as well call them coal powered, since that is how we get our electricity)

i disagree. from that point of view, the only solution is no cars at all. at least electric (and compressed air) arent tied to any one energy source. what other possible method of having a car can improve on that? they would all be some alternative 'fuel'. but then that is the only thing you can run that car on. i really think if we are going to continue having cars then they must not rely on any one source...

[shmokes]

. . . so I prolly wont be given access... Oh well...

Um . . . trust me, the bar is pretty low.  Just send Saint a PM and he'll give you access.

[shardian]

Coal power runs this country - plain and simple. What is really crappy is that the Fed is spending next to zero dollars on clean coal technology, all the while that "plug-in-electrics" are being pushed for.

Hello people, the extra load to power electric or air cars isn't gonna magically appear from outer space. Our electric grid is already strained at the outer limits of California and New York. We will need to build our infrastructure big time in coal fired plants, and also nuclear plants.

[danny_galaga]

solar is getting a bad deal in r & d at the moment. even now, you can generate enough power from the top of your roof to supply your whole house. the trick is to make it cheaper to make the cells. if many more people have solar houses- no extra drain on power grid...

[patrickl]

Coal power runs this country - plain and simple. What is really crappy is that the Fed is spending next to zero dollars on clean coal technology, all the while that "plug-in-electrics" are being pushed for.

Hello people, the extra load to power electric or air cars isn't gonna magically appear from outer space. Our electric grid is already strained at the outer limits of California and New York. We will need to build our infrastructure big time in coal fired plants, and also nuclear plants.

Well the cool thing is that they use a coal plant to feed the algae (the CO2 that is) I thought that was pretty clever. Obviously eventually the CO2 will end up in the atmosphere anyway (when you burn the biofuel/ethanol), but at least it gets used twice.

Electric cars would mostly charge at night, so then they wouldn't add so much to the maximum strain on the grid (which occurs during the day). In fact it would mean that the plants could keep running at a more steady power level all day.

More importantly, a car engine is incredibly inefficient. IIRC it only converts about 30% of the energy into motion (and then the Gasoline needs to be refined first too which costs a lot of energy and pollution as well). A proper energy plant gets closer to 90%. So that means it would use only a third of the resources. Then the emissions of a power plant are a lot easier (more economical) to clean too. So the total pollution coming from the same energy used by an electric car is a lot less than with a gasoline powered car.

An electric car really is a lot better for the environment. It uses less resources and creates less pollution. A lot less.

At least up to the point where the batteries need to be replaced. Somehow I always have the feeling that it can never be good for the environment to have tons of broken batteries left over. They are full of harmful chemicals. Did they figure out something to fix that problem already?

[patrickl]

solar is getting a bad deal in r & d at the moment. even now, you can generate enough power from the top of your roof to supply your whole house. the trick is to make it cheaper to make the cells. if many more people have solar houses- no extra drain on power grid...

Yeah, the research seems more interested in increasing efficiency of the cells rather than on increasing production and lowering prices. They really are only seem to be looking at military (and space) applications rather than for clean energy on earth. If we would all just cover our roof in cheap low efficiency cells then it would save a huge amount of oil/coal etc.

[patrickl]

yeah, the research seems more interested in increasing efficiency of the cells rather than on increasing production and lowering prices. They really are only seem to be looking at military (and space) applications rather than for clean energy on earth. If we would all just cover our roof in cheap low efficiency cells then it would save a huge amount of oil/coal etc.

Because there's a break even point on solar cell efficiency before it becomes economically feasible.  And it hasn't been reached.  Once we get there, we can figure out the manufacturing.

The point is that they are mostly ( irtually exclusively) researching high efficiency cells. Those will be very hard to make cheap. There are much cheaper and simpler alternatives possible, but the space/military researchers obviously don't care, because they don't need that. Yield per weight and volume are much more important to them.

It's not so much, first we get them refined and then we make it cheaper. You need to research in a completely different direction to make them cheaper. You need to use cheaper materials.

It's like using gold for heat insulation (as they do in space applications). You can research how to improve that to the maximum and then start researching how to make it cheaper. Reality is that that will never yield a product for domestic use.

[shmokes]

Because there's a break even point on solar cell efficiency before it becomes economically feasible.  And it hasn't been reached.  Once we get there, we can figure out the manufacturing.

That's not true.  Solar requires a substantial initial investment, but after that the power is free (actually the power company will pay you for any energy you feed back to the grid).  It's only a matter of time before investment costs are recouped and it becomes money in your pocket.

Also, big things are happening in solar research these days, especially thanks to nano tech.

Flexible, cheap solar panels already cost less than coal energy, but expected to be a small fraction of coal as they become mass produced on a larger scale.
Paint-on solar panels
Making solar panels on the cheap
Solar panels disguised as typical roofing tiles, so you're house can go solar while simultaneously not looking retarded.
Solar panels that can harvest wind power as well
Who needs solar panels when a giant magnifying glass has been able to harness the power of the sun since we were kids?
Solar power plant in Spain generates 20 Mw. of electricity and $28 million in annual income.
Research on theoretical solar panels with physical properties similar to plastic wrap.
Scientist develops darkest material known to man -- it absorbs nearly all light.  Perhaps useful for solar panel tech?
Google going all-green to power its server farms.

[ChadTower]

Electric cars would mostly charge at night, so then they wouldn't add so much to the maximum strain on the grid (which occurs during the day).

That's not true here.  Over the summer almost all of the strain is at night when people are at home and turn on their TV, AC, computers, etc.  There is far less power grid traffic during the day when people are at work.  Companies don't turn things off at night anymore the way they used to.

shmokes, that home solar grid is great in theory but it doesn't work in practice.  Not yet and probably not for quite a while.  The panels are not reliable enough - many people who try give up inside of a year because they either spend too much time maintaining the "once and done" hardware or they spend too much money paying someone else to maintain it.  It isn't a whole lot better now than it was during the last energy crisis.  There are still plenty of houses here with a solar array on the roof from 30 years ago - arrays that never came close to breaking even then and were so expensive to even dispose of that they are still sitting there.  The technology is better now but still not nearly good enough to be the positive sum equation the hype claims.

[patrickl]

Electric cars would mostly charge at night, so then they wouldn't add so much to the maximum strain on the grid (which occurs during the day).

That's not true here.  Over the summer almost all of the strain is at night when people are at home and turn on their TV, AC, computers, etc.  There is far less power grid traffic during the day when people are at work.  Companies don't turn things off at night anymore the way they used to.

There are always peak and off-peak hours. Obviously the load will be lower when during the night most of the TV's, computers, lights and AC's go off (Or don't work as hard because it's the right temperature anyway). My company makes and runs a website for an energy news agency. We report the Dutch wholesale purchase prices for electric power. We show both the peak and off-peak price index. Peak is between 8AM and 11PM.

I checked some hourly average load charts for the US and they look pretty similar. Obviously in the hotter parts of the US the summer peak is a lot higher (with the highest peak between 2PM and 6PM), but still the load charts show that the load around 22:00 is about 30% to 50% lower than the maximum load and stays low till 8 or 9AM.

[patrickl]

Also, big things are happening in solar research these days, especially thanks to nano tech.

Dude, you really gotta get off my back lately.

Yes, interesting things are happening, but, so far, nobody's figured out how to do large scale manufacturing of anything that's economically worthwhile.  There's been "promising" things developing for 30+ years, wake us up when there's something tangible.

Dude you are really asking for it.

The argument put forth by Danny and myself was that research money is not used towards finding cheap and mass produceable solar cells.

You claim that this is not true because they are working on higher yield and willmakes those cheaper later.

I say that the current cells will never be made cheap (because of limited resources and corresponding high costs of these resources) and Shmokes demonstrates that there are lots of other venues open to research (for cheaper more mass produceable cells).

Then you claim that there are no results shown for those suggested technologies.

Seriously! That's just the point we were making 

[patrickl]

Seriously! That's just the point we were making 

The point you're making is that nobody is researching solar cells but that people are researching solar cells?

 

That they are not researching solar cells outside of military and space applications

[shardian]

The simple fact that it is being researched for space and military means the consumer market will eventually see progress. They'll research a whole slew of possibilities, abandon them, then a private firm will pick up where they left off and develop for consumer use.

[ChadTower]

There are private firms working on it.  I don't have time to seek out urls right now but I've read several articles on private sector advances in the cost/production ratio of solar cells in the past couple of years.  There is a slowly growing movement building to use the "useless" Nevada deserts as massive solar farms that, with statistically credible solar cell advances in the next ten years, could be breaking even and powering a substantial double digit percentage of the US grid within the next 30 years.

[shardian]

There are private firms working on it.  I don't have time to seek out urls right now but I've read several articles on private sector advances in the cost/production ratio of solar cells in the past couple of years.  There is a slowly growing movement building to use the "useless" Nevada deserts as massive solar farms that, with statistically credible solar cell advances in the next ten years, could be breaking even and powering a substantial double digit percentage of the US grid within the next 30 years.

Environmentalists will never let that happen.

[ChadTower]

Ironic, isn't it?  Which is more important, the local flora and fauna or global warming?  They can't have it all.

[patrickl]

The simple fact that it is being researched for space and military means the consumer market will eventually see progress. They'll research a whole slew of possibilities, abandon them, then a private firm will pick up where they left off and develop for consumer use.

No, they are researching in a completely different directionm. Silicon based solar cells will never be the answer for domestic use.

[patrickl]

There are private firms working on it.  I don't have time to seek out urls right now but I've read several articles on private sector advances in the cost/production ratio of solar cells in the past couple of years. 

Yes, Shmokes linked to these articles a few posts up.

The point is that for that type of research only a very limited budget is available.

[ChadTower]

Those are not all of the articles.  There are others, you know.   

There are plenty of dollars being put into this.  Just because there is not an unlimited federal money bucket doesn't mean it isn't happening.  It is happening at the usual rate of private sector advancement.

[Level42]

Dude's,

I've been driving this the last couple of years. Only needs a bit of coke (and the tin) to run for days....

[shardian]

Dude's,

I've been driving this the last couple of years. Only needs a bit of coke (and the tin) to run for days....

That's impressive, considering you don't have a Mr. Fusion unit on there.

[Level42]

Yeah the seller told me about that he thought it looked a bit stupid and moved it to the handglove compartment......














Did I get away with that ? 


I am SO embarrassed....