Debug: Database connection successful Oil, Peak Oil, etc. (Page 3) / Not So Free Chat / New Mars Forums

New Mars Forums

Official discussion forum of The Mars Society and MarsNews.com

You are not logged in.

Announcement

Announcement: This forum is accepting new registrations via email. Please see Recruiting Topic for additional information. Write newmarsmember[at_symbol]gmail.com.

#51 2025-07-31 08:32:02

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 8,688

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

I need to clarify what I intend here:

I will say that I hope that your solar panels will have paid for themselves in 1-4 years as the internet claims is possible.

I wanted to say, replace for the power used for creation, in 1-4 years.

Monetary payback is a different thing.

From your post kdb512:

I have 67 panels, 25.6% efficient at BOL, IIRC, and 2 Tesla Power Walls.

  That is top level efficiency at this time as far as I know.

In 20-25 years is typically the planned for lifespan.  But I have read that your solar panels may be 60% of the initial efficiency in 100 years.  (Speculative).  So, then about 15.36% efficient in 100 years.  Not that long ago that would have been considered an acceptable performance for new solar panels.

But to be truthful, the chances of a nasty sort of weather event of the time span of 100 years is larger than 0.  Hail, Tornado and wind events.

With the emergence of more intricate robotic technology, I speculate that eventually solar panels may have actuators that can both follow the sun and also pose the solar panels best to survive an adverse weather event.  That would be an added cost, again up front, but would conserve value if it worked correctly. 

Ending Pending smile

Last edited by Void (2025-07-31 08:42:48)


Perhaps Silence Can Be Golden.  Let's Find Out For A Time Period.

Offline

Like button can go here

#52 2025-07-31 11:48:55

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 8,688

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

Perhaps looking for truth here: https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r … ORM=WRVORC  Quote:

The biggest cover-up in the history of Islam!

Any verbal and violent empire could do the same thing.  I sort of thing at times the Romans were like this

Ending Pending smile


Perhaps Silence Can Be Golden.  Let's Find Out For A Time Period.

Offline

Like button can go here

#53 2025-08-03 16:01:17

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 4,136

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

Void, energy payback time depends upon where the panels are and also depends on assumptions like how well they are positioned and angled towards the sun and whether they are kept clean.  Also realise that a 1-4 year EPB is just for the panels themselves.  It doesn't include the support frame, inverters, transformers, energy storage for frequency control, transmission.  Also, it doesn't include any consideration of backup, which is inescapable if this is part of a grid system.  The most detailed EROI analysis that I have seen for solar power was the carried out for the Spanish solar industry.  I will see if I can find it again.  Lifetime EROI was in the low single digits.  In more northern locations it will be lower still.  This has real economic implications.

These problems are unavoidable in a demand driven distributed grid system.  Supply has to balance demand at all times.  There are inherently large energy costs and losses if intermittent renewables are used to supply a system like that.  It just doesn't work well.

One way to minimise the embodied energy burden is to use renewable energy as directly as possible with minimal storage.  In the case of solar, this would mean using the DC power produced by the panels very close to where it is produced, avoiding the need for inverters and transformers.  Avoid unnecessary energy transitions by directly coupling the panels to DC loads consuming the power as low voltage direct current.  Also, adjust demand according to supply.  Do not attempt to store energy.  This eliminates a large part of the embodied energy of the system.  But it means that whatever you use the power for has to be very close to the panels themselves and the work rate must directly follow the amount of power produced by the panels at that time.  At night, power use will be zero and the processes will stop.  At noon, it will reach maximum.  It will follow a sine wave between dawn and dusk.

This is a crappy arrangement in a lot of ways, because it makes production planning difficult.  It also means that peoplemust work with the weather.  On a hot sunny day, a factory must be running flat out, producing at full capacity with a fully engaged workforce.  On a winter day, very limited power is available and the workforce must switch to labour intensive but energy frugal tasks, like assembly.  At night, the sun provides no power.  So the factory is shut down.  Storage of inventory and part finished products will be an essential part of this system.  It is the opposite of JIT.

My wind powered tumbling mill, when I finally finish it, will be an example of direct mechanical power supplied by the wind.  There is only one energy transition - kinetic energy of the wind into rotational kinetic energy of the nacelle.  There is no energy storage.  The work rate varies with wind speed.  On a windy day, the machine could complete a polishing run in just one day.  In a becalmed period, a single run could take weeks.  Work rate matches power production.  This is how intermittent renewables have to work.  Humans need to adjust their lives accordingly, if indeed this is an economic model that we can live with at all.  I suspect that most people will find it tough working with the weather.

Last edited by Calliban (2025-08-03 16:29:03)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

Offline

Like button can go here

#54 2025-08-03 17:55:08

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 8,688

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

So, you think Tony Seba is wrong?

I make the case that for batteries, it might be that if they work out Aluminum Ion Batteries may be only ~60 percent of the cost of previous types of batteries.

Let's say best case to pay off the solar panels, then some places on the planet and some situation of maintenance are better than others.  So, if it takes 1 year to pay off the energy that it cost to make the solar panels themselves, you have 19-24 more "Prime" years to pay off the energy it took to make the rest of the gear.

I think that I agree that at this time the case is a bit weak, but in time I expect it to get better, not worse.

I have recently seen an article which I cannot find now about using Frenzel Lenses to heat bricks in shipping containers.  For a method which may compete with photo solar.

But kdb512 likes mirrors, which is another alternative.

I think that in time it will be possible to make solar panels without the large energy expandatory from fossil fuels.

I am very much in favor of America and North America increasing its fossil fuel outputs.  I think it was silly for the Germans to first turn off their nuclear reactors and try to go solar.

Instead I would have solar expand if it could to then replace things like fossil fuels and nuclear on Earth, if it could win the price competition.

Ending Pending smile

Last edited by Void (2025-08-03 18:12:26)


Perhaps Silence Can Be Golden.  Let's Find Out For A Time Period.

Offline

Like button can go here

#55 2025-08-03 18:03:02

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,540

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

Also how hot they get also drops the power output of the panels, other such things as dust settling on them as well.

Offline

Like button can go here

#56 2025-08-03 18:21:27

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 8,688

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

I actually think quite highly of you Calliban, but I am still struggling to understand this dire notion of "Embodied Energy".

I found something of interest: https://sustainability.stackexchange.co … taic-panel  Quote:

4

Energy payback in 1-6 years
Taking manufacturing variables into account basically gives you a range of time from 1.25 - 6.5 years based on 5 sunny days out of seven and an average of 6-8 hours of sun per day.

But in reality none of this matters, here’s why...

Fossil fuels never reach energy payback
Electricity as a commodity has been in use for over a century, it isn’t going away in our lifetime. A better question is, “What’s the best way to produce it?”

If you look at the embodied energy of a coal plant, or even a modern high efficiency natural gas generator, how long does it take to earn back their embodied energy? The answer is they never do. We forget, or more accurately ignore the fact that once you build a coal plant, or gas fired turbine, you then have to feed it fuel the rest of its life which it converts to electricity at a rate somewhere less than 100%. So they keep digging themselves a deeper and deeper embodied energy hole they can never crawl out of.

At least the solar panel, water wheel and wind turbine can one day get even. This is why renewable energy as a whole is better for us environmentally and economically than any form of fossil based fuel source.

I think I understand what you are getting at about embodied energy, but the above helps me to better understand why perhaps that is not as dire a thing as it seems.

I suspect that sooner or later methods other than burning may allow for the making of solar panels and their associated support equipment.

And of course there is the possibility of the Perovskite Solar Panels.  Not ready yet, but if they do get them to work there are some notions that they can be self-healing and might last 100 years.  These types of solar panels supposedly do not take nearly as much energy to create.

Not saying that I am sure about this, but I leave open the possibility that the future will lead to very low cost solar both in terms of Energy Payback and financial costs.

Ending Pending smile

Last edited by Void (2025-08-03 18:29:07)


Perhaps Silence Can Be Golden.  Let's Find Out For A Time Period.

Offline

Like button can go here

#57 2025-08-04 01:52:03

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 8,274

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

Void,

But kdb512 likes mirrors, which is another alternative.

I like low-energy inputs, simple fabrication methods, and truly abundant materials if we're intent on primarily using natural energy generation and storage systems at the human civilization scale.  It's not a "personal preference" type of thing, rather, it's a "Do you actually want to accomplish something worthwhile over a period of time that actually matters type of thing?"  I understand and accept that any truly sustainable energy generating system based upon natural energy flows needs to be long-lasting to minimize energy / labor / capital inputs over time, readily storable for on-demand use, easy to recycle using processes not significantly more complex or energy intensive than initial production, rather than having materials and finished goods repurposed in ways that don't permit replication / duplication of self-similar technology units.  I think reducing rather than expanding our energy generating and storage system footprint is the most sustainable solution.  More than anything else, all of my assertions and proposals are grounded in mathematical and material reality.

A 50% increase in energy efficiency doesn't offset a 10X reduction in energy concentration.  If a proposed solution requires more of a specific type of metal than we've mined in the history of mining, then for all sorts of reasons that solution is a non-starter and should have been politely but firmly dismissed.  Well-thought-out engineering is not magic, and therefore cannot overcome mathematical impossibilities.

The types of solutions I advocate for are as long-lasting as traditional thermal power plants, they're primarily made from large pieces of abundant cold-rolled plain Carbon steel, recycling them involves relatively minor disassembly and re-melt for near-100% recycling rates, and they're deliberately simplistic because complexity is the mortal enemy of sustainability.  The more complex and energy-intensive you make a system that's dependent upon highly refined materials with exceptionally large surface areas for energy collection and storage, the worse it becomes in terms of EROEI, and that's before recycling becomes mandatory.  At some point, that ledger has to balance, or it's not actually sustainable.

Thus far, all we're actually doing is burning more fuel to "create more short-lived electronic stuff".  If that stuff had that qualities I mentioned as important vs the qualities it actually has, then there's at least a chance that we eventually get to stop burning more fuel.  The other notable point I made related to recycling CO2 into hydrocarbon fuels.  The energy density of all combustible fuels is at least an order of magnitude greater than electrical / electronic anything.  All the batteries ever created in the history of battery making, don't amount to more than a few minutes worth of what the world presently consumes, every day, in terms of hydrocarbon fuel energy.  There's an exceptionally good reason concerning why we're "addicted" to hydrocarbon fuels.  They make modern human civilization possible.  Any form of energy storage with a gravimetric and volumetric energy density 10X less than that of pure Carbon is an exceptionally poor energy storage solution- one that's wholly incompatible with merely maintaining a technologically advanced civilization.

Nobody actually wants to regress to a pre-industrialized civilization, to include the people who claim or insinuate that they do.  Without laptops, cell phones, the internet, and private jets, how else would they spread their brain dead ideology to the rest of humanity?  That means combustion is here to stay, at least until we have working fusion reactors.  Even after we have fusion reactors, combustion still makes transport machines more practical.  After we accept that simple statement of fundamental truth, we ought to immediately evaluate and select the best methods for CO2 recycling.

I happen to favor direct conversion of CO2 into pure Carbon powder at room temperature using Gallium-Indium-Copper eutectic.  It's a better use for Gallium / Indium / Copper than photovoltaics, one that incentivizes CO2 capture, storage, and recycling into synthetic fuels.  We then mix the Carbon with water, creating synthetic Coal-Water Slurry.  Since it's not actually "coal", it has no Sulfur or heavy metals.  It's almost completely pure Carbon, which very helpfully "floats to the top" of the Gallium-Indium-Copper eutectic when the CO2 is "bubbled" through a column of that room temperature liquid metal.  If we want a source of pure O2 for Oxy-Fuel combustion at power plants, it provides that as well.  Perhaps best of all, the eutectic mixture is also long-lasting / fairly stable.

The relatively new sCO2 gas turbines greatly exceed the power density of traditional gas turbines.  A child cannot pick up a 10MW steam or gas turbine rotor with one hand.  On top of that advantage, a 50% thermal-to-mechanical power conversion efficiency is not possible until a conventional gas turbine's size / output is 75MW+.  That level of compactness and efficiency makes them usable in ways that our traditional steam and gas turbines never will be.

We'll inevitably want to retain production of gasoline / kerosene / diesel since we have so many machines that consume those fuels, but we have other catalysts capable of producing CO at low / medium / high temperatures as feedstock for the Sabatier reaction vs pure Carbon powder.  That said, synthetic pure Carbon CWS is a non-toxic / high flashpoint / long-term stable fuel suitable for powering ships, trains, and semi-trucks.

In an alternative "modern history", industrialized nations vigorously pursued nuclear power, to the point that right about now the last coal-fired and gas-fired power plants were closed for good, because our electricity and fresh water needs were more than adequately covered.  Unfortunately, our fake environmentalists / real Malthusians convinced large swaths of humanity that nuclear power was the same thing as nuclear weapons.  Sadly, it was far easier to frighten people with the specter of mass deaths from radiation poisoning than it was to convince them of the mass media's fear-mongering.  Large numbers of people were instead subjected to very real air pollution deaths.  These same people, or at least the ones who were not outright advocating for genocide through energy poverty, implicitly encouraged burning coal and gas at incredible rates because there was, and still is, no viable alternative.  The recent Spanish electric grid crash proved that.  France pursued nuclear power, which kept its CO2 emissions lower than Germany.  Germany was and is an ideologically captured nation, so they pursued intermittent energy using photovoltaics and wind turbine farms, so now they're right back to burning lignite.  China and India pay lip service to the idea of reducing CO2 emissions, and they open a new coal-fired power plant about once per week.  America switched to natural gas because we have plenty of gas to spare, the requisite technology base to clear the technological hurdle to widespread implementation, and their ramp-up / ramp-down rates are absolutely incredible, which is ideal for our wild fluctuations in daily demand.

Across a diverse group of pre-industrialized / industrialized / post-industrialized nations with starkly different cultural ideology, politics, energy policies, locally available resources, and favored technological pursuits, there is no actual end result whereby pursuit of any specific policy has resulted in a global reduction in CO2 emissions.  There should be an object lesson in there, somewhere, for our techno-fetishists, yet there's not, because just like the monks in the Monty Python skit, they keep slamming that "good book" into their brain-damaged noggins.  Somewhere between 5 and 10 trillion dollars has been expended to pursue this goal, since the turn of the century.  It's the worst value-per-dollar-spent we've managed thus far.  Nobody "did their homework" on what this would actually cost, where we would source enough of the required materials from, and how feasible that was to actually do.  That means we're gonna burn everything that can burn, until we run out.  Rather than winning that stupid prize, by playing a stupid game, I would greatly prefer we pursued CO2 recycling.  The probability of that at least not making the problem worse, while pretending we're doing something effective, which we're obviously not, is almost infinitely higher than doing what we've been doing.

That brings us right back to why technology choices matter so much, if we're absolutely intent on using intermittent energy sources to supply the bulk of the Total Primary Energy Supply (TPES).  We can still do that in a practical way.  I did enough basic math to show how much of what types of materials would be required to deliver the input energy to synthesize all the hydrocarbon fuels we presently consume here in the US for transportation purposes.  I did not select a "special" type of fuel that was particularly favorable, even though this would be a highly beneficial optimization.  There was no demonstrated requirement to do that.  America represents about 25% of global transportation fuels consumption, but America alone could supply 100% of the transportation fuels consumed domestically and by our allies without a significant land claim.  Using Aluminum-coated steel mirrors to concentrate solar thermal power, the steel demand was about 10% of our present annual domestic steel production, over a period of about 10 years.  Year-over-year demand swings have varied by that amount, so ramp-up / ramp-down of production is clearly long-term sustainable.

That's a starting point for a workable and sustainable energy solution for transportation.  Concrete demand was an even less significant fraction of annual domestic production, IIRC.  I recognize that America, Australia, China, Saharan African nations, and Middle Eastern nations own a lot of "prime real estate", namely deserts, which are most suitable for hydrocarbon fuel synthesis.  I don't see this is as a major issue, since that is where a lot of existing hydrocarbon fuel production and/or consumption already takes place.

The existing "solution", if you could call it that, is that we swap the source of energy generated, stored, and consumed to electricity.  We continue burning everything we can lay a hand to, in order to extract / refine / convert / transport the resources for said electrical / electronic machines.  We make extensive upgrades and 200% to 300% capacity expansions to the world's existing electrical grids, we change how and if / when we use energy to coincide with periods when energy is available, we turn out a new generation of energy generation and storage tech every 25 years or less to remain ahead of eventual equipment degradation / failure, and we mine as-yet unseen quantities of technology metals equivalent to multiple thousands of years of existing annual production rates.  Somewhere along the way we manage to achieve near-100% recycling rates of these hard-to-extract materials that are as finely mixed together in the finished products as coffee and creamer typically are.  At some point, we're supposed to be able to cut back on hydrocarbon energy consumption, but thus far there's been no actual reduction, because we've yet to produce and install the first generation of photovoltaic / wind turbine / battery equipment to generate and store ~70% of the aforementioned TPES.  Individually, all of these separate but related tasks are monumental undertakings, greater in scale than any manufacturing expansion experienced during WWII.  Collectively, they look an awful lot like a plan to fail.  Alternatively, it's a way to continually bilk humanity out of obscene sums of money on the false premise that the desired outcome is realistically achievable.

$10T is enough money to build the machinery to collect, store, and recycle 100% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, provided that we actually want to solve the problem so we can move on to solving other problems.  After we're no longer mining or drilling for fuels, which implies that we're recycling all of our CO2, then we can discuss whether or not electrification of other parts of our existing infrastructure makes good economic sense.  Suppose we never concoct a better solution, or that a battery with energy density similar to a hydrocarbon fuel is only forthcoming a thousand years from now.  It really doesn't matter at that point.  We're never going to "run out" of recycled CO2 and sunlight over any meaningful timeframe.

The very first thing we should do with power collected from the Sun, including power from wind turbines, is to concentrate it and store it in heated materials or as a compressed working fluid.  Integrating most parts of an electric grid into millions or billions of discrete distributed devices means many of the advantages of centralized infrastructure are lost.  The reason we built small numbers of very large electric generators was that the materials input was about as minimized as it reasonably could be, the inertia provided by massive chunks of spinning metal prevented second-to-second demand fluctuations from taking the entire grid down, and the large scale of individual grid components made them repairable vs replaceable.  The total numbers of discrete components and total complexity was also minimized.  Someone with a grasp of the basics could easily read a schematic containing all of the grid components, run a rather simple test, and determine where a problem existed.  We can no longer do that.

We can optionally use on-demand thermal power for chemical or industrial processes, or convert that heat into electricity, with the express understanding that every energy conversion is an inherently "lossy" proposition.  If we primarily use intermittent energy sources, then we should avoid all unnecessary energy conversions and systems complexity.  Maybe that makes the entire endeavor "less profitable" for people who are interested in who gets money for some specific purpose.  However, the end goals here should be minimization of total energy "locked up" in the energy generating and storage system itself, minimization of special materials and manufacturing requirements, and near-100% recycling of waste products.  We cannot do that in a practical way using existing electronics and electrical equipment.  If we could, then at some point electricity would stop getting more expensive for rate payers as additional layers of electronics and electrical equipment were added to our energy grids.  For what should be obvious reasons, that will never happen.  That is why we need to pursue alternative solutions for consuming and distributing energy from intermittent energy flows.

Offline

Like button can go here

#58 2025-08-04 07:07:19

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 8,688

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

I understand some of your thinking.  I also think it is good to encourage extracting CO2 from the sources of it, and ideally making something useful from it, or maybe pushing it into deep rock layers, if that can be done safely.

I am interested in what the Canadian Provence of Alberta will do with their Tar Sands.  They are under pressure to reduce CO2 emissions and yet want to make money off of their resources.  It would be bad if the Easterners could totally stop Alberta Oil production.  But it would also be bad if Alberta was not pressured to invent methods to handle CO2.  Obviously the USA can make a buck if Alberta sells more oil to us as well.  It would be helpful also if Alberta could sell oil and other products to East Asia and West Europe without using the routes through the USA.

I think it is not a big problem if China makes Solar Panels with Hydrocarbons, and Australia, gloats because it goes strongly solar.  This will give Australia a power supply that could last 100 years if it has to at very reduced performance.  So for Australia then we do not have to bomb the Middle East as much to protect a power supply for Australia.  So, it is useful to the USA.  Australia being in some ways like us, and being somewhat protected by an action of China, is a unexpected benefit which I would not turn down.  There are those who say "There is safety in numbers".

So, you see, I am not religious about our energy sources, I like to think I am logical.

If we relied on canoes for our lifestyle, in what way should I obsess about how much embodied energy it takes to make a Canoe?  If Canoes can be made, then I have what I want.  I don't so much care if I have what I want.  If Canoes are traditionally made from tree products, and someone wants to make them from Aluminum or Fiberglass, then I don't say "You cannot make Canoes from tree products anymore", to prompt the conversion to making them from Aluminum or Fiberglass.  And I don't care about how much energy it takes to make the various kinds.  If one method is too energy expensive, it will then be likely to be financially expensive, so then is less likely to be made.

If there will be a lack of enough Copper to go all the way green, then a different path to go more "Green" will need to be invented.  Or we will not go more "Green".

A very important value that I think can be extracted from solar energy, (Of various kinds), may be individuality.  I have a problem with the British and European craving for Centralized control.  It should not be encouraged in the USA more than it has to be.

I believe that the British and European elites want to revert to feudalism.  They want to meter resources to the common people so to control them.  So, at least the Trump team, seems to be to a degree not to their liking.

So, there is the quality of individuality which some of us claim as a valuable American attribute.  But also the quality of robustness.  Some solar could be metered to create peasants out of American Commoners.  But home installations such as you have indicated you have, give you a possible personal power to better endure some social upsets.  And I have a desire to see that increased in the USA at least and also to any other related culture that is not corrupted by the controlling types of self-appointed elites.

When the self-appointed elites have been allowed to do their thing in Europe for instance, we get dragged into their stupid situations to help modify the result.

So, even if Solar Panels are not relatively favorable for embodied energy concerns, they potentially have values that are not the same as efficiency of energy production, but are useful.  Individuality and robustness are two qualities that the European Elites do not want to foster, because it less allows them to do an Idiocracy on their servant commoners.

So, yes, I favor solar, but the solar has to have worth for our Nation and ideally to promote individuality and robustness.

Ending Pending smile

Last edited by Void (2025-08-04 07:38:10)


Perhaps Silence Can Be Golden.  Let's Find Out For A Time Period.

Offline

Like button can go here

#59 2025-08-05 07:30:56

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 8,688

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

Consider me to be ill informed, resembling the general public.  One thing that I prefer to not have is bad measurements, so I want to be better informed.

The "Electric Viking" says that the U.N. Says: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7c0ER1 … tricViking  Quote:

Game Over Fossil Fuels: United Nations: "No Government can Stop Clean Energy"

The Electric Viking
317K subscribers

I am in the position of not being able to verify these claims.

The possible usefulness of solar and wind is not "0 Value".

But I have wondered if we want the climate to warm a bit as a hedge against massive volcanic eruptions.  And it is somewhat "They Said" vs. "They Said" as per the magnitude of climate danger.

Obviously, countries like the USA do not want their Hydrocarbon assets to be stranded outside of economic value.  But the USA is relatively better for solar than perhaps Europe, in general.

So, it is not all bad.

Solar is said to be: (Was 4 times as expensive as Hydrocarbons), but now costs 2/5ths of Hydrocarbons, or 40%?

Wind is said to be: 50% cheaper than Hydrocarbons?

Now I recall that the problem with new wind and solar is up-front costs.

I do not verify the claims in this post but indicate that those claims have been made through "The Electric Viking" about claims from the U.N.

I would not agree that the U.N. or any other entity should interfere with USA Sovereignty at all ever.

Also, I make note that many organisms actively consume Methane as a source of Carbon and Energy.

Ending Pending smile

Last edited by Void (2025-08-05 07:45:15)


Perhaps Silence Can Be Golden.  Let's Find Out For A Time Period.

Offline

Like button can go here

#60 2025-08-05 08:18:45

offtherock
Member
Registered: 2017-10-26
Posts: 12

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

Here there is a graph, for how various energy sources have been evolving as a share of total world energy production, since 2000.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source
The most important thing to notice, is that renewables grow exponentially while others linearly.

Exponential growth is such that it can take forever to start growing, but once a critical mass is reached,
it explodes and takes over everything.
Its nothing until all of a sudden its everything.

Solar is precisely at that cusp now, it has gone from 0.01% in 2000 to nearly 7% in 2025.
Thats a 700 folding in 25 years.
So if this trend continues for the next 25 years.. well, 7% * 700 ~ 5000%.
Then solar will be 5000% of the worlds total energy production.

Off course that might not happen but u get the gist.

Its somewhere in the area of 30% growth per year.
If it continues like this, and looking at solar in that graph it looks like it will.
Solar will take over most energy production before 2050.

And we can produce fuel, methane and such, using the energy from those solars.
And since the price of solar energy (and consequently, world energy), is heading to zero.
The price of fuel will consequently head to zero.

And since with the starship and its continued development.
The cost of going to space is becoming mostly only fuel.
Fuel thats becoming semi free.
So access to space will become semi free.

And yeah, we're passed peak oil.

The graph posted by Calliban is interesting.
Its basically showing a very known curve, the same curve we see when observing cell growth in a petri dish.
At first it takes forever to take off, for the basis is so little and brittle.
Then around 1945 it reaches critical mass.
The only thing skewing it is the OPEC crisis in the 1970s.

And we basically know whats going to happen. Its walking off a cliff.
Exactly when solar is taking off.

I often think of this quote.
"The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones.
It ended because we found better ways of doing those things."

Last edited by offtherock (2025-08-05 16:54:51)

Offline

Like button can go here

#61 2025-08-05 11:52:12

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 8,688

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

Hello "offtherock" I found your post to be valuable.

Ending Pending smile


Perhaps Silence Can Be Golden.  Let's Find Out For A Time Period.

Offline

Like button can go here

#62 2025-08-06 23:58:59

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 8,274

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

Void,

An onshore 2MW wind turbine costs about $2M for the turbine alone.  On average, for every dollar spent on intermittent energy sources, another dollar needs to be spent on grid upgrades to handle the inevitable power spikes and dips without crashing the grid.  At the very least, you need electrical equipment to connect the wind turbine to the grid, since none of that will exist before the wind turbine farm is created.  Annual maintenance costs for a 2MW onshore wind turbine range between $40,000 and $50,000 per year.

America's natural gas prices range between $20/MWh and $30MWh, so let's use $25/MWh.

$4,000,000 / $25/MWh (national average natural gas prices) = 160,000,000,000Wh / 160GWh

2MW * 2,920 hours per year (33% capacity factor, presuming good placement) = 5,840,000,000Wh / 5.84GWh per year

160GWh / 5.84GWh per year = 27.4 years

Whenever the wind does not blow and the Sun does not shine, I presume the local hospital still requires electricity or else people will die.  Factories and industrial farming don't function without on-demand energy sources, either.  Air conditioned and heated office buildings for women to work in, schools for children to learn in, as well as grocery stores and shopping malls, all require copious amounts of on-demand energy.  American society was built to keep women and children comfortable, well-fed, and protected from every conceivable threat.  Doing that requires all day / every day energy.  When energy is provided primarily by intermittent sources, it implies fast storage, unless we're continuing to run a natural gas turbine in the background while pretending it's not there.  We can never shut it off.  The wind can still and clouds can shadow photovoltaics faster than a turbine can spin-up.  sCO2 turbines can spin-up faster, which is another good reason to use them, but there are still limits, and 100,000hr (11.4 years) service life is only achieved by keeping them hot.  The only reason this works at all is that the gas turbine is always hot and spinning.

We're 100% powered by renewable energy here in Houston according to the propaganda on our city's website, but the gas turbines in the power plant in downtown Houston never stop spinning.  Apart from the noise, I can smell them and see the heat off the exhaust stack every time I go down there.  It's a brick building with no windows facing the street, appropriately labeled, but what it is and what it does is unmistakable.  The giant transformer sitting next to it wasn't put there for show.  In actuality, a not-so-clever accounting trick employed by not-so-scrupulous people is used to outright lie about where our power is actually coming from.  In aggregate, demand across the year is met by the wind farms and photovoltaics, but seldomly at any given point in time.  Power is not allowed to be "sold" from the turbine while the wind is blowing and the Sun is shining, but that turbine is always burning fuel in the background, regardless of legal manipulations.  It's a ridiculous farce.  Those wind and solar farms provide some daytime fuel burn rate offset, but that's the extent of what they can do without fast storage.  I won't proclaim them worthless because we do get lots of power from them, but the image portrayed to the public is a farce.

Houston Public Media - A Service of the University of Houston - Developers propose more than 100 new gas power plants in Texas
TXPowerPlantGraphicICN-1000x971.jpg

The cost of grid storage batteries varies, but a 1 MWh system can range from $200,000 to $400,000 or higher, depending on factors like installation, battery type, and specific requirements. For example, lithium-ion systems can range from $150-$250 per kWh installed, making a 1 MWh system (1,000 kWh) cost around $200,000.

Purchasing and maintaining a grid scale battery storage system of any kind starts around $200,000/MWh.  To supply a constant 2MWe throughout an entire year, you have to account for diurnal and seasonal generation variability.  This implies at least 14 days of storage, or 672MWh of storage capacity.

672MWh * $200,000/MWh = $134,400,000

$134,400,000 / $25/MWh (for natural gas) = 5,376,000,000,000Wh

5,376,000,000,000Wh / 5,840,000,000Wh per year = 920 years worth of natural gas, in terms of monetary value, to supply a constant 2MW using a gas turbine vs using a 2MW wind turbine with 14 days of battery storage

If we're going to continue to burn natural gas to supply power at affordable prices that intermittent sources backed by fast storage cannot deliver, then we're obviously not too concerned about CO2 emissions.  That issue alone means we're always going to need to burn hydrocarbon fuels, because the energy return value per dollar spent is so low that it's impractical to deliver at the scale required.  A single 2MW wind turbine with 24hrs of fast energy storage, which is absolutely required to avoid grid crashes in an energy system which does not emit CO2, despite being nowhere near enough to survive a week-long wind lull, is as expensive as 352GWh worth of natural gas supply.  352GWh represents more than 65 years worth of said wind turbine's output.  No electric wind turbines last for 65 years, and most don't last much longer than 15 years.

Adding a mere 24 hours worth of fast energy storage (electro-chemical batteries) completely negates any argument about wind turbines being cheaper than natural gas.  Add 14 days and it's no longer about achieving a pragmatic balance between cost and reducing CO2 emissions, it's an ideologically-driven energy poverty trap for most people of ordinary means.  Any attempt to scale-up storage to something approaching US electric grid storage requirements, if we're intent on 70% wind and solar power, then we're talking about an amount of money far in excess of America's annual GDP.  This entire proposition is a fantasy that foolish people pursue to attempt to satisfy the edicts of their climate religious beliefs.  Poverty kills more people than a modest increase in CO2 emissions ever could.

This is obvious to someone like me.  That means it should be equally obvious to the engineers and companies building these devices.  To do more than play an elaborate game of pretend, they require amounts of money and metal that simply don't exist.  A wind turbine or photovoltaic panel will only ever be part of an energy solution, arguably the least costly part despite their relative expense, unless large swaths of humanity are going to live the way we did before industrialization.

A "hard currency" is a certificate indicating exchange of goods / services of the denominated value.  What we call "money" is really a claim on energy and labor.  If I hand over a $100 bill, it's tantamount to claiming that an agreed-upon amount of energy and/or labor is worth that much.  Money is actually a type of "emergency brake", a tool if you will, which places practical constraints upon devotion of more energy and/or labor than can be sensibly justified by both parties for any given pursuit.  Money is why we don't attempt to manufacture large amounts of anti-matter, which presently costs trillions of dollars per kilogram.  The energy and/or labor, almost entirely input energy for this example, to pursue mass manufacturing of anti-matter cannot be justified using present methods.  That's why only microscopic amounts of the stuff are produced every year for lab experiments.  Until we can devise a more energy-efficient way to produce and store anti-matter, we won't devote more energy and labor given present costs.  The ultimate effect of money tempering decisions about where to concentrate effort is enabling pursuit of more attainable energy storage mechanisms.

The most compelling reason for favoring solar thermal and mechanical wind turbines vs photovoltaics and electric wind turbines is that fast storage is not required.  Unattainable quantities of technology metals are therefore not required.  Thermal and air pressure energy storage mechanisms are at least an order of magnitude cheaper than storing electricity, and they are maintainable rather than replaceable.  For thermal and mechanical energy generating / storage systems, the electric generator and control electronics are centralized.  There's one power cable from the generator to the step-up transformer to the grid distribution power line.  Photovoltaics and electric wind turbines have hundreds to millions of electrical connections, power inverters / transformers, and as many control electronics boxes if each panel has its own micro-inverter to regulate output.

Offline

Like button can go here

#63 2025-08-07 01:40:02

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 8,274

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

offtherock,

Exponential growth is such that it can take forever to start growing, but once a critical mass is reached, it explodes and takes over everything.

It's amazing to me that you believe in "peak oil", but not "peak metal".

So if this trend continues for the next 25 years.. well, 7% * 700 ~ 5000%.
Then solar will be 5000% of the worlds total energy production.

Off course that might not happen but u get the gist.

The metal to make it happen doesn't exist here on Earth.

1MW of photovoltaics uses about 5.5t (5,500kg) of Copper wiring.

Present total global installed electric generating capacity: 9,400,000MW

9,400,000MW * 5.5t/MW * 5,000 (your suggested % increase over installed capacity) = 258,500,000,000t of Copper

700,000,000t of Copper have been mined thus far, from 4,000 years ago to the present day.  Over 95% of that metal remains in use today, so it must be pretty valuable and scarce.

2,100,000,000t of Copper is potentially available in identified deposits.

3,500,000,000t of Copper are potentially available in "undiscovered deposits", which means it may or may not exist.

258,500,000,000t / 5,600,000,000t = 46X more Copper than exists or might exist on Earth

In 2023 alone, 4,500,000,000t of crude oil were produced and 8,900,000,000t of coal were produced.

That means we're going to run out of Copper long before we run out of crude oil and coal.

If we recycle CO2 and water into synthetic coal and petroleum products, something tells me we're far less likely to run out of coal / oil / gas than we are to run out of extractable metals.

And since the price of solar energy (and consequently, world energy), is heading to zero.

If the price was actually heading to zero, then the rates paid by consumers of electricity would also trend in that direction, except for the simple undeniable fact that they're trending in the opposite direction.  The most expensive electricity comes from intermittent sources.  Regardless of how theoretically "cheap" electricity from photovoltaics and electric wind turbines should be, those rate increases accurately reflect reality.

And yeah, we're passed peak oil.

All the metal mining and refining machines on this planet are powered by oil and gas, to include the ones that are electric.  If we're past peak oil, then we're also past peak metal extraction.

And we basically know whats going to happen. Its walking off a cliff.

One day our peak oil proponents will be proven correct, but nobody knows when, especially them.

Offline

Like button can go here

#64 2025-08-07 07:46:39

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 8,688

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

Well, if the UN says something, I have low trust.  If the E. Viking says something, he says it and I only said he said.

If metals will not allow something to happen then it will not happen unless the mother of invention gives birth again.

Here is something interesting: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 58#p233358
I think it might have potential, but time will tell.

If we could make Carbon tanks cheaply, and embed them underwater, forms of heat storage might work out, but it is an "IF!".

I don't fly though the sky with a cape.  I just talk sometimes.

Ending Pending smile


Perhaps Silence Can Be Golden.  Let's Find Out For A Time Period.

Offline

Like button can go here

#65 2025-08-09 15:29:00

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 4,136

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

A good place to start if you wish to understand the resource intensity of different energy sources, in the US DOE Quadrennial technology review.  Specifically, chapter 10.
https://www.energy.gov/quadrennial-tech … eview-2015

The DOE have already done the work in estimating the amount of materials of different types needed per TWh of electricity generated.  Solar power especially, is a horrendous resource hog.  Wind power is better, but the material needs are still an order of magnitude greater than nuclear or natural gas.  It was this realisation that awakened my interest in direct mechanical power from the wind.

The economics of intermittent renewables are a strong function of where they are being built.  Location matters for RE in a way that it doesn't for other energy sources.  If the world economy ran on wind and solar energy, there would be huge geographic disparities in wealth, given that the resource is very geographically dependant.  In an RE world, your wealth would depend very much on the location of your birth.

But there is a simple reason why RE will never provide cheaper grid based electricity than nuclear power or fossil fuels.  The reason is that wind and solar cannot replace fossil powerplants.  Those power plants have to be there in standby, waiting for windspeed to drop or the sun to be obscured by cloud or night.  The only thing the RE plant can do is reduce the fuel consumption of the fossil plant.  The fossil plant still has to be built, it has operating cost and maintenance cost.  This is in addition to whatever the RE capacity costs.  All of these costs end up on your power bill.  RE and fossil economics cannot be looked at seperately because they are both needed to ensure a reliable power supply.

Last edited by Calliban (2025-08-09 15:35:49)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

Offline

Like button can go here

#66 2025-08-10 00:13:38

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 8,274

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

The energy and material intensity of the solar thermal and hydrocarbon fuel synthesis energy system I proposed is still extravagant, an inelegant brute force solution if ever there was one, but a pragmatic solution nonetheless.  It works from a basic energy math / materials availability / technology standpoint.  Any solution requiring quantities of metal that don't exist, battery technologies that don't yet exist or cannot be produced due to materials shortages, or levels of metals purity that isn't achievable by consuming any reasonable amount of energy input, is no solution at all.

Microelectronics, photovoltaics, electric wind turbines, and electro-chemical batteries, collectively, are what I call "entropy machines".  Electric wind turbine blades now consume more composite materials than the entire aircraft manufacturing industry.  Microelectronics, photovoltaics, and electro-chemical batteries, especially, go from highly disordered natural resources to the most highly ordered microscopically thin layer cakes of combined materials imaginable.  The "jelly roll" inside a Lithium-ion battery is thinner than a human hair.  These are all warning signs that the current techno-fantasy solution is impractical, and likely infeasible.  The apparent lack of progress is the other indicator that something's wrong.

Top 5 Metals by Total Tonnage for 2019
Iron (3,040,000,000t): 93.5% of all metal we produce.
Aluminum (62,900,000t): 1.937%
Manganese (56,600,000t): 1.742%
Chromium (38,600,000t): 1.188%
Copper (20,700,000t): 0.637%

Almost 50% of all the energy devoted to metals mining is expended on Copper alone.
Apart from being the best common conductor metal, we continue to mine for Copper ore because the energy input to make Aluminum wiring with ampacity equivalent to Copper wiring is still 2X to 3X greater than the energy expended mining virgin Copper ore.  In other words, mining Copper is saving energy and CO2 emissions that would otherwise be created by increasing Aluminum metal production.

If we devoted 1,000,000,000t of sheet steel production to 2mm thick stamped cold-rolled steel mirror stock (15.7kg/m^2), then we can make a mirror surface area of 63,694,267,516m^2.  Let's assert that energy efficiency is no better or worse than "average" 20% efficient photvoltaics, even though solar thermal mirrors / concentrators are typically more performant than that, and we average about 5hrs of sunlight per day, so 400kWh per square meter per year.

63,694,267,516m^2 * 400,000Wh/m^2/year = 25,477,707,006,400,000Wh/year

In 2023, global primary energy consumption was 172,222,222,222,222,360Wh (620 exajoules).

1 exajoule = 277,777,777,777,778Wh (rounded to the nearest Watt)

172,222,222,222,222,360Wh / 25,477,707,006,400,000Wh = 6.75972

When you're unconcerned with ideology or techno-fantasies, and merely want to solve a problem so we can proceed to solving the next problem, you come up with pragmatic solutions that don't involve quantities of metals or miraculous new technologies that don't exist and are unlikely to ever exist if the resource base is limited to Earth.  Over the past 25 years, we could've already built more than 100% of the global primary energy supply, in terms of solar thermal generating capacity, without ever running into any unsolvable materials or energy math problems in the process.  This should've and would've been an academic debate at this point, had we optimized for practicality over possibilities.  We could've and should've done the same thing with nuclear power between the 1970s to 1980s, and then we'd still be having an academic debate about which solution was "best".  Our techno-enthusiasts could continue to endlessly tinker with their electronics silliness while all of us have affordable emission-free energy.  If magic happens and energy and materials availability becomes functionally unlimited, then we could pursue their eccentricities at our leisure.

Instead, people who are supposed to be educated, though clearly not educated to do anything useful, have already spent 10 trillion dollars on a variety of "throw crap at the wall and hope it sticks" solutions that as-yet don't provide a significant fraction of the global primary energy supply.

Cold-rolled steel is about ~$1,000USD/t, or $1T per 1,000,000,000t, so $10T would've purchased enough steel to deliver more than 100% of the global primary energy supply.

If we devoted 50,000,000t of annual Aluminum production to 500Wh/kg Aluminum-air batteries, then 1 year of production represents 25TWh of fast storage for grid stability within a grid dominated by photovoltaics and electric wind turbines.  Total electric power generation per year is just shy of 25,000TWh (~68.5TWh per day), so producing enough batteries to store 28 days of electric power to begin to deal with seasonality would represent 76.7 years of Aluminum production at 2019 production rates.  Realistically, at least 90 days of storage is necessary, so 246.6 years of Aluminum production at 2019 production rates.  If those batteries lasted for several decades or longer and we totally ignore CO2 emissions associated with Aluminum production, then maybe that's still acceptable.  Unfortunately, no 500Wh/kg battery will last for 25+ years before it short-circuits internally, because it's a layer cake of materials thinner than a human hair.  Dendrite formation can be suppressed but not entirely eliminated.  Aluminum may not combust as spectacularly as Lithium, but an internally short-circuited battery is still useless for storing electric power.  Aluminum production generates about 2% of global annual CO2 emissions, so increasing the production rate to 10X the current annual production rate would make it 20% of the global annual total, meaning on-par with transportation.  Red mud would rapidly become the largest man-made environmental toxin.  All that ridiculous mess would be required for something that doesn't even generate any power, merely stores it so that we don't have daily and seasonal grid crashes.

Those two tidbits of information only begin to illustrate how utterly ridiculous the proposed photovoltaics / electric wind turbines / Lithium-ion / Aluminum-ion batteries solution is.  Certain kinds of metals presently used in the permanent magnets and power electronics would consume tens of thousands of years of production at 2019 production rates.

If global warming was a genuine showstopper problem, then our academics and captains of industry would've identified the most realistic and immediately attainable solutions, built-out the required infrastructure without delay, and moved on to solving the next global problem.  When you're only concerned with results and don't care about anyone's fantasies or personal preferences, this is the only correct approach to solving major over-arching problems.  Solve the immediate problem using what you have and what you know, then debate how it could've been done better after a workable solution has been implemented.  Incidentally, this is also how you solve problems in the military.

Offline

Like button can go here

#67 2025-08-10 02:37:43

offtherock
Member
Registered: 2017-10-26
Posts: 12

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

###
    The metal to make it happen doesn't exist here on Earth.
    ..
    If we recycle CO2 and water into synthetic coal and petroleum products, something tells me we're far less likely to run out of coal / oil / gas than we are to run out of extractable metals.
###

Copper scarcity is a good point.
I asked chatgpt and it said
"Copper availability is likely to be one of the major potential bottlenecks for PV expansion over the next 25 years — but how serious it becomes depends on recycling rates, substitution, and mining investment."

A few points i would like to add.

1. Copper tonnage per MW is going down.
In 2000: ~10t/MW
In 2025: ~5t/MW
In 2050: ~3.5t/MW (chatgpt estimate)

2. The multiplicant is 700, not 5000.
Current prodcution is 7% of world production, and will be 5000% if trend continues in 2050.
So its 5000/7 or ~700 folding.

3. Solar is production.
Pv production is not comparable to oil itself.
Oil is energy.
Copper/Pv is energy production.

4. Solar alternatives
As solar grows and becomes a sizeable chunk of humanities energy production,
search for alternative ways to make solar intensify.
We are coming from a place which basically didn't know solar. Didn't care about those things.
Solar only started to be anything measurable in the past 5 years.
There are alternatives such as aluminium.
I would be surprised if it would turn out there is absolutely no other practical way for solar to move forward.
Also because it offers this promise of infinite energy. Dear lord humanity will want that. Or should, if its healthy.

5. Projection
This is off course, a projection, 25 years into the future, in unprecedented times in humanities history.
Things can happen and its difficult to know everything in advance. Technologies improve. Solutions are found.
Hopefully.

6. Earth confinement
We are not really confined to Earth.
We have been, yes. But that has been changing with the falcon 9 and now really with the Starship.
The world is changing and we are living in historical times.

Earth contains ~ 1 billion tonnes of Copper.
The asteroid belt contains around 1 million times that. (chatgpt estimate)

Speaking off, theres a Starship launch later this month. Crossed fingers.
Its a vastly underrated project, for so many reasons. Mining is one.
I know asteroid mining is not a trivial task but getting access to Earth orbit brings us so much closer it.
I might make a post on asteroid belt mining.

7. Its in the end
Almost all exponential growth happens in the end of every timeframe.
So in this scenario, all that expected Copper scarcity horror is gonna be hitting the worst in 2040 to 2050.
But thats the timeframe we have the most time and resources to prepare for.
And 50 times world production is just unhinged growth. It could well end up less than that but still great.

###
    If the price was actually heading to zero, then the rates paid by consumers of electricity would also trend in that direction, except for the simple undeniable fact that they're trending in the opposite direction.  The most expensive electricity comes from intermittent sources.  Regardless of how theoretically "cheap" electricity from photovoltaics and electric wind turbines should be, those rate increases accurately reflect reality.
###

chatgpt take on this.
https://chatgpt.com/share/6898c4a8-c834 … fa6a4624f2

Heres how pv electricity cost have been evolving.
https://postimg.cc/phPGPTkh
source: chatgpt

Because solar has been tiny up until now, it hasnt been affecting world energy prices in a meaningful way.
That should be changing starting now or soon.

Heres a comparison of solar vs other energy sources.
https://chatgpt.com/s/t_6897459e172c819 … 62fcd71f84
To sum it up, solar is has become the cheapest source of electricity, and is still getting cheaper.

But yes we have this upcoming copper shortage as solar really starts to scale up.
Solar is undergoing many effects at the same time.
Economy of scale is getting better.
Search for solutions will intensify.
Infrastructure for solar will be improving.
Batteries are improving.
Copper scarcity.
And more.

###
    And yeah, we're passed peak oil.
   
    All the metal mining and refining machines on this planet are powered by oil and gas, to include the ones that are electric.  If we're past peak oil, then we're also past peak metal extraction.
###

Peak metal assumes that we will be forever stuck on earth.
I dont think theres gonna be peak any material in the future,
All the elements are just there, we just havent reached them yet.

Is it peak oil because we cant really find any oil anymore.
Or is it peak oil because we have developed a better solution.
The concept Peak x doesn't differentiate between those two.
One is bad the other is good.
It matters.

Once upon a time our main energy was wood burning.
But then we passed Peak wood.
Then we passed Peak horses.
Now we're at oil and just... thats it?

Combustion is a very limited way of generating energy and thats not going to change.
It should not be competitive forever.

Last edited by offtherock (2025-08-10 10:12:00)

Offline

Like button can go here

#68 2025-08-10 03:00:47

offtherock
Member
Registered: 2017-10-26
Posts: 12

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

###
    But there is a simple reason why RE will never provide cheaper grid based electricity than nuclear power or fossil fuels.  The reason is that wind and solar cannot replace fossil powerplants.  Those power plants have to be there in standby, waiting for windspeed to drop or the sun to be obscured by cloud or night.  The only thing the RE plant can do is reduce the fuel consumption of the fossil plant.  The fossil plant still has to be built, it has operating cost and maintenance cost.  This is in addition to whatever the RE capacity costs.  All of these costs end up on your power bill.  RE and fossil economics cannot be looked at seperately because they are both needed to ensure a reliable power supply.
###

This is largely correct today.
But will get less and less correct as time progresses.
With improved infrastructure of renewables, the energy production will be less and less reliant on one factor alone.
A solar grid expanding over entire continents, will only need to have sunshine in one location.

It can rain in Norway but that doesnt matter if its sunny in Sahara.

And the batteries are getting better and more abundant.

All those logistics are just one gigantic feedback loop.

Our solar technology is bad for we haven't researched solar for our solar technology is bad.

Its been working against renewables so far.
But now its finally starting to go the other way.

And theres one thing about all of this.
All the renewables are always getting better.
All the coal and gas, is just deadlocked in place.
No progress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwSkQa1tNmE
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-62892013

The suppression period has ended.
https://chatgpt.com/share/689878ba-99f8 … c1d7fc7e60

Last edited by offtherock (2025-08-10 09:58:53)

Offline

Like button can go here

#69 2025-08-10 04:57:55

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 8,688

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

An AI assistant has demonstrated to me that in the process of reviewing established information it is quite useful.
But when I wanted to investigate the proposed method of using air bags to tip a starship on its side on the Moon, it simply told me in a dogmatic way that air bags are not a good option for landing on the Moon.  It more or less reinterpreted my question so that it could express dogma.

But then I got lucky inquiring about substituting Carbon Nanotube Technology for Copper.

https://hackaday.com/2021/09/30/the-com … he-rescue/
Quote:

Carbon Nanotubes as a copper substitute
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are emerging as a potential substitute for copper in various applications due to their superior electrical conductivity, lightweight nature, and resistance to corrosion. Here are some key points about CNTs as a copper alternative:

And this might use Copper and CNT as a composite: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/ … sos.180814 

As might be expected in the experimental stage, these are currently more costly.

Carbon-NT Motor: https://newatlas.com/technology/kist-cn … tube-wire/
Quote:

"By developing a new concept of CNT high-quality technology that has never existed before, we were able to maximize the electrical performance of CNT coils to drive electric motors without metal," said Dr. Dae-Yoon Kim of KIST.

Image Quote: ?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F9f%2F96%2Faeb5695d4f8c8ee979f209512e92%2Fcnt-cscec-motor.jpg

I have also seen materials that speak of various ways to use CNT in Solar Panels.

Maybe we might call this the "Carbon Age".

Anyway, it looks like the invention mother is showing up again.

Ending Pending smile

Other reading I have done indicates that there is sufficient Copper anyway, but there could be a bottleneck in production rates for copper.

Ending Pending smile

Last edited by Void (2025-08-10 05:11:18)


Perhaps Silence Can Be Golden.  Let's Find Out For A Time Period.

Offline

Like button can go here

#70 2025-08-10 07:10:04

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 8,688

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

(th) said: https://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.ph … 13#p233413

Yes, it would be a device with reduced metal content, in particular Copper or Aluminum.

This could be very important for Mars, where Carbon can be taken from the atmosphere, but Copper may not be easy to make suitable to use.

Ending Pending smile

Last edited by Void (2025-08-10 07:11:44)


Perhaps Silence Can Be Golden.  Let's Find Out For A Time Period.

Offline

Like button can go here

#71 2025-08-10 09:32:45

kbd512
Administrator
Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 8,274

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

offtherock and Void,

Both of you do a really great job of ignoring the simple fact that if this was purely about finding a viable solution in response to a genuine emergency, then solar thermal provided that technology in the 1970s without ever running into any materials scarcity problems.  All I see from the both of you is if this / that / the other happens then "X", "in the future X/Y/Z might happen", etc.  That sounds great, and I sincerely hope you're proven correct, but various statements you've both made tell me you're ignoring present reality in favor of some ill-defined future end state using a slew of new technologies and possibilities which haven't materialized over the past 25 years, but according to somebody may be available in the future.

None of your beliefs in "futurism" addresses my fundamental and underlying point that if CO2 emissions were truly a major global threat, then we'd never monkey around with any of your future possibilities, we'd build-out the new "viable under current materials / technology limitations" energy generating plant, then address what could've been done better using new technology in future iterative technical developments.  That is how real engineering is done.  We did not send the Saturn V moon rocket to the moon after waiting for CAD and Al-2195 lightweight Aluminum alloy to become available.  We used the materials and fabrication technology we had available in the 1960s to build it.

offtherock,

We are presently limited to resources on Earth, like it or not.  Unless we level the entire Andes Mountain Range, lots of that "we know the Copper is there" is simply "not there", and we're already grinding the ore particles to below 10 microns in size.  As you grind the ore finer so that you can use the flotation process to scrape off the desired ore particles, exponentially more energy is required to extract it.  That means a lot less Copper is readily available.  There are no new major investments into opening new Copper mines which are planned over the next 25 years, and it takes 15 to 20 years to open a new mine at the present time.

Void,

Yes, I've spoke of using CNT wiring quite often.  It's something I'm aware of because I've posted about it here.  Aluminum requires 2X to 3X more energy than present Copper mining.  CNT wiring is more like 4,500X more embodied energy per kg of material, relative to Aluminum.  It's more energy-intensive than CFRP by a lot and that means something has to deliver that energy.  The good news is that we won't run out of Carbon.  The bad news is that ampacity is on-par with Copper when it's mixed with Copper, per kg of CNT.  Does a conductor material 9,000X more energy intensive than mining Copper make sense as a bulk conductor material?

The reason you're not likely to see CNT used in wind turbine motor-generators or bulk conductor wiring is the energy and therefore monetary cost of the material per kilogram.  It's the same problem as Aluminum has, but 900X worse than Aluminum.  It would make economic sense in an aviation application, but not as a mass substitute for Copper.  If production methods improve, then sure, things could change.  Once again, you and offtherock keep falling back on future possibilities, rather than current technological realities.

Should we pursue it?  Yes, absolutely.  Is it going to solve any metal shortages in the near future?  Not likely.

Offline

Like button can go here

#72 2025-08-10 09:50:04

offtherock
Member
Registered: 2017-10-26
Posts: 12

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

kbd512
    "There are no new major investments into opening new Copper mines which are planned over the next 25 years, and it takes 15 to 20 years to open a new mine at the present time."

I asked chatgpt:
###
Your second point is accurate—opening a new copper mine often takes 10–20 years.
Your first point, however, isn’t supported—there are multiple major projects planned or underway globally.
###
https://chatgpt.com/share/6898cb67-1044 … c9a2d127e6

Last edited by offtherock (2025-08-15 03:55:31)

Offline

Like button can go here

#73 2025-08-10 10:25:56

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 4,136

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

The average grade of mined copper ore has been declining steadily for many decades.
2022102751658_7.jpg
Taken from this report.
https://www.streetwisereports.com/artic … rt-of.html

Whether it is possible to reduce copper intensity for solar PV, electric cars and the myriad other electronic products of modernity, I do not know.  Aluminium alloys could be substituted for some applications.  If it were easy and advantageous to do that, it would have happened already.

Regarding the present relatively low cost of PV modules.  This is largely a product of the Chinese industrial system.  Back in the early 2000s, the Chinese communist party made the decision that PV was one of the industries that they wished to dominate globally.  They built polysilicon factories in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia.  Polysilicon is one of the most energy intensive materials known to man.  These places contain a lot of otherwise stranded coal, too far from the Chinese heartlands to be useful.  They built coal burning powerplants close to the mineheads.  These produced some of the cheapest electricity on Earth.  They used forced islamic labour to mine the coal and man the factories making the polysilicon and modules.  They set all of this up with zero interest loans.  The result was extremely cheap PV modules.  These were used in China and shipped all over the world.

Why would the Chinese do this?  There is one overriding reason.  Coal production in core Chinese provinces has stagnated, but electricity demand has kept growing.  By building PV into grid, coal powerplant capacity factor can fall, allowing more electricity to be generated using less coal.  It makes sense for the Chinese to do this, as Xinjiang coal cannot be transported to demand centres in eastern China, but PV modules can.  If they can export them to the rest of the world as well, that is a bonus.  At the same time, China is building nuclear powerplants morerapidly than the entire rest of the world combined.  But this will take time.  They need to stretch out their coal reserves until they have enough nuclear reactors to replace coal outright.

For the rest of the world, PV modules produced using stranded coal and slave labour, are a short term thing.  If tge Chinese industrial system breaks down, they disappear overnight.  If by some miracle that doesn't happen, PV will disappear when the Chinese build enough nukes not to need it anymore.  Either way, this is ashort term phenomena, propped up by factors that are unsustainable.

Last edited by Calliban (2025-08-10 11:03:16)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

Offline

Like button can go here

#74 2025-08-10 11:17:29

Calliban
Member
From: Northern England, UK
Registered: 2019-08-18
Posts: 4,136

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

Solar thermal power has some very significant advantages.  It doesn't really offer better power density than PV.  But the materials needed to build it out are steel and concrete.  It is thermal concentrators, boilers and steam generating sets.  Things that we have been building since the end of the Victorian age.  The materials involved are abundant and recyclable.  Energy storage can be added to it with a tank of molten salt.  And we don't need to depend on a Chinese economic system that will soon be gone.

Last edited by Calliban (2025-08-10 11:23:55)


"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

Offline

Like button can go here

#75 2025-08-10 11:27:44

offtherock
Member
Registered: 2017-10-26
Posts: 12

Re: Oil, Peak Oil, etc.

"Solar thermal power has some very significant advantages.  It doesn't really offer better power density than PV.  But the materials needed to build it out are steel and concrete.  It is thermal concentrators, boilers and steam generating sets.  Things that we have been building since the end of the Victorian age.  "

Sounds brilliant.
When i think about it, just heat something with the sun until it steams and then use that steam to power a turbine. Then we can do whatever we want with that motion energy. Sounds very straightforward.

This guy bent solar rays with water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeSyHgO5fmQ

Offline

Like button can go here

Board footer

Powered by FluxBB