Peak Oil ..again

[Outlaw Yogi]

Run for the hills, the Doomseekers are coming

When I was in the Greens, several years ago there was alot af noise from a particular doomsday crowd within the party demanding policies be formulated on a Peak Oil scenario basis, but several others and I said there were other bigger issues, like GHG induced Global Warming ect. Actually I stated Peak oil could be a good thing if it caused us to avert the runaway global warming scenario.

Anyway its back
German military report: Peak oil could lead to collapse of democracy
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/germ ... democracy/

Peak oil has happened or will happen some time around this year, and its consequences could threaten the continued survival of democratic governments, says a secret Germany military report that was leaked online.

According to Der Spiegel, the report from a think-tank inside the German military warns that shrinking global oil supplies will threaten the world's economic foundations and possibly lead to mass-scale upheaval within the next 15 to 30 years.

With peak oil causing "partial or complete failure of markets ... [a] conceivable alternative would be government rationing and the allocation of important goods or the setting of production schedules and other short-term coercive measures to replace market-based mechanisms in times of crisis."

But the report also warns that the economic crisis caused by shrinking oil supplies and skyrocketing prices could be seen by the general public as a failure of market economics as a whole -- and with it, the political institutions that created those economic systems.

Public anger at the existing system would create "room for ideological and extremist alternatives to existing forms of government." Populations would fragment along political lines and "in extreme cases" this could "lead to open conflict."

[Jovial Monk]

What absofuckinglute garbage!

Centuries of coal available coal > petrol

Go back to the Greens, their collective IQ dropped 0.0000000000000001% when you left.

[boxy]

Coal doesn't power modern transport as efficiently as oil, by a huge margin. Neither does any of the new green or even nuclear energy.

This is unlikely to be an easy transition.

[Jovial Monk]

Jesus.

Coal can be converted to petrol. Hitler’s Germany did it. Bit like making {shudder} margarine.

[Outlaw Yogi]

Should have known a simpleton would offer simplistic solutions, but the reality is ...

Liquid coal for cars 'dirtier' than petrol
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stor ... 090413.htm

"Liquid coal, for example, can produce 80% more global warming pollution than [petrol]," says the US non-profit environmental group, the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Synthetic fuel
From Wikipedia
Economics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel#Economics

The economics of synthetic fuel manufacture vary greatly depending the feedstock used, the precise process employed, site characteristics such as feedstock and transportation costs, and the cost of additional equipment required to control emissions. The examples described below indicate a wide range of production costs between $20/BBL for large-scale gas-to-liquids, to as much as $240/BBL for small-scale biomass-to-liquids + Carbon Capture and Sequestration.[21]

In order to be economically viable, projects must do much better than just being competitive head-to-head with oil, they must also be profitable, and generate a sufficient return on investment to justify the capital investment in the project. This means the Required Selling Price of the fuel that they produce will have to be above the break even mark by a significant amount before any projects will be built

Personally I think we should use solar thermal for electrolysis of water to extract hydrogen to run internal combustion engines on. It is clean and far from existing fuel producers claims of being expensive and energy consumptive is very cheap and energy efficient to produce. Spliting hydrogen and oxygen from water requires 1.7 volts with a return of 1.34 volts.
Thermal cracking of crude oil requires a minimum a heating to 600 degrees C, although 900 degrees C is more common.

[Jovial Monk]

Fuck off dickhead.

I showed coal could be converted to petroleum and there is thousands and thousands of years worth of the black stuff in the ground.

I didn’t say it should be done.

On further thinking I reckon the collective Green IQ score would have gone up by several points when you resigned.

[Outlaw Yogi]

I couldn't give a rat's arse what you think 'coz you're obviously the forum's current idiot troll. We've had 'em before and I spoze we'll have more in the future.

[Jovial Monk]

And still I showed you were wrong.

[boxy]

You showed nothing, Monk. Coal would be a backwards step, in terms of efficiency, and especially if you want to consider carbon footprints.

Commuter vehicles need to go electric, asap, even if it means slower, less powerful cars (a good thing on more than one front, I would suggest). Power them with nukes and renewables. Leave the high performance and high emission fuels for vehicles that need the power to efficiently produce/transport commodities.

[J.W. Frogen]

Nuclear powered cars in Italy would bring on the end of times.