[Closed] oil prices, todays god news

blimey, so they're no longer having to artificially raise prices ?

Mad Max 2

Another win for the bicycle

The Guardian said it, so it must be so! 🙄

Find me an unbiased source of news.

so, this US diplomat never considered that the Saudis might just want to pump out as much oil as they can at a prewmium price?

Crude oil is so last century anyways.

Roll on hydrogen

Find me an unbiased source of news.

I'm not entirely sure such a thing exists.

Crude oil is so last century anyways.

Roll on hydrogen

Crude oil is an energy source, Hydrogen isn't.

makes you wonder what the near future will bring.

Surrey Hills tomorrow..

[img] [/img]

Crude oil is an energy source, Hydrogen isn't.

Er, doesnt the Sun like burn Hydrogen n'that ?

<pedant>

Not strictly burn... It's more of a huge fission/fusion reaction with hydrogen being created and destroyed.

Burning implies the use of oxygen to create something else, in that case water

</pedant>

Find me an unbiased source of news.

Er, doesnt the Sun like burn Hydrogen n'that ?

Can you point me in the direction of this source of hydrogen on Earth? Granted it is the most abundant element in the universe, however I'm not aware of any reserves of either elemental or moleuclar hydrogen on this 'ere hunk of rock, unlike say oil for example.

we'll be fine, really.

don't panic.

even if the opec bods have been exaggerating their reserves by 40%, we've still got 60 years of oil left at current rates of production/consumption.

most of the 'easy' oil has gone, so current rates of production/consumption cannot continue, they'll decline.

we'll still be using/burning oil in 100 years, we won't be using much by then, and it'll be VERY expensive, but we've got 100 years to get fusion working or change our behaviour a bit.

really, there's nothing to worry about.

The sun is one giant fusion reaction combining hydrogen to make helium and other elements.

and of course the oil companies will start to release some of the renewable technology IP they've been keeping in a big box...

Spongebob - Member
The Guardian said it, so it must be so!

Find me an unbiased source of news.

Posted 3 hours ago # Report-Post

You now claiming that oil is not running out as well as us being over run by immigrants ? Do you think they might just have the actual source material thathe article is based on

By unbiased I can only assume you mean one so fantastically right wing and dim it tells you what you want to hear.
Does Sarah Palin do a news letter?

I'm not aware of any reserves of either elemental or moleuclar hydrogen

Nonsense.

This planet has huge reserves of dihydrogen monoxide.

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deuterium ]deuterium[/url]

we've got loads of that.

and loads of this:

[url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritium ]tritium[/url]

oil? - who needs it?

"[b]According to al-Husseini[/b], the crux of the issue is twofold. First, it is [b]possible[/b] that Saudi reserves are not as bountiful as sometimes described.."

Seems like a fair bit of reporting of a fair bit of commentary by a US official, if you ask me. It's just reporting what one guy said. No need to slag off the Guardian - it just puts one guy's opinion into the mix. Or what he said his opinion was.

I'm not aware of any reserves of either elemental or moleuclar hydrogen

Nonsense.

This planet has huge reserves of dihydrogen monoxide.

Someone does't know what elemental or molecular means. Or you're being silly.

ahwiles, you state that we have 100 years to sort this but also that in 100 years fuel prices will have risen substantially. So which is it?

Other issues demand is not consistant, demand is growing.
Oil is needed for fuel which can be transferred to other energy sources, but nothing is as effective an energy source. You could suggest batteries and electricity but it is worth noting that the metals needed to make high capacity batteries aren't very common.

More critically is fertilizer, which is derived from oil and i believe more importantly gas. The human population is currently increasing at a massive rate. Yes it is meant to stabilize but we aren't there yet. Somehow these people need to be fed, well they don't but that isn't a very palatable alternative...

Other points the UK is unable to feed, cloth or fuel its self anymore, it is reliant on trade to obtain the basic necessities to support life here. Trade needs travel, which needs fuel. And last time i looked i wasn't aware of nuclear cargo ships?

Nuclear, well there is only so much of it to use and we are burning what we have at a rate greater than either technology advances to reduce consumption or discovery of new reserves.

Fusion, mañana, after 50 years of research we are still not at breakeven let alone where we can actually use it as a power source. Even if the next generation research produces results, we could be waiting another 30-40 years to get a functioning power station.

We are in a position that should have been addressed 20 years ago. and the politicians are still ignoring it.

mrmo - Member

ahwiles, you state that we have 100 years to sort this but also that in 100 years fuel prices will have risen substantially. So which is it?

both.

rising prices will force us to change, this is already happening.

(for example, many people where i work have commute-sharing arrangements, etc. etc.)

as for fusion, the JET experiment worked, and we're now building the next test reactor ([url= http://www.iter.org/mach ]ITER tokomak[/url]), we might make faster progress when we actually start spending money on research...

Can you point me in the direction of this source of hydrogen on Earth?

[img] [/img]

Hmm and how do you split the hydrogen from water? Oh yes electrolysis which takes loads of energy to achieve

psst CM that's [i]water[/i] not [i]hydrogen[/i]

Someone does't know what elemental or molecular means. Or you're being silly.

Just pointing out that we have loads of the oxide... 😉

Fusion, mañana, after 50 years of research we are still not at breakeven let alone where we can actually use it as a power source. Even if the next generation research produces results, we could be waiting another 30-40 years to get a functioning power station.

[lobs grenade] But what's wrong with fission? [ducks for cover]

If hydrogen is "not a source of energy" (i.e. it is merely a 'store') then neither is oil, oil is merely storing energy from the sun stored many millions of years ago!

If hydrogen is "not a source of energy" (i.e. it is merely a 'store') then neither is oil, oil is merely storing energy from the sun stored many millions of years ago!

In strict thermodynamic terms you are correct, however the amount of energy we get out of oil by burning it is greater than the energy that we have to put into it's extraction and refining. (This isn't universally true for all sources of crude but it is generally true). Compare that to the extraction of hydrogen from water by electroysis which will always require more energy to be put in by us than we will ever get out by buring it back to water and you can see where the difference lies.

Fusion is a different matter altogether.

Indeed laws of thermodymanics state energy can be neither created or destroyed, only converted form one form to another.

Problem is that the kinetic of converted one form of energy into another is usually much longer than releasing ti through combustion 😉

Ahwiles, yes JET worked but it was not energy neutral. The belief is that ITER will achieve at least energy neutrality, but i believe it is not schedueled for startup until 2016? results will probably drag that to 2020. Then you have to plan and build a usable power station, which the way these things go could well mean 2040+. As for spending money you have seen the price tag for a Tokamak recently?

rkk01, what it wrong with fission, fuel supply and demand, more demand less fuel. exactly the same issue as we have with oil.

Juan, to quote wikipedia, "As of July 2010[update], the largest experiment has been the Joint European Torus (JET). In 1997, JET produced a peak of 16.1 megawatts (21,600 hp) of fusion power (65% of input power), with fusion power of over 10 MW (13,000 hp) sustained for over 0.5 sec."

note 65% of input power!! that is the point it is getting better but it is not there yet and 0.5 secs is hardly going to get you through the day is it? and yes there is a possibility that ITER will produce energy, but getting from a lab experiment to a usable commercial design will take time.

In strict thermodynamic terms you are correct, however the amount of energy we get out of oil by burning it is greater than the energy that we have to put into it's extraction and refining.

and

Indeed laws of thermodymanics state energy can be neither created or destroyed, only converted form one form to another

= unsustainable....

[catches grenade] Actually, not a lot's wrong with fission - the waste issue is rather a minor concern and quite easy to deal with. The biggest problem is 'stable' sources of fission material... [lobs grenade back]

The biggest problem is 'stable' sources of fission material

As in politically stable sources of supply? As a stop gap technology fission has to have a lot going for it.

Of course, not something that you can google (I hope), but presumably all of the weapons grade Pu that is currently being "liberated" could / should / is finding a beneficial use...

People are confusing burning hydrogen with fission.

burning hydrogen - a none starter for 'power' as you need to generate the elecectricity somehow first. For fuel you just take oil out of the ground, split the hydrogen and carbon, and burry the carbon as CO2, less efficient than just burning it in your engine, but cleaner, so the basic price of petrol doubles, but theres less reason to tax it.

Hydrogen for fission is a different matter, your talking kg's/year of hydrogen to power small cities. The source of this hydrogen is largely inconsequencial, you could polymerise cow poo by dehydration and still emit several orders of magnitude less greenhouse gasses than oil burning.

As in politically stable sources of supply?

And don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of nuclear (fission) power! I may be a bit of a hippy and despite or because of this I do realise that nuclear power is not nearly as polluting as using fossil fuels.

And from eariler:

nuclear cargo ships

EDIT:

People are confusing burning hydrogen with fission.

mrmo - Member

Ahwiles, yes JET worked but it was not energy neutral. The belief is that ITER will achieve at least energy neutrality

JET wasn't built to achieve parity, it was built to achieve sustained fusion.

ITER is being built with the aim of producing 10 times the energy it consumes.

i say we give them loads of funding and see what they come up with, instead of writing them off before they start.

Indeed laws of thermodymanics state energy can be neither created or destroyed, only converted fromm one form to another.

not quite true as it is specifically written, in the normal world that works, but E^2=(mc^2)^2+(pc)^2 blurs the world. So yes you can't create or destroy things, but energy can become matter and matter energy, basically what makes a nuclear reactor work, but then again how exactly does a black hole work, big bang, dark matter etc.

People are confusing burning hydrogen with fission

No, not here...

Hydrogen for fission is a different matter

It certainly is - I've never heard of H being used as a fissile material...

ahwiles, i am not writing it off, what i am saying is, if it does what it is meant to do, we are still along way from making a power station from it. IF it doesn't work, then god knows what the next step is. ITER is expensive, and building something even bigger?

it does work, we just haven't built it yet.

[s]ITER is expensive because it's a massive one-off technology project.

the new airbus/boeing planes cost £XXX,billion to develop. if we only built one of each, then that would be the price of one.

but we're building dozens/hundreds.

expensive technology development is happening right now so that ITER can be built.

imagine a production line of fusion containment chambers, the cost will come down.[/s]

Edit: ITER isn't expensive, it'll cost about £20billion quid - it's a bargain.

Yes hydrogen can release its energy by either:-

Combining with oxygen in a fuel cell to create water

Under going FUSION when two atoms of hygrogen are fored together at very high temps and preswsures to create one atom of Helium

Indeed laws of thermodymanics state energy can be neither created or destroyed, only converted form one form to another.

As above, energy <-> mass in addition to the above. That's how nuclear power works.

As shown by the famous

E=mc2

Hmm and how do you split the hydrogen from water?

ah well, now that's a different question. I was merely pointing you at the hydrogen source that you asked for.

I don't know that we could separate it from the water. But we could try boiling it off. Like reducing it, like a chicken stock or something. Maybe.

why not burn the water , fire needs oxygen iirc
Leaves the hydrogen behind

we'll still be using/burning oil in 100 years, we won't be using much by then, and it'll be VERY expensive, but we've got 100 years to get fusion working or change our behaviour a bit.

really, there's nothing to worry about.

Yep, and those people will be looking back at us and our parents and saying "you lucky, greedy basterds".

Using up all the reserves in a couple hundred years - it's actually really impressive. All we have to do is wait a few million years for it all to reform. Really, there's nothing to worry about.

Maybe fusion will work, maybe it won't. I guess that and nuclear are the only real substitutes that will provide the ever-incresing energy 'hit' that everyone assumes constitutes progress.

Obviously in the meantime the sensible thing to do is burn everything we can get our hands on, as quickly as possible.

dont forget we have to be materially richer each year... you know like a bigger TV , more travel on our carbon frames that sort of thing. A sustainable planet or a future for our children should be wquite low down your list

Blind faith in science to find a solution , whilst ignoring their concerns about global warming, should give you comfort

Memo from the desk of Fahd bin Abdul Aziz
To: All my oil men.
I want more money, make it so.

Memo from the desk of Oil men secretary
To: Fahd bin Abdul Aziz
But sire, you already have more money than you could spend in a thousand lifetimes. Are you sure?

Memo from the desk of Fahd bin Abdul Aziz
To: All my oil men.
Do you want your hands cutting off?

Memo from the desk of Oil men secretary
To: Fahd bin Abdul Aziz
very well sire, your desire is god's wishes.
I suppose we could lie about how much oil we have left, that'd push prices up massively. But we'd have to be subtle, we couldn't just annoounce it, that would be suspicious. We would have to allow the information to leak via a well known whistleblower path into the public domain.

Memo from the desk of Fahd bin Abdul Aziz
To: All my oil men.
Splendid. Thks LOL.

All this aside, should I buy a Ti "bike for life" now or wait ?

ooOOoo - Member

we'll still be using/burning oil in 100 years, we won't be using much by then, and it'll be VERY expensive, but we've got 100 years to get fusion working or change our behaviour a bit.

really, there's nothing to worry about.

Yep, and those people will be looking back at us and our parents and saying "you lucky, greedy basterds".

Using up all the reserves in a couple hundred years - it's actually really impressive. All we have to do is wait a few million years for it all to reform. Really, there's nothing to worry about.

Maybe fusion will work, maybe it won't. I guess that and nuclear are the only real substitutes that will provide the ever-incresing energy 'hit' that everyone assumes constitutes progress.

Obviously in the meantime the sensible thing to do is burn everything we can get our hands on, as quickly as possible.

and what are you doing to make everything better?

of course, you missed out the bit where i point out that we're changing our behaviour, and in 100years we won't miss oil - we'll have changed our lives so we don't need it anymore.

rising prices of resources will force us to be more careful with their use, this is already happening.

already 15% of our energy is renewable, and increasing. even without nuclear fusion we'll be fine.

oopppsss 😳

still, water as a source of hydrogen for fussion - great

water as a source of hydrogen for oxidation (either through combustion or fuel cells) - crap

Because the energy required to produce hydrogen from sea water is tiny compared to what you produce by converting a tiny little bit of its matter.

molgrips - Member

"According to al-Husseini, the [u]crux [/u]of the issue is [u]twofold[/u]. First, it is possible that Saudi reserves are not as bountiful as sometimes described.."

I can't believe no-one has picked up on the most offensive part of that quote:

A crux [b][i]cannot [/i][/b]be twofold... Pleb...

and what are you doing to make everything better?

of course, you missed out the bit where i point out that we're changing our behaviour, and in 100years we won't miss oil - we'll have changed our lives so we don't need it anymore.

Haven't had a car for five years. Trying to design products that use less resources. What have you done?

I hope you're right, but even with the knowledge of the problems we have now, most behaviour has changed chuff all. Wouldn't it better if we could make that remaining oil last 1000 years?

If you count up all the energy slaves (cars, electric, heating etc.) we have in our western lives, I cannot see how we can replace the energy we get from under ground, from anything above ground. Even uranium is a finite resource.

Are you familiar with the concept of 'current solar income'?

Trying to design products that use less resources

Wish someone would give me a job doing that! I'd be bloody brilliant at it but I've got no chance of getting one.

A sustainable source of Hydrogen for fuel cells would be if the electricity used for electrolysis was generated by renewable means. The process itself is dead simple (done it myself as a demo) - it makes a cracking bang when you ignite it and turn it back into water... (minuscule amounts I should add)

A sustainable source of Hydrogen for fuel cells would be if the electricity used for electrolysis was generated by renewable means

This is an example of using hydrogen as an energy storage medium and is not without some merit. It does however have many drawbacks and to be honest, if there is a use for it, you'd be better off just using the electricity for whatever you are buring the hydrogen for as it would almost certainly be more efficient.

Back to OP, it didn't take Wikileaks really to tell us, it's been know for years, and published, that the Saudi's have been egging up their reserves.

At least now more people will get the point, so that's good.

Wiles, I don't think we're any where near 15% renewable yet. However I don't think anyone has to worry, the system WILL correct itself. However, whether this correction comes from massive changes in behaviour, incredible scientific discovery or gigantic corrections in the worlds population, equilibrium will be reached.

Personally, I'm sharpening my killing sticks as I type.

ooOOoo - Member

[b]Haven't had a car for five years[/b]. Trying to design products that use less resources. What have you done?

see? - there you go, we are changing our behaviour.

what have i done? - it's a good question, but i don't like point-scoring so i'll just say that i've made some changes to my lifestyle.

and i think most people can say something similar.

yes, the next 50/100 years are going to be very interesting, and not always for fab and groovy reasons.

i'd like to see us doing more, but our civilisation is like a fat middle-aged man, sat on the sofa, watching top-gear on dave, eating pizza while it's raining heavily outside.

and you know what? - the fat middle aged man is thinking about getting off his backside and going out for a run. i haven't written him off yet.

Hmmmm yes, some of us are making changes. Some will make an impact, some is just window dressing. But I feel generally most people don't fully appreciate how much stuff they use. The world has been designed to hide it. Many of us designers are starting to realise this, but the question is can we change the infrastructure faster than people change their behaviour.

And remember a lot of India & China have only just opened the door to the lounge, and quite fancy taking a long rest on that sofa. After all they'd say, they've been out in the rain looking in at us for some time.

But I feel generally most people don't fully appreciate how much stuff they use.

+1.

Our entire economy is set up to consume more and more - there's no getting away from it.

ooOoo: "Are you familiar with the concept of 'current solar income'?" Not put that way, but if you mean available energy the it's utterly enormous.
Ways of getting at it will still improve somewhat, but many exist already, and mostly it's political will which is lacking. Very sadly many governments are also firmly in the pockets of the coal, oil and auto industry.
Desert insallations are already being set up though. When the Saudi's have finished making a mint from their oil they'll sure as hell make a mint from their humumgous solar capacity.

When the Saudi's have finished making a mint from their oil they'll sure as hell make a mint from their humumgous solar capacity

How're they going to export it?

With high voltage DC cables

How're they going to export it?

Superconductors and carbon nanotubule batteries.

carbon nanotubule batteries

where the hell are these things?!!
I read about them 3 or 4 years ago and not sniff since!
Supposed to blow LiPo out of the water on energy density 🙁

How're they going to export it?

Take one satellite, hang a mirror off it, point a load of other mirrors at the satelite and park one of these in Slough to catch it all.
[img] [/img]
Plug it into the national grid and hey presto!

HVDC is what will happen. It's already going in for many undersea cable links. Doesn't need any fancy stuff. The only reason for the power grid we have today at 50Hz is historical becauase of wirewound transformers. Modern electronics makes DC/DC step-up possible and the losses are massively lower than AC grids.

That pic is a plant in Spain. Nothing to do with satellites..

Nothing to do with satellites..

I know. They're using it rong though!

swap that tower out and stick it at the receiver end, focus the mirror arrays onto the mirror in space, bounce all that super lovely solar energy to the receiver in slough and boom, lots of hot water.

Im a genius me. I just need a cat and a lair and Im good to go.

[url= http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=carbon-nanotubes-boost-power-of-lithium-battery ]carbon nanotube battery. [/url] not there yet.