[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.