A world without oil

[dan45mcc 53]

Just to throw it out there, there's a social side to bicycling that I do find very appealing. Sure, there's a few rude cyclists who'd just haven't Darwinized themselves. But it's not uncommon to strike up a conversation with a stranger who's riding along with you or stop and help someone with a flat. In a car, you give the finger or blow your horn.

 

"Ever notice anyone who drives faster than you is an idiot, and anyone who drives slower than you is a moron?" --George Carlin

 

 

 

Thats funny GT ..it triggered a long stored away memory .. you remember how all the News Stations at the time were doing stories on how everyone in China simply rode Bicycles ! They were pushing that as oe solution to our gasoline shortage

[Corey872 1]

Just thinking out loud here, but if the end of oil is nigh, and we are getting close to rationing, etc...would we (as an E85 community) be better served by telling people E85 is crap and it will destroy their cars, do not burn it under any circumstances, etc?  Basically keep demand (and price) as low as possible for us?

[Greengenes 9]

Corey,

 

        I suppose that could work.  There may be that amount of the public that won't use

    E85 NO MATTER WHAT. They'd prefer the aforementioned bicycle  method to E85, probably.

 

        Ethanol won't be replacing oil , not in the near future , nor beyond. We simply consume

    too much fuel in this country.  Until that changes, we'll all be rolling over the cliff, eventually.

[cessna 9]

I remember the even and odd days in Virginia also. Really believed we were about out of oil. Also remember a picture in the Richmond Times Dispatch of a guy from Detroit making ethanol from garbage for his Harley---always thought that was pretty cool. Right now there is big news over in extreme southeast South Dakota---it's called "gorilla project". The plan is to build a brand new "state of the art" oil refinery. What I find interesting is it will use 12,000,000 gallons of Missouri river water a day and then dump it back in the river. I'm reading now about the glut of ethanol coming the end of the year so I guess the two plants I'm in won't be doing too well.

Marty

[GT-Labs 2]

Not to sound like a "maoist" or "commie", but an agrarian society doesn't have to be a bad thing, it's just how we organize it. We can live without electricity. A caveat of having power is that we always seem to want more of it, even me. Despite my own affection for gadgets, they're still just gadgets. We do consume too much energy as a nation. We're conditioned to want "more more more" as a capitalistic society. I'm a minimalist, so I don't fit into that picture too well.

 

I still leave my cell phone at home and turned off.

[hotrod 0]

I'm reading now about the glut of ethanol coming the end of the year

 

I fueled up on E85 yesterday and for the first time ever had to wait in line for the pump, both sides of the island pumping E85. Big SUV's sucking down fuel took a long time for them to fill.

 

I don't think you need to worry about a glut any time soon, as the refiners will simply gobble up the excess for blending.

 

As far as the "end of oil" it is probably a long way off, although supplies will be tight at some point. With technologies like thermal de-polymerization already viable it is only a matter of economics about when synthetic sources become mainstream.

 

Add to that methane - liquid hydrocarbon and tar sand conversions the only thing that will change in our life time is the source and the costs. Like today, boats still use sails they are just not the primary method of ocean shipping. In fact there has even been some discussion of return to the sail using new high tech systems to improve costs of ocean shipping.

 

Disruptions in supply are generally short term and self correcting as there are always alternative systems waiting in the wings needing only the economics and the necessity to become useful.

 

During WWII when gasoline rationing came in, there were rural folks that built dual fuel cars that ran on the process gas cooked off of wood to get around. It obviously was not as desirable as gasoline but it worked.

 

Larry

[dan45mcc 53]

. We can live without electricity. 

 

Uuummmm No we cant  ;D

 

Electricty isnt an issue anyways.. anyone can go solar ..just the initial expense of setting it up

 

The single biggest issue on Energy is allowing one energy to own operate new Energy Industries..

 

 

For the consumer to get the best posible deal is always competition./.you cant just let Excel Energy in Minnesota for example simply buy up all the Windmill Industry.. what kind of sense does that make ?

 

Same with the Oil Industry being able to run the Ethanol Industry ..all these industries should be forced to compete ..Free Market if we have to force it down their throats .. lol

 

New technologiesmean nothing if the same company thats screwing you today gets to run the new Industry

 

 

[cessna 9]

Hotrod, I was just kidding about the glut the end of the year. If there is one it will be politically inspired. Also, the reason I mentioned the big oil refinery project is because it is going to be next to the big pipeline that will be bringing Canadian oil sands crude down to this country. That line is supposed to terminate east of St. Louis in Illinois when it is finished.

Marty

[hotrod 0]

You may have been kidding but I have seen several news items where some folks are worried that current distillation capacity growth cannot be sustained and will over supply the market and kill the profit margins on ethanol.

 

My comments were more aimed at the general audience than to you as I know you have a firm handle on this whole issue.

 

I was mostly using it as a launching point for the natural process of adaptation that happens in this sort of commodity market. Even when a glut is created it is only temporary as fuel is fuel is fuel and energy demands keep going up. A brief breathing spell shakes out the weak operations or forces them to reconsider business as usual and to investigate ways to improve effeciency.

 

I remember during the 70's when every one was wailing about energy prices. It hurt some people in the short term (like my brother who went bankrupt) but that was his fault the embargo price hikes only hastened the end to a poor business plan.

 

The result of the high energy prices in the 1970's was a multibillion dollar industry spinning around energy savings and energy management. Everything from reflective window films to cut solar heat gain in large buildings to huge jumps in furnace effeciency, and approximate doubling of automotive fuel milage / gallon.

 

Just want folks to not listen too intently to the gloom and doom crowd, but keep their eyes open.

 

 

 

Larry

[Guest colchiro]

I graduated from HS in '71 so would have been driving during that time, but don't remember any problems with gas lines in the small ND town we lived in. I do remember gas prices around 33 cents during that time tho.

 

My father was a Mobil distributor and I know he had lots of trouble getting product for the farmers here and was constantly calling his senator to complain and telling Mobil to fix it or pick up their damn sign. Trouble was some people had lots of fuel and were selling to anyone for profit. What you could buy was based on what you used last year. Since this is farming country, he had a lot of fun. I'm surprised he didn't die of a heart attack from the stress.

 

I think the solution is plug-in hybrids. ND is trying to be one of the major wind-generator states. I think the main problem is the infrastructure to get it to where the demand is. If everything runs mostly on a/c, then we shouldn't need to import oil.