The Coming Oil Apocalypse

[KrazyHorse]

[Asher]

Hydroelectricity is damaging to the environment.

Plus there's no water here.

[KrazyHorse]

Stop trying to make excuses for the fact that we produce over a hundred times more renewable energy than you do.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Asher
Hydroelectricity is damaging to the environment.

Only locally.

[Asher]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Stop trying to make excuses for the fact that we produce over a hundred times more renewable energy than you do.

We should nationalize your hydro revenues.

[Theben]

Damnit, you canucks need to do something about your avatars. I can't tell you apart anymore.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Only locally.

It tap's the planet's rotational energy. That's about as global as it gets!


The real worry wrt oil is whether burning it will cause the planet to revert to normal climate.

[DanS]

As time goes on the really cheap oil disappears.

It's not quite so simple in reality. The Saudis have a very large amount of low quality heavy oil that works just fine to make gasoline. However, some of our refineries can't process it yet, so we're having a little spike in prices on the oil that can be refined. As time goes on, our refineries increasingly will have the capability to refine this low quality crude.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
It tap's the planet's rotational energy.

No, the tap is the sun, which evaporates water and drops it at a higher elevation.

And in real fact the tap is the thermal energy of the surroundings of the hydro dam and the area up and downstream of it. The generators "steal" part of the potential energy of the flow and turn it into electricity. This potential energy would in normal usage have transformed, via kinetic energy into thermal energy of the water and the shore/riverbed.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by DanS


It's not quite so simple in reality. The Saudis have a very large amount of low quality heavy oil that works just fine to make gasoline. However, some of our refineries can't process it yet, so we're having a little spike in prices on the oil that can be refined. As time goes on, our refineries increasingly will have the capability to refine this low quality crude.

The saudis don't have enough to pump at anywhere near the rate we require.

[lord of the mark]

Re: The Coming Oil Apocalypse

Originally posted by MosesPresley
America's automobile culture will be dealt its final deathblow. What if anything will replace it?

A different auto culture, most likely. "You should see what Im driving - look at the battery in this thing" "great fly wheels, too"

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


No, the tap is the sun, which evaporates water and drops it at a higher elevation.

And in real fact the tap is the thermal energy of the surroundings of the hydro dam and the area up and downstream of it. The generators "steal" part of the potential energy of the flow and turn it into electricity. This potential energy would in normal usage have transformed, via kinetic energy into thermal energy of the water and the shore/riverbed.

Water in dams causes more friction than it would do in the oceans. Hence, the earth's rotational energy is converted into heat at a higher rate than it would without the dams.

They also increase the planets effective radius, for a one-time hit to the rotational frequency as the dam is filled. Blowing the dam would speed up the planet again, of course.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Last Conformist

Water in dams causes more friction than it would do in the oceans. Hence, the earth's rotational energy is converted into heat at a higher rate than it would without the dams.

So fricking wrong. Hydro doesn't take water directly from the oceans. It takes water which has already evaporated and made its way to a river or lake.

The dam forces it to release a large portion of its potential energy as electrical energy in a specific location rather than over a large distance as heat. Depending on the specifics of whether the river is flowing north, south, east or west, and the flow characteristics of the river the hydro generation may add or subtract from the planet's angular momentum.

Also wrong is the assumption that more of the water's energy is released as heat; as a matter of fact, flowing water reaches equilibrium rather quickly, due the the v^2 nature of the drag forces acting on it.

[KrazyHorse]

That's basic physics, son.

The energy source is the sun, not rotational energy.

Unless you want to explain to me where the supposed lost angular momentum goes?

[KrazyHorse]

What exactly is the earth emitting that balances the angular momentum equation?

*poops on TLC's inadequate knowledge of freshman physics