Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
1 hour ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I used to think about it a lot, I still do. There used to be a forum called The Oil Drum which I was as active on as I am on Mooneyspace now. The archives are still out there. That forum had some of the brightest people I’ve ver met. One in particular was Robert Rapier who was a process engineer for ConocoPhillips. He knew everything about the oil business from the deepest chemistry to the board room. He designed oil refineries. There was endless discussions about oil depletion. If you think it will never happen, you should go read the archives. We seem to be in the beginning of the phase described as “undulating prices”, which happens at the beginning of the phase where the oil markets start to become supply driven instead of demand driven. Granted, the current situation was driven by political events more than actual supply constraints, but it does illustrate the world is struggling to make up the difference when a large supply (Russia) is taken off the market.

I was predicted that a technological change like the widespread use of precision horizontal drilling and hydro fracturing (fracking) could alter the inevitable timeline. But when the large reservoirs stop producing, it will be the beginning of the end. 
 

We will never run out of oil. But we won’t be able to produce it at an ever increasing rate. At some point demand will outstrip production and the prices will increase to the point that demand reduces. That means gas is to expensive for most people to afford. Most people cannot wrap their heads around that concept. They say “I have to have gas!” They cannot conceive of a situation where it is unavailable. When this day comes, it will have a profound effect on global society.

The one thing that intrigues me is the same mitigations for oil depletion are what they are touting for Climate Change. They are just putting the cart before the horse. I often wonder if the folks at the WEF (Davos) are trying to mitigate oil depletion under the guise of Climate Change? The only reason I can think of for them to do that is so there would be more total oil left for the governments and the elites. It cannot be disputed, in our current world, that power is centered on oil. No nation without oil will ever win a war against a nation with oil.

OK, putting the tin foil hat back in the closet and getting to my chores…..

Yea i wonder if technology will produce a different mode of transportation before everyone has to revert to riding a horse. Would be freakish to time travel into the future only to see mankind back to where we were before the discovery of oil. 

Posted
2 hours ago, gmonnig said:

With those kinds of daily numbers, does anyone else think like me? How the hell can we find and refine that much fuel? The oil in the ground must be an unimaginable number, and obviously going to run out. Maybe not in my lifetime but maybe my kid's or his kids. Weird to think about.

Not to worry, rising oceans and cow flatulence is going to kill us first.

  • Haha 2
Posted
10 minutes ago, Will.iam said:

Yea i wonder if technology will produce a different mode of transportation before everyone has to revert to riding a horse. Would be freakish to time travel into the future only to see mankind back to where we were before the discovery of oil. 

All transportation require huge amounts of energy. Mass transit is the most efficient at moving humans around. Without liquid petroleum based fuels. All other solutions require electricity. All renewable energy sources produce electricity, but they account for a small percentage world wide. 

Can you imaging building a wind farm without petroleum fuel? Or a solar farm? Go watch one being built, you will see a lot of diesel powered heavy equipment and all the parts show up on diesel trucks. It would be a great day if they all showed up on battery powered electric vehicles. How big a battery pack would it take for an electric bulldozer? 

Back in the day on The Oil Drum forum, every conceivable form of alternative energy was exhaustively analyzed with plenty of pro and con people. the finding after years of discussion was the only alternative energy source that had any chance of working was solar. to replace the current electrical capacity of the USA would require the entire state of Arizona and the southern california desert be completely covered with solar panels. And we don't have anywhere near the electrical capacity today to replace the transportation energy requirement.

Nuclear can keep us going for a few hundred years, but even with breeders and reprocessing, uranium is a finite resource.

On the oil drum they quoted an arab saying:

My grandfather rode a camel.

My father rode in a fine car.

I ride in a jet.

My grandson will ride a camel.

Posted
3 minutes ago, 1980Mooney said:

You seem to have overlooked fusion. Yes you will still need some hydrocarbon but a majority of electric power will be from fusion. 
https://time.com/6240746/nuclear-fusion-breakthrough-milestone-clean-energy/

Yep, any day now. 

And has been for the last 80 years...

Although this was a milestone, you have to read between the lines. This inertial confinement experiment takes about a day to prepare to fire once and produces a microsecond burst of energy. The energy it produces is very broadband and only a tiny fraction is usable heat. Nobody has come up with a practical method for harvesting the energy from a fusion reaction, or how to run it continuously. 

There needs to be many more milestones before it is time to get excited.

  • Like 2
Posted
2 hours ago, EricJ said:

At one of our recent airport pilot's association pancake breakfasts the city sent one of the people from the environmental office that oversees disposal of all the stuff we put in the recycle sheds, e.g., used oil, solvents, batteries, tires, etc.    She said disposing of the used oil  and solvents costs the city anywhere from nearly nothing to $10k/month depending on how many contaminants are found in it at the recycling company.   We are allowed to put "up to one gallon" of leaded avgas in the solvent tank, but she said if it gets to be too much it winds up costing a LOT more to dispose of.

So even the contaminated used stuff is more contaminated when it has lead in it, apparently.   We were asked to be careful about what we put in the tanks, because it turns into real money when they try to get rid of it.

I put it in my lawn mower and pressure washer. Runs good.

 

Posted
2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

It seems to me that with a little chemistry, you could precipitate out the lead. It is such a small problem, it is probably cheaper to dispose of it as hazardous waste than to mitigate it.

The $10k/mo costs that they mentioned seemed to be at least partly for when it has to be treated as hazardous rather than just recycling oil or solvents.   At least that's how I understood it when she was explaining the issues.

2 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

But who is throwing away AVGAS? Unless someone is sumping their tanks and throwing it in their used oil bucket instead of putting it back in their tank. If you are afraid of putting it back in your tank, put it in a separate bucket and just let it evaporate. The DEQ will love that.

A fair (surprising) number of people use avgas as cleaning solvent, so it can wind up being disposed as cleaning waste with other solvents or just sludge.   I think the other part of the issue was contaminated waste oil.   I don't know all the details, but it was interesting to hear how much contamination issues affected the disposal costs, enough that they sent somebody up specifically to inform the users.  

Posted
44 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

I put it in my lawn mower and pressure washer. Runs good.

 

People do use gasoline as a cleaning solvent, but I don't think I've heard of anyone spraying it under pressure before.   Sounds pretty bold.  ;)

  • Haha 3
Posted
1 hour ago, N201MKTurbo said:

All transportation require huge amounts of energy. Mass transit is the most efficient at moving humans around. Without liquid petroleum based fuels. All other solutions require electricity. All renewable energy sources produce electricity, but they account for a small percentage world wide. 

Can you imaging building a wind farm without petroleum fuel? Or a solar farm? Go watch one being built, you will see a lot of diesel powered heavy equipment and all the parts show up on diesel trucks. It would be a great day if they all showed up on battery powered electric vehicles. How big a battery pack would it take for an electric bulldozer? 

Back in the day on The Oil Drum forum, every conceivable form of alternative energy was exhaustively analyzed with plenty of pro and con people. the finding after years of discussion was the only alternative energy source that had any chance of working was solar. to replace the current electrical capacity of the USA would require the entire state of Arizona and the southern california desert be completely covered with solar panels. And we don't have anywhere near the electrical capacity today to replace the transportation energy requirement.

Nuclear can keep us going for a few hundred years, but even with breeders and reprocessing, uranium is a finite resource.

On the oil drum they quoted an arab saying:

My grandfather rode a camel.

My father rode in a fine car.

I ride in a jet.

My grandson will ride a camel.

Solar will be important, but you can’t get there with Solar alone, the simple reason is the sun doesn’t always shine, so you will need either incredibly huge batteries of some kind to carry you through the times when it doesn’t or some other storage medium, EV’s is one possibility

I think we will first have to get a lot more efficient, which isn’t hard but will mean no more McMansions and SUV’s, and I think Nuclear is at this time the only viable option.

We lived on a sailboat for three years, All our power came from Solar, the alternator when we motored or a little Honda generator. We got by fine, but had the most efficient refrigeration possible all LED lighting, cooked with Propane and had no HVAC when at anchor. Four 250W Solar panels could run our refrigeration and not much else, to make water took a little Honda generator, forget Airconditioning with Solar.

I used to watch the “tiny house” shows, they would always put up one or two panels and say this will provide all our electricity. BS, not even close.

Just to run a toaster takes 1500W, in a perfect world that’s 6 250W panels, but in the real world your lucky to get 1/2 of the panels rated capacity for four hours a day, so that’s 12 house size panels to run the toaster, now let’s talk about the stove, oven, clothes drier, water heater etc. to say nothing about Air Conditioning or heating.

Rounding up each house will use about 1,000 KWH a month, it’s actually closer to 900, but I like simple numbers.

To produce on average 1,000 KWH per month it will take 40 5’X3’ Solar panels, which is more than the average roof can hold, and that’s not taking into account most roofs aren’t angled correctly or have shading issues etc, nor is it taking into account charging an electric vehicle.

If your going to charge an electric SUV or PU truck and do any significant driving, then your going to need probably more than 80 Solar panels.

So what do these panels cost?

When I was doing the boat thing if you shopped around and found a screaming deal, I bought left over panels from a big installer and paid $1 a watt.

So forget the EV, each panel costs $300 x 40, that’s $12,000 to provide one house with power and doesn’t include any labor or materials, inverter or anything else to install.

I think doubling the 12K to 24K isn’t unrealistic if you just want to call someone and do no work yourself. So without any Government subsidies for $24,000 you should be able to supply your own power, that’s of course without any form of storage to get you through cloudy rainy days and nights.

My utility rates that’s $140 a month of electricity, without subsidies, I just can’t make the numbers work

Posted
47 minutes ago, EricJ said:

People do use gasoline as a cleaning solvent, but I don't think I've heard of anyone spraying it under pressure before.   Sounds pretty bold.  ;)

Yeah, when the neighbors get too noisy, or someone speeds through the no wake zone,  I put the pilot light attachment on the end of the wand. It is awesome. 

Got to use a low angle nozzle though.

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Posted
5 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

I used to think about it a lot, I still do. There used to be a forum called The Oil Drum which I was as active on as I am on Mooneyspace now. The archives are still out there. That forum had some of the brightest people I’ve ver met. One in particular was Robert Rapier who was a process engineer for ConocoPhillips. He knew everything about the oil business from the deepest chemistry to the board room. He designed oil refineries. There was endless discussions about oil depletion. If you think it will never happen, you should go read the archives. We seem to be in the beginning of the phase described as “undulating prices”, which happens at the beginning of the phase where the oil markets start to become supply driven instead of demand driven. Granted, the current situation was driven by political events more than actual supply constraints, but it does illustrate the world is struggling to make up the difference when a large supply (Russia) is taken off the market.

I was predicted that a technological change like the widespread use of precision horizontal drilling and hydro fracturing (fracking) could alter the inevitable timeline. But when the large reservoirs stop producing, it will be the beginning of the end. 
 

We will never run out of oil. But we won’t be able to produce it at an ever increasing rate. At some point demand will outstrip production and the prices will increase to the point that demand reduces. That means gas is to expensive for most people to afford. Most people cannot wrap their heads around that concept. They say “I have to have gas!” They cannot conceive of a situation where it is unavailable. When this day comes, it will have a profound effect on global society.

The one thing that intrigues me is the same mitigations for oil depletion are what they are touting for Climate Change. They are just putting the cart before the horse. I often wonder if the folks at the WEF (Davos) are trying to mitigate oil depletion under the guise of Climate Change? The only reason I can think of for them to do that is so there would be more total oil left for the governments and the elites. It cannot be disputed, in our current world, that power is centered on oil. No nation without oil will ever win a war against a nation with oil.

OK, putting the tin foil hat back in the closet and getting to my chores…..

Well, the Scriptures do reveal that there will be an end to this world order…….I just never imagined I could read about it on Mooneyspace!

Posted
11 hours ago, EricJ said:

At one of our recent airport pilot's association pancake breakfasts the city sent one of the people from the environmental office that oversees disposal of all the stuff we put in the recycle sheds, e.g., used oil, solvents, batteries, tires, etc.    She said disposing of the used oil  and solvents costs the city anywhere from nearly nothing to $10k/month depending on how many contaminants are found in it at the recycling company.   We are allowed to put "up to one gallon" of leaded avgas in the solvent tank, but she said if it gets to be too much it winds up costing a LOT more to dispose of.

So even the contaminated used stuff is more contaminated when it has lead in it, apparently.   We were asked to be careful about what we put in the tanks, because it turns into real money when they try to get rid of it.

That’s why I just pour my old oil and 100LL in the dirt at the end of the hangar row. I’m always trying to save the airport money!

:lol:

  • Like 1
  • Haha 2
Posted

Re-burying the dinosaurs 1963 style!

Send them back…

Thanks to JP for reading and responding!!!

 

We’re going to need to speak with CG’s brother… (to get his ideas)

In the US leaded fuel has plenty of restrictions for transport because of its lead content… the usual fuel pipelines would be nice to use… but, we can’t…

Using somebody else’s fuel truck has to be cleaned out before it goes back to regular fuel service… this is where all the red rags, hats, and coats, enter the fuel injector screens… (MSer experience)

Aircraft fuel volumes are tiny… compared to the gasoline sold in my home town… (50k people, everyone over 16 drives a car)

Clean outs are a part of life in the chemical business… the fewer required, the better the economics…

If you have ever replaced a catalytic converter after it has gotten clogged… it was probably a memorable experience…

If you have ever carried a portable drill along to ensure you got home….you know what a blocked cat is like… :)

 

Lets see…

1) Oil isn’t forever….

2) Fusion isn’t here yet…

3) Electric cars weren’t ever going to happen…

4) neither were electric planes… a drone you can sit in… preposterous!

5) batteries couldn’t last…

6) batteries still weigh a lot…

7) batteries used to take too long to charge…  batteries are expensive… batteries a have a short half life….

8) computers were slow, nobody needed one…

9) computers are in everything… like automatic braking, a nice little safety feature…

10) Expensive fuel for racing… not a big deal if you only race 1/4mi at a time….  :)
 

Even the Indy 500 is only half a trip to Florida from here… it will be 4X the distance to get all the way there and back…

Mooney MPG is huge compared to an Indy car…

11) let’s see where this all goes…

12) expect that the change is too fast for us…

13) Not fast enough for JP…

Best regards,

-a-

Posted

People seem to forget, oil is biodegradable.

Back in the 70s, there was a paper in Scientific American that proposed that oil is being produced all the time.  The organic materials are carried into the earth and that they get trapped and are converted to oil

And yes, major clean out to remove lead before other products can be carried.  And the materials used to flush and clean are contaminated also and has to be disposed of as lead containing.

  • Like 2
Posted
1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

People seem to forget, oil is biodegradable.

Back in the 70s, there was a paper in Scientific American that proposed that oil is being produced all the time.  The organic materials are carried into the earth and that they get trapped and are converted to oil

And yes, major clean out to remove lead before other products can be carried.  And the materials used to flush and clean are contaminated also and has to be disposed of as lead containing.

You are correct. Oil is being produced by the earth all the time. It is not dead dinosaurs. Just as diamonds are being produced all the time. Heat and pressure, same way you make any oil.

You are also correct it is biodegradable, not as fast as some things, but not slow either. You would be hard pressed to find remnants of many famous oil spills now.

  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Pinecone said:

People seem to forget, oil is biodegradable.

Back in the 70s, there was a paper in Scientific American that proposed that oil is being produced all the time.  The organic materials are carried into the earth and that they get trapped and are converted to oil

And yes, major clean out to remove lead before other products can be carried.  And the materials used to flush and clean are contaminated also and has to be disposed of as lead containing.

If you look at the WWII major Naval battlegrounds, many being in Pacific Atoll’s with coral reefs etc. where all kinds of chemicals and bunker oil was released, If the environment was destroyed it didn’t take long at all to recover.

There are of course many chemicals that pretty much don’t decay, but it appears petroleum isn’t one of those.

Ref oil being created continuously, certainly it is, just the rate of accumulation is miniscule compared to the rate of consumption.

I started out my working life as an oil field welder in 1980, back then a couple of exploratory wells had been drilled and natural gas extracted, but the problem was that at those temperatures at that depth natural gas couldn’t exist, thd temps would break it down. As far as I know that was never explained, one theory was that the gas was being created by whatever mechanism creates natural gas.

Back then there was so much natural gas that is was simply burned off to get rid of it, I don’t know but suspect there may be enough of it to where if it was all used it could reduce the demand for oil somewhat.

Natural gas electric generating plants are about as efficient as fossil fuel power generation gets and I believe is about as clean as it gets.

Posted
2 minutes ago, A64Pilot said:

I don’t know but suspect there may be enough of it to where if it was all used it could reduce the demand for oil somewhat.

And, it could destroy what remains of the ozone layer, and put a stop to all the whining.

  • Haha 1
Posted
10 hours ago, ragedracer1977 said:

It was good enough for science, and science is always settled! So…. 
 

 

0B32CA7E-9024-4A44-BE7C-18337135F691.jpeg

We had one of those in our back yard when I was a kid. It sure was convienient.

  • Like 1
Posted
2 hours ago, GeeBee said:

You are correct. Oil is being produced by the earth all the time. It is not dead dinosaurs. Just as diamonds are being produced all the time. Heat and pressure, same way you make any oil.

You are also correct it is biodegradable, not as fast as some things, but not slow either. You would be hard pressed to find remnants of many famous oil spills now.

Right after the Exxon Valdez incident, the news folks were sticking microphones in front of anyone.   One of the wildlife biologists responding said,  on live TV, that it wasn't that big a deal, that they had one almost as bad the next bay over a few years before, and you couldn't even tell.

Never saw him in TV again. :)

  • Like 3
  • Haha 1
Posted
2 hours ago, GeeBee said:

You are correct. Oil is being produced by the earth all the time. It is not dead dinosaurs. Just as diamonds are being produced all the time. Heat and pressure, same way you make any oil.

You are also correct it is biodegradable, not as fast as some things, but not slow either. You would be hard pressed to find remnants of many famous oil spills now.

Whew! Some good news on MS!

  • Haha 1

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.