Peak Oil - True or False

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" The arguments are so one-sided, it's practically a given that "peak oil" is real and threatening. Or is it? This article examines both sides. It lets readers decide and deals only with supply issues, not crucial environmental ones and the need to develop alternative energy sources."

www.globalresearch.ca...

Yeah, it sounds absurd to suppose that any substance available on this planet is actually finite.

It must be a conspiracy.

Originally posted by phoenixhasrisin
Yeah, it sounds absurd to suppose that any substance available on this planet is actually finite.

It must be a conspiracy.

So you think that oil exist on earth in an unlimited supply? Like we can burn 10 times the mass of the earth in oil and there will still be some?

Except for the few tons of meteorite that fall on earth every year, there are actually plenty of resources on a finite budget.

But stupidity is infinite, that is for sure.

it the government really cared about peak oil then they would be pushing the car co. to make electric cars...but they are not so my guess would b that it is an excuse for them to drain our wallets more than they do already

reply to post by JanusFIN

"The arguments are so one-sided, it's practically a given that "peak oil" is real and threatening. Or is it? This article examines both sides. It lets readers decide and deals only with supply issues, not crucial environmental ones and the need to develop alternative energy sources.

I believe in peak oil. I think it is accepted that the amount of recoverable crude oil is finite. We know it will be gone some day. A former petroleum engineer turned energy banker wrote a book in the 1990s advancing his theory of “Peak Oil.” Peak oil was his term for the half way point. The half way point is the time when production begins to go down. Assuming we are still on the uphill side of production - increasing - when will the world begin the downhill side? That as they say, is the 64,000 dollar question!

We’ll know when that happens - peak oil - because it’s when consumption exceeds production. From that day forward, it will be a seller’s market, even if you are thinking it already is. We’ll have to resort to rationing.

The theory of peak oil is premised on the US as a baseline. America has been more throughly explored than any other similarly sized area. Our ‘Lower 48' 3 million square miles has seen more than 400,000 wells drilled since that first one back in 1859 in PA by Col. Drake. Based on that, it is estimated that any other 3 million square miles will have about the same amount of crude oil as we had.

US production peaked at 3.51 billion barrels in 1970. In 1988 we fell below 3 billion barrels. In 2004, we slipped below 2 billion barrels for the first time since 1950. Domestic production in 2006 slipped to 5.1 million barrels per day (mpd). The US imported 6.3 mpd in 1980, 7.1 mpd in 1990, 10.4 mpd in 2000 and the last year for statistics, 2006, we imported 12.39 mpd. Our total consumption in 2006 was 12.36 + 5.1 = 17.46 mpd. We supply barely 30% of our daily petroleum consumption. For current and historic petroleum statistics go to tonto.eia.doe.gov... www.eia.doe.gov...

Energy independence? Who’s smoking dope? Who’s hallucinating? Not in our lifetimes. We are not even serious about that. Politicians think we are dumb enough to think they could do that. It is impossible! Ethanol not only contains FEWER btus than it takes to plant, grow, harvest, ship, process and add to gasoline, but in the Midwest it uses water from the world’s greatest aquifer. The Ogallala Aquifer. The water in it was put there after the last glaciation period, about 10,000 years ago. We are drawing it down about 10 times faster than nature can replace it. We are wasting billions of gallons of high quality water on ethanol. How dumb can we get? See Note 1.

Electric cars? Sure, we could, but we won’t until we are forced to. Hydrogen fuel cells? But right now that is severely limited in range and you have a humongous amount of heat generated and to carry enough hydrogen you’ll need a cryo-insulated tank running about 3000 psi. If you get smashed in the back end, you’re like a small atom bomb! Wind? Yes. I heard that North and South Dakota have enough reliable wind to make electricity for the entire US. Maybe a couple million windmills.

Bay of Fundy? Yes, a great containment basin there could provide a lot of electricity. Nuclear power? Yes, but it is still 2X the price of coal generated electricity. And if we boo-boo like we did at Three Mile Island, the damages could run to $2-3 T. Ask the survivors of Chernobyl. They still can’t go home. How much insurance does the Federal government require the industry to carry? $750 million. Not enough to pay for a good survey of the damage. So how pays? The long suffering taxpayers. Like we paid for the WTC event. Like we are paying for Katrina. And etc.


Note 1. The Ogallala Aquifer, also known as the High Plains Aquifer, is a vast yet shallow underground water table aquifer located beneath the Great Plains in the United States. One of the world's largest aquifers, it lies under about 174,000 sq mi in portions of the eight states of South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. It was named in 1899 by N.H. Darton from its type locality near the town of Ogallala, Nebraska. It waters one fifth of U.S. irrigated land.
en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 3/7/2008 by donwhite]

I have to disagree with the peak oil theory. I believe it is a natural part of the Earth.

Now, as far as extracting it is another story. I also believe we are running out of "easy oil", and will have to find more technological ways to extract it.

Nevertheless, I feel we should just do away with the "primitave" way of energy. It's dirty, smelly, and downright distusting. I still hate working on my vehicle, and comming out looking like a coal miner. With a little thought, and research, I'm sure we will find a better solution then the one we have, but I fel we will have to wait for a crises untill we get it.

We need a better solution, at any cost.

posted by Maligui
Nevertheless, I feel we should just do away with the "primitive" way of energy. It's dirty, smelly, and downright disgusting. I still hate working on my vehicle, and coming out looking like a coal miner. With a little thought, and research, I'm sure we will find a better solution then the one we have, but I feel we will have to wait for a crises until we get it. We need a better solution, at any cost.

Hmm? Before oil we used coal. Before coal we used wood. Before wood we did without. In the early 1900s, we had electric cars, steam cars and gasoline cars. In that era, we really did have a MARKET economy. And the market decided to go with gasoline despite the monopoly held by John D. Rockefeller. Even with unmitigated, unregulated, unconscionable price gouging, gasoline won out!

As a heat conversion device, and a easy way of applying that heat to produce a turning force, and that in turn, to spinning wheels, gasoline is par excellence and actually, non pareil! When I was a kid, flat head V8 Fords claimed 85 hp @ 3800 rpm, out of 3.6 liters whereas today, a 5 liter V8 Lexus claims to get 389 hp @ 6400 rpm. Both using gasoline. That’s why we are on petroleum and are going to stay there as long as we can afford it.

[edit on 3/8/2008 by donwhite]

It's been a while mister Don.

Originally posted by donwhite

Hmm? Before oil we used coal. Before coal we used wood. Before wood we did without. In the early 1900s, we had electric cars, steam cars and gasoline cars. In that era, we really did have a MARKET economy. And the market decided to go with gasoline despite the monopoly held by John D. Rockefeller. Even with unmitigated, unregulated, unconscionable price gouging, gasoline won out!

I must STRONGLY disagree. A bit more than a hundred years ago oil was in such abundance in the US ( essentially a waste product) that the Rockefeller's and others were doing their absolute best to find a way for the 'market' to employ it so that they may gain some extra income from it. Electric cars did not disappear from the market because there was in essence something wrong with them but because certain industrialist had far more to gain from creating a very very cheap alternative that they would otherwise have had to pay to get rid of! Supply , as in so many other instances, in large part determines demand.

As a heat conversion device, and a easy way of applying that heat to produce a turning force, and that in turn, to spinning wheels, gasoline is par excellence and actually, non pareil! When I was a kid, flat head V8 Fords claimed 85 hp @ 3800 rpm, out of 3.6 liters whereas today, a 5 liter V8 Lexus claims to get 389 hp @ 6400 rpm. Both using gasoline. That’s why we are on petroleum and are going to stay there as long as we can afford it.

Petroleum will stay far longer than we need it ( we could have done without from the start) and as long as it's rare enough for markets to be manipulated. Oil is not going to run out or for at least another fifty years and prices need not raise much beyond inflation given how cheap oil extraction still is in many parts of the world.

As to your previous post i can , and possibly will if time allows, with a few points but in essence i think you make the point that people are not getting what they want but doing their best to have fun while their at it.

Essentially my point boils down to the fact that if the Rockefeller's believed that they could control the international market in sunlight or wind they would have but since they are cruel and inhuman instead of stupid they stuck with the development of their very real control over substantial means of oil extraction.

Stellar

posted by StellarX
I must STRONGLY disagree. A bit more than a hundred years ago oil was in such abundance in the US (essentially a waste product) that the Rockefeller's and others were doing their absolute best to find a way for the 'market' to employ it so that they may gain some extra income from it.

Great to hear from you Stellar. As usual you bring “light” with you to the “scene of the crime,” but on monopolies, we differ.

Keep in mind that when the Standard Oil empire was busted into pieces under T. Roosevelt, they were broken into the following parts: 1) SOCONY Vacuum, Standard Oil of New York, marketing under the flying horse, Mobil, 2) ESSO, Standard Oil of New Jersey - the primary Rockefeller company - 3) SOKY, Standard Oil of Kentucky, 4) Standard Oil of Indiana, which marketed through its subsidiary, American Oil Company, Amoco. 5) SOHIO, Standard Oil of Ohio, marketing as Boron, 6) SOCAL, Standard Oil of California, which marketed through Union Oil Company. Union 76. (At first the number alluded to octane, as in Phillips 66 and for a short time, Phillips 77).

Around the Pacific rim, a jointly owned company with The Texas Company, which marketed as Texaco, was associated with SOCAL, to form CAL-TEX.

Standard Oil of New Jersey (now ExxonMobil the re-combined NJ and NY companies) is the arm of Rockefeller which operates then and now in Venezuela. You may argue Rockefeller did not have a monopoly but your argument is not convincing. By the bye, he, John D., and Henry Flagler, his partner, OWNED Florida in the first 2-3 decades of the 20th century. And I guess their heirs still do?

PS. Actually, Rockefeller‘s petroleum was first used as kerosene - a cheap (relatively) and plentiful replacement for expensive and in short supply whale oil, as a source of lighting.

[edit on 3/9/2008 by donwhite]

Originally posted by donwhite
Great to hear from you Stellar. As usual you bring “light” with you to the “scene of the crime,” but on monopolies, we differ.

As far as i know no crimes have been committed around here.

You may argue Rockefeller did not have a monopoly but your argument is not convincing. By the bye, he, John D., and Henry Flagler, his partner, OWNED Florida in the first 2-3 decades of the 20th century. And I guess their heirs still do?

I am arguing that they did have a monopoly and employed it to create a market that really did, and possibly never would have, existed if not for their intervention. Not that i think oil is bad but just that it's monopoly has been so complete and it's advocates so violent in their application of it that everything else has been prevented from gaining the publicity that would have allowed the public the make proper long term decisions.

PS. Actually, Rockefeller‘s petroleum was first used as kerosene - a cheap (relatively) and plentiful replacement for expensive and in short supply whale oil, as a source of lighting.

Exactly! It's good that we aren't really disagreeing .

Stellar

posted by StellarX
I am arguing that they did have a monopoly and employed it to create a market that really did, and possibly never would have, existed if not for their intervention.

Like so many things in human experience, how you see it depends as much on your perspective as it does on the reality. I do not believe any monopoly “creates” a market. In fact, I’d argue that unlike the chicken and egg conundrum, a market is a priori to a monopoly. Monopolies stifle markets forces.

Q. Are we talking about the same thing?

Not that I think oil is bad but just that it's monopoly has been so complete and it's advocates so violent in their application of it that everything else has been prevented from gaining the publicity that would have allowed the public the make proper long term decisions.

I just watched the PBS movie, Who Killed the Electric Car. In the end, the producer blamed everyone but the battery supplier. I OTOH, after watching the movie, blamed NO ONE. The electric car is too much inferior to the gasoline car to gain acceptance on a competitive basis. If the US Govt. raised the CAFÉ to 100 mpg by 2020, then electric cars might have a life, albeit limited to the major metropolitan areas.

There never will be any substitute for the gasoline power internal combustion engine for economy and versatility. It’s replacement will only happen when the laws are changed against it. Sorry about that.

I watch that documentary about the electric car recently and was also impressed overall. It left many questions unanswered of course but it did provide some good info.

I'm not sure how there is even a debate about peak oil. Oil is a finite resource and at some point we will reach the peak of production. I believe it has already happened.

posted by dascro62
I watch that documentary about the electric car recently and was also impressed overall. It left many questions unanswered of course but it did provide some good info. I'm not sure how there is even a debate about peak oil. Oil is a finite resource and at some point we will reach the peak of production. I believe it has already happened.

The problem with electric cars is that so far, we have no good and cheap way to store electricity other than in batteries. [The hydrogen powered fuel cell offers to store power but it is very costly and highly dangerous.] The GM Electric Car first relied on lead acid batteries. The independent battery supplier featured in the film asserted lead acid batteries for that application were “nearly worthless.” Instead he proposed adopting the then new battery technology of Nickel Metal Hydride. Usually abbreviated NiMH.

Admittedly cheap and widely available lead acid batteries are both slow to recharge and can be easily overcharged thereby rendering it useless. This is not the case with NiMH batteries which can be quickly recharged and resist overcharging very well. GM chose the lead acid batteries due to lower cost and not for superior performance. The NiMH battery costs 5 to 10 times as much as equivalent lead acid batteries. That would have doubled or tripled the final cost of the car to retail buyers making it all the more problematical to sell.

The peak oil theory is named after American geophysicist M. King Hubbert. "Hubbert's peak." In 1956, Hubbert predicted that production of oil from conventional sources would peak in the continental United States around 1965-1970 (actual peak was 1970). Hubbert further predicted a worldwide peak at "about half a century" from publication, around 2006.

In 1973, Hubbert noted that the actions of OPEC might flatten the global production curve but this would only delay the peak for perhaps 10 years. Now out to 2016. Generally the only reliable way to identify the timing of any production peak, including the global peak, is in retrospect.

United States oil production peaked in 1970, and this provides the greatest evidence to support the theory. en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 3/10/2008 by donwhite]

Yeah I agree with that. The cars just were not ready for the public. The flimmaker certainly put his spin on it though. I have read of a type of batteries that are being developed using nanotechnology to overcome some of the challenges conventional batteries face. Maybe they will get the first viable electric cars on the road.

Take a look at their website. I believe they are working with a company called phoenix motorcars(www.phoenixmotorcars.com...)

www.altairnano.com...

[edit on 10-3-2008 by dascro62]

reply to post by dascro62

Take a look at their website. I believe they are working with a company called phoenix motorcars

TWO great websites! Thanks for the links. The very beautiful Phoenix SUT. Downside: Curb Vehicle Weight 4,820 lbs. Carrying capacity, 1000 lbs. That's a lot of pounds to pull around. We need more aluminum-titanium chassis and carbon fiber bodies. But it will come.

By bypassing the graphite design, Altair also avoids dangerous overheating - or thermal runaway - that can plague large lithium ion batteries. Thermal runaway became a buzzword in 2006 when a Dell laptop computer caught fire spontaneously in a Japanese office, an event captured on videotape and instantly shared via YouTube. [That instant publicity kept Dell honest! Believe me, with no picture, the DENIALS would have flowed like milk and honey!]

Gotcher says his nano-titanate battery lasts for 20,000 full recharge cycles. That's about 20 years, four times the life span of a comparable NiMH or lithium ion battery. Altair assembles 35-kilowatt batteries for the likes of Phoenix Motorcars at its factory in Anderson, Ind. [An old GM Delco-Remy plant.] Phoenix recharges its electric truck battery in 10 minutes with a 440-volt charger - four times the amount of energy in a home wall socket.

Without such infrastructure, going green will certainly take more time. “Five-hour charges would be the fastest possible for residential drivers,” admits Bryon Bliss of Phoenix Motorcars. www.forbes.com...

Man, those 2 vehicles, the Phoenix SUV and the SUT, are beautiful! They do remind me of the ‘08 Honda. My family drives an ‘07 CR-V with 4WD. It cost $26,000 tax included. I wonder what the Phoenix vehicles will sell for? The range quoted by Phoenix is 100 miles. As more high volts re-charging stations become available - the 10 minute charge - the vehicle will go further and further from home.

I’d like to see Congress give $10,000 tax rebate to anyone who takes an oath to use one of those vehicles as his or her primary in-town vehicle. That would help get them started. Businesses may already have a give-back from the Govt.

[edit on 3/10/2008 by donwhite]

I thought it was a great link too.

As for cost. i read earlier that they are around 30K. this is mostly due to government subsidies. I am usually against the government getting involved but if they can help long enough to let the economy of scale take over and lower the costs then I'm all for it.

posted by dascro62
i read earlier that they are around 30K. this is mostly due to government subsidies.

I don’t oppose subsidies openly arrived at, honestly administered for purposes we can agree on. I do oppose subsidies like we have given to Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) for more than 20 years, to take good corn and soy beans that could go to feed the starving millions in Africa and instead convert it into ethanol which contains less heat than it takes to make. I oppose paying 50% of the cost of building a ship IF the owner will pledge to make it available during war. And etc.

Originally posted by donwhite
Like so many things in human experience, how you see it depends as much on your perspective as it does on the reality.

How you see it most certainly depends on your perspective but can we agree that such as thing as a objective reality can in many instances be determined?

I do not believe any monopoly “creates” a market. In fact, I’d argue that unlike the chicken and egg conundrum, a market is a priori to a monopoly.

So if Monsanto and the few remaining western grain and seed distributors decided that they want to reduce the number of species involved what do you think farmers will be forced to do? In fact will it then be your argument that the modern consumer is in fact getting what he wants? Was there a market for oil before the Rockefeller's managed to gain significant market share? You know that in at least a few critical instances monopolies DO determine what the market will look like!

Monopolies stifle markets forces.

So the intent of global capital and business mergers is to destroy the globak market for almost everything? I am not following your logic here!

Q. Are we talking about the same thing?

Hopefully not!

I just watched the PBS movie, Who Killed the Electric Car. In the end, the producer blamed everyone but the battery supplier.

And rightfully so considering the ends GM went to recently to make sure that the EV-1 went exactly NOWHERE.

Despite the demand, the EV-1 could only be leased, not purchased, and was available only for six-month terms before the lease had to be renewed. The first prototypes had a range of 100 kilometres without recharging, but new technology added a further 50 per cent to this. This covered 90 per cent of the trips made on a daily basis by Californian vehicles, and it’s been estimated that the latest advances in battery life would have extended this even further to more than 300 kilometres.

The regulation was removed on 24 April 2003, when CARB, under a new Chair, reversed their decision.

Although demand for these vehicles continued growing expeditiously, General Motors not only withdrew them all from their distraught owners, but had them crushed and minced into metal confetti to prevent their ever reaching the marketplace again.

www.goldcoast.qld.gov.au...

The blog post refers to a number of statistics, purporting to show a lack of demand for the EV1. The "biggie" is that only 800 vehicles were leased during a four-year period (late 1996 to late 2000); if that's all the lessees GM could find, then clearly that's inadequate demand to build a market, as they claim. However, that four-year period only includes two actual model-years of vehicles, 1997 and 1999; between these was a long period of zero availability, after the 1997s were gone and before the 1999s were finally released (near the end of calendar 1999 due to some engineering tweaks, a year after every other 1999 model!). Moreover, every new vehicle that was made available for lease was leased; that is, the fact that only that many EV1s were leased was a result of GM's decision not to make any more to meet additional demand, but it is (and long has been) misrepresented as a reason that they decided not to make any more. Actually, there were about 1100 EV1s made; the other 300 included in-house demonstrators and testbeds, test-drive cars for EV1 specialists, and a substantial number that went to utility-company lease programs in Florida and Georgia, so the figure of 800 includes only "regular" leases in California and Arizona. But some commentators have taken the difference between 1100 and the quoted four-year total of 800 to mean that 300 EV1s sat on lots going begging! Nothing could be further from the truth, but GM is clearly encouraging that impression.

In addition, the writer of the blog post has been quoted elsewhere as saying that the EV1 production lines never ran above 8% of capacity, again implying that they could have ramped up production if there had been more demand. Of course, this is also consistent with the conclusion that they could have ramped up production if there had been the will to meet unmet demand; the fact that GM didn't have those supposed 300 "leftovers" sitting on the lot looking for lessees argues that the latter is a more accurate statement. And this statistic, baldly stated, appears to imply that GM expected to lease (and thus intended to lease) twelve times as many cars as they did, having designed the production lines for that capacity; however, the production line was designed to build EV1s in batches of 500 or so, and then to be disassembled and put in storage until a decision was made to build another 500. (There was a GM/UAW display on this at either an auto show or an EV1 event that I attended in 1996 or 1997; sorry, I don't have photos to jog my memory for the details.) Thus, the low "duty cycle" of the production lines simply means they ran exactly as designed; it says nothing about whether GM leased as many cars as they could (GM's implication), or only as many as they were willing to build.

www.altfuels.org...

An independent study commissioned by the California Electric Transportation Coalition (CalETC) and conducted by the Green Car Institute and the Dohring Company automotive market research firm found very different results. The "study the auto industry didn't want to see....used the same research methodologies employed by the auto industry to identify markets for its gasoline vehicles" [Moore 2000]. It found the annual consumer market for EVs to be 12-18% of the new light-duty vehicle market in California, amounting to annual sales of 151,200 to 226,800 electric vehicles [Green Car Institute, 2000], approximately ten times the quantity specified by CARB's mandate [Moore 2000]. The results of the Toyota-GM survey are also called into question by the success of Toyota's RAV4-EV, which has waiting lists of buyers at over $30,000.

cleanup-gm.com...

I OTOH, after watching the movie, blamed NO ONE.

And that a disconcerting statement....

The electric car is too much inferior to the gasoline car to gain acceptance on a competitive basis. If the US Govt. raised the CAFÉ to 100 mpg by 2020, then electric cars might have a life, albeit limited to the major metropolitan areas.

WHY ISN'T THE EV1 AVAILABLE NATIONWIDE?

Electric vehicle technology is rapidly emerging and because of urgent air quality problems in California and Arizona, GM has limited the EV1's initial availability to those states. As manufacturing capacity increases and electric vehicles become cheaper to produce, they will hopefully be more widely available. GM is learning a lot about how to market an electric car along as well as dealing with the complexities of setting up charging infrastructure in California and Arizona. One other issue affecting first generation EV1's is the lead-acid battery pack which is less efficient in cold winter climates, making them more ideal for California's warmer weather. The generation 2 (1999) EV1's will be equipped with either Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) batteries developed by GM Ovonic Battery Corp., or a new type of higher capacity lead acid batteries. NiMH batteries are not at all affected by cold weather, making them ideal for a wider range of climates in addition to offering double the range of the Generation 1 lead-acid batteries. The new lead acid batteries have better charging characteristics in hot weather, and are able to be retrofitted into Gen 1 EV1's. They offer a substantial range increase over the original Delco "Delphi" lead acid batteries that were installed in Gen 1 EV1's. NiMH batteries require special cooling which will prevent them from being installed into Generation 1 EV1's.

www.kingoftheroad.net...

This is to be compared with 37 miles per charge that I got with the lead-acid EV1; of course, the weather was in the 40's and low 50's Fahrenheit in December compared to the 70's this month, which also affected the lead-acid battery pack more severely than it would a NiMH pack. Early reports from people with NiMH EV1's, even in the cold weather, are that it is good for 120 to 160 miles per charge around town! Given that GM is charging less than 20% extra for the NiMH option in the 1999 EV1 lease, I have to wonder if anybody is going to go for the (improved) lead-acid variant

www.altfuels.org...

Continued

ex]Electric car enthusiasts scoff at the affordability arguments. They point out that at the same time the EV1 was dropped, GM was busy promoting the most expensive and biggest gas guzzler of them all - the Hummer.

DAVE BARTHMUSS: I know that there are charges that we killed the electric vehicle program in order to create the Hummer, or be able to afford and pursue the Hummer program. Again, there is no conspiracy to cut off the electric vehicle because we wanted to pursue heavier and larger vehicles. People did not demand the EV1 from GM in large enough numbers, for us to pursue it.

CHRIS PAYNE: The Hummer was the ultimate SUV. And in fact, when it came out, you could get up to a $100,000 tax deduction if you were a small business owner for owning one. So the government gave a message to the people. The message was - buy these huge monstrosities. Meanwhile, the electric car, when they were on the road, the maximum tax credit you could get was $4,000. So this is how government shapes the future, and unfortunately the American Government was pushing Hummers and no wonder in some ways the car companies walked away from the EVs and concentrated on these Hummers.

news.sbs.com.au...

And yes, i do have a doc file with clippings, on a few hundred issues, for just these situations....

There never will be any substitute for the gasoline power internal combustion engine for economy and versatility. It’s replacement will only happen when the laws are changed against it. Sorry about that.

I can easily agree that the current combustion engines are pretty good and versatile but where would we have been without the monopolistic machinations more than a hundred years ago that prevent similar resource investment in the development of electric cars?

At the same time, some car makers are taking a fresh look at internal-combustion engines, and finding that there's still a lot of room for improvement after a century's worth of tinkering. Honda CEO Takeo Fukui said last year that even the best internal-combustion engines still waste more than 80% of the energy created by burning gasoline. Harnessing more of that energy could yield vehicles that get substantially better fuel economy than the current U.S. average of about 20.8 miles per gallon.

wsjclassroomedition.com...

So my question is this. If after a century of tinkering they are still wasting that much energy ( and thus selling more oil) what do you think they will do to battery technology to keep their market share and prevent oil from keeping it's preeminent place?

See where i am coming from?

Stellar

posted by StellarX
Was there a market for oil before the Rockefeller's managed to gain significant market share?

Absolutely! I heard today on a History Channel story about ocean going tankers that by 1861 - oil discovered at Titusville PA in 1859 - we were shipping 3 million barrels of oil (42 gallons each) a year to Europe. From the clip below you will note the Standard Oil Company was founded in 1870. I do not know how long it was before he FORCED his competitors out of business, but by the 1890s Teddy Roosevelt was about to become the TRUST Buster! See Note 1.

I can easily agree that the current combustion engines are pretty good and versatile but where would we have been without the monopolistic machinations more than a hundred years ago that prevent similar resource investment in the development of electric cars?

1) You and I do not see “monopolistic” the same way. I see a monopoly when a very few people (or companies) gain full or nearly full control over an enterprise, or a segment of an economy. From my perspective, there can be NO monopoly UNTIL there is a market. Something to monopolize. I don’t know whether the chicken or the egg came first but I am confident that a market existed before a monopoly came to be. John D. Rockefeller was ruthless in establishing his oil monopoly. It was even rumored that some of his competitors “died suddenly.” Rockefeller had nothing direct to do with Henry Ford who is generally credited with introducing the assembly line into auto manufacturing so Henry did more than John to create the MARKET.

At the same time, some car makers are taking a fresh look at internal-combustion engines, and finding that there's still a lot of room for improvement after a century's worth of tinkering. Honda CEO Takeo Fukui said last year that even the best internal-combustion engines still waste more than 80% of the energy created by burning gasoline. Harnessing more of that energy could yield vehicles that get substantially better fuel economy than the current U.S. average of about 20.8 miles per gallon. wsjclassroomedition.com...

So my question is this. If after a century of tinkering they are still wasting that much energy (and thus selling more oil) what do you think they will do to battery technology to keep their market share and prevent oil from keeping it's preeminent place?

2) I have no reason to quarrel with Mr Fukui's “80%” figure although I’m sure some engines are more efficient than others. The round number "80%" sounds more like a ball-park number than an exact number. Meaning a LOT.

All my young life I heard that gasoline internal combustion engines were 75% efficient. One-fourth of the energy in gasoline was applied to turning the wheels, half went out the exhaust pipe and most of the remaining heat went out through the radiator or was radiated from the heated engine itself. Without knowing I’d guess the problem working against raising efficiency is heat.

You can only run steel or aluminum so hot. Exhaust valves are the parts of the engine most exposed to high heat. How can you cool exhaust valves? By designing the valve seat, and by filling the stem with sodium which carries away heat better than steel. Commonly used aluminum pistons will melt if you muck up the fuel air mixture. Too much air and its all over


Note 1. John Davison Rockefeller, Sr. (July 8, 1839 –May 23, 1937) was an American industrialist and philanthropist. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of modern philanthropy. In 1870, Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company and ran it until he retired in the late 1890s. Standard Oil began as an Ohio partnership formed by John D. Rockefeller, his brother William Rockefeller, Henry Flagler, chemist Samuel Andrews, and a silent partner Stephen V. Harkness. Rockefeller kept his stock and as gasoline grew in importance, his wealth soared and he became the world's richest man and first U.S. dollar billionaire, and is often regarded as the richest person in history
en.wikipedia.org...

[edit on 3/10/2008 by donwhite]