patrick.net

Germany is now facing billions upon billions to remove those ineffective Windmills they built. The Carbon Fiber blades can't be incinerated and are incredibly toxic and carcinogenic, will have to be broken up in an energy-intensive, expensive process.

Without massive subsidies and tax breaks, they are completely infeasible. The Germans had their electric bills double for nothing; and heavy industry was almost wholly exempt from the renewable program (or the charges would have made them, again, utterly uncompetitive due to massive electric costs way in excess of their competition).

MisterLearnToCode says

Germany is now facing billions upon billions to remove those ineffective Windmills they built.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/wind-energy-is-one-of-the-cheapest-sources-of-electricity-and-its-getting-cheaper/
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released the latest iteration of its annual Wind Technologies Market Report, which pulls together a wealth of data to track trends in the cost, performance, and growth of wind energy.

The report found that U.S. wind energy will continue to be one of the lowest cost electricity generation technologies available, with the long-term wind electricity price available through a power purchase agreement coming in at about half the expected cost of just running a natural gas power plant.

Furthermore, stiff competition from both natural gas and solar energy are poised to push the wind industry to achieve even lower prices and higher performance through the development of bigger turbines tailored to maximize their output even in regions with less than optimal wind speeds.

MisterLearnToCode says

Without massive subsidies and tax breaks, they are completely infeasible.

Except the early investments mean prices are collapsing.

Heraclitusstudent says

By mid-century, conservatives will thank the Global Warming alarmists for pushing renewable energies adoption so hard.

Global Warning alarmists are not pushing renewables, they are pushing "vote Democrat." No matter though, solar and wind are on their way here as a matter of technology and economics. Solar farms are being build right now at several locations in VA, and I am sure other places as well.

Heraclitusstudent says

Except the early investments mean prices are collapsing.

Not sure what you mean. The electric generators in Windmills don't have an infinite lifespan.Germany is way behind targets, and it's last nuclear plants shut down in 2022. Poland, Netherlands, Czech Republic, and France have threatened to regulate in the EU if the Germans don't stop their load shedding which is causing expensive repairs to electric infrastructure in Europe.

Coal, coal, coal!

Heraclitusstudent says

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released the latest iteration of its annual Wind Technologies Market Report, which pulls together a wealth of data to track trends in the cost, performance, and growth of wind energy.

Nobody wants windmills blowing cancer on them.

Ppl. I suspect that by the next century, we'll have highly efficient solar stations in space, able to harness the sun's energy and microwave it back to earth, supplying virtually unlimited power. As one can guess, there are no clouds in the magnetosphere.

And then, we can focus on recycling our spent uranium, and making our nuclear waste a fraction of what it is today.

Instead of the above, we're bickering about phantom peak oil & other whoa-is-me scenarios.

Rin says

Ppl. I suspect that by the next century, we'll have highly efficient solar stations in space, able to harness the sun's energy and microwave it back to earth, supplying virtually unlimited power. As one can guess, there are no clouds in the magnetosphere.

Why no dream bigger?

Harness power directly from the magnetosphere or even pull the electromagnetic energy that is naturally around us, without magnets or generators?

If wireless electricity is a thing. Then think we could wirelessly generate electricity without a generator.

But that wont solve our plastics, lubrications and composite needs. We will still need to refine just as much Oil as we do today, just to keep up with the essential Oil by Products demand.

In the meantime that nasty waste product that new technology will replace will just stockpile. What do you suppose we should do with billions of gallons of Petrol Gasoline a year. Dump it in the Ocean, Burn it or dump it in the ground?

MisterLearnToCode says

Not sure what you mean.

I mean this: people who bought renewable energy early paid very expensive prices for crappy stuff. Early Teslas or solar panels were hugely expensive.

But it is thanks to these early investments that technology evolved and that the prices are in the process of collapsing, thereby driving more spending, more investments, more research, and so cheaper and more efficient gear.

Tenpoundbass says

But that wont solve our plastics, lubrications and composite needs. We will still need to refine just as much Oil as we do today, just to keep up with the essential Oil by Products demand.

With nearly unlimited power from the sun, either through your ideas or my simpler solar satellite/microwave model, being able to change petroleum by-products into their base elements, will not be a problem assuming that someone still knows some applied chemistry in the future.

The process chemical industry of today, relies upon catalytic processes, with no ability to push reactants beyond obvious reaction pathways which is both economical and feasible from a design p.o.v for bulk processing. This can easily change if a microwave collector is nearby and extra energy can to used to convert all the intermediaries and by-products.

Proven oil reserves keep going up and not down.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Proven-Oil-Reserves-Will-Continue-To-Increase-With-Time.html

Tenpoundbass says

"You know if people don't buy gas, they can't keep refining Oil. Because they'll run out of storage for the refined Petrol, and you can't just burn it!"

So true! There are several other products beyond gasoline and diesel from refining. Plastics, fertilizer etc... I've been wondering what happens if/when electric vehicles really takes off.

kt1652 says

It took millions of years to create fossil fuel and at this rate we may have a few more HUNDREDs of years left of the stuff in the ground.

"Fossil fuel" is a misnomer. Carbonaceous fuel is abundant in this part of the universe, including many other planets and astroids that have no evidence of ever having life (or even possibility of having life due to exposure to space radiation). More carbonaceous fuel is created every day below the earth's crust due to heat generated by radioactive decays of Uranium and Thorium, as well as tidal forces on the crust and magma due to the moon. Water and calcium carbonate (lime stones) subduct into earth's crust and under high pressure and high temperature turn into carbonaceous fuel (starting as methane, then due to bacterial action feeding off some of the C-H bond turning methane (CH4) into ethane (C2H6) then further elongate the carbon chain as hydrogen atoms get stripped away . . . by the time the carbon chain is 6-carbon in length or longer, we have oil instead of natural gas. When all the hydrogen atoms are stripped away by bacterial, we end up having coal. That's why all the big continental natural gas fields found in the US in the past couple decades are below previously known coal-rich areas and oil-producing areas.

I am with you more than you realize, civilization has 100 or at most 200 years left before environmental annihilation.

I suppose, radioactive fallout from a global thermonuclear war can be described as an environmental problem . . . a little like calling being shot by a bullet as a form of "fast acting lead poisoning."

I'm in violent agreement with you, I think.

Water and calcium carbonate (lime stones) subduct into earth's crust and under high pressure and high temperature turn into carbonaceous fuel

Do not forget that limestone is the mass of old sea shells, biologically produced from carbon originally in the atmosphere.

Carbonaceous fuel is abundant in this part of the universe, including many other planets

Gas planets have methane, but moon and rocky planets have more than trace carbon?

Patrick says

Proven oil reserves keep going up and not down

It takes more energy to extract newly discovered oil reserves. In Saudi Barbaria, you can stick a pipe down the sand and it will gush oil. If oil in under 10000 ft of water and 3000 ft of rock, it is much more difficult to get it.

Tenpoundbass says

In the meantime that nasty waste product that new technology will replace will just stockpile. What do you suppose we should do with billions of gallons of Petrol Gasoline a year. Dump it in the Ocean, Burn it or dump it in the ground?

The current oil refineries use a process that maximizes production of gasoline. It is not too difficult to change process to produce ethylene, propylene, etc for plastics. This is not an issue.
MisterLearnToCode says

The Carbon Fiber blades can't be incinerated and are incredibly toxic and carcinogenic

The carbon fiber itself is not toxic. This is outside my field, but I recall that particles from carbon fibers are really bad from lungs, causing cancer (that is, breaking up these blades may be dangerous for health). Otherwise one can lick carbon fiber blades all day without any toxic effects. I also recall reading that wind is the only renewable (other than hydro) which makes economic sense - but just like hydro, it has its problems - kills birds, is a massive eyesore, etc.

just_dregalicious says

So true! There are several other products beyond gasoline and diesel from refining. Plastics, fertilizer etc... I've been wondering what happens if/when electric vehicles really takes off.

Oil refinement was before the Gasoline Automobile, JD Rockefeller went to Henry Ford and told him he had a dilemma. He has a volatile waste byproduct from refining Oil and needed to get rid of it. He asked Henry if he would develop an engine that could run on Gasoline rather than Steam, and the rest was History.

That genie can not go back in the bottle.

I don't take anyone serious when bitching about Fossil fuels, and believes that alternate energy will replace Petrol products. If they at least don't acknowledge the paradox Oil is the Manna, Lifeblood, the Pollen, the Nectar that fuels and feed modern civilization. Take that away we'll be battery operated Cavemen.
Until we run out of rare earth minerals and can't get more because the Diesel powered excavation equipment will lie idle and defunct.

I plan to just hook up a Mr. Fusion reactor in my yard, maybe in a small closet. It should power everything just fine for the next thousand years on a cup of water.

Gas planets have methane, but moon and rocky planets have more than trace carbon?

The Moon and Mercury have too little mass to retain any atmosphere.

Venus has an atmosphere that is mostly CO2, IMHO, likely due to solar wind (ion blasts) breaking up water molecules and CH4 in the upper atmosphere (the same thing happens in the upper atmosphere of earth), and the planet not having enough gravity to retain the resulting H2 . . . leaving behind CO2.

Mars is recently discovered to have methane out-gassing.

IMHO, all the planets (and the sun) are likely to have been made of similar star dust in this region of the universe. The size (mass) decides what can be retained and what is lost over time after the 3D layer cakes emerge. The lighter bodies (and closer to the Sun therefore receiving more ionic blast from the Sun and shorter orbital circumference to sweep) simply don't have enough mass to aggregate hydrogen (some so light that they can't retain any gas at all, so no atmosphere at all, eventually will fall into the bigger bodies nearby; the moon is already tidal locked and will eventually fall into earth just like every man-made satellite eventually does); the heavier ones can aggregate hydrogen so have an atmosphere much more voluminous than that of the earth (we call them gas-giants because we are the idiots looking from the outside and only seeing the thick layer of atmosphere of those planets), then the really heavy one(s) generate enough pressure in its core (due to gravity) to ignite nuclear fusion of the hydrogen (i.e. the Sun). Carbon and life just happen to be byproducts and passengers in those nova and super-nova cycles.

About what I've said about oil being replenished in real time, at the bottom of the Ocean. It's actually happening even faster than I suspected.

https://www.breitbart.com/news/oil-eating-bacteria-found-at-the-bottom-of-the-ocean/

The bacteria are likely deriving a significant portion of their food from pollution that sinks from the ocean surface. But scientists also found evidence that some of the hydrocarbons are sourced from below.

“To our surprise, we also identified biologically produced hydrocarbons in the ocean sediment at the bottom of the trench,” said UEA researcher Nikolai Pedentchouk. “This suggests that a unique microbial population is producing hydrocarbons in this environment.”

In addition to providing sustenance, researchers suspect the hydrocarbons help microbes survive the crushing pressures of extreme ocean depths.

Tenpoundbass says

About what I've said about oil being replenished in real time, at the bottom of the Ocean. It's actually happening even faster than I suspected.

These eat hydrocarbons to make other hydrocarbons. Not the way how oil was produced in first place.

d6rB says

These eat hydrocarbons to make other hydrocarbons. Not the way how oil was produced in first place.

No but the basic elements are already there along with the hydrogen and carbon needed to produce crude.

The truth is Oil is being renewed faster than we're being led to believe. Oil fields in Texas that were dried up by the 50's were back on line just 50 years later.

Tenpoundbass says

No but the basic elements are already there along with the hydrogen and carbon needed to produce crude.

The truth is Oil is being renewed faster than we're being led to believe. Oil fields in Texas that were dried up by the 50's were back on line just 50 years later.

Nope, in TX they just have better technologies so they can extract what they left in ground 50 yrs ago. This is related to my job to some extent as most my students work for Big Oil. Don't believe everything Breitbart tells you - they are just as incompetent in science and technology as liberal websites, just less annoying :)

Patrick says

Proven oil reserves keep going up and not down.

The investment bank Simmonds and Company explains it this way: "Despite an oil-field technology revolution, estimating reserves is still akin to actuarial estimates of [the] remaining years in a human life -- a scientific guess."

In any event, in oilman's language the term "proven reserves" has a somewhat elastic meaning. Under the scale known as OOIP -- original oil in place -- proven reserves are those estimates with a 90 percent probability of being correct. And this category only applies to oil fields that are already producing.

The next category below that are estimates with an 80 percent probability of being correct, in cases where the field is known but not yet developed. And so on, downward, to the high-risk estimates that give only a 20 percent probability of being correct.

And difficulties of geology apart, politics can enter into the equation, too. Governments can unwittingly or knowingly exaggerate the extent of their resources. The bigger the resources, the more clout the nation has in the world, and the greater the chance of attracting investment. Take Mexico as an example.

"For many years its reserves were reported as being 50 to 60 billion barrels, and then they had auditors and others from outside, and they reduced that to 20 to 30 billion," Takin says. "And then, in order to attract investment they had to go to an even more restricted and definitive evaluation of reserves, [namely the standard] according to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission."

The result was that Mexico's reserves were in the end estimated at below 20 billion barrels -- only one-third of the Mexican government's original evaluation.

http://www.payvand.com/news/08/oct/1171.html

Take into account when reading sources such as "oilprice.com" in the last two weeks it has been reported the largest oil field in Saudi Arabia is being depleted faster than first thought, another report the Saudis have more oil than ever, shortage of natural gas on Monday - surplus on Friday, same for any other commodity. API (American Petroleum Institute) is no angel and it would behoove one to read the book shown in the image below.



As per the comments from southern Florida refiners can determine what they want to make - jet fuel, gasoline, etc. and no the oil is not magically replenishing itself 50 years or less which was noted by d6rB

Old oil and gas fields do get refilled quite frequently. Liquid and gaseous hydrocarbon have lower density than rocks, so they get pushed up due to displacement; it's the same reason why we get out-gassing of methane on Mars, volcano eruptions on earth (due to methane ejection, melted rocks / lava wouldn't explode upward by themselves as they are liquids and solids, not compressible like gas such as methane), methane ice crystals at the bottom of the ocean (accummulated out-gassing from ocean floor) and sometimes massive methane bubbles in the sea that sink ships, as well as the oozing out of petroleum in Pennsylvania and Texas. In parts of Pennsylvania and upstate NY, it was well known that water from private water wells filling the bathtub could often lead to lighting a fire on top of the water due to the dissolved methane coming out of the water as the water temperature rises in the tub (compared to temperature under ground in the water well), long before the shale drilling technology.

The reason why "petroleum reserve" has always been about 30 years since petroleum found industrial use in the 19th century (instead of being pollutant ruining good farm land as they oozed out of ground on their own), is because finding cheap tapping point costs money (capital intensive in the initial geological searching/prospecting process; you wouldn't want to sink millions of dollars into the ground only to find someone else can drill nearby for less than you do and then sell oil/gas cheaper than you can). So when there is about 30yrs of worth of finds waiting to be tapped, the industry slows down / cancels the search/prospecting prrograms. That's why oil drilling / finding equipment companies like Schlumberger are highly cyclical. Due to the refilling process mentioned above, an existing well often produce more than initially estimated volume, so eventually leading to oil price depression, further depressing investment in prospecting . . . which after a few years of course leads to higher prices due to dwindling "reserves." Then as oil prices go up on rumors of "running out of oil!" more money is put into oil prospecting and drilling of new wells. The cycle starts again.

The overall situation is a little like "housing shortage": not because of the world running out of houses or "Peak Houses," but because empty houses unused for long would deteriorate (and builder wouldn't be able to pay interest and tax on empty houses) so houses are only built when there is (expected) sustainable market demand. All the regulations only make the suppliers all the more cautious and less competitive with each other when it comes to new builds.