The Myth of Alternative Energy

[Anonymous No.4586741]

All alternative forms of energy are so dependent on the very petroleum that they are intended to replace that the use of them is largely self-defeating and irrational. Alternative sources ultimately don’t have enough “bang” to replace 30 billion annual barrels of oil — or even to replace more than the tiniest fraction of that amount.
Petroleum is required to extract, process, and transport almost any other form of energy; a coal mine is not operated by coal-powered equipment. It takes “oil energy” to make “alternative energy.”
The use of unconventional oil (shale deposits, tar sands, heavy oil) poses several problems besides that of net energy. Large quantities of conventional oil are needed to process the oil from these unconventional sources, so net energy recovery is low. The pollution problems are considerable, and it is not certain how much environmental damage the human race is willing to endure. Even if these problems could be solved, the human population will continue to increase, and developing nations will be trying to industrialize. With unconventional oil we are, quite literally, scraping the bottom of the barrel.

[Anonymous No.4586743]

More-exotic forms of alternative energy are plagued with even greater problems. Fuel cells cannot be made practical, because such devices require hydrogen derived from fossil fuels (coal or natural gas), if we exclude designs that will never escape the realm of science fiction; if fuel cells ever became popular, the fossil fuels they require would then be consumed even faster than they are now. Biomass energy (perhaps from wood, animal dung, peat, corn, or switch grass) requires impossibly large amounts of land and still results in insufficient quantities of net energy, sometimes even negative quantities. Hydroelectric dams are reaching their practical limits. Wind and geothermal power are only effective in certain areas and for certain purposes. Nuclear power will soon be suffering from a lack of fuel and is already creating serious environmental dangers.

[Anonymous No.4586759]

>>4586743
>nuclear power
>environmental dangers
lol.

[Anonymous No.4586762]

>>4586759

0/10

[valjean !!4SOyPF0IuOv No.4586770]

Obvious facts are obvious. But we can't pretend that oil will last forever. Alt energy is a necessity.

[Anonymous No.4586771]

Yup we're fucked, conservational principles are a bitch

[Anonymous No.4586778]

Just wait for them to find out how to practically do nuclear fission OP.

[Anonymous No.4586779]

>>4586762
a nuclear accident every 25 years is preferable to trillions of tons of CO2 generated from burning fossil fuels.

[Anonymous No.4586781]

>nuclear power
>lack of fuel
lol.

[Anonymous No.4586786]

>>4586779
Or 25 years of air pollution. Nuclear has killed a lot less people than any coal/oil/natural gas.

[Anonymous No.4586814]

>Whining about the future of energy
>On /sci/
Try /b/

[Anonymous No.4586820]

Lets assume thats right.
>worldwide crashlanding
>photovoltaic and solar thermal as passive energy sources during the dip, at least during the day, while people work
>thorium/breeder reactors
>photovoltaic and solar thermal as backups
>electric cars/biofuel hybrids, government conventioned engine repurpose/swap/upgrade for oil > bio
>transport of goods and such will mostly be done via train, capillarity transport will decrease

We'll be allright *covers ears* lalalalala

[Anonymous No.4586830]

heh. heheheh. heheahehhhahaahah

[Anonymous No.4586866]

> It takes “oil energy” to make “alternative energy.”

So, it takes a certain amount of oil to produce each solar cell. If the cost of enough solar cells to produce the same energy as the oil used in their production, then obviously solar cells are a positive energy investment. This would allow for excess production to outpace the loss of oil production in addition to expansion. This would then allow for the infrastructure which currently relies upon oil to rely upon solar cells.

[Solar cells are just an example since new manufacturing techniques actually make them economically competitive with fossil fuels. We could use nuclear sources which are obviously much higher energy density than fossil fuels, but people are afraid of it for poor reasons.]

[Anonymous No.4586892]

>>4586786
But would it have if it were in production at the same scale as oil/coal/gas? What's the toll per unit of energy produced?

Nuclear also has a problem in that the amount of energy produced can't easily be controlled. Where I live, we keep coal plants online just for the purpose of regulating voltage. Burn almost no fuel... just spin the turbines. Voltage control is also a major problem with wind and solar (no reactive power produced).

I'm all for more nuclear power production in many places. But it's not the solution to everything.

> mfw I live in a place with plentiful hydro power
> feelsgoodman.jpg

[Anonymous No.4586912]

>>4586892
This method of power regulation makes absolutely no sense given that nuclear power is still generated by spinning a turbine with produced and you can regulate turbine speed easily.

As for solar and wind power, the difficulty would be in rebuilding our currently incredibly flawed electric infrastructure [in the US at least; can't speak for other nations which don't seem to have as much issues with one local plant screwing up or a local transformer blowing cutting power to a quarter of the country].

[Anonymous No.4586914]

I once saw a guy here who supposedly does research on hydrogen fuel cells, claim that already these fuel cells can satisfy all our energy needs. Can someone back that up?