Comments on: About “Peak Oil” http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/12/08/about-peak-oil.html High-minded, fanatically malthusian perspectives Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:09:27 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: tdaxp http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/12/08/about-peak-oil.html/comment-page-1#comment-188509 tdaxp Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:24:43 +0000 http://www.tdaxp.com/?p=6536#comment-188509 Dan, Thank you for your comments. Oil is a high-cost energy product that (so uneconomical it is rarely if ever used in power plants), but has the advantage of being 'burned on the go.' Ethanol is in a similar situation. It may or may not be energy-positive. I really don't care about that. The benefit of ethanol is that it allows us to reduce the amount of wealth we are transferring to countries like Russia [1]. The energy source of the future may be coal. [2] I would be fine with that. [1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/08/09/in-europe-at-least-global-warming.html [2] http://cominganarchy.com/2008/12/08/global-trends-part-6-energy-reality-check/ Dan,

Thank you for your comments.

Oil is a high-cost energy product that (so uneconomical it is rarely if ever used in power plants), but has the advantage of being ‘burned on the go.’

Ethanol is in a similar situation. It may or may not be energy-positive. I really don’t care about that. The benefit of ethanol is that it allows us to reduce the amount of wealth we are transferring to countries like Russia [1].

The energy source of the future may be coal. [2] I would be fine with that.

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/08/09/in-europe-at-least-global-warming.html
[2] http://cominganarchy.com/2008/12/08/global-trends-part-6-energy-reality-check/

]]> By: Dan Swanson http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2008/12/08/about-peak-oil.html/comment-page-1#comment-188225 Dan Swanson Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:56:43 +0000 http://www.tdaxp.com/?p=6536#comment-188225 Your perspective is very close to the typical economists perspective, and is dangerous and completely wrong. It ignores some fundamental realities of the physics of attempting to replace fossil fuels. While you are certainly correct about the market mechanisms that would fix the problem if it was easy to fix, it is not. In fact it is impossible to replace the energy that our modern life style requires. It is certainly true that if the market stays in place long enough, and the cost of energy gets high enough, the market will fix it. The problem is the actual point that occurs is near a stone age life style, and the market that is used to the continuous availability of cheap energy is collapsing years before the point that "alternates" become more profitable than fossil fuel. Please recalculate the cost of your "substitutes" being very careful to not include any hidden energy costs in the initial terms. You can ONLY calculate the feasibility of a substitute by doing all the math in energy and then multiply by the cost of energy to yield profitability. The economists way of calculating it is incorrect because it uses money throughout the calculations. This does not work because in order to be profitable, you must create energy rather than sink it, and as energy costs rise profitability is reduced rather than increased. It is easy to recalculate the business plans of many of the "alternate" energy business plans such as ethanol and shale, and understand why they all going bankrupt. It is because the higher that energy prices go, the more they lose, instead of the other way around. Your perspective is very close to the typical economists perspective, and is dangerous and completely wrong. It ignores some fundamental realities of the physics of attempting to replace fossil fuels.
While you are certainly correct about the market mechanisms that would fix the problem if it was easy to fix, it is not. In fact it is impossible to replace the energy that our modern life style requires. It is certainly true that if the market stays in place long enough, and the cost of energy gets high enough, the market will fix it. The problem is the actual point that occurs is near a stone age life style, and the market that is used to the continuous availability of cheap energy is collapsing years before the point that “alternates” become more profitable than fossil fuel.
Please recalculate the cost of your “substitutes” being very careful to not include any hidden energy costs in the initial terms. You can ONLY calculate the feasibility of a substitute by doing all the math in energy and then multiply by the cost of energy to yield profitability. The economists way of calculating it is incorrect because it uses money throughout the calculations. This does not work because in order to be profitable, you must create energy rather than sink it, and as energy costs rise profitability is reduced rather than increased. It is easy to recalculate the business plans of many of the “alternate” energy business plans such as ethanol and shale, and understand why they all going bankrupt. It is because the higher that energy prices go, the more they lose, instead of the other way around.

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