[Coaster]

Originally Posted by mattpoulsen

Oh please! You predict of the oncoming disaster due to dependence on oil, but refuse to predict new and developing technologies. I would also add that adjusted for inflation our oil prices are hardly at their peak.

We're enjoying the abundance of the peak in supply, and your calculations of oil prices are, I'll wager, based on the temporary spike in prices that occurred during the Iran-Iraq War back in 1980, not long-term. And even so, we see huge price swings on the flimsiest of reasons, prime evidence that supplies are tenuous. As for new and developing technologies, there isn't a single one that can replace oil for convenience and energy density. And please don't bring up ethanol from corn. That's already proven to be an energy dead end. World grain harvests haven't met demand for five years -- and that's a demand-supply problem, not a distribution problem -- and we're using corn to fuel our SUVs? Please.

And if you're going to start predicting deserts due to climate change then you might as well mention that those on the coasts better start growing gills. You have no ability whatsoever to predict these outcomes!

Why do you assume that by 2017 we'll be 11 years past peak oil production, 12 years past peak natural gas production, and 15 years past the last time grain production met demand? Are you assuming these things will not be met or peak again?? You have no basis for that. Besides grain production is not and has never been the issue! The issue is distribution and it always has been. Why you even bring that issue up is beyond me!

Are you serious? Please, do some research on world oil production and North American natgas production before you make such pronouncements. This isn't some fringe idea hanging around the nutcase ward, unless you count the New York Times and Scientific American. The numbers have been out there for ages. And no, they will NOT peak again. Mexico's only supergiant oil field, Cantarell, peaked last year and has declined 20 percent in less than 12 months. Bergun in Kuwait peaked last year, and there is persuasive evidence that the emperor of oil fields, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, has entered it final decline. As for grain production, there have been news stories all over the place about how world grain harvests have not met demand.

Are you not aware of the multiple numbers of wind-farming projects that are being planned and developed in Nebraska? Then you add that to the fact Nebraska has one of the best underground aquifer systems in the country and I think Nebraska may not be such a bad place to be in your doomsday scenario...which i don't buy.

The Ogallala Aquifer? Are you still serious? A good friend works for a company that makes irrigation systems in Nebraska. The company is working like mad to expand its overseas markets because the execs have seen the projections for the Ogallala Aquifer. There's a reason well drillers in Nebraska are always busy -- they have to keep drilling deeper irrigation wells as the aquifer levels drop.

Wind power is great and I hope they build lots of wind farms, but you could cover Nebraaska with wind turbines and not come close to producing the electricity the current population requires, much less what will be needed in the future.

[mattpoulsen]

Yes, some of the oil price data is centered around the Iran oil crisis in the late 70's and early 80's. Here is a link to historic oil price data:

http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/i...ices_Chart.htm

However, it is not availability that is reducing production. The constraint on production are geopolitical and geo-economic factors. You act as though the world is just running out of oil (which is true it its purest sense, but misleading). That is not what is going on. Much of the issue is that OPEC limits production to stabilize prices at a higher level. If they wanted to increase production they very well could. You'll bring up the fact that the U.S. doesn't actually get most of its oil from the middle east and that's true, but it doesn't matter. OPEC oil on the world market greatly influences world market prices...so if OPEC would increase production, whether selling to the U.S. or China, the result would be a reduction in market prices. In addition, you have no knowledge of undiscovered oil reserves. Besides, with a stronger and stronger push to efficiency and new technologies oil demand (per capita) will go down. I agree that we need to get off our oil addiction and I'm am convinced we will, but the doomsday scenarios that I would buy into are 40 or 50 years down the line...not 10.

As far as new technologies are concerned, you don't need a revolutionary change to purge oil use. Obviously, in the next 10 years you are not going to have a 100% conversion to a new technology. The point is you use stop gap measures which gradually reduce oil use. Plus, with increase oil prices people will get much more serious about driving efficient vehicles. Part of the reason SUV's were so popular through the 90's is that oil prices were at historic lows!! As the price inches up there will be at trend toward efficiency. You saw this just last year with efficient vehicles selling like hotcakes and SUV sails waning. Economics will take car of the efficiency problem.

And there are technologies that are just as convenient and produce MORE energy per unit volume than oil. The reason they aren't used is because of implementation issues. It'll take a while, but it will happen. We just have to go through some growing pains.

Yes, the Ogalala aquifer has been dropping as of late. But if you haven't noticed western Nebraska has been in a drought the last 10 years. Nevertheless, the aquifer system in Nebraska is still one of the best in the U.S. The High Plains aquifer system covers nearly all of Nebraska.

As far as windpower, if you'd cover Nebraska with wind turbines you would easily produce enough power to supply Nebraska. Heck, if you'd cover one county with turbines you'd probably have enough power for the state. The issue isn't production of energy as much as its transmission of energy. So, its much better to have production units as close to the population centers as possible.

Again, you speak of demand of grain. Grain production will respond to the market conditions. Before the big ethanol craze there was grain rotting in corn bins. Again, its not about production its about economics and politics. With corn prices elevated the farmers across the U.S. will respond by planting more and more corn. Before the ethanol boom, with depressed corn prices, many farmers were financially better off by not harvesting the crop and relying on gov't subsidies. As the demand for corn increases...production increases, but there will be a 1 or 2 year lag. You paint a picture that suggests we are physically unable to meet the grain demand, and that's just untrue. Like I said, and its a recurring theme, its economics and politics!

But I still don't know what grain production has to do with Omaha and Lincoln forming one metropolitan area. Your climate and doomsday oil predictions can probably be tenuously connected, but grain supply isn't an issue here. Your whole argument is artificially constructed. A lot of the concerns are valid ones...I agree with that. We must ween ourselves off of oil, we must become better tenants of the globe, and we must reduce CO2 emissions. However, you act as though oil prices will be $10/gallon and Nebraska will be a desert in 10 years, which just isn't going to happen.

[Coaster]

Originally Posted by mattpoulsen

Yes, some of the oil price data is centered around the Iran oil crisis in the late 70's and early 80's. Here is a link to historic oil price data:

http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/i...ices_Chart.htm

However, it is not availability that is reducing production. The constraint on production are geopolitical and geo-economic factors. You act as though the world is just running out of oil (which is true it its purest sense, but misleading). That is not what is going on. Much of the issue is that OPEC limits production to stabilize prices at a higher level. If they wanted to increase production they very well could.

I'm sorry, Matt, but there are so many things wrong in that statement I hardly know where to begin. To take just one point: The swing producer in OPEC is Saudi Arabia, and its production began declining last year before the production cuts were announced. IOW, one led to the other, but not in the order you assume. For a detailed analysis, go to theoildrum.com and read the two analyses of S.A. production posted by Stuart Staniford two weeks ago.

You'll bring up the fact that the U.S. doesn't actually get most of its oil from the middle east and that's true, but it doesn't matter. OPEC oil on the world market greatly influences world market prices...so if OPEC would increase production, whether selling to the U.S. or China, the result would be a reduction in market prices.

No, I won't bring that up. Oil is a fungible commodity with a price independent of source. As for OPEC, see above.

In addition, you have no knowledge of undiscovered oil reserves. Besides, with a stronger and stronger push to efficiency and new technologies oil demand (per capita) will go down. I agree that we need to get off our oil addiction and I'm am convinced we will, but the doomsday scenarios that I would buy into are 40 or 50 years down the line...not 10.

Actually, there are very few places left that can hold "undiscovered" oil reserves -- super deep water, Antarctica, and the Arctic Ocean are about the only places left. All of them are tough to impossible to exploit and require huge capital investments --- in many cases more money or energy inputs than the new discoveries will return, such as the deepwater plays off the coast of Brazil. The rest of the planet has been pretty much explored by oil geologists over the past century.

Oil consumption as part of GDP has gone down in the US since the 1970s, but absolute oil consumption continues to rise. Any interruption in supply will have consequences well beyond its GDP function. Sort of like saying you need oxygen, food, and water to live, and you're better off eating a low-calorie diet -- but reduce your food supply too much and you start suffering severe consequences.

I agree that conservation holds great potential -- Europe uses half the per capita energy of the US and manages a nice culture. I'm not predicting doom -- I'm predicting change, drastic change. If you want doom, I can recommend any number of websites where posters are predicting far worse than anything I believe.

As far as new technologies are concerned, you don't need a revolutionary change to purge oil use. Obviously, in the next 10 years you are not going to have a 100% conversion to a new technology. The point is you use stop gap measures which gradually reduce oil use. Plus, with increase oil prices people will get much more serious about driving efficient vehicles. Part of the reason SUV's were so popular through the 90's is that oil prices were at historic lows!! As the price inches up there will be at trend toward efficiency. You saw this just last year with efficient vehicles selling like hotcakes and SUV sails waning. Economics will take car of the efficiency problem.

And there are technologies that are just as convenient and produce MORE energy per unit volume than oil. The reason they aren't used is because of implementation issues. It'll take a while, but it will happen. We just have to go through some growing pains.

Please, share those new technologies, because so far you're the only person I've seen lay claim to an energy source that is just as convenient and MORE energy dense than oil. And I've been involved in this issue for more than ten years.

Yes, the Ogalala aquifer has been dropping as of late. But if you haven't noticed western Nebraska has been in a drought the last 10 years. Nevertheless, the aquifer system in Nebraska is still one of the best in the U.S. The High Plains aquifer system covers nearly all of Nebraska.

Matt, the Ogallala Aquifer has been depleting since at least the mid-1970s that I know of. That's when I first saw articles about it in the World Herald.

As far as windpower, if you'd cover Nebraska with wind turbines you would easily produce enough power to supply Nebraska. Heck, if you'd cover one county with turbines you'd probably have enough power for the state. The issue isn't production of energy as much as its transmission of energy. So, its much better to have production units as close to the population centers as possible.

Again, you speak of demand of grain. Grain production will respond to the market conditions. Before the big ethanol craze there was grain rotting in corn bins. Again, its not about production its about economics and politics. With corn prices elevated the farmers across the U.S. will respond by planting more and more corn. Before the ethanol boom, with depressed corn prices, many farmers were financially better off by not harvesting the crop and relying on gov't subsidies. As the demand for corn increases...production increases, but there will be a 1 or 2 year lag. You paint a picture that suggests we are physically unable to meet the grain demand, and that's just untrue. Like I said, and its a recurring theme, its economics and politics!

Global grain production hasn't met demand for the past five years. Why should it suddenly catch up now, especially with drought in Australia and Argentina? World stockpiles were down to a 40-day cushion last fall, and I've seen predictions that they could be down to as little as 5-10 by next fall. The corn ethanol boom won't last more than a few years before something better comes along, probably cellulostic ethanol or algae sources. The EROEI on corn ethanol is about 1 to 1.2. (Some, such as Pimental, argue persuasively that it's negative.) Other methods are far more efficient once they're scaled up.

Economics and politics only exacerbate the problem.

But I still don't know what grain production has to do with Omaha and Lincoln forming one metropolitan area. Your climate and doomsday oil predictions can probably be tenuously connected, but grain supply isn't an issue here. Your whole argument is artificially constructed. A lot of the concerns are valid ones...I agree with that. We must ween ourselves off of oil, we must become better tenants of the globe, and we must reduce CO2 emissions. However, you act as though oil prices will be $10/gallon and Nebraska will be a desert in 10 years, which just isn't going to happen.

I didn't say Nebraska would be a desert in 10 years, only that it could revert to its old name on the maps of the 1800s, the Great American Desert, given the current climate trends. However, I think it's entirely possible that gasoline will be $10 a gallon in five years due to a combination of scarcity and inflation.

Edited to add: The link between grain and oil supply and the Omaha-Lincoln metroplex is quite simple. The current agriculture of Nebaska and the rest of the country is devoted to turning oil into food. It currently takes 10 calories of oil to produce 1 calorie of food. Over the coming decades -- perhaps as little as 10 years, absolutely within 20 -- that system will end. The suburban network that makes the metroplex possible depends on cheap and abundant oil and natural gas and plentiful food supplies. When those fossil fuel supplies grow short, the systems that make suburban sprawl possible will not work anymore.

There's a movie you should see -- two actually. One is called "The End of Suburbia." The other is "An Inconvenient Truth." Both have their agendas, and you should watch them with that caveat. But both have some basic facts and conclusions that are worth paying attention to.

[mattpoulsen]

Ok. The volume of our posts is exponentially growing per reply cycle, so I'm going to try and keep this one a little more brief or we'll end up with a 10 page article.

1) You did suggest that Nebraska could become a desert in the next 10 years. First of all, it wasn't a "Great American Desert". That was a misnomer that began with the original exploration and settling of Nebraska. At any rate, it wasn't a desert in the 1800's, it was pretty much the way it is now. Certainly, it can be dry and I can see how it was coined a desert, but it is not one at all and never was one (well, in the recent past).

2) Ok. We may be splitting hairs on the oil production issue. My point is that we are not at max production right now and prices are not, at the current time, dependent on absolute supply. They are dependent on production, which is a controlled by the powers that be.

3) Nebraska's aquifer system has been depleting and I won't argue that. My point is that its one of the most extensive in the U.S. and, even though depleted, is still a vast and tangible resource. Certainly, if ag irrigation goes unchecked and more efficient processes and technologies are not implemented then we could have a disaster. However, all the leading experts will say that, although getting recharging and depletion rates in check is very important, the level of state emergency is quite a ways off.

4) Energy needs. There are several technologies that exist or will soon exist. The problem is that it is difficult to convert our oil economy to these new forms and I openly stated that. The short term will be served by stop gap solutions like hybrid and electric vehicles. In the long term the most obvious solution is hydrogen power. It possesses much more energy per kilogram than does oil ( I think about 3 or 4 times). The issue is production, storage, and safe usage. However, in the long term, these will all be figured out. Another example is super capacitor technology. I have actually been involved in research in this area. Basically, performing some tricks at the nanoscale level and tweaking some fabrication procedures it should be possible to create super capacitors, which might be used to service many of our energy needs. They already possess an energy density that is larger than oil...the problem is taking it to the larger scale. It will happen, but not in the next 10 years. I warn you, most energy densities for capacitive systems are probably 30 times smaller than oil, but state-of-the-art work is much higher, albeit not commercially available.

5) Corn and ethanol. I have never been a proponent of ethanol...its just bad economic and environmental policy. That said, shortfalls in grain product are not being met because of economics and policy. I'm simply saying that it is not as though we are physically unable to meet the demand. Its is politics and economics...which may be bad or it may be good. I'm simply saying we could meet the demand if necessary. Much of the grain is going into our fuel tanks right now and that will only stimulate more production.

6) Suburban Sprawl. I understand the connection between oil and sprawling suburbia and I understand the oil-grain connection. Obviously, the need for ramped up ag production will put more stress on the oil markets which in turn will result in increased oil prices. However, that is assuming fixed efficiency. I never claimed that the U.S. and much of the world shouldn't change policies and practices. With increased mechanical efficiencies (i.e. fuel efficiencies) and improved farming practices and policies the 10:1 fuel to food ratio that you quoted will certainly be reduced.

I also stated that unchecked the factors that you mentioned will certainly lead to serious serious consequences. However, I think in the end our main difference boils down to the time table. I suggest that by the time these scenarios would have reached catastrophic levels we will have long found solutions to these problems through new technologies and new farming policies and practices. I'm simply saying that these things will not result in global disaster in the next 10 years.

On the issue of the movies, I have watched Inconvenient Truth and didn't learn much. Nothing Gore brings up is new hat. As you mentioned, Gore clearly has an agenda and in many ways I think the movie hurts his cause. It politicizes a debate which should not be politicized. Maybe he meant well by it and maybe he's thirsting for public attention, but the public would be much better served if someone with a Carl Sagan-like character would've been involved.

At any rate, I've actually enjoyed this little spat. At first I thought you were just some guy who just watch Inconvenient Truth and had no facts or understanding to back up your claims. You are obviously well informed and I've enjoyed it.

[Cordor]

I 100 percent agree with Coaster. We are heading for a major change in how we deal with transportation and lifestyles. As for the three largest oil fields (qatar, Cantarrell, and Gawar) they are all in decline. Gawar has produced 8 percent less then a year ago to this day and is predicted to lose the same amount. KSA has provided 10 million bpd (barrels of oil per day) for a awhile and now only produces 8.5. This is involuntary and they can't get production up to where it used to be. Coastel is very knowledgeable in that he has done his homework in what may become the biggest scare that this planet will ever face. I am a bit more pessimistic than him in that I believe we already peaked. The highest we will ever obtain in a year is 84.5 million bpd and we will never reach that level again. All of the oil fields greater then 1 mpd has already been found and most are more then 30 years old. We are only finding the little stuff and even the little stuff we find is sour crude. That's the stuff most of our refineries cannot refine. Just watch the price of crude explode by the end of this year. Also, watch gas prices as they reach close or even up to $4.00 a gallon by the end of this summer. Damn it, driving season is not even upon us yet and look at gas prices now? I say farewell to urban sprawl and hello to small communities. Also to note, ethanol yields a very poor eroei (energy returned on energy invested).

[Coaster]

Originally Posted by mattpoulsen

2) Ok. We may be splitting hairs on the oil production issue. My point is that we are not at max production right now and prices are not, at the current time, dependent on absolute supply. They are dependent on production, which is a controlled by the powers that be.

Matt, you're right, we're not at max oil production right now. Although it's still too early to be absolutely positive, every indication is that we're PAST maximum oil production. We're on the downside of the Hubbert Curve, or, if you prefer, at the bumpy plateau that characterizes the peak.

4) Energy needs. There are several technologies that exist or will soon exist. The problem is that it is difficult to convert our oil economy to these new forms and I openly stated that. The short term will be served by stop gap solutions like hybrid and electric vehicles. In the long term the most obvious solution is hydrogen power.

AAAAARGH! Please no! You must know that hydrogen is not an energy source. It's an energy carrier, just like the batteries in your flashlight. You need an energy source to create it, and creating it will always take more energy than the hydrogen gives up when used. That's basic Second Law stuff, as I'm sure you know. So what's your energy source for hydrogen production? Nuclear power? We'll see a big push for it, but good luck getting the necessary number of nukes permitted, built, and operating, much less fueled (have you heard about the shortfall in uranium supplies?). Wind power? Again, it's a matter of having the resources to build the necessary number of turbines to supply the power. It's called Energy Returned on Energy Invested, EROEI.

As you noted, there are also production, storage, and safety issues with hydrogen.

Another example is super capacitor technology. I have actually been involved in research in this area. Basically, performing some tricks at the nanoscale level and tweaking some fabrication procedures it should be possible to create super capacitors, which might be used to service many of our energy needs. They already possess an energy density that is larger than oil...the problem is taking it to the larger scale.

Again, these are energy storage devices, not energy sources. Same problems as with hydrogen.

I also stated that unchecked the factors that you mentioned will certainly lead to serious serious consequences. However, I think in the end our main difference boils down to the time table. I suggest that by the time these scenarios would have reached catastrophic levels we will have long found solutions to these problems through new technologies and new farming policies and practices. I'm simply saying that these things will not result in global disaster in the next 10 years.

I think "disaster" is a matter of definition. However, to rephrase my original comment in my first post, it is and will be a huge mistake to assume that the next 10 years will be a straight-line extrapolation of the past 10 or 20 on any number of levels, either in Nebaska or in the world. We've already seen the first of the Resource Wars -- and it is only the first. We've seen the rise of political and religious fundamentalism that spring from a sense of economic malaise. We're starting to see resource-shortage refugee flows in places like Africa and Europe and right here in the United States.

Edited to add: Income from Cantarell provides something like 20-30 percent of the federal budget of Mexico. Try to imagine what's going to happen in terms of refugee pressures on our southern border when the Mexican economy collapses.

The US will be insulated from the worst of all this, but not immune from effects.

One of the wonderful aspects of Nebraska that I've always noticed is the complacency of its residents wrapped around their affluence. I think both of those traits will be severely shaken in the near future.

At any rate, I've actually enjoyed this little spat. At first I thought you were just some guy who just watch Inconvenient Truth and had no facts or understanding to back up your claims. You are obviously well informed and I've enjoyed it.

Same here. I hope you look more closely into the topics of Peak Oil and the Hubbert Curve. Look up books by Heinberg, Deffeyes, Matthew Simmons, the books Resource Wars and Huntington's Clash of Civilizations. You might be surprised. But be warned, you will lose your complacency.

[mattpoulsen]

Coaster,

Yes, of course I understand that hydrogen and super capacitor are only energy "storage" devices. However, everything is an energy storage device. Oil, ethanol, switchgrass, burning wood, blah blah blah. The big difference with oil is that the "energy packing" took place naturally over the course of millions of years and appears kind of as free energy for us.

Yes, one source for H2 production would certainly be nuclear power. The biggest issue, as you've pointed out, is to get people to understand its not an unsafe product. But I believe with major pushes towards wind power we may also meet the demand. It will probably be a combination of alternative "clean" resources that will fit the bill. Although solar cell energy production is sometimes laughably inefficient researchers are making a lot of headway. You'll see energy/area numbers really start to ramp up in the coming years. I would also suspect that in the short term we will merely trade one dirty fuel for another. I would definitely expect coal to be a H2 producer, at least in the short term.

On another note, our capitalist economy, although a hindrance in the early years of the energy market, will finally pay off. As soon as people realize they can make money in the realms of H2, wind, and other "alternative" areas you will see rapid advances and implementation. I grew up in a very small part of north central Nebraska and, having spoken with some family members, realized there have been major pushes by outside companies to purchase wind rights in their area. This is just one small example, but its a stepping stone. I could envision a day when these little windy outposts serve as the "new age" hydrogen wells....pulling energy from the sky and producing H2. Maybe its fanciful, but whether its wind or nuke something will fill the need.

[Coaster]

Originally Posted by mattpoulsen

Coaster,

Yes, of course I understand that hydrogen and super capacitor are only energy "storage" devices. However, everything is an energy storage device. Oil, ethanol, switchgrass, burning wood, blah blah blah. The big difference with oil is that the "energy packing" took place naturally over the course of millions of years and appears kind of as free energy for us.

Matt, there is a HUGE difference between hydrogen and oil. Holy cow!

OK, oil is an energy source. Call it concentrated sunlight, since the sun is the ultimate energy source. So are wood and coal and natural gas. They are net energy sources, meaning that they provide more energy when used than it takes to process them. In terms of EROEI, oil is something like 1:30. Natgas even higher, since it requires no processing.

Hydrogen has to be created -- stripped out of natural gas, produced from coal through steam reformation or from water by electrolysis. Producing free hydrogen will ALWAYS take more power than the H2 will give up when used. It's that old Second Law maxim: There's no such thing as a free lunch. When hydrogen is created, it is a carrier of some of the energy used to create it, and that energy has to come from existing energy sources here. You can't stick a well in the ground and pump out H2.

I see your point about both oil and hydrogen being energy stores, but there is a fundamental difference between the two. Oil, wood, natgas, coal, already exist. The energy that went into their creation came from the sun, and that's a "sunk cost," to use an accounting term. Hydrogen production is a whole other kettle of fish. H2 will NEVER be a viable, large-scale fuel because producing it is a net energy loss. Energetically speaking, you're better off using the electricity or natural gas or coal directly rather than channeling it through hydrogen production, because you needlessly lose energy at every step of the process. The best EROEI for H2 from water electrolysis, the most efficient process, that I've seen is about 1 to .85, and that doesn't count the energy needed to compress the H2 for storage or for transport, distribution, and use.

Yes, one source for H2 production would certainly be nuclear power. The biggest issue, as you've pointed out, is to get people to understand its not an unsafe product. But I believe with major pushes towards wind power we may also meet the demand. It will probably be a combination of alternative "clean" resources that will fit the bill. Although solar cell energy production is sometimes laughably inefficient researchers are making a lot of headway. You'll see energy/area numbers really start to ramp up in the coming years. I would also suspect that in the short term we will merely trade one dirty fuel for another. I would definitely expect coal to be a H2 producer, at least in the short term.

On another note, our capitalist economy, although a hindrance in the early years of the energy market, will finally pay off. As soon as people realize they can make money in the realms of H2, wind, and other "alternative" areas you will see rapid advances and implementation. I grew up in a very small part of north central Nebraska and, having spoken with some family members, realized there have been major pushes by outside companies to purchase wind rights in their area. This is just one small example, but its a stepping stone. I could envision a day when these little windy outposts serve as the "new age" hydrogen wells....pulling energy from the sky and producing H2. Maybe its fanciful, but whether its wind or nuke something will fill the need.

I have children. I honestly hope the future justifies your optimism. History doesn't offer the same reassurance, though.

[mattpoulsen]

Coaster,

I said the exact same thing you said, concerning oil and H2. I was just looking at it from a purely physics perspective, not an economics perspective. Again, oil, firewood, ethanol, and H2 are all energy stores. The difference is that the energy in oil does not have to be stored by humans...its already there, so its like a gift...or a curse really. I understand what you're saying. I was just pointing out that H2 is no more an energy store than is anything else in the universe. This is something, as a physicist, I understand pretty clearly and maybe I take for granted that everyone understands this. From your language it is clear you do understand it, but we're arguing it from two different perspectives. I guess a lot of people maybe don't follow the subtle issue with hydrogen. I'll admit I have had to lecture people, who tend to think H2 is this pie in the sky cure all, that its not a golden ticket as we have to first master an efficient way of producing abundant H2.

H2 will be a viable energy source. I am convinced of that. Yes, you do lose energy along the way but the point is its renewable. The only missing piece is a large scale production of it...and between large scale wind power projects and the proper implementation of nuclear fission reactors (and who knows maybe in our lifetime fusion reactors) we'll reach adequate production levels.

But I also agree that in the short term you're probably better off using things like electric and hybrid vehicles...which in my previous post were the stop-gap measures I spoke of. Yes, energetically you would be better off to use coal directly, but there aren't too many coal burning Honda Civics out there! Electric cars can't run long before needing recharged and Natural Gas also has its limits. H2 provides the most large scale transferable infrastructure, in my opinion. Although, if super capacitive technology accelerates to a reasonable point it would make the need for H2 less important. And in the end a renewable source must win out, whether it be direct electric storage (capacitors), chemical energy storage (battery), or H2.

I have children as well. I no doubt become concerned over these issues, but I feel history suggests that we will overcome it. We're still here, aren't we? I'm more worried about the world blowing itself up!

[Cordor]

Since we have past our chances years ago on alternatives, we are already past due for our mitigation. We now have to cope with the changes that will happen to our society and living standards. We are too late for alternatives. Nuclear power plants take a lot of time and resources which can take years to build and bring online let alone meet the needs for every individual. We don't have that kind of time to change our energy infrastructure. Things are happening now and we don't have ten years to fix this dilemna. Think about it....if the world is supply constraint then how are we in the middle of this constraint going to fix our energy problems when we don't even have the resources to do it. Did you know that there has been a lot of demand destruction in third world countries? We are experiencing supply constraints already. Now the first world countries will feel the pinch as supply problems occur months from now.