Solving the oil crisis

[Bill Musarra]

With recent events, everyone is talking about oil prices. The leaders of the U S are determined to not allow any oil drilling or exploration for whatever reason you want to think up. So what are our alternatives. The best plans I would think are recycling. Most people think of recycling as taking your waste oil back to the processor and let it start the cycle over again, which is not a bad idea.
There is a fellow in Japan who may have hit upon the solution that should make everyone happy and solve several problems at once. Air pollution, meaning lower CO2 emissions, plastic in landfills and in the ocean to name a few. Check out this video. Does it remind you of a professor who went by the name of "Doc"??

YouTube - Man invents machine to convert plastic into oil

 

[domtoni]

Bill,

Has to be a cheaper way than paying OPEC $100/barrel for the stuff that comes out of the ground. Why isn't anyone running with this?

 

[AdrianBurton]

How do I get one????

 

[Nick]

How do I get funding to scale it up

 

[40 Bud]

Sandia Labs had a program developing "syn fuel" from CO2 that we don't hear much about. Why arn't these things moving forward?

 

[John Milmont]

The process for converting plastic into oil is called thermo depolymerization. Its been around for a while and takes a LOT of energy to perfrom. I think its like alcohol fuel in where they dont want to disclose how much energy it takes to perform the operation. I believe that both of these processes have a negative net return.

I think the solution to a lot of our oil problems is natural gas. We have so much of it and we could use it to power our cars and such, but we are not allowed to touch it and it has a lot of political resistance. I guess we dont want to upset our middle eastern freinds.

 

[AdrianBurton]

I have heard that (about natural gas), I do know that alcohol is the wrong way to go as an alternative. Would it be any easier if the plastic was developed to be broken down during its formalization?

 

[Jack]

A little off topic, but:

Bring the troops back from Iraq and Afganahstan, station them along the Mexican border with orders to shoot to kill. Tell the oil Shieks to fxxx-off, and start drilling here! Watch the per-barrel prices plummet!

Take your best shot!

 

[Kevin L]

I know you wrote Oil Crisis but I will transform that to be Energy Crisis by which I think we will not solve it with any one thing but instead will leverage multiple avenues:

-Wind
-Solar
-Natural Gas
-Nuclear
-Continued Oil Exploration
-Continued coal usage in specific areas

Maybe this is a pipe dream, but I actually believe we are going to see new technologies begin to come on-line in the next 5-7 that make a difference. The new solar leasing companies are promising as are the the new solar technologies that are increase efficiencies by 3x (read this in Popular Mechanics).

I believe that we need to continue to support multiple technologies to lower our usage of oil to a more reasonable level.

Unfortunately the technologies such as the one above are cool but rarely come to fruition in a way that makes an impact. Remember the one technology where radio waves enabled salt water to burn? I hope this technology is still under development but I doubt it will work. Rarely have I seen these "all problems solved" energy solutions work in scaled up environment. Just my experience

Kevin

 

[Jack]

Let's hope so Kevin!

 

[John Milmont]

I have heard that (about natural gas), I do know that alcohol is the wrong way to go as an alternative. Would it be any easier if the plastic was developed to be broken down during its formalization?

I don't think this is possible. You could make plastic with shorter molecular chains so it would be easier to break down, but the plastic is going to have very poor properties and is not going to be very usable.

I would expect that this depolymerization process only works on simple plastics like polyethylene. It may work on other thermoplastic's, but some of those contain some pretty nasty stuff that your not going to want to get back.

I dont think depolymerization would work at on thermosetting plastics like epoxy or polyester.

As far as wind and solar being alternate power options, I don't think those are going to be a viable solution for a very long time. Wind is in the same category as Alcohol in my book. I believe it costs more to build one of those mega turbines than the value of the energy it produces over its entire life. Solar is also another high cost alternative and has its own problems, and again, may never reach a break even point.

 

[Kevin L]

I don't think this is possible. You could make plastic with shorter molecular chains so it would be easier to break down, but the plastic is going to have very poor properties and is not going to be very usable.

I would expect that this depolymerization process only works on simple plastics like polyethylene. It may work on other thermoplastic's, but some of those contain some pretty nasty stuff that your not going to want to get back.

I dont think depolymerization would work at on thermosetting plastics like epoxy or polyester.

As far as wind and solar being alternate power options, I don't think those are going to be a viable solution for a very long time. Wind is in the same category as Alcohol in my book. I believe it costs more to build one of those mega turbines than the value of the energy it produces over its entire life. Solar is also another high cost alternative and has its own problems, and again, may never reach a break even point.

You sure have a positive outlook on things

Only joking

 

[John Milmont]

I know right? The problem is that a lot of these green technologies are mostly pie-in-the-sky dreams. A lot of them are also at a development plateau and further development is yielding very small returns. Have you ever asked what happened with the hydrogen fuel cell? 10 years ago they were saying they expected a major breakthrough in 20-30 years. We are 10 years closer and its not looking much better.

I have written about this ad nauseum on my blog here if your interested.

Real solutions that we can implement right now like natural gas and nuclear are being blocked by political pressure, and their dangers are blown way out of proportion to sway public interest. For instance, the coal lobby is quite strong; do you think they would be supporting nuclear or natGas power?

 

[Tim]

With recent events, everyone is talking about oil prices.

The real price of oil is around $50 a barrel, we saw that when the markets crashed a year or so ago.

If you want to bring back the price of oil it is very easy. Ban the futures market which would get rid of the speculators and gamblers. Or another way would be for the exchange to have everyone cash up at the end of the day. Watch the price go down if either of those were done.

Then there are the anti trust laws that could be used against a cartel but that one seems to be in the too hard basket.

Most people think of recycling as taking your waste oil back to the processor and let it start the cycle over again, which is not a bad idea.

The cost of recycling oil is more than the cost of new base oil. We had a company doing just that in NZ but even with free oil to start with they could not make a go of it. The cost of getting rid of all the old additives so you can start a fresh is just too great. The best and most cost effective method of recycling old engine oil is to use it as an industrial heating fuel. Using in home systems is not really good enough as the temperatures do not get hot enough to break down some of the additives properly and therefore you have an emission problem.

 

[Ian Anderson]

A little off topic, but:

Bring the troops back from Iraq and Afganahstan, station them along the Mexican border with orders to shoot to kill.

Take your best shot!

When I read this I thought you were going to say -Render them down and extract oil from them

Ian

 

[Graham]

I've done a reasonable amount of reading on this subject. There are many ways to skin the cat so to speak, but the most obvious one to me is solar power.

Very large solar arrays using sterling engines are a very important route forward. I have read (in many places) that if we cover just 1 % of the deserts with these arrays, we can produce enough electricity for the whole worlds needs. Scientists have now almost cracked the problem of retaining the energy taken so that it can be stored during the day and delivered at night. giving 24/7 availability using large saline tanks that are capable of storing the heat. Just think about that....

The difficult issue is how to deliver the electricity to different parts of the world.

There is also the upside that these solar arrays will produce huge amounts of condensation during the night, which can be used to irrigate these areas...

Altruistic maybe, but if Bill Gates chucked a few billion at the project, I believe it could work...

 

[domtoni]

Couple of points:
- In Italy, LPG and Methane powered cars are widely available. LPG vehicles and conversions are available in a number of countries, including the UK. LPG costs here in the UK is about 60% of the petrol/diesel price.
- Hasn't it been said that the largest producers of methane gas are cows? We certainly have plenty of those around, and their talent can surely be harnessed.
- Fuel cells, back in the internet days, Ballard Power talked about a 10 year to production plan putting FCs into service. Well, I suspect the cost reductions never came along and we are still looking at a 20 year development cycle before any serious production attempt comes about. I think FCs make more sense for homes or factories than in vehicles.
- Wind Mills - you can purchase/lease small windmills here in the UK and with a govenment grant can actually make some savings. The initial set up (if you can get planning permission) is around Sterling 20K. An old boss has gone into this business and is located in the Norwich area. Anyone interested from there, let me know, and I can probably you in touch with him.
- Solar energy - RAI from Italy did a program a few years back saying that if a 20x20Km square solar panel could be built in the Libyan desert, then all of Europe's electricity could be provided. As we have recently seen, some protective measures would have to be put in place as well as storage and distribution. But that could be overcome.

 

[domtoni]

Couple of points:
- In Italy, LPG and Methane powered cars are widely available. LPG vehicles and conversions are available in a number of countries, including the UK. LPG costs here in the UK is about 60% of the petrol/diesel price.
- Hasn't it been said that the largest producers of methane gas are cows? We certainly have plenty of those around, and their talent can surely be harnessed.
- Fuel cells, back in the internet days, Ballard Power talked about a 10 year to production plan putting FCs into service. Well, I suspect the cost reductions never came along and we are still looking at a 20 year development cycle before any serious production attempt comes about. I think FCs make more sense for homes or factories than in vehicles.
- Wind Mills - you can purchase/lease small windmills here in the UK and with a govenment grant can actually make some savings. The initial set up (if you can get planning permission) is around Sterling 20K. An old boss has gone into this business and is located in the Norwich area. Anyone interested from there, let me know, and I can probably you in touch with him.
- Solar energy - RAI from Italy did a program a few years back saying that if a 20x20Km square solar panel could be built in the Libyan desert, then all of Europe's electricity could be provided. As we have recently seen, some protective measures would have to be put in place as well as storage and distribution. But that could be overcome.

 

[Tom P]

We have more oil reserves in the US than all of the arab countries combined, why not use it and let the arabs drift back to the stone age?

 

[Graham]

We have more oil reserves in the US than all of the arab countries combined, why not use it and let the arabs drift back to the stone age?

We? ... who is we?

By "We" do you mean the good old US of A? ....

I know.......

let's play a game called "Take the World View"...

I appreciate that it's hard for you, but please, try.