Nano Energy and “the Peak”

By | November 10, 2004
4 Comments

Chris
Phoenix has some sobering thoughts on the potential coming energy crisis…

If oil supply ever does fall below demand, we can expect prices to rise steeply.
At this point, it could take years for alternative technologies to come online,
no matter how much economic incentive there is–and meanwhile, since oil demand
is relatively "inelastic," the price of oil will be bid up until
it slows the global economy enough to reduce demand. That’s an ugly picture.

…as well as some thoughts on what we might do about it:

So how does this relate to molecular manufacturing? Well, to avoid a "Peak
experience," some new technology will have to come online and grow quite
rapidly. It will have to support rapid research and development (meaning,
rapid prototyping of industrial-scale projects). Then it will have to support
rapid trillion-dollar-scale building of infrastructure.

Read the whole
thing, including the comments, which feature a lively discussion about alternative
oil sources. My favorite has got to be turkey
offal, which really is being used today to produce a product not unlike
deisel fuel. There is some talk of using agricultural waste (cornstalks) or
growing crops (peanuts, sunflower seeds) specifically to convert to oil.

This got me to wondering…if turkey guts could be used to produce oil, why
not human waste? I’m sure we produce a lot more of the latter than the former,
and we already go to great lengths to collect and process it. This could include
not only what we flush down the toilet, but also much of what normally goes
out with the trash (or down the disposal): bones, rinds, leftovers, etc.

Not as exciting an a nanotechnology solution, I’ll grant you.

Speaking of exciting nanotechnology solutions, Chris also has the scoop on
a big breakthrough that
took place a decade ago.

  • Engineer-Poet

    As I recall, the amount of turkey guts, sewage solids and even municipal waste is nowhere near sufficient to supply our energy demands (just where do you think that energy came from, anyway?).  Higher plants just have too many housekeeping losses to be good light-to-fuel converters; we’re already using about 40% of the net biological productivity of the world (http://www.speakeasy.org/~boba/energysl.html) and adding all fossil-fuel demand to it is just asking to clearcut the world in a few years.

    I’m of the opinion that thermal depolymerization is going to be a great way of eliminating waste-disposal problems at a profit, but it’s not going to make any great difference in our energy economy.  To do that we need artificial light-to-chemical energy converters or their natural equivalent.

  • Karl Hallowell

    Some concern here is warranted, but I think fears of an oil crunch are overblown. Developed countries particularly the US are the most susceptible to a decline in cheap oil. But these countries are also the ones that can adapt the quickest to changing conditions. My real concern here is what happens if the global economy happens to be playing financial shell games at the time that a large rise in oil prices occurs?

  • http://michaelgersh.blogspot.com Michael Gersh

    - since oil demand is relatively “inelastic,” the price of oil will be bid up until it slows the global economy enough to reduce demand. That’s an ugly picture. -

    No reason to get crazy. Already we are seeing a move toward other fuels, and at $50, oil is still pretty cheap, historically, if you account for inflation. At prices well under $80 many current technologies become economical, including “stripping” oil from depleted oil fields that have been paved or built over, so there is no reason to believe that oil will ever go above that. Considering that the same “experts” have been predicting that we will run out of oil since 1965, and we have had seen increased proven reserves every year since then, I see no reason to worry.

    Petroleum is one of the most abundant materials in the known universe. Jupiter is over 80% hydrocarbon by weight, for example, as are many of her moons, other planets, and some asteroids. There is research being done that has observed large oil fields in Kuwait being refilled from below.

    Like all rantings of catastrophists, there is no reason to believe that we will ever run out of oil. The worst case scenario is more like a modest reduction in GDP. That’s a recession, which is, IMHO, something short of an “ugly scenario.” The only real question about petrochemicals is whether or not, or when, we will find it economical to stop burning it.

  • http://www.deanesmay.com Dean Esmay

    I’m pretty much with Michael. I’ve been hearing that the sky is falling my whole life and while I suppose it might be I’m no longer convinced. Proven reserves keep going up, technology for extracting usable oil from formerly unusable sources keeps improving, and alternatives continue slowly but surely coming online.

    I suppose a short-term crisis would cause a global economic slowdown but I think that would only just spur development and improvements in the current alternatives. So let’s say the worst is going to happen: why is that worse than the slowdown that would be cause if we forced people to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in conservation and alternatives energy technologies by government fiat? I just don’t see it anymore.