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[Sheb]

Yeah, it all boils down to how much those technologies can bring cost down. Frankly, I feel like trying to guess what will happen is a lot like trying to discern what companies was actually worth buying share off before the dotcom bubble.

[DJ]

Fuel costs are insignificant in both cases. A car doesn't require 33 full time employees to operate every 1 mile of road.

The cost to the environment is very significant. Global warming is already costing us billions.

As for the oil crisis, fuel cost has gone up 50% since I started driving, and the wages haven't grown at all.

[penguinofhonor]

The price of oil is not related to the scarcity of oil.

[Sheb]

Well, it's related to how hard it is to extract an extra barrel of oil. Another question is Energy Returned on Energy Invested. The first oil wells had EROEI of over 100. Now, sources like tar sands got EROEI of 5-6. At some points, we'll run out of easily accessible sources of oil and oil will stop being an energy source.

[Sergarr]

Funny how the biofuel is on the very bottom of that list.

[10ebbor10]

Do note that said graph is outdated, and US centric. For example, the Nuclear EROEI assumes the fuel is enriched using a gaseous diffusion, a technique which is energy inefficient*, and nowadays isn't used much anymore. A more correct number for that is 75.

Hydro relies on dams having 100 year plus lifetime, which isn't true for most modern dams. The best sites have been taken up already, and new sites tend to loose capacity fast, to the point that some new dams will probably never be profitable.

Additionally, biofuel returns might be even worse than is shown on that list.


*So inefficient, that an old enrichment installations in France had three on site nuclear reactors to provide power, and that almost 10% of the US's energy use during the cold war went to enrichment.

[DJ]

I thought there was a lot of room for hydro expansion with tidal plants, since that hasn't been really tapped yet.

[10ebbor10]

Tidal isn't hydro, and there are many energy sources (even for conventional hydro power) that haven't been tapped yet. It just depends if you're willing to sacrifice an ecosystem or two.

[LordBucket]

If solar simply continues to improve at the rate it has been, it will be fairly pointless to do anything else in another 10-15 years or so. Collection efficiency can't improve indefinitely, but it doesn't need to. It just needs to be cheap enough that anyone can slap a couple thousand dollars worth of panels on their roof and generate enough to power their house and their car year round. At that point, things like massive centralized generators with city-wide powergrids and digging up billions of tons of material from the ground and shipping it across thousands of miles to use for fuel all become fairly silly.

Then add a bunch more industries that will become largely irrelevant. Power companies, gas stations, oil/gas drilling and shipping, nuclear power stations, etc.

[forsaken1111]

If solar simply continues to improve at the rate it has been, it will be fairly pointless to do anything else in another 10-15 years or so. Collection efficiency can't improve indefinitely, but it doesn't need to. It just needs to be cheap enough that anyone can slap a couple thousand dollars worth of panels on their roof and generate enough to power their house and their car year round. At that point, things like massive centralized generators with city-wide powergrids and digging up billions of tons of material from the ground and shipping it across thousands of miles to use for fuel all become fairly silly.

Then add a bunch more industries that will become largely irrelevant. Power companies, gas stations, oil/gas drilling and shipping, nuclear power stations, etc.

That all sounds really cool if you live somewhere that has sun all day. We have had one sunny day of the last 6-7 so far.

It's all fun and games until the batteries run dry because the last week has been nonstop rain and clouds.

[10ebbor10]

Interesting and relevant.

[Propman]

It's all fun and games until the batteries run dry because the last week has been nonstop rain and clouds.

Hence why it is imperative that we discover how to control the weather immediately afterwards, and then weaponize it for use as WMD refine the technology so that it wouldn't take a star's worth of energy in order to preform.

[10ebbor10]

Weather control already works. It's just not reliable.

Anyway, still doesn't let you get around night and stuff like that.

[LordBucket]

It's all fun and games until the batteries run dry because the last week has been nonstop rain and clouds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight#Composition_and_power
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_window
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cell_research#Infrared_solar_cells
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/03/27/silicon-solar-photovoltaic-cell-created-can-turn-infrared-radiation-electricity/

Sunlight in the infrared range penetrates clouds. Energy output from our sun in that range is roughly 70% what it is in the visible spectrum. Current residential solar panels are only about 20% efficient. If infrared panels can be developed that are 28% efficient, that will give you in 100% cloud cover the equivalent of visible light panels in 0% cloud cover. Better yet, somebody will have the genius to design panels that absorb both ranges resulting in an immediate ~ *1.7 increase from current efficiency.

Plus it would be cool to have solar panels that generate power in total darkness provided you let your cat sleep on them.

[10ebbor10]

20% efficiency for residential is a bit of an overstatement. Most fall between 15-18%.

Anyway, solar irradiance is calculated over the entire electromagnetic spectrum, so there are no real gains to be made there. There's a nice advantage in that you can recollect energy absorbed/reflected by clouds though.