[ExI] Doomsday Oil Price: (was RIP: Peak Oil)

[Mirco Romanato]

Il 25/02/2012 16:51, Eugen Leitl ha scritto:
> On Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 01:52:35PM +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote:

>> If the direst forecasts are true, this would risk however being futile.

> Nothing is ever futile. The higher the conversion volume done sooner,
> the less the pain. The question we're facing is how dire the energetic
> austerity is going to get, and how many people will have to starve.

In the current predicament? Many more than the necessary.
The zero interests rate of the ECB, BoE, Fed, BoJ are inflating other
bubbles (housing in North Europe for example) draining purchasing power
from producers to rent seekers and other parasites.

It will not end well because it can not end well.

>> Italy, eg, wasted substantial resources subsidising (corrupted and
>> anti-economic) developments of solar and aeolic, and is now already

> Italy should do very well with solar and geothermal, particularly given
> that the panel prices will be soon at the point where feed-in tariffs
> are immaterial.

"Will be soon" is not and never will be "are".
Industries like Alcoa are not interested in unaffordable, undependable,
dispersed power production. They will close down their foundries and
move the production where cheap energy is available. The support and
subsides to wind power and solar is costing the common people a lot of
money (directly from their power bill) as cheaper, more affordable,
dependable and competitive power is forced to pay for the scam of the
day (aka wind and solar).

> Where most countries fail so far, is synfuels. Germany is further
> ahead given that it will reach the point of >100% peak demand filled
> with renewables reasonably soon, and will face the dilemma of using it
> or losing it. The national natural gas storage infrastructure can buffer
> up to 3 months and take up to 5-10% of hydrogen with no modifications,
> and of course there's Sabatier. Methanol or formic acid from scrubbed 
> carbon dioxide and hydrogen is also not very difficult.

What would you use to produce synfuel? Solar? Geothermic? Wind?
I just note that Germany delayed the closing of its nuclear power plants.
Solar PV is unable to generate any economic return without subsides,
ditto for wind. When it will be, there will not be the need for subsides.

> Terrestrial (or even for the inner solar system) fusion for energy production 
> isn't going to happen. It's really hard to compete with the Sun.

Unfortunately, the Sun is a bit far away and exploiting its energy is a
bit problematic if you must sell it without resorting to government
supported stealing and Ponzi schemes.

Mirco