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

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson

>>...They can haul something like fifty tons per load. In any case farming
involves lots of stop and go no??

>...No.  Most of the time a farm tractor is in the field, it is at close to
full throttle...

Ja, which makes tractor use a nearly ideal application of Diesel.  If you
are at idle, time is being wasted, which means money is being wasted.

>...I wonder if I am the only one on the list with direct experience with
farming?  (Though in my case it is because two of my uncles and one aunt
were farmers.)  Keith

Keith I suspect your experience is about 80% of the collective experience on
this list on actual farms, and mine is about half of the remaining 20%.  I
have fresh memories of operating a tractor and burning up a tank of Diesel
fuel.  I am trying to imagine doing that job using an energy storage medium
with about 1% of the energy density.  I can imagine some applications for an
electric tractor, but not the use I have.

Regarding power use at idle for electrics, there is another consideration.
A gasoline powered car uses zero energy when the engine is not running, but
an all-electric vehicle discharges while sitting in the garage.  This
applies to lead-acid, NiCad and Li-ion tech, as well as every other electric
storage medium.  If you have a full charge on a bunch of batteries, we
should calculate the energy used per day while sitting in the garage.  I
wouldn't think it negligible.

For this reason, I think a series hybrid might have promise for automotive
use rather than full electric.  That way, you don't store very much energy
in batteries and you keep your Diesel IC running at peak efficiency the
whole time it is running.  Series hybrids are inherently pokey, possibly too
much so for most people in our current mindset.  Our current mindset might
be altered by what I expect in fuel prices as soon as Israel and Iran go at
each other.  Then people will compare Diesel series hybrids with bicycles
instead of Detroit V8s, and marvel at how fast they are.

spike