Its the end of the world as we....new it?

heres a neat (somewhat scary) site that looks at all the possible ways life on earth could end

http://www.xs4all.nl/~mke/exitmundi.htm

 

seriously, that has got to be one of the coolest and most insane sites i have ever seen in my enitre internet life. my brain hurts now

 

Not bad. It was a little freaky though.

 

We all really need to pay attention to the section on Peak Oil. It is by far the scariest. Not because the outcome is worse than those little nano-robots (damn thats scary. did you see that episode of x-files?), but because it is without a doubt, completely uncontested, inevitable. It will happen, no matter what, there is nothing out there that refutes it. Nothing. Ultra-liberal to hardcore conservatives all agree oil will peak, soon.

 

And then we switch over to methane hydrates, woohoo how scary

 

Do you have any information about 'methane hydrates' at all? I have been studying this for almost 6 months, I haven't heard anything important about them. Any books on it? Websites?

 

do a google search the reserves are huge the problem with them is they are harder to get to, meaning it would cost more money. so the energy companies did not want to invest in them. they are spread all over the globe in the ground in the artic ares, under the ocean floors. as it turns out the oil companies all ways thought of it as just a waste product before and they keep finding the stuff all over the place.


"Worldwide, estimates of the natural gas potential of methane hydrates approach 400 million trillion cubic feet -- a staggering figure compared to the 5,000 trillion cubic feet that make up the world's currently known gas reserves. "

http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/oilgas/hydrates/


"There is a lot of methane hydrate around. The US Geological Survey conservatively estimates that the methane in sea-floor and permafrost hydrates represents an amount of energy which is at least twice that of all coal, oil and conventional gas reserves put together."

http://www.mala.bc.ca/~earles/m-hydrate-nov99.htm

 

Right now none of it is even remotely accessible, not as a source of energy at least. It takes more energy to get it than it can produce. And two even with HUGE technological jumps it would still be really damn expensive. Couple that with the problems of shipping natural gas, and the inability to use it in IC engines, you don't have a really have a winner there. That stuff is a real bitch to get out of the ground, by all credible reports that is

Just like wind, solar, and hydorgen, it is very worth while, but it will not keep the econimic implications of peak oil from becoming a very hars reality.

The problem is not having oil, it's not being able to afford it.


(Didn't recognize the name 'methane hydrates' )

 

The thing is once the price of oil gets high enough the consumers look for cheaper fuels, currenting oil is the easiest to extract. that is why we consume it the most right. When ever you hear that it takes to much energy to extract it, what they mean is they can not make as much profit as oil. We currently do not pay much for energy here in the u.s. while in europe it is much more expensive yet they adapted.

With the peak oil ,( if it has occured or not yet) we have 30, 40, 50 years left. Prices will go up more but we have all the other sources available. New technologies will allow easier extraction,collection and use of them.


Extracting gas from the hydrate is as simple as depressuring or heat above freezing, the gas and the water seperate.

"a single unit of hydrate can release as much as 160 times its volume in gas when heated and depressurized."

"One cubic meter of hydrate when dissolved will produce 165 to 180 cubic meters of methane. This is roughly the amount of natural gas an average California family burns for heating and cooking every month"

As for storage mother natural has already provide a clue. They are already researching on how to convert the natural gas back into methane hydrate
after extraction. Current they have huge tanker ship able to hold the slush.

As for use, most power station already use it, we already have a distrubution network set up. As for ic engines can use it if modified, public tranports already use it. With the new carbon fiber composite tanks mean high storage volume. Natural gas can also be converted into a new synthetic fuel much like gasoline which means it could be used in the current liquid fuel network.

Japan plans to tap them by 2011
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As we can already see with oil prices raising, it is not causing a major global conflict. People adapt, we are just fazing out of the oil age.

don't forget all the other ways to get energy-

biomass
wave
geothermer
tar sand
oil shale
coal


Don't forget 30 years ago some said we would be starving to death right now.

 

its a cool site, its not al the possible ways though, as im sure there are billions of ways we could all die, and im sure a couple hundred million are caused by us

 

that was by far the most interesting web site I've been to. I didn't even know about most of the things mentioned on the site.

thanks for the link, it was fun