The canary just died

Reflections on fusion history, current events, and predictions for the 'fusion powered future.
3l
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The canary just died

Post by 3l »

Hi Folks:

Heres a little quote from one of the titans of the oil and gas bussiness.

Quoted from Rude Awakening

In late April of 2003, T. Boone Pickens kicked off the Grant's Spring Conference here in Manhattan by declaring, "I don't believe I'll ever see natural gas below $4.50 again." Inventories are extremely low, he explained, supply is falling and demand is holding steady - a potentially explosive situation for gas prices. "If we get another cold winter next year," Pickens predicted, "the gas price could go to $10 an mcf or more...the gas price could do anything, and I mean anything!"

Sure as shucks, the gas price soared above $7.00 later that year, and has only "kissed" $4.50 a couple of times since then. More to the point, the gas price has averaged about $5.60 since Pickens' declaration and topped $7.00 again yesterday.

Fresh from his dead-on prediction for natural gas prices, Pickens issued a second Delphic forecast last May - this time about crude oil prices. "I think you'll see $50 before you see $30 again," said Pickens. At the time, crude oil was changing hands for $41.50, and had averaged only about $36 for the year-to-date. But as we all know now, the price profile of the crude oil market has changed dramatically since then. Crude decisively scaled the $50-mark yesterday and planted its flag at $51.29 before settling in for the night at $51.09.

Pickens continues to up his forecasts. On September 27, he said in a radio interview with Bloomberg News that he expects the price of crude to surge to $60 before it returns to $40. Should we trust his judgment?

Many of the attendees of the May 2003 Grant's conference wondered the same thing, when Pickens' predicted a new era of permanently higher natural gas prices. One skeptical attendee asked the oilman, "If high, and rising, natural gas prices seem so probable, why aren't the exploration and production companies working feverishly to increase their drilling activity?"

The answer, according to Pickens, was that "there's nuthin' to drill." The oil and gas industry keeps poking holes, of course, but they aren't finding very much oil or gas to suck out of those holes. About 1,243 drilling rigs are currently operating on U.S. soil and in contiguous waters, according to Baker Hughes - that's about 12% more than this time last year, and about 40% more than two years ago. Even so, domestic production of crude oil and natural gas has tumbled 5% since 2001.

Proven reserves of U.S. crude oil are close to a 29-year low after falling 3.5% last year. Meanwhile, demand charges ahead. Worldwide oil demand will average 82.2 million barrels a day this year and jump by another 1.8 million barrels next year.

Happy Fusoring!
Larry Leins
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Richard Hull
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Richard Hull »

I've always said we don't even need to come close to running out of oil. A sudden but permanent 10% drop in supply or loss of same could percipitate disaster.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
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Adam Szendrey
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Adam Szendrey »

Things seem to have an exponential nature.
The end of the oil age might be a fast one, after a slow but ever accelerating evolution of the situation.
These days the oil industry is very sensitive...a more pronounced kick of some sort (destruction of a bunch of wells, or something similar, like a hurricane recently did, and oil prices DID rise) might brake the fragile support and, the whole thing can collapse...Richard is probably right...the end will come much sooner than our reserves run out. So...what are they planning to do?

Adam
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Richard Hull
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Richard Hull »

They'll diversify!! Just Like Philip Morris did in the 80's! The tobacco companies smelled the end and so they gradually gobled up companies like Kraft Foods and Nabisco to create a non tobacco cushion. So it will be with the oil industries, I figure those that aren't already involved will just slide into the petro-chemical and specialty organics market, plastics, pharmaceuticals and the like.

Remember they are a business entity first and not an altruistic energy supplier looking to supply new energy. They will sell what ever is profitable with the least hassle on the business entity. Currently, they are just pushing petroleum product out the door. They obviously would like to just make a lateral move with little or no change in infrastructure and petro chemicals, plastics, etc would be just the thing. However, there are a lot of nice failing or distressed businesses that come on the market, far outside their field, and they just might pick up a few here and there.

There is no law that says an oil company has to sell oil or gas.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Adam Szendrey
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Adam Szendrey »

Exactly...i have been talkin with others about the same thing, and what you have just wrote is the logical conclusion...maybe the oil industry itself will become the hydrogen industry...i'm sure they have all the business plans ready.

Adam
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Captain_Proton »

Is this still a forum about fusion, or can we all post random thoughts and musings?
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Richard Hull
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Richard Hull »

As fusion touches on energy issues, this forum was granted a bit of leeway in discussing energy issues. The future of hot fusion looks very bleak as does all other forms of energy. Viable alternatives are topics that may be touched on. If any forum here can get political or dance slightly askew, this one is it.

The technical forums are for dry facts, fanciful theories and "how-to" construction details. I just don't want politics and side-show jaw jackin' in those, so we sort of allow this forum a bit of play to more general energy issues and the politics of energy as relates to our future as well as fusion's future.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
3l
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Re: The canary just died

Post by 3l »

Hi Captain Proton:

To be more technical about this post , I was reading this quote when I looked up at my vacuum system. I could not do a single thing without oil of some sort. Rough pumping and diff pump tho cheap to run and buy will not be useful in the future without cheap oil.
Turbo pumps will rule the roost in fusion research after the fall (or rise in the price) of oil. Also since we haven't achieved fusion breakthrought yet, the social and economics of this great shift will dirrectly effect the work of the fusor group.
We have a firm base of folks now so the work just won't get snuffed out as in the past but now is the time to gather parts and supplies. Just because a part is made of metal or does not use oil in it construction , that part has to be delivered to your door.
Eye there's the rub!

Happy Fusoring!
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Re: The canary just died

Post by DaveC »

I am inclined to doubt we are yet running out of oil. T Boone Pickens is not exactly an unbiased source.. and has serious vested interests in being justified in raising prices.

You make more money at 4$ /gal than at $2. The oil companies already view themselves as "energy companies". So a logical market for them is nuclear, probably fuel production and recycling., if they begin to diversify out of carbon and hydrocarbon fuels.

But one way or the other, the future holds some very interesting and challenging times, for the next generation.

Dave Cooper
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Re: The canary just died

Post by 3l »

Hi Dave:

Pickens is not the only insider to raise the alarm.
Commodity traders and bankers now assume 70 dollar a barrel oil is a done deal. I know these folks are biased but the oil biz has changed a bunch since the 90's. They they no longer cover shortfalls in production by pumping more out of the ground.
All sectors of fossil fuel are up because oil is not pulling the slack
anymore in heating oil. LP and Natural gas have almost doubled in price this year due to oil supply problems. Richard's right about diversification . Prime examples BP,Exxon Mobil,Kerr Magee with solar and nuclear options in hand and ready. All my solar panels are from BP. The future is ramping up pretty fast.
Buckle your seatbelts! The talk on the street is 90 dollar a barrel oil.

Happy Fusoring!
Larry Leins
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Re: The canary just died

Post by gpierce »

Unfortunately, short of building a LOT of nuke plants and breeders, we are tubed. I have researched this at length, as have many others. Our economy and civilization simply cannot survive the loss of cheap, plentiful energy.

Check this out. He sounds like a foil-hat whack-job at first, but you quickly find out that he has done his homework. Right now, this guy has his book available online in PDF format (for free), and It is worth a read. Some things he describes with respect to events surrounding 9/11 are a bit dubious, but the overall implications of the coming oil shortage are spot-on. Here is another excellent site, which is a bit wider in scope and offers a lot of information.
3l
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Re: The canary just died

Post by 3l »

Hi Greg:

People wonder sometimes when I bring up this topic.
In 1975 at a DOE group meeting ,150 good scientists and engineers and their techs sat down to come up with alternative
energy for President Carter. After two months and lots of debate the group told the president that plutonium was the only cure to the energy needs of America. Four months later the President banned all future research into and use of plutonium. So here we are 29 years later, a president out to lunch on energy.
A Congress without a clue.
It is only the individual who will act.

Happy Fusoring!
Larry Leins
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Adam Szendrey
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Adam Szendrey »

I have read the article. It is interesting. If it's viable, than we are in for it....but...
That article does not know about various researches that MIGHT result in a new energy source...like this group...who knows, even if "only" the hybrid could be done, it would be a major step.
Also, pebble bed reactors are much better than any other nuclear reactor, since the fuel can be handled, be disposed of, much more easily, and cheaply, and it's fool proof. Plus those small scale reactors, that are also "self-protecting".
The writer of this article probably knows little to nothing, about these technologies, or about this forum.

Larry, that is peculiar...Why would someone ban researching a technology that would provide us with plenty of energy?
Btw, by Pu did they mean to use nuclear waste as a fuel?

Adam
3l
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Re: The canary just died

Post by 3l »

Hi Adam:

I am pushing hard on the hybrid concept.

There are two idiot policy decisions at work here.

Idiot decision #1

Tritium would allow Farnsworth style hybrids to function without many alterations. This we could do today. However the Government has banned it's use in civilian circles.
The 14 Mev neutrons would allow the breeding of more tritium to fuel the beast.

Idiot decision#2

President Carter was a Naval Cadet when the Chalk River fire
at the NRX occured. His cadre of naval nuclear officer cadets at Anapolis were drawn to combat that fire. That experience never left him.
I am pretty sure that is what killed the plutonium mox fuels,plutonium recovery and the breeder program in general.
That's when the idiot policy of burying good fuel in the ground started. Fuel rods have piled up around the country waiting for burial.
We went on a synfuels developement bindge that ended with no results.

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Larry Leins
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Adam Szendrey
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Adam Szendrey »

I have been thinking about this topic.
The conclusion is, that it's already too late..To build enough pebble beds, or other kinds of nuke plants, to provide hydrogen production facilities with enough power (which would effectively power ALL the cars, airplanes, trucks, trains, ships, etc..), would take decades..and ofcourse the hydrogen infrastructure must be built as well...and what about plastics?
Even if there will not be a mad max type chaos, there WILL be a gap.
And we must not forget that eventually we will run out of uranium aswell. Then all the nuke fuel we have left is the waste.
Though that is much further into the future (probably hundreds of years). Even fusion would not power us forever....but would give us a lot of time to come up with something better.

The change from oil (from fossils generally) to something better should have begun decades ago.

Adam
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Re: The canary just died

Post by walter_b_marvin »

This is a misconception. Actually there is plenty of oil, at the right price. (Shale oil, for example) The problem is really a greenhouse gas problem, and we need to solve it in the next 20 years. When it comes to their kysters, politicians are not dumb, and that's why there is a renued intrest in the government for alternitave fuels.

There is pleanty of deuterium in the oceans. I heard a projection that our sun will go red gaint before our deuterium supply gives out. I'm not sure of that because I'm not sure what rate of acceleration of energy production a fusion based economy might demand. But it points out how pleantiiful deuterium is.

I think Uranium is a dead issue, the current trend is to decomission, rather than newly comission new fission plants. Unless a cleaner way to use Uranium is found
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Richard Hull
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Richard Hull »

Thanks for the URL's Greg.

This guy is saying what I have been saying. We are already in the shadow of the final episode. It is too late NOW. Uranium will save us, but only when we are, hungry enough, cold enough and tired of social unrest in the streets. All problems of greehouse gases, nuclear waste issues will just go POOOF! It will be as if a magic wand was waived.

Nuke and solar can be forced to make hydrogen, albeit inefficiently. We will struggle thorugh these coming dark times as we have struggled through other tough times, but folks will die enmass before it is all over, perhaps making the world a more livable and survivable planet.

You just can't keep makin' babies. The earth or Gaia or whatever, just won't allow it and man isn't smart enough or clever enough to work around nature on this one. Less resources, less energy, less food is followed ipso-facto by less people. Malthus had it right years ago.

We have worked ourselves into a nice little energy crunch corner from which there is no MASS escape, in that not everyone will come out the other side, once the obvious little escape paths are taken.

The infrastructure is too large with far too much inertia worked by far too large a group of hangers-on to be nimble enough to "come about" in time to avoid the crash. At some point, the battleship "Oil" will have the most wise and thoughtful amongst her crew determine that the ship is lost and they will start to individually jump ship with plans on "unit" survival all hatched.

Those that chose well might bob about in the water a bit, but will ultimately find a new land that will be nothing like the security of the old "battle wagon", but will be quite livable and the next generation will adapt as if nothing ever happened.

There is no animal on this planet as greedy or as stupid as man. Nor, is there any animal more naturally suited to survival in the face of adversity.

Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Adam Szendrey
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Adam Szendrey »

And how much do i agree with that!
We thought we have tricked evolution...on the contrary...evolution tricked us .
The coming times will favor those with imagination, creativity, logic, and practical skills, and those who are intelligent enough not to fight with the others over territory, food, water, energy....The rest, those who have zero intellect, who are absolutely dependent, and can only live under guidance, who can only follow the flock, can only survive if they stand behind a suitable leader, or join a community, but never individually...hopefully this kind will eventually (over time) be extinct.
We just cannot get around nature it seems, as we are a part of it, no matter how hard we try to separate ourselves.
Still, i don't want to go into far-fetched predictions (i know, i did ), as my knowledge (show me one person on this planet who knows enough to do so) is not extensive enough. Who knows what are they keeping locked up until the perfect moment comes to announce it...this is what i hope for...and at the same time what i'm affraid of...

Adam
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Re: The canary just died

Post by 3l »

Hi Adam:

To quote the Morelocks from HG Wells Time machine....
Eloys are good eating!
I hope it won't get to that tho!
The dependant will thain....empty pockets don't ever make the grade.
The intelligent folks will evolve and adapt to the new situation.
Those less willing will pass into history.
Without so much as a foot print to mark their passage.
Just like the doubting Thomas's at Pompeii....Aw the mountain will stop..... just watch ...pretty isn't it.
Got grandstand seats by golly!
I have of bunch of folk today that feel the same way about this silly oil bit.
The smart folk split the city the first month of the eruptions at Mt Vesuvius.
It is too late for the whole country but you know people aren't as dumb as you would think. They will make it alright. I have faith in the humans ability to strive and succeed.....the question is how long will it take to climb back up? We might get a thousand years of peace with no oil because no one will hand paddle the Atlantic Ocean to bug us. Heck 3 masted schooners will make a comeback. Avast ye squabs. The new syop plans will include
wooden ships instead of B52's to delliver nukes. Wooden ships with sails will become the nuclear deterent of the latter 21 century.as oil fades.

Happy Fusoring!
Larry Leins
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walter_b_marvin

Re: The canary just died

Post by walter_b_marvin »

Don't laugh too loud... remember the "spruce goose" and yea it did fly... LOL
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Re: The canary just died

Post by AnGuy »

Larry,

Do any of your friends at the DOE have any estimates on when the Ghawar or other major Saudi fields will go under? 12, 24, 36 months?

Thanks
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Re: The canary just died

Post by 3l »

Hi Ag:

The point of the post is that the estimates they had were blown out the window by the Gwar data from the Saudi's.
Originally they had 20 years tops but the new data makes that estimate highly optimistic. They simply don't know.
Its just in the 5 year zone + or minus 3 years!
The price in 24 months will be fearsomely high...5 buck gas.
There will be highs and lows but that is the gas price most commodity traders are williing to pay.

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Adam Szendrey
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Adam Szendrey »

I just wonder what the situation will look like 15-20 years from now. I guess all they can do is to make fuel cells cheap, or at least they should build hydrogen stations (after all, it can be burned inside a combustion engine)...there aren't too much LP cars out there either, though most of the LP gases are produced from oil, so not much point in converting cars to run on LP...

Adam
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Richard Hull »

Cars will rapidly transition to roller skate sized 3 seat hybrids as the last of the $8.00 to $20.00/gallon gas gets pumped over the next 15-20 years. From there, probably hydrogen or fuel cells systems will take over in yet smaller vehicles. Forget a world of two seaters........one seaters will rule.

SUV's will be gone real quick for the casual, "keep up with the jones' " driver and the average nouveau soccer moms. The filthy rich will drive them until they are too embarrassed to be seen in them. The $20.00/gallon will remain no impediment, it will be more of a "gauche thing" that will stop them. Actually, if we have to return to simple odd-even day rationing or gasoline ration book limits, this will get all of the SUV's off the roads on work days, completely.

Here is probably how it will play out.

1. gas prices rise >$3.00/gallon. A lot of folks convert to hybrids. SUV's thin out a bit. Gas still there for the money.

2. Gas rationing of some sort maybe at $4.00/gallon.

3. Rationing halved when $4.00/ gallon fails to make a dent and folks are using every bit of their ration. This might happen at $5.00/gallon. At this point the SUV will be a rarity on the road and unseen on weekdays work traffic.

4. As the end of gas arrives, there will be shortages at $20.00/gallon and regardless of your having the money and the ration tickets, you might not find any. By this time, alternate fuels in single seaters and public mass transit will be once again the mode of choice to get to work.

5. Ultimately, all mass and personal transport will be electric to the drive train. Trolley's, interurbans, return of continental rail service in a big way, (circa 1930's-40's) and modern alternate fuels to electric. The world will be 100% electrical.

I was caught in a Washington DC area traffic jam recently and I estimate that there might have been 10,000 vehicles stretched over 20 miles in the 6 lane part of I95 I was in and all moved about 100 feet at a time and then stopped for 25 seconds and then another 100 feet and stop, etc. I had plenty of time as the 15 mile trip took over 1.5 hours so I Started averaging the SUV/VAN/ monster trucks against the full sized cars and then the smaller fuel effcient cars. Making tick marks on paper for later reduction.

The ratio was about 6.2:3:1.2, respectively. This was over the 311 vehicles I logged that came within my sampling area during that stop and go nightmare. How much gas was consumed by all of these vehicles all running for 1.5 hours to get them a meaningless 15 miles? How long can this daily metro DC nightmare continue?

It will be over soon enough, I figure.


Richard Hull
Progress may have been a good thing once, but it just went on too long. - Yogi Berra
Fusion is the energy of the future....and it always will be
The more complex the idea put forward by the poor amateur, the more likely it will never see embodiment
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Re: The canary just died

Post by Frank Sanns »

Richard,

I agree with you 100%. There are two problems there. One is the gas guzzlers but I think equally important is the failed road/traffic control systems. By sitting in traffic, an economy car can still suck down what an SUV would use going at a constant 55 mph.

I happen to own one of those BMWs that you are allways saying the rich drive. Well, I am not rich and I only drive around 5,000 miles a year in a car. On the trip to the HEAS meeting, that 3 liter engine averaged 31 mpg on the enitre trip. Your place to mine and back again. If you do the math, I would only use around 165 gallons of gasoline a year. BUT, with traffic, that number doubles.

The gas eaters have to go as well as long duration daily commutes, but to me the traffic and inefficiencies in the road system are equally responsible for much of the world fuel consumption.

Frank S.
Achiever's madness; when enough is still not enough. ---FS
We have to stop looking at the world through our physical eyes. The universe is NOT what we see. It is the quantum world that is real. The rest is just an electron illusion. ---FS
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