Oil goes into the negative range

[DarkHunter]

4 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

First, we have to stop using single use items if we think they can only be made of plastic.  Things like plastic wrap, and bags that are meant to keep something from getting dirty until you open the bag and use the item are choking us and the rest of the animals.  I do understand how wide spread plastic use actually is.  You don't understand how dangerous it is to continue to use it as we do now. We can use other materials, including aluminum foil for heating food or what ever you are talking about,  which is cheaper to recycle than to mine. Why do you think you can sell used aluminum, there is a huge market for it.  Saves the companies huge money to use recycled aluminum than to buy it from miners.

A lot of stuff in the medical and research industry are single use plastic items.  In both single use plastic drastically reduces the chances of contamination of occuring.  While certain items can be replaced with non plastic alternatives there are an insane amount of things that can not realistically or economically replace plastic.

While plastic does cause environmental problems so too will any plastic alternatives, they will just cause different but almost certainly as severe environmental problems.

4 minutes ago, Desertrat56 said:

You are confused about how silicon can be used (for one thing - glass - look it up, glass)  and how you can take clay and shape it any way you want, fire it and have your container.  AND I have no problem with reusable plastic like tupperware or lids that go on pyrex bowls.  But we do Not NEED plastic, it is a manufactured need like television and video games.

There is a difference between silicon and silicone which you dont seem to understand.  Silicones are what some people are suggesting plastics be replaced with and are chains of silicon and oxygen atoms with organic group ends.  Silicon is an element with atomic number 14.  Also glass is made generally from silicate and other oxides mixed in, the silicate used in glass production is silicon dioxide. 

I dont know if you are trying to sound intelligent but using an atom to refer to now multiple different compounds isnt helping in that regard.  If one wanted to do what you are doing in defense of plastic they would just refer to plastic as carbon and argue how carbon is used in all of these unrelated non-plastic items so therefore plastic must be kept.  

Are you honestly trying to argue that clay would allow the same ease of production as plastics, that is just completely and utterly absurd and insane.

[+Desertrat56]

2 minutes ago, DarkHunter said:

Are you honestly trying to argue that clay would allow the same ease of production as plastics, that is just completely and utterly absurd and insane.

Clay have been used successfully for millennia, before petroleum was used for anything other than fire.  As for your chemistry lesson, it does not make me wrong, just ignorant of the names of chemicals, which I noticed silicon was part of each that you mentioned.  I am not trying to sound intelligent, I am trying to communicate that we have other, better options than petroleum and petroleum is what is our largest problem in so many ways, financial, pollution, societal attitudes, etc.  I am not arguing with you any more, you are not as intelligent as you want people to think, just because you can name chemical compound, your logic is still fallacious.

[DarkHunter]

1 minute ago, Desertrat56 said:

Clay have been used successfully for millennia, before petroleum was used for anything other than fire.  As for your chemistry lesson, it does not make me wrong, just ignorant of the names of chemicals, which I noticed silicon was part of each that you mentioned.  I am not trying to sound intelligent, I am trying to communicate that we have other, better options than petroleum and petroleum is what is our largest problem in so many ways, financial, pollution, societal attitudes, etc.  I am not arguing with you any more, you are not as intelligent as you want people to think, just because you can name chemical compound, your logic is still fallacious.

Clay is also relatively heavy, brittle, and is extremely limited in what it can be shaped into.  Then the industrial size kilns one would need running constantly will produce quite the massive amount of CO2.

The chemistry does pretty much make you wrong, you were arguing that plastic should be replaced with an item then in defense used the properties of unrelated items just cause they shared an atom in common in their molecular structure.  Like I said your logic could be used to defend plastic by using carbon and pointing out how carbon is used not only in plastic but also in carbon steel, wood (technically any plant or animal derived material), or any other item in a stupidly long list of stuff that uses carbon.  The argument is just absurd and doesnt work from any logical standpoint.

While petroleum does cause a lot of problems there also isnt any viable alternative that wont cause just as bad if not worse problems.

[+DieChecker]

On 4/20/2020 at 3:20 PM, Gromdor said:

Break even point is $48-$54 a barrel for shale oil.  https://www.ccn.com/collapsing-crude-prices-will-bankrupt-u-s-shale-oil-stocks/

Break even for fracking is $30-50 a barrel.  https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/072215/can-fracking-survive-60-barrel.asp

 

I'm Ok with that. More oil left in the ground for the USA later. Once the Saudis and Russians run out, we'll be able to charge astronomic prices, and they'll have to pay, or not have any fuel.

Edited April 25, 2020 by DieChecker

[+DieChecker]

On 4/21/2020 at 5:11 PM, DarkHunter said:

Solar powered cars are just not feasible in any way what so ever.  To put it into perspective to go approximately 40 mph in a car it takes about 5 to 6 horsepower and to collect enough energy from the sun with modern solar panels to go that fast you would need about 19 to 22 square meters of solar panels.  To go 70 mph you would need about 75 square meters of solar panels.  Even then it would only work while the sun is up.

One could argue you would use a battery to store the energy but if you are already doing that no point in using solar panels.  Even then there are once again electro thermodynamic problems that creep up that prevent them from truly equaling cars at a competitive price point.

I think the best option would be hydrogen. Water is everywhere, and with solar panels, you can crack it into Oxygen and Hydrogen. With a big enough tank, you would have range, and speed.

Not sure if hydrogen would work for airplanes, but I suspect it would just be an engineering issue, not one of enough energy.

Edited April 25, 2020 by DieChecker

[XenoFish]

16 minutes ago, DieChecker said:

I think the best option would be hydrogen. Water is everywhere, and with solar panels, you can crack it into Oxygen and Hydrogen. With a big enough tank, you would have range, and speed.

Not sure if hydrogen would work for airplanes, but I suspect it would just be an engineering issue, not one of enough energy.

What about biofuels? Even methane can be harvested rather easily. 

[DarkHunter]

45 minutes ago, DieChecker said:

I think the best option would be hydrogen. Water is everywhere, and with solar panels, you can crack it into Oxygen and Hydrogen. With a big enough tank, you would have range, and speed.

Not sure if hydrogen would work for airplanes, but I suspect it would just be an engineering issue, not one of enough energy.

Hydrogen is one of the better choices for ground vehicles but for planes though it wouldn't work.

The good thing about hydrogen is that per mol combusting it produces a good bit more energy then gas, its plentiful, and that its environmentally friendly.  But then the problems start to arise. 

While hydrogen is plentiful getting it though is a bit tricky, there is electrolysis but that requires a good bit more energy then it produces and would probably get rid of the environmentally friendly aspect of hydrogen depending on how it's done.  Oil refining ironically can produce quite a large amount of hydrogen through the various cracking processes but that would require still using oil for fuel production.  

Then there is the problem with storing hydrogen.  While combusting hydrogen produces more energy per mole you also store insanely less hydrogen on a unit volume per mol basis then most other things at standard temperature and pressure.  You can get around that by storing hydrogen under rather high pressures but refilling the vehicle then becomes a bit problematic, you really just dont want average people trying to refill a highly combustible and reactive substance that is under insanely high pressure.  

To put it in perspective one cubic meter can only hold 0.082 kg of hydrogen which is about 40.67 mols at stp while one cubic meter can hold about 719 kg of gasoline which is about 8,360 mols of gasoline.

Both problems are being worked on and its possible in the intermediate future hydrogen vehicles could be used.

As for why hydrogen wont work for planes that is largely due to how jets work.  Jets work by expelling hot gas out the back of the engine to propell them forward and combusting hydrogen just wont produce enough stuff to throw out the back to make enough thrust to get the plane to fly.  It's not strictly impossible but there would need to be radical breakthroughs made it multiple separate areas for a jet engine powered by hydrogen to work.

[DarkHunter]

47 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

What about biofuels? Even methane can be harvested rather easily. 

Biofuels outside of very narrow and specific situations are almost never a solution.

The problem with biofuels is they tend to be either be for energy production either net neutral or a net loss, they get claimed to be a net producer but that depends on ignoring aspects of the production chain.  Plus it still produces the same amount of CO2 as burning it from more fracking and/or oil refining which produce more of it at a cheaper price anyway.

Even then methane will run into similar problems as hydrogen in terms of storage, essentially anything that is a gas at STP is going to be extremely problematic in using to replace current fuels for any vehicle.  

[XenoFish]

Guess I'll just buy a golf cart and add solar panels to the roof.

[lightly]

31 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

Guess I'll just buy a golf cart and add solar panels to the roof.

Good idea.    Electric cars could have solar panels on the roofs...most people drive an hour or two a day on average?  Most days would produce more energy than used ?  . . ?   

Also, I've often wondered why cars are so ridiculously cumbersome.   They could weigh half as much and still be just big and just as functional.  

Lower the speeeeeeeed limits and they could be Much lighter yet.  ?

[XenoFish]

26 minutes ago, lightly said:

Good idea.    Electric cars could have solar panels on the roofs...most people drive an hour or two a day on average?  Most days would produce more energy than used ?  . . ?   

Also, I've often wondered why cars are so ridiculously cumbersome.   They could weigh half as much and still be just big and just as functional.  

Lower the speeeeeeeed limits and they could be Much lighter yet.  ?

The way I see it. A small electric vehicle would be good for the average person/family. With the usage of plug in charging, solar charging and specially designed wind turbine charger. A solar vehicle would be pretty efficient. I've also thought that by combining a biofuel generator as a power source to an electric vehicle would be a good idea. The generator shouldn't need to be very large.

[+Desertrat56]

27 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

The way I see it. A small electric vehicle would be good for the average person/family. With the usage of plug in charging, solar charging and specially designed wind turbine charger. A solar vehicle would be pretty efficient. I've also thought that by combining a biofuel generator as a power source to an electric vehicle would be a good idea. The generator shouldn't need to be very large.

That generally would be true for anyone in a suburban or uban community.  Some of us have to drive highways and so far the only electric (100%) vehicles that are useful for that are Tesla's.  I have hope though, because there are now a lot of engineering students working on viable highway electric cars.

[Raptor Witness]

Deflationary spirals are very hard to control, especially across a broad range of assets. The consumer is terrified, and rightly so.