'Oil Shock' Looming - What are the Alternatives?
CategoriesWe like to think that our way of life is "normal", that nothing will happen to force a drastic change in how we live, produce, move around, warm ourselves in the winter and light our streets and houses. Yet, we are using a highly vulnerable energy technology (the burning of fossil fuels) and we have allowed a commercial cartel to monopolize that energy technology while sabotaging any valid alternatives.
We can see the end of cheap oil, and likely the end of the "oil economy" and it appears to be just around the corner. The French paper Le Monde carried an article on 31 March this year, which was translated by Mark Jensen, a professor of language in Tacoma, Washington. It discusses Hubbert's peak oil prediction and urges us to act.
What to do about it? There is a whole field of research called "free energy" or "new energy technologies" that is carried along on the shoulders of people without financial means, without patent protection and without publicity. Let's bring that field "out in the open" and demand that governments change course, before it is too late. Thanks to Patrick Bailey for publishing this article in his "New Energy News", a newsletter for free energy researchers. To subscribe, you can contact Pat at ine@padrak.com.
There is plenty of documentation available in the sites linked at the end of this post to show that these are not the ramblings of a few deluded greens. The threat is real. We better be prepared...
And yes - there ARE alternatives.
ENERGY ALTERNATIVES
A friend recently asked a question about alternatives in energy production:
I listened to Michael Ruppert’s last interview, which FTW sells in CD form. Ruppert has discovered a new topic: Finite Oil Resources. And, he seems to be quite overwhelmed by the problem.
Now, Sepp, what are (could be) the realistic alternatives for our modern societies to produce energy other than splitting uranium or burning wood, coal, gas or oil ?
My reply was:
there are various alternatives in the works, some more progressed than others, and some in the research stage.
HYDROGENThe most progressed and immediate seems to be hydrogen. It can be used much like natural gas to run cars, heat our food, or run generators or "fuel cells", which directly convert hydrogen to electricity. The great conditional on this one is that hydrogen could work, IF a way was found to make it easier to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. Current technology is electrolysis, using about as much primary energy (electricity) to do the separation so as you can then recover using the hydrogen.
Experiments are underway to use various systems to cut down on the amount of electricity needed for the separation process:
Bacteria sometimes produce hydrogen as a by-product of their digestive process.
Metallic catalyzers make the water molecules easier to separate. I believe that this was a Spanish experiment.
Ultraviolet light makes water more unstable, making separation easier.
High frequency electricity and various wave forms are making it easier to break up the water molecule.
There are various systems in different stages of development, but so far nothing is commercially available. This needs a breakthrough, after which hydrogen could be seen as a real alternative to oil and gas.
MAGNETSLots of experiments are going on with magnetic motors, that use the properties of magnets in an innovative way. Magnets, once magnetized, make a "field" that could be used again and again, if one can overcome some technical hurdles.
Some real progress is going on in this field. Recently, a Japanese inventor has started producing motors (for air conditioning equipment) which are built with powerful permanent magnets and which apparently only use a fraction of the electrical input that normal electric motors use. I have an article on this on my site:
Kohei Minato and the Japan Magnetic Fan Company
There is also a South African company that apparently has a similar technology and is ready to start producing:
COLD FUSIONContrary to popular myth, Pons and Fleischman did find a way to make a nuclear process happen in the matrix of hydrogen-loaded metals. This has been derided in the press for years, but the experiments were replicated and new experiments done in many countries. There is a yearly conference on Cold Fusion research, and even the US department of energy recently decided to review its negative stance on Cold Fusion.
Infinite Energy Magazine, whose editor Gene Mallove was recently murdered, is by far the best source on data on progress in this area of the alternative energy field.
SPACE ENERGYThis term groups a number of technologies that seek to tap the omnipresent energy of space itself, (magnets is a subset of this) by various means. There are "solid state", i.e. fully electronic means of converting that space energy, and there are some historical examples of workable technologies, which did however die with the inventors. Nikola Tesla had the problem solved, as had some other people later auch as T Henry Moray with his Radiant Energy device and Hans Coler during WW II.
Unfortunately these are all history, as the devices are not currently available and no one has been able to duplicate them with the means available.
Other, current research is ongoing in this field, but no one has anything ready for commercialization, as far as I can tell.
So for now, Hydrogen and Magnets seem closest to the real breakthrough, but Cold Fusion or a related technology (Blacklight Power comes to mind) could catch up, and there is always the possibility of another Space Energy breakthrough that could surprise us.
This is in addition to the officially pushed "alternative" power resources such as solar, windpower, waves and tides, geothermal and agricultural crops such as oilseeds or sugar cane to make combustibles.
There ARE alternatives. We just need to look around and start helping those who work in the field rather than putting up ever new barriers for them to climb. It's really a matter of deciding to do something and then doing it.
Kind regards
Sepp
Here finally the Le Monde article:
TRANSLATION: The Mother Of All Oil Shocks Is Looming
Written by Mark Jensen
Friday, 02 April 2004In a few years, the global production of conventional oil will fall, while the global demand continues to rise. The resulting shock of this structural oil famine is inevitable, so great are the dependency of our economies on cheap oil and, related to the first, our inability to wean ourselves from this dependency in a short period of time.
We can hope to soften the shock, but only if its imminence immediately becomes the unique reference point for a general mobilization of our societies...
Read the article here: TOWARD THE PETRO-APOCALYPSE
Sites and articles on peak oil:
After the Oil Runs Out - Washington Post
Running out of oil is not the issue
Revealing Statements from a Bush Insider about Peak Oil and Natural Gas Depletion
Eating Fossil Fuels - by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
A Call for Action - by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
Crude Awakening: How to Survive the Total Global Energy Crunch of 2006
Unprecedented warnings from the scientific community indicate that the planet's ecosystems are stressed near the point of collapse; business as usual is no longer possible, and we have little time left to respond. Civilization is also approaching a nexus of social crises. All of these problems result from the nature of capitalism, and we cannot expect solutions from political leaders or corporations. Therefore, this author is soliciting advice from experts and from anyone who might have suggestions as to what measures can people of limited means undertake to ease their transition into a post-petroleum world. Submissions will be published in a book, the profits of which will be used to inform people and possibly provide grants in order to help people prepare for the coming transition.
The contrary view - could oil reserves be virtually unlimited?Discovery backs theory oil not 'fossil fuel'
A study published in Science Magazine today presents new evidence supporting the abiotic theory for the origin of oil, which asserts oil is a natural product the Earth generates constantly rather than a "fossil fuel" derived from decaying ancient forests and dead dinosaurs.The lead scientist on the study – Giora Proskurowski of the School of Oceanography at
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