REPLY: Hmmm, I didn’t notice any such thing when I connected, and my spyware scan comes up clean

REPLY 2: from charles the moderator–Anthony, I just checked and this requirement has been added, so IT Guy may be correct, but the need to install Zango was not there last week when you originally made this posting.

REPLY 3: Thanks for the heads up, I’ve removed the link to VREEL and added links to YouTube, which has the video now. When it first was released, only VREEL had it, and yes VREEL has started installing spyware. I’ll never use them again for any purpose – idiots. – Anthony

http://steveward.wordpress.com/2008/07/29/live-better/

Before we get too excited about Peak Oil, there’s some interesting thinking in that arena which, if true, would make concerns about natural resource exhaustion (at least for oil) a bit silly. Check out this article:

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3952

As well, check out a more in-depth look at the resurrected theory of the abiotic origins of oil at:

http://www.gasresources.net/index.htm

Now if (and that’s a mighty big if) this idea holds water, then oil will never run out as it’s being continuously created. Just some fascinating thinking for the geology community.

Assuming a ‘rectantenna’ 10km x 20km in size (how many GaAS diodes will that need?) and 1 GW power at 100% conversion, it works out to about 5 watts/m^2 on average. Assume Gaussian distribution and you have 10 W/m^2 near the center, or 1 mw/cm^2. The Federal exposure standard is 10 microwatts/cm^2, the Euro standard is 1 microwatt. So you are 100x over the limit. Death Star, anyone ?

Conversion efficiency: Glaser didn’t invent the concept, he was a strong proponent. He claimed 90% end-to-end efficiency. My associates in the microwave business said 1% was probable. NASA tried it, put 2 MW in, got 100 W out. Not a lot of publicity on that one. Space isn’t empty, you will have absorption and scattering losses. The air will cause as much or more, even though it is only the last 10 or so miles. PV conversion runs no more than 20%. Assuming 10% RF conversion, you’ll need to start with at least 10 GW to get 1 GW out, and that will require a collector of about 36 million m^2 (9000 acres). A whole lot of silicon, for 1 GW output power. The U.S. currently produces around 100 GW of electricity.

Assuming geostationary or geosync orbit, the satellite should see sun all the time, with the Earth’s axial tilt. With a big enough dish antenna on the transmitting end, you could keep the beam focused. But every antenna has side lobes, and with a multi GW source, not trivial. Even 0.01% (absurdly small) gives you 100+ KW. Compared with the 100 W of comm satellites. Goodbye communication. And radio astronomy. Not the same frequency, doesn’t matter. You de-sensitize the RF front end of the receiver on all frequencies. (been there, done that)

Somehow, I rather doubt space access will get much less expensive. The physics of that hasn’t changed since Goddard was tinkering 80 years ago. Rutan’s Space Ship 1 could never make orbit. And building high efficiency solar cells on one of the dirtiest places in the neighborhood doesn’t sound overly practical, let alone getting the equipment needed to the moon in the first place.

These were only a few of the problems with the SPS, which is why it was abandoned in the early 80’s.

/anti-SPS rant off

Peak Oil = Resource Half Consumed (typically 55% consumed at peak). Yes 45% will still be discovered. BUT the price rises till you have “demand destruction” OR provide alternative fuels in sufficient supply to meet transport desires.

The challenge is the dynamics of the transition the transition. Welcome to the fuel transition roller coaster!
And pray that you don’t crash.

In the context of your post, you might find this article interesting:

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2008/02/0081908

We have learned that the industry in any given bubble must support hundreds or thousands of separate firms financed by not billions but trillions of dollars in new securities that Wall Street will create and sell. Like housing in the late 1990s, this sector of the economy must already be formed and growing even as the previous bubble deflates. For those investing in that sector, legislation guaranteeing favorable tax treatment, along with other protections and advantages for investors, should already be in place or under review. Finally, the industry must be popular, its name on the lips of government policymakers and journalists. It should be familiar to those who watch television news or read newspapers.

There are a number of plausible candidates for the next bubble, but only a few meet all the criteria…

[SNIP]

…There is one industry that fits the bill: alternative energy, the development of more energy-efficient products, along with viable alternatives to oil, including wind, solar, and geothermal power, along with the use of nuclear energy to produce sustainable oil substitutes, such as liquefied hydrogen from water. Indeed, the next bubble is already being branded.

And there may be a lot of light crude out there–exploration is still very restricted. The Bakken Shale is light crude (though it requires horizontal drilling to get that dolomite strip) and may run a half trillion barrels by the time they’re through with it. The 3+ billion barrel number is up 20-fold from a few years back. Expect that number to keep growing.

I think the Peak Oil flap is the same basic error the Club of Rome made back in the ’70s and ’80s, recycled.

Yes, microwave is the baseline concept. One of the problems with microwave though is being able to concentrate the beam so that the entire visible hemisphere isn’t being irradiated. Far easier to do it with light.

One additional advantage with light is that the atmosphere is mostly transparent to it. If the beam is tight enough, the laser wouldn’t not be visible outside of the target area.

Environmentalists will howl no matter what though. It’s the environmental impact statement that will forever kill solar power satellites. At least until some catastrophic need arises.

I’ve been saying geosynch but I really am thinking geostationary — they aren’t the same thing. The latter only work in equatorial orbits.

The problem is not so much to keep the satellite in sunlight but to do so and remain visible to the ground. Only an equatorial (well, near-equatorial) orbit can accomplish this. The basic problem is that there aren’t many orbits (I’m hedging here — I believe there are none) that would allow a satellite to remain in sunlight and also be visible from the Earth’s night side. The moon is visible all night but it, too, sometimes enters the Earth’s umbra. Note that the moon isn’t visible 24/7 anyway so lunar orbit won’t work either. Multiple spacecraft perhaps would.

Multiple ground stations and a sun-synch orbit might be the only real answer. Until there’s a global power grid, a solar power spacecraft would only be usable about 12 hours per day (on the average) at any given station.

That’s what the Global temperature graph should look like.

Thanks for your work.

REPLY: Thank you. Getting hits is not my mission, getting the word out on issues with data integrity and unsupportable news stories is.

The issue is rapid depletion of “CHEAP LIGHT OIL”
NOT
Total hydrocarbons.
US conventional oil production peaked in 1970. We are now importing some 65%. We have “plenty” of oil shale – why is no one falling over themselves to get it?

Yes there are “trillions” of barrels of “hydrocarbon resources” out there – problem is that you now have to take bitumen (aka “tar”) and convert it to gasoline. Extraction and conversion capital costs alone are now running $100,000/bbl/day.
So to replace 100 million bbl/day ONLY requires $10 trillion.
Moreover that has to be done within the next two decades to not have any decline in the rate of growth.

Sure beaming solar power has been proposed. The issue is not electricity but transportation fuels. Are you willing to pay far higher than current petroleum costs for transportation?

We need some 10,000 new systems each producing 10,000 bbl/day over the next two decades. i.e, about 3 per day. Look at Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI). Considering the rate at which NASA launches rockets, 3 per day is not practical or cost effective versus other options.

Rather than flippantly dismissing “Peak Oil”, may I encourage you to read through those links and start grappling with the statistics and models. Its the rate of transition that determines the price and the economy. At the present rate of inaction, the USA is spending $1 trillion per year on oil, with some $700 billion going overseas. i.e. the US is rapidly exchanging the company store for a “joy ride.” The EU is not far behind.

It is your future at stake.