[Marek]

This post is kinda 'out there', so if you have no interest in this subject beat off. I just had an urge to post about this.

Anyway, I just saw a documentary on the 'hydrogen economy', which discussed how hydrogen will be the new energy of the near future. Or, to be more precise, how it would act as a medium, since you still have to generate hydrogen somehow--which requires electricity. This electricity would of course have to be generated through wind, heat or water, as burning fossil fuels for hydrogen doesn't make any economic sense.

All you Dutchies can check out the program in RealVideo from tomorrow on. English speaking people could check it out too, just for the interviews. I'm a huge fan of the program Tegenlicht (literal translation: Counter-light) and once again this is an awesome documentary. When the program was finished, all I could think was "wow--that made perfect sense", so I felt compelled to write a post about it. A second part will be aired next week.

Although the topic is hydrogen, it really goes into a lot of geopolitical stuff. It starts by talking about oil. Take a look at http://www.peakoil.org/ "Running out of oil is not the issue. What is significant is that oil production will peak, followed by an inevitable decline." The peak may have already occured in 2001. In the years to come, oil will become more and more expensive, as the easy sources are being depleted and more obscure sources have to be used. There's also no longer a significant surplus production in any country in the world (the last was Saudi Arabia), which means OPEC can no longer stabilize oil prices. The effect of oil depletion isn't something we'll notice sometime around 2050, as I was led to believe before. The effects are starting now, and will continue to increase every year.



The US government is not stupid. In the state of the union George Bush announced a huge investment in hydrogen fuel. The motives are obviously not based on pollution, but because it's a necessity. Hydrogen fuel is what everyone believes is the only thing that can replace the current energy infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the US controls the oil in Iraq, the second largest source in the world. The occupation of Iraq actually costs more than the profit from the oil, so you'd easily dismiss the theory that the second gulf war was about oil. But it's not so much about the US (& UK) wanting the oil, as it's to keep it out of the hands of Russia, India, China, etc. who had access to it before. (It also doesn't hurt Bush, Cheney, etc. that they have so much questionable interests in oil companies, but that's another matter.) The west wants to control what little is left of the oil, while at the same time trying to create a technological gap by investing a lot in hydrogen (both the US and the EU have extensive programs).

Natural resources [water and fuel] determin 90% of the whole geopolitical situation in the world. Just to illustrate, fans of Sid Meier's Civilization know how drastically Civ 3 changed when it introduced natural resources. You can totally compare it with that. All the players in the world need access to natural resources for their survival. Energy rules the world. It also rules economies. Food production is responsible for 17% of the US' oil consumption. That just goes to show how closely things are tied to each other.

As one of the commentators says in the program, a new industrial revolution is coming. But with every large change, there's inevitably a large amount of conflict. Will the American empire fall, or will it sustain? What will happen to the motives and interests of countries in the Middle-East, whose economy relies almost exclusively on oil? What happens to China? (It's interesting that China is building the largest dam in the world, by the way. China isn't stupid either.) What happens when small countries that were dependent on other oil/gas producing countries become more independent?

The whole map is going to be rearanged and I'm really curious in what form that will happen. There's going to be a lot of friction, and conflict most likely, but after that I suppose the playing field gets evened out a LOT, cause hydrogen fuel isn't limited to certain areas of the world.

The new model we're going to is the networked society. The media are already there (internet and mobile telephony). Now having seen this documentary, I guess energy infrastructure might follow. The people in the program speculate about how people could generate electricity and hydrogen from their own homes, and even automatically sell their surplus to others in the network. All peer-to-peer. It makes total sense and fits into the larger picture. The REALLY interesting topic for me, is whether any sort of networked form of government could also develop. Peter Schulz thinks that in the future NGO's might play a major role in a sort of global government. You subscribe to various NGO's that you want to support (Red Cross, Amnesty, WNF, etc.) and they all interact with each other in a seemingly random way. It's sort of like your 'vote' on global issues.

However, something tells me that we're going to see some amount of shit in the near future before we arrive at a new status quo. A lot will happen in the US, no doubt. The US is just a huge economic and political bomb waiting to go off. The EU will quite likely feel it too, because of its huge dependancy on the US.

I find it all quite fascinating.

Further reading:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...drogen_pr.html (co-written by Peter Schwartz, who is often interviewed for Tegenlicht)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/new...021568,00.html
http://info.vpro.nl/info/tegenlicht/...31107+14409703
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/Au...187943-7756636

[DomStLeger]

That was a fascinating post marek; thanks for making it. We did a little of the theory of the Hydrogen fuel economy in Chemistry at A-Level and it was equally interesting.

Something else that could be a centre piece to the hydrogen fuel economy is the developement of a working nuclear fusion reactor. There is an international project under way to produce an almost commercial scale Fusion reactor. Heres an article about the (semi) recent announcement that China and the USA were joining the project: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2798197.stm

This would be a major step forward, as it would mean an instant surplus of energy and an almost completely clean energy industry (when linked with hydrogen plants). As you say the geopolitical consequences will be almost unimaginable. Will we become a true information based society? And who will be the masters of the new world; or will we finally see equality brought out of cheap energy?

As you say, fuel will be gone by approx 2050 but it will already have become expensive by then. The first thing we'll all notice will be increased petrol prices until it becomes prohibitive - we were taught in chemistry that basically we can't afford to waste hydrocarbons (oil etc) in car engines anymore. And as the price of petrol goes up the Hydrogen based car etc will become more economically viable.

I agree it's a fascinating subject, and one that will most likely effect all our lives. I look forward to reading the links you posted

[Marek]

Thanks for your reply, Dom. I wasn't sure if anyone was interested in my lengthy post.

I just realized that not only does oil become too expensive for fuel at some point, but that we also need it to create plastics and such. I don't know much about chemistry though. How does oil consumption for the production of plastics compare to oil consumption for fuel? Also, are there any viable alternatives to plastics being worked on?

If that comes into development it's probably more desirable than windmills and such, if only purely based on the amount of space it requires. (Though come to think of it, houses with fully integrated solar panels and windmills might actually make that a moot issue.) What surprises me about the article you linked is the following line: "To use fusion reactions as an energy source, it is necessary to heat a gas to temperatures exceeding 100 million Celsius". Doesn't that require a LOT of energy? And isn't there some kind of physics rule that you can never get more energy out of something than you put into it? I'm having real trouble understanding the concept of fusion technology.

I suppose the geopolitical consequences of the energy problem are conflict at first and relative stability in the long term. It could create a totally new, and possibly more fair, balance of power.

[Kingzjester]

You can use geothermal wells to make hydrogen. It would do wonders for Iceland's economy.

Also, wait, what? Nuclear fusion? It is not possible yet. No, it doesn't work. I know people who are allegedly working on nuclear fusion at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. They are led by the kind of base, uninteresting, pedestrian people not predestined for greatness: they would work for months and then remember that they have forgotten to account for friction or something fundamental of that ilk.

Also, Bush is not showing much foresight - he is not investing in alternate fuels nearly as much as EU is.

New York Review of Books has some great articles on the subject from time to time. Sadly, they stuff it into the archive and force you to pay for them after a few months, so I cannot find the particular one I was thinking of right now...

[DomStLeger]

Originally Posted by Marek

I just realized that not only does oil become too expensive for fuel at some point, but that we also need it to create plastics and such. I don't know much about chemistry though. How does oil consumption for the production of plastics compare to oil consumption for fuel? Also, are there any viable alternatives to plastics being worked on?

Unfortunately I don't know the figures, but from what i remember most of the oil goes in to one kind of fuel or another. The plastics and other products proportion is much lower I think. If we were to stop using oil in our cars the world oil supplies would last us much longer than 2050.

Also, an interesting aside; burning fossil fuels in power plants and then using that energy to make hydrogen would apparently save us alot of energy; due to the large ineffiency involved in burning fossil fuels in cars. Although it would still be polluting; it would still be much cleaner than current methods because so much more of the energy produced per Kg would actually be used and not wasted as heat etc. I wish i had my chemistry text book with me

Originally Posted by Marek

I'll read up on fusion energy. If that comes into development it's probably more desirable than windmills and such, if only purely based on the amount of space it requires. (Though come to think of it, houses with fully integrated solar panels and windmills might actually make that a moot issue.)

From what I understand about the potentials of Fusion it would make solar power; wind power or indeed any other form of electricity production irrelevant. Basically a fusion reactor would produce a massive amount of energy for many many years at a very low cost and cleanly. I've heard it said that successfully harnessing Fusion energy would cause a major economic revolution world wide due to the fact that we would have effectively a cheap and long lasting fuel source (by cheap we're talking nearly free). This would mean the third world reaching first world standards; and the first world going far beyond; that big an effect.

Unfortunately the promise of Fusion power has been around for at least 50 years, and not everyone is convinced it can work. But it's very encouraging that major world powers are actually going to build a prerequesite of a commercial power plant; we'll hopefully know how realistic a hope it is.

[Kingzjester]

Even if nuclear fusion were developed, do you know how many great, huge, omnipotent businesses would keel over and die? Halliburton (Dick Cheney's oil-drilling/construction company that leased out Iraq and is eating a huge chunk of the money needed to fuel that war right now), to mention but one. It really isn't in the interest of these people, nor the US government to encourage science into this neck of the woods.

Odd, not too many people here care about this topic... stupid wankers...

[remixor]

Practical results are years away!



(I hope at least someone gets that reference)

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Kingzjester

Odd, not too many people here care about this topic... stupid wankers...

Kingz, STFU, you filthy university snob! Whatever shit you're going through atm, do not take it out on us, okay? Besides, the thread is ONLY A FEW HOURS OLD! I've been reading this topic closely since Marek posted it earlier this evening. The only reason I don't contribute is because I don't know enough about hydrogen technology vs. fossil fuel consumption vs. global corporations etc. I'm absorbing the information like a sponge, you moron, just as you were absorbing Kant and Milton in Philosophy 101 when you initially didn't know shit about them, so at least allow that others here like me are doing the same. Get off your high horse, dear, you'll get a nosebleed.

I personally feel that alternative, environmentally sound fuels are the way to go, but the problems of conflicting global policies, economics, and particularly huge corporations are so damn overhwhelming as to severely slow down, in not inhibit, the needed research and funding. It's ultimately a collaborative effort, yet each potential party has its own selfish agenda, no one wants to lighten up.

[Kingzjester]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Kingz, STFU, you filthy university snob! Whatever shit you're going through atm, do not take it out on us, okay? Besides, the thread is ONLY A FEW HOURS OLD! I've been reading this topic closely since Marek posted it earlier this evening. The only reason I don't contribute is because I don't know enough about hydrogen technology vs. fossil fuel consumption vs. global corporations etc. I'm absorbing the information like a sponge, you moron, just as you were absorbing Kant and Milton in Philosophy 101 when you initially didn't know shit about them, so at least allow that others here like me are doing the same. Get off your high horse, dear, you'll get a nosebleed.

Relax, pumpkin, that was a joke.

[Kingzjester]

Originally Posted by remixor

Practical results are years away!

?2345

[remixor]

Originally Posted by Kingzjester

?2345

Er, very possibly, I suppose. However, this being AG, I was referring to an adventure game.

[Kingzjester]

Originally Posted by remixor

Er, very possibly, I suppose. However, this being AG, I was referring to an adventure game.

?

(man, that five-letter limit is hilarious)

[remixor]

Bingo.

[Kingzjester]

Originally Posted by remixor

Bingo.

Now that you point it out, I think the quote from FOA is one of them 'all-us-ions' to the movie in question.

[remixor]

That would surprise me, although it's not inconceivable.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Kingzjester

Relax, pumpkin, that was a joke.

Then so was my reprisal, then.








(*sigh* OMG, he called me 'pumpkin'!! How did he know that when a highly intelligent and potent man calls me that.......? [faints])

[Kingzjester]

Originally Posted by Intrepid Homoludens

Then so was my reprisal, then.








(*sigh* OMG, he called me 'pumpkin'!! How did he know that when a highly intelligent and potent man calls me that.......? [faints])

I don't know, you sound sortof sore there... Oh, and I tend to call all my female aquaintances 'pumpkin' after I have known them for a while...

EDIT: And 'stupid wanker' is also a term of endearment as far as I and my rethoric go.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Kingzjester

....I tend to call all my female aquaintances 'pumpkin' after I have known them for a while.

Um, thanks. Yeah.








*sigh* Pumpkin....... pumpkin.....

[Erwin_Br]

World's Largest Pumpkin
Circleville, Ohio



Maybe a location to be used in Sam and Max 2?

--Erwin

[DomStLeger]

Originally Posted by Kingzjester

Even if nuclear fusion were developed, do you know how many great, huge, omnipotent businesses would keel over and die? Halliburton (Dick Cheney's oil-drilling/construction company that leased out Iraq and is eating a huge chunk of the money needed to fuel that war right now), to mention but one. It really isn't in the interest of these people, nor the US government to encourage science into this neck of the woods.

Contrary to popular beliefs, the energy industry does not rule the world There is a hell of alot of money to be made out of Fusion (yes its a cheap source but it's also going to be a widely used source and probably very profitable for those who own the technology) and while most of the current day energy companies will fold; most other industries will supposedly flourish. And don't forget, the worlds energy industries are dieing anyway; these big Oil companies will be forced to look at alternate energy at some point down the road; because at the moment they won't be surviving much beyond 2050. They'll do very well out of the increased demand for oil; but the costs will increase too and if someone else comes up with a viable alternative before they do they will face extinction.

And I think this will be increasingly in the interests of the US government. If the EU and China are taking it seriously the US has to as well, because to not do so risks having no control over the technology if it is viable and thus loosing a hell of alot of economic power and influence. So I don't think there is going to be a lack of interest here; I think we're talking about a possible Fusion race if it's shown it can be done. We live on the cusp of interesting times.