JohnDBarrow

Sorry, I thought the energy problem would be patently obvious to most people here. If you don't think there is an energy problem, perhaps you haven't seen your electric or gasoline bill lately. Ok, according to this video, a "global energy crisis is coming". Who here agrees or disagrees?

ENERGY is that nasty E word everybody here seems gunshy about talking about. So, there really is no energy problem? Ok, discussion points: what can be done about the global energy crisis?

WE SHOULD NOT TACKLE THE ENERGY PROBLEM BECAUSE IT IS EASY. WE SHOULD TACKLE IT BECAUSE IT IS HARD. President John F. Kennedy said something similar about man's going to the moon.

Uranium supplies are limited, but this material is recyclable.

Automobile racing is a stupid, unnecessary sport. Bicycle racing is much better for health. Military aviation could use biofuels. Perhaps biofuels use could be extended to military ground vehicles and field power equipment. Ships can still be nuclear or sailing. I would say use biofuels wherever electricity, batteries, green hydrogen or nuclear power is not possible, cost-effective, feasible and/or practical. The military and the motorsports industry is not going to have fossil fuels available to piss away forever also. The military could also go back to the cavalry and fight on horseback. Man's discovery and use of petroleum has made militaries so much more destructive worldwide than ever before in human history. Man's military fighting power was quite limited when he relied upon horses, not motor vehicles, observation hot air balloons, not airplanes and helicopters, coal or wood-burning steam locomotives for rail transport and sailing ships for sea power.

Nostalgic railroads are those fun train rides with old steam locomotives and earlier 20th century diesel electrics. Having electrification for these train rides would not be aesthetically pleasing. It is not practical to try to produce biofuels for such large scale as automobiles. Biofuels production consumes precious farmland. Train rides with vintage rolling stock for amusement and airplanes are just a small percentage of the world's overall energy consumption. I still don't see how one can power a jumbo jet by electricity or without any combustible fuels. It all has to do with the quantity of energy resources and the various needs and wants for energy consumption. Some forms of energy consumers are on a much larger scale than others. The world's collective automobiles have a much higher demand for energy produced in mass quantities than do the world's collective aircraft. There is only so much energy in its various forms available at any given time for whatever purposes man wants to use it. I think electricity by nuclear plants is the most abundant way to make mass-produced energy worldwide. Many more things can be practically made to run on electricity than things that absolutely require combustible fuels for aesthetics (vintage locomotives) or physical necessity (jetliners). Biofuels take up a lot of real estate for farming. Nuclear reactors take up much less real estate. The earth's surface is covered in 70% water. Plenty of cooling provisions for nuclear plants. Land is a precious resource that has to be budgeted like energy and materials. They could even build nuke power plants off shore submerged below the ocean's surface so they don't look ugly to beachgoers. Nuke plants could even be submerged in the Great Lakes. Outta sight, outta mind!

No, but they should be using renewable energy of some kind to run those farm tractors and harvesters. Perhaps solid-state battery electrics for those. The hungry mouths problem might also be a global population problem. Something is going to have to give somewhere so that man can live a sustainable modern, comfortable and eco-safe lifestyle. Commercial planes are also jets and fast. I can't see how you can run a jet on batteries. Biofuels probably should be restricted to commercial aviation and nostalgic railroads. Even oil-burning steam locomotives could heat their boilers with it. Some excursion trains with diesel-electric engines are burning 100% biodiesel already. Modern trains for Class A, B and C railroads for freight and long-distance passenger service could be run on electrified railways. Everything on the ground can be run on some sort of electric technology. Solid-state batteries will open new doors. Merchant ships for freight can also be nuclear powered like naval warships.

It seems as biofuel is a sustsainable energy source for aviation that can replace fossil fuels for this purpose 100%. I would have to say, use biofuels only where they are absolutely necessary. You cannot power jet planes, or any aircraft that flies as fast and as far as jet planes, from electricty or batteries as far as I know. The earth has a limited amount of arable land area to produce fuels by ag. Farming is still needed to feed us and our domestic animals. I would have to say produce electricity by as many renewable sources as possible that does not take up a lot of land area. How sustainable is nuclear power even? Does man have enough materials to continue to make electricity by nuke technology until the sun burns out or intelligent life becomes extinct on earth, whichever comes first? I understand it takes rare elements as plutonium and uranium to make nuclear power. How much of these elements do we have left to much how much power for how many years to come? Of course, we throw electricity by wind, sun, river current and sea tide into the mix too. I would say that, as a fossil fuels replacement, electricty produced by renewable energy resources (other than by farming) is the way to go for land based vehicles and ground equipment. From the Lab to the Sky: Five Things to Know about Biofuel-Powered Flights | Department of Energy PS- To get rid of all that nasty radioactive waste from nuke power plants, simply load it into a rocket and shoot it into space as soon as enough of it is collected to justify the cost of a rocket shot. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/08/18/growing-share-of-americans-favor-more-nuclear-power/#:~:text=Advocates for nuclear power argue,among both parties since 2020.

As long as the earth exists as a planet, it may still have conscious living things on board. Maybe not Homo sapiens sapiens as we know them today. Maybe intelligent chimps, gorillas and orangutans a billion years from now. The last I read, the earth and the sun have about 5 billion years left before the sun's burnout time. It's amazing how the sun can burn for so long and the sun's volume is only 1 million times that of the earth. The sun must be very energy-dense to burn for 10 billion years. Without the sun's energy, it would seem life on earth would not do so well if life on a sunless planet is even possible at all. Energy is life.

No, I have questions, though. What is man going to do for a lead or aluminum source once all lead or aluminum mines are exhausted? Can you imagine man's trying to reclaim all the lead material shot downrange at firearms target ranges? Then there are all those lost fishing lead weights at the bottoms of bodies of water. Go diving to recover them if you wish. Copper is being lost (displaced, scattered everywhere) too as it is a jacket for some bullets.

1. pollution 2. litter 3. failure to recycle recyclable materials religiously and have a widespread infrastructure that makes this convenient to do 4. overpopulation 5. overconsumption 6. poverty 7. war 8. hate 9. crime 10. dangerous drugs 11. dangerous chemicals and other hazardous products 12. displacement of materials to a situation where recovery is not feasilble 13. waste of resources 14. ignorance 15. greed 16. selfishness Most if not all of these human shortcomings can negatively affect the world environment. True or false? Let me explain Number 12. Let's take the rare metal LEAD (a chemical element Pb). Man extracts it by mining from places that nature conveninetly deposited in large masses and then he spreads it thin all over the globe. Lead is scattered all over so that it cannot be practically recycled for use again and again. In some cases, however, lead is actually recycled. This often occurs with automobile wheel weights and lead-acid car batteries. Lead pipes have been replaced by other materials and I suppose most of that lead also has been put back into the reusable materials pool. Where lead is often not recycled is when it is used as fishing weights and gun projectiles. Billions upon billions of gun bullets are shot worldwide and lead shotgun charges have been fired at ranges and in the field so that the spent lead is hardly practical to try to recover. What hunters and game processors should do is collect the lead slugs from the quarry for recycling. Target ranges for firearms also should have a way of capturing the lead projectiles for practical recovery and recycling. I'm afraid one day man will run out of suitable materials for gun projectiles and fishing weights if he continues to displace such materials by hurling them widely all over the landscape and ocean bottoms of the globe. Often lead sinkers are released for hooked fish reeled in on purpose when trolling for fish. It's not that these materials are lost for good. Matter in the universe is neither created nor destroyed. It's that man purposely puts some materials out of his easy reach for reuse. The same is true for aluminum beer and soda cans that end up in landfills.

No, but enough you tube videos have shown how sudden EV's with Lithium Ion batteries can catch fire and how intense the fires are. I don't care if there is only one lithium-ion car fire per million gas car fires. Lithium-ion car fires shoot violent flames out the side and from underneath so there is no way to evacuate the car through the passenger doors with legs getting burned to a crisp. A gasoline fuel fire in the engine compartment is going to contain the flames there and allow human occupants a safe escape route from the car doorways on the sides.

I'm now looking 1000's of years into the future. There is no way there is enough fossil fuels left in the ground to keep cars going for 1000's of more years at the rate we are using them today. The sun, a big source of energy, has about another 5 billion years to go before burning out for good. I don't want to pay out of pocket any more for energy costs than I really have to while still maintaining my modern civilization living comfort level. Automobile makers started putting "cats" in cars around 1974 to cut gasoline ICE emissions.

I don't know much about science but I think many humans desire practical and affordable energy forms for modern living conforts that are not harmful to health, safety or the planet as a whole. Any possibilties, not just batteries, should be put upon the open table here. There is still the possibilty that man will chiefly go back to horse and buggy again for land transportation and sailing ships for sea freight before he becomes totally extinct from this planet. I came up with the term CRESTAS which is Spanish for "crests" as in the crests of waves. This should be our future energy objective. Clean Renewable Energy Solution That's Also Safe Yes, car lithium-ion battery fires are rare but very horrible whenever they do happen. Typical car gasoline fires are much milder by comparison to lithium-ion battery fires. I refuse to willingly get into any vehicle powered by lithium-ion batteries. I'm still optimistic about the solid-state batteries for automobiles.

Electric automobiles WILL work if we have fossil-fuels alternatives and a robust EV infrastructure to even recharge them. Wind, solar, tidal power, green hydrogen, biofuels and nuclear. Dinosaur juice won't last forever. I'm betting on those promised high-density, smaller. lightweight, fire-safe, greatly-extended-range solid-state batteries to go inside automobiles. Who says they have to power just automobiles? Why not also trailer trucks, buses, trains, airplanes, helicopters, boats, ships, earthmovers and many kinds of heavy industrial machinery? But railroads would be a good place to electrify by overhead cable and at sea, what's wrong with using sailing ships once again?

I'm still really excited about the notion of the advanced SOLID-STATE battery. What I would like to see is some exciting automobiles and light-duty trucks built on this technology. I want elegant, fun, stylish, roomy, comfortable, sporty, handsome and even fast cars, wagons, vans, SUV's and pickup trucks to run on this new clean-green stuff. What if one, with the necessary bucks, could take a 1957 Ford Fairlane, 1965 Cadillac convertible, 1970 Dodge Challenger, 1979 Lincoln Town Car or 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme Brougham coupe and completely convert them to 100% solid-state battery EV while still preserving the original body and interior? Just imagine. Would solid-state EV tech practically support these heavy old cars?

I'm hoping our dependence upon fossil fuels will become extinct like the dinosaurs that made it and the sooner the better. But it has to be SAFE and PROVEN to boot. And if those rave-review solid state batteries should prove to be the newly-gotten Holy Grail, the magic bullet, of portable energy, what (thinking outside the fossil fuels box) is going to produce the electricity to even recharge them? Ocean tide power? Wind? Solar (pump the sun)? Nuclear? Green hydrogen?

From the standpoint of physics and chemistry, is solid state battery tchnology a real practical possibilty as a lithium-ion battery alternative to power electric automobiles? Is it merely politics and big bsuiness that has been holding this up?

Is that helping our future energy cause?

What CAN I do to help? I'm age 60, housebound most of the time and on total disability with limited income. Well, right now, I drive a 1995 Corolla that can still get 31 MPG on the highway while a bunch of fat cats are still driving gas burners. I don't drive much. Maybe a tank of gas per month. What are YOU doing to help?

Maybe just get rid of these overheating, thermal runaway and fire-prone less-energy-dense lithium-ion batteries altogther. Since making this thread, I have just discovered solid state batteries under development now by Toyota and I find it an exciting revelation. Our future progeny might be saved from going back to Amish horse buggies after all! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zofx59CLb4A

Number One: what methods could be used to greatly reduce the risk that fire will will result from the batteries? Number Two: what technology could be used to protect people and dogs inside the car from death or serious injury in case a battery-related fire did break out (or was on the verge of breaking out) while people and dogs were still in the car, parked or moving? There is both a very hot and violent burning hazard and a highly toxic smoke hazard. A fuel-related fire inside the engine compartment of a gasoline automobile, at least, is going to burn rather tame and the engine compartment and firewall is going to keep the flames and heat away from people inside the cabin for a while anyway. No flames are going to shoot out from the sides in a gasoline car. But how in the devil are you going to step outside of an EV with the blow-torch flames shooting right out where the door entrance is? There seems to be no federally-mandated fire safety standards for EVs at this time. How many people will burn to death inside these things antil Uncel Sam "does something" about it? Videos like this scare me:

I just hope "we" do what "we" need to do before it is too late. Maybe we need more scientists, engineers and technicians as high elected officials and the sooner the better. Man's biggest downfall will be due to his IGNORANCE or his APATHY?

Then again, my reincarnated future self back on Earth again might notice a bunch of hairy cave dwellers on horseback Planet of the Apes style. A mere possibility, that's all. And what are your great-great-__________________________________________________________________________________ grandchildren going to do long after YOUR remains become "possible" future fossil fuel? The American Waltz, our dream come false, seems on the verge of dying one day, maybe. What will eventually power those cars shaped like bullets with people inside? This song was produced in 1967. Yes, we all hope that the FAT times are here to stay, but for how much longer? Somebody had better start doing much more than just hoping, wishing, crossing fingers and praying.

It sounds like doom. When I was about age 12, my mother told me then that there was only so much oil in the Earth to make gasoline. Chevron, Shell or some other oil company in the 1970's had a TV commerical claiming that it took nature a million years to create an oil field and Man only 30 years to use it up. Here is the famous dinosaur one from 1977.