15 thoughts to “Open thread Non-Petroleum”

  1. Hi gang. I have posted a new page called:

    From Whence the Fine-Tuned Universe

    You can get there simply by clicking on the link up-top, just to the right of the “Peak Oil Barrel” logo, or you can just click this link:

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/thefine-tuneduniverse-com/

    Comments are welcome but only on the page comment section. Please do not reply here, on this post. Comment there only.

    Also, please read the entire post before commenting. It is a 15 to 20 minute read. I have put many hours of research into that short essay. I have read perhaps 10 books on the subject and watched perhaps 200 YouTube videos on that subject and related subjects.

    So please, no knee-jerk replies after reading the first two paragraphs or so. If you comment without reading, that means your mind is already dogmatically convinced of your opinion. And that is one of the subjects of the essay. That is, you may already have a dogmatic worldview that blocks any other opinions or theories, not allowing them to even be considered.

    Thanks in advance for your comments. Ron

  2. The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 133.2 points in October 2021, up 3.9 points (3.0 percent) from September and 31.8 points (31.3 percent) from October 2020.

    Highest since July 2011.

    1. Thanks for the video on Africa. Good for for thought.
      Some of the countries will progress rapidly in the next 20-30 years as the video suggests,
      and some will stagnate or fail.
      Its a huge story.

  4. One one of the most interesting things to comment on, without going into the oil thread, is how the new carbon neutral gird in the future is going to look like. Most of the places with the easiest paths to make the grid renewable are along the northern latitude belt let’s say along south England. That is where you could get the combination of hydro, wind and natural gas to work best to replace fossil fuel usage in the grid. Same with more southern latitudes like southern Australia (Tasmania especially), New Zealand and Argentina. On the downside, the energy requirements to live in the more extreme latitudes are much higher during winters. So it’s a matter of survival to have enough of it. While in more tropical areas it is possible to survive with less energy requirements.

    There are some places where the hydro, wind, gas combo (with gas or hydrogen as the stabilising back up) can work very well. For example surprisingly Vietnam, due to the best offshore wind prospects in Asia (at less than 50 meters depth) or Argentina (with abundant wind resources on land not exploited). Solar is always there as a cheap source in addition, but some places unsuitable or with frustrating inconsistency.

    There is potentially a lot of advantages floating offshore wind. Like just placing it in more optimal locations. Equinor now trying to get approval for the first 1 GW floating offshore windpark outside Scotland. Sometimes the winds blow there while not in Southern England, so that will most likely be an advantage. There are extra costs with floating offshore as of now, but there can be higher electricity output and more synergistic electricity stabilising the grid as a whole. The whole wind energy space is interesting to follow. Some places are optimal, others are not. If costs goes down when it comes to offshore wind it is hugely beneficial.

    https://www.equinor.com/en/news/20211101-gw-size-floating-wind-concept-scotland.html

    1. Kolbeinh,

      I agree that offshore wind will be very important. A couple of thoughts:

      You mention a carbon neutral grid, but then mention natural gas. You’re thinking about NG as a transitional energy source?

      You mention solar, but don’t seem to give it much importance. I’d guess that in the long term it will be substantially more important than wind.

      1. The main thought with this was that as a lot of countries are moving towards a carbon neutral grid, some are banking on wind power for bulk and especially offshore wind due to scale advantages and advantageous wind patterns. In order for this to work, hydro is the ideal renewable energy source that complements wind. So with a sizable enough either pumped hydro capacity facilities or hydro magazine flexibility, the intermittency issues are halfway solved. Depending on hydro share of the electricity mix. For a lot of countries it is realistic to resort to having a back-up source in the form of natural gas (the best to solve intermittency issues) or coal powered plants. It is much better to rely on this back-up as a first step. Getting used to high electricity prices overall is better than asking (or force) people to turn of electricity in a traffic light system due to intermittency issues. It takes time to getting used to livable solutions (as with electric cars). If we get out of this using fossil fuels as back-up, depends on if renewables can be overbuilt or not. Which is an open question with a lot of aspects playing in (country specific, sociopolitical, industrial capacities, resources, geopolitics etc.)

        Solar is very important in the arid latitudes. The wind/hydro/hydrogen mix works best at the northern latitudes or very southern latitudes, due to both wind and precipitation patterns. And it can make for a high capacity stable grid some places, where there is enough hydro and wind potential, and where a good enough back-up capacity is planned. For how to use solar best in the arid belt, I am not the most competent person to ask. I guess solar power output can be adapted to demand, but I doubt it is an easy proposition to rely on it on scale, that is for a 100 twh+ stable grid.

        1. Actually, scale helps.

          Are you familiar with the Law of Large Numbers? The idea is that as systems get larger, the ratio of variance to average gets smaller. Very roughly speaking, as a system grows by 100% (or doubles in size) the variance goes up 40%. That means that as a system gets 4x as large the ratio of variance to mean drops in half (1.4 x .4 divided by 4).

          So a 400twh grid would have 50% fewer problems with intermittency than a 100twh grid.

          That’s why long distance transmission helps increase the stability of grids, whether they’re using wind or solar, or just dealing with random load following. Bigger is easier.

          1. This statistic diesn’t work with big wind patterns. They are sized at a 1000 mile scale – either up or down.

            You’ll need huge storages and or really big interconnections to even out this.

            And this will be the expensive part. 2 or 3 weeks of low wind are normal weather patterns in Europe for example. Happens in stable high pressure weather when the windy lows are deflected up to the arctic.

            1. high pressure typically brings clear skies.[9] During the day, since no clouds are present to reflect sunlight, there is more incoming shortwave solar radiation and temperatures rise

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-pressure_area

              Wind speeds fall, and solar insolation rises. This illustrates the importance of diversity of supply, rather than relying on one primary energy source (e.g., wind).

              Have you seen any research or analysis of the impact of high pressure systems on a renewable grid?

  5. Does anybody have a list of countries that were former net oil exporters that are now net importers?
    If so, please post it, or a link to it, thanks a million!

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