Liquid Fuel...made from Sunlight and CO2

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by brian eiland, Apr 23, 2011.

  1. Jeremy Harris
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    Jeremy Harris Senior Member

    I'm sure population density is part of the problem, but the really big issue is that we have a massive variation in energy consumption per person across the globe. We can live well and comfortably on a small fraction of the energy that we, in the West, currently consume, making less intensive energy production methods more viable.

    For example, here are some comparative figures:

    China uses around 10 barrels of oil per person per year.

    Here in the UK we use around 26 barrels of oil per person per year.

    The United States uses around 57 barrels of oil per person per year.

    The US makes up 5% of the global population and uses 20% of the worlds energy.

    If the US was to reduce its per capita oil consumption down to UK values then it would more than halve its energy consumption, doubling the remaining time that it could run on existing oil stocks or making alternative fuel sources more viable.

    Having worked in the US I can state categorically that the standard of living there is no better (in fact I believe that overall it may be worse) than most countries in Europe, so the high energy use per head is primarily waste.

    Jeremy

    (data taken from here: http://www.worldpopulationbalance.org/population_energy)
     
  2. CatBuilder

    CatBuilder Previous Member

    Barrels of oil? For what?

    Electricity?
    Driving cars?
    Shipping goods?
    Making styrofoam?
    Making resin and hardener?
    Making plastic parts?
    Oiling hydro plant machinery?

    Your data is very misleading because it only shows the barrels of oil per person. It doesn't break down and say what that oil is used for. Could it be made into vasoline petroleum jelly, then shipped to the UK for ultimate consumption? Maybe used to power a Coca Cola plant that supplies soft drinks to the UK, ultimately?

    Possibly several million barrels of oil fuel up the Norwegian, Holland American, or Royal Caribbean cruise ships? Those millions of barrels of oil are, of course, included in your statistics.

    Very incomplete picture here.

    Not all oil imported to the States is ultimately consumed by its citizens.

     
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  3. Jeremy Harris
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    Jeremy Harris Senior Member

    It's not my data, it's from the source I quoted.

    If you choose to believe that it's misleading, then that's your choice.

    The bottom line is clear - the per capita consumption of fossil fuels by the US massively surpasses that from every other nation on the planet. If you choose to believe that this is irrelevant then so be it, but take it from someone who doesn't hail from the US that many peoples around the world see the US as energy gluttons who have no regard for the impact they are having on world energy supplies.

    China, with its low energy consumption per head is taking advantage of this imbalance, because energy consumption per capita is a significant element of labour cost, and also forms a significant part of production cost. It's popular to hear tales of the Chinese government undermining Western economies, but the reality is that the low per-capita energy consumption in China is a major factor in determining their production cost base.

    If you have verifiable evidence to show that the US is not the greatest consumer of energy per head of population, then please quote it and I'll happily correct these posts.

    FWIW, the UK buys very little manufactured goods from the US, because they are too expensive (probably linked to production cost, which is linked to energy cost). Like the US, I suspect, the majority of imports to the UK come from China and the far east...........

    Jeremy
     
  4. CatBuilder

    CatBuilder Previous Member

    Listen, Jeremy... I'm not in any way a proponent of all that is USA. I'm a dual US/EU citizen, I am building a boat to run outside the States, I do not enjoy the quality of life here and I am not pro-USA in many ways.

    I agree many in the States are terrible energy wasters, but that is changing. That is the baby boomer way (sorry guys), and many younger people are now shunning cars for public transportation, living in smaller houses and generally conscious of their environmental footprint.

    Actually, the UK buys very little in goods from the States due to VAT, which is effectively a tariff on goods produced outside the EU. In the States, labor cost is similar to the UK. However, a US manufacturer will pay the full VAT on anything it imports to the UK, while a UK manufacturer will not have to pay this level of VAT. In China, there is almost no cost of labor, so the VAT doesn't affect those imports at the same level it would a US import.

    For someone who is quoting Conservation of Energy in an earlier post, I had assumed you were scientifically trained to analyze and critique data sets.

    This data set (I called it "yours" but obviously that is an expression for you quoting it, not an indication that you collected it), does indeed say the US used more oil per capita than other nations. However, my point is that this data set is largely incomplete because it doesn't show where they oil goes.

    My point about a some of that oil filling European cruise ships is valid and disproves the validity of the data. Many barrels of that oil are fed into those power hungry, environmentally unfriendly cruise ships, run and profited from by Europeans, but all of that fuel is tallied up as US consumption.

    That is only one example. I could find many more examples, I'm sure, but there is no need. That one example easily puts this study's validity into question.
     
  5. cthippo
    Joined: Sep 2010
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    Location: Bellingham WA

    cthippo Senior Member

    They're quoting a production rate of 15,000 gallons of diesel per acre per year. Going off Jeremy's number of 190 billion liters, or about 47.5 billion gallons, that means that it would take about 3.16 million acres or around 5,000 square miles. to meet domestic needs. The beauty of this process is that it doesn't need arable land, just sun and something to set the collectors on and the US west has plenty of deserts that aren't good for much else.

    While I fully agree with the need to reduce population and decrease consumption, that doesn't change the fact that this is very exciting technology and might finally be a game changer.
     
  6. Jeremy Harris
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    Jeremy Harris Senior Member

    Just to get something straight, VAT is similar to sales tax in the US, it's paid on everything, whether it's imported or not. If I buy something from the US I don't pay US sales tax on it, I pay VAT instead. If you buy something from the UK you don't pay VAT and, somewhat bizarrely, don't pay sales tax either, I believe.

    VAT is payable on all goods in the EU, from wherever they originate and for imported goods it's payable not just on the value of the goods but the shipping cost as well.

    The bottom line is that energy consumption in the US is at least twice that here, and the cruise ship argument is a red herring, as that represents a minuscule percentage of the total US oil consumption. If you want another example, then look at the US car average fuel consumption and compare it with the UK. Last time I checked the data, average car fuel consumption in the US was around 27mpg (US gallons) whereas the average in the UK was around 40mpg (US gallons). Both our countries have similar standards of living and car ownership per head of population, yet for some reason Us citizens seem to think it's fine to use nearly double the amount of oil per head for personal transportation.

    New technologies will help in the future, but the biggest single change that could make a massive, and near-immediate, difference would be for the US to lower it's per-capita oil consumption down to European levels. There's no good reason why this couldn't happen right now, ignoring plain and simple arrogance...........

    Jeremy
     
  7. Frosty

    Frosty Previous Member

    America in denial.
     
  8. mark775

    mark775 Guest

    "the reality is that the low per-capita energy consumption in China is a major factor in determining their production cost base." - maybe major, if you count that workers may live at the plant and have little transportation costs to get there and that, on average, the newer growing economy has newer production facilities in some cases, or the Chinese government can say whatever they please as a figure for you to ingest and you will apparently swallow that figure, ready to regurgitate on demand for exactly such excersises as this discussion, or that a very high percentage of Chinese energy consumption is from coal-energy plants. It is misleading, and disingenuous if one digs a bit deeper, to suggest that the crawling out of third-world status China is some model of efficiency when, in fact, it is not. Largely an agrarian society, of course a guy pulling a harrow with a yak does not burn too much oil. When they build a modern city, with modern conveniences, industry, and shipping, remember your first law, it applies there, too (other than the aforementioned commute).
    This leads to the standard of living being "categorically...no better (in fact I believe that overall it may be worse) than most countries in Europe, so the high energy use per head is primarily waste." - We are big. The state of Alaska is roughly the same size as Europe. California is almost as big as France. When you people talk about your standard of living being high, remember that youare talking about a standard about the size of a neighborhood here and trust me, we have some neighborhoods where the standard would even impress you.
    We have had cheaper gasoline ("gas", as we call petrol or gasoline) and longer distances to travel. If we were to limit oil consumption to European levels, that would be to basically halve our transportation costs and live like an apartment insect in, say, Europe. Yes, overall, I'd agree that the standard of living in the US is worse than in Europe (want some inner-city folks? Illegal immigrants? How are the ones you have working out for you?) Is it worse for me? No. I've been to Europe and there are some very nice aspects. I had an extended stay in Finland once (and from what I could see, and hear, the rest of Europe didn't care much for the Finns as they were too... American.) We consider our transportation not as you, a necessity for getting to the cubicle in which you spend a third of your life, but an essential freedom and recreation. Be sure to add that to your calculation of standards.
    I like the VAT and consider it the fairest tax (aside the well-known inconsistancies and corruption of the European system) and if we could exchange it for income tax, everyone here would be better off. Vat is on transportation and that encourages local consumption (remember, Europe is as big as a state, thus your transportation costs are low. A VAT may not be paid on goods shipped to the states but it was paid to the vendor on everything I have purchased from Europe - shall we look further into this anomaly with the taxing authority? If it is not supposed to be paid on goods shipped to the US, yet you are paying a tax on everything you buy from here, that explains, in large part, why there are not many US goods there - I will start doing something about that if my voice has an impact. Why should we, in the US, still be subsidizing Europe?
    Speaking of subsidies, whoah, the big one... How many military bases does Europe have in the US? Give me just a sec to get my notebook and let's get this down for posterity...
    Okay, I'm ready.

    Go ahead...

    Oh, I see. Well, I'm sure Europe would be just fine without being under the US wing now that the Germany, Italy, and Russia problems are no more.... Until next time (Iran? Russia again?). Let's just ship those boys home We can even pay a VAT - they're worth it.
    There is the non-transportation portion of oil use - plastics and pharmaceuticals, they are largely regulated out of the US and are why China is now something like a quarter or a third of the US in GDP (with three times the population). We get all of our plastics, every toothbrush, every tube of toothpast, for that matter, from China. So, they've got some sap living in the factory (or across the street in an hive) stuffing plastic bristles into a plastic handle for a third of US or European wages. The only oil used is for the plastic manufacture itself and its transportation, by containerload, to a containership, to the US - pennies (Yuan). The worker has no retirement, no healthcare, no transportation. ON HIS SECOND SHIFT (they are an industrius people) he works at the toothpaste plant. Tamping all of that gel into that unruly tube is demanding work, sometimes a little DEG (Diethylene glycol) makes it slip in a little better. Get another worker when that one then gets sick (have American families adopt all of the handicapped and excess female babies, too).
    Now, to address non-transportation and non-manufacturing "waste" (because we surely agree now that we are big in the US, thus have more associated transportation costs and traveling and motorsports are part of our being and is inextricably tied to being in a comparatively wide-open area. What say we make a little pact - you leave our motorhomes and motorcycles alone and we'll leave your royal weddings, socialism, and rampant buggery alone). Recreation is a freedom we enjoy. We do more of it and it is more accessable to lower income brackets because of our comparatively inexpensive energy cost and our comparatively wide-open spaces.
    As you know, we're brothers genetically - all of us. When people talk about American exceptionalism, it is solely a matter of circumstance that we are exceptional. We have a Constitution pulled from the best parts of other "constitutions" and it was wrought with such foresight that, as long as we don't mess with it, will still "fit" 200 years from now. All else, from the way we give to charity to the way we like V8 engines, is a product of our environment and and the particular way our "stew" was "mixed"... with a little less haggis and a little more apple torte - my point being that yes, we are exceptional... but so are you.
    You don't have to be jealous. You don't have to want to knock us down. We possibly even have some people you like here - maybe a relative. The bottom line is, that with our distances between industrial centers and our freedom to stretch our legs, if we were to match our oil burn to Europe, we would be much poorer than Europe. We would necessarily live in hives (apartments, townhouses, condos) in cities and abandon vast swaths of suburbia and rural America... and to what avail? To satisfy some Europeans that don't like us anyway? Most here would rather use our relatively cheap energy to remain strong, to not get overrun by "outside forces" (In London, I think you know to what demographic I refer), to be ready to assist Europe again in soon-to-come Kerfuffle lll, to invent realistic new energy sources or ways to burn less and more efficiently get more out of the ground, to develop new weapons and defences.
    Unfortunately, we have a minority in our government in concert with a very liberally biased media, that sees it how you do. We are paying the price at the pumps and not drilling for more oil so it will get worse. Our government, and yours, feel a good substitute for self-reliance is to produce money and buy more oil, amongst other things. We saw this happen in Weimar Germany, there was a resultant Gleichschaltung, leading to... well, you know.
    No, I don't think so. I think I know what is good for me better than you do. I also think, though when I started on this forum a couple of years ago I respected and, daresay, in some regards envied Europe, lately I am a little indifferent.
    Yes, Europe is exceptional... exceptional in arrogance and a lack of appreciation.
     
  9. Dave Gudeman
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    Dave Gudeman Senior Member

    That doesn't really make sense. Standard of living is largely determined by energy usage so higher energy usage implies higher standard of living. Just for example, Americans generally have wider roads (higher standard of living) made with lots of heavy equipment pouring lots of tar. They tend to have bigger, heavier, and faster cars (higher standard of living). They tend to live further apart with more spacious homes and yards (higher standard of living) which means they have to drive more and that public transportation doesn't work very well. The bigger houses also have to be heated and/or cooled.

    What is funny though, is that a lot of Americans would agree with you that Americans use too much energy and that America has an obligation to reduce the amount of oil we use. When compared by wealth levels these "ecologically moral" Americans use just as much oil as everyone else. There is a game they play on conservative blogs in the US: show a quote by some famous celebrity or Democrat politician about how wasteful America is and then show a picture of the huge SUV that the person drives or the huge house they live in or document how many miles they put in on their private jet. Al Gore is a frequent target of this game. Also, when Europeans and Asians move to the US, it isn't long before they are using just as much energy as the natives, no matter how ecologically moralistic they were before they arrived.

    None of this is to say that I wouldn't like to see Americans cut down on fossil fuel use --I definitely would. But there are difficult systemic problems to solve. What are we going to do, call out the military to force everyone at gunpoint to move from their safe, spacious suburbian house and yard into a small apartment in the crime-ridden city? Force gramma to stop driving fifty miles to see her grandkids every Saturday? Take away everyone's car and force them to find a job that they can get to by train?

    This is not a matter of Americans being bad people and Europeans being oh, so morally superior. It is a matter of perfectly normal people living in particular circumstances and dealing with those circumstances in the way that pretty much anyone else would. And frankly, we could do with a lot less moral preening and lecturing from people who wouldn't do any different in the same situation.
     
  10. Frosty

    Frosty Previous Member

    Well done Mark. I generally try to keep away from the key board after a night out.

    Can I suggest you delete that utter crap before some one reads it.

    Fantastic stuff. Mark go see a doctor.
     
  11. Submarine Tom

    Submarine Tom Previous Member

    You're a brave man Jeremy, or a fool, or both.

    I'm laughing so hard I don't know what else to say.

    Good luck with this one, I'm outta here.

    -Tom
     
  12. Frosty

    Frosty Previous Member

    150 dollar a barrel will see to that prob,--- next few years sometime,-- or once you start paying what the Europeans pay for it.

    Trouble is it could'nt come at a worse time for you with all your debt and your personal taxes that will ( have to) increase.

    Your taxes will increase when Obama is re elected for his last term or not re elected either way.
     
  13. Jeremy Harris
    Joined: Jun 2009
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    Jeremy Harris Senior Member

    I accept that long distance travel is a necessity in the US, which means more oil will be consumed on transportation, but why do vehicles in the US consume so much more fuel per mile than those elswhere in the Western world?

    Using vehicles that are less fuel efficient is wasting oil, however you want to dress it up.

    I'm not going to get into any sort of anti-US argument, as it's not relevant to the topic and would probably just end up becoming a flame war, but the relative consumption of fossil fuel between different countries is relevant to this topic, as it may make the difference between sunlight driven fuel creation technology being viable or not.

    If we can reduce our energy needs per person, in whichever country we happen to reside, then we can both eke out the remaining reserves of fossil fuel and make alternative energy production schemes more viable. At the moment some countries have a very long way to go to get their energy use to a comparable level with others, let alone down to a level that could be sustained without fossil fuel at all.

    Jeremy
     
  14. FAST FRED
    Joined: Oct 2002
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    Location: Conn in summers , Ortona FL in winter , with big d

    FAST FRED Senior Member

    "The fact that we use the term "fossil fuel" should give us a clue to the fact that we're using it far faster than it was created. It took millions of years of sunlight shining on a largely forested planet to create the oil, gas and coal that we will have managed to burn up in a couple of hundred years."

    That's the OLD theory , the Russians have for 30 years claimed oil is produced by water and methane underground at high pressure.

    In the US with over 500 years of natural gas , a method of surface production might be created.

    After all we can make diesel, av fuel or gasoline from coal for the past 6 -7 decades , this conversion might be a good solution till we get perpetual motion or fusion..

    FF
     

  15. brian eiland
    Joined: Jun 2002
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    brian eiland Senior Member

    CRUDE Oil....great video presentation

    Might be a good time to look at this video presentation again
    "CRUDE" oil, an absolute must see program !!!

    ...and have a look down at item #1617,
    The Great Oil Hoax (Discover the biggest lie of the last 30 years...)
    http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/open-discussion/crude-oil-absolute-must-see-program-21427-108.html#post290358
     
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