Chapter 17b – Energy Budgeting: Petroleum has supplied the surplus energy that has allowed for social complexity, industrialization, and the modern conveniences that we enjoy. In this chapter, Dr. Chris Martenson explains that in the future our supply of surplus energy will decline due to the fact that increasing amounts of energy will be required to produce new energy. When poor net energy (ERoEI) returns are paired with peak oil production, it points to a return to a less complex society. www.chrismartenson.com
Video Rating: 5 / 5
@fr0ber Whats the matter parrot, you want a cracker?
@papawx3 Lol idiot.
Explain this: During World War 2, Germany was cut off from the last remaining oilfields under it’s control {they were in Romania} by the advancing Soviet armies in the Summer of 1944. They had no oil reserves to speak of either. So how did they manage to fight another ten months? They still had plenty of coal fields in Germany, so they converted the coal to liquid and used it to power everything. We have 300 yrs worth of coal reserves here in the USA. CLEAN IT UP AND BURN IT. Problem solved.
@ChrisMartensondotcom
It is true that uranium reserves are limited, but uranium represents only 7% of the total cost of nuclear power. If uranium becomes 4x more expensive than it currently is (due to depletion of uranium mines), the uranium can be extracted from seawater (reserves are basically limitless). That (seawater uranium) will represent only 30% of cost of nuclear energy.
Huttate1: I understand the exponential growth and that it cannot continue forever. But I also know one solution to keep current energy use or increase it with some reasonable multiple and keep it there, for million years which is plenty of time to perfect nuclear fusion
But there are TWO key changes required.
A) Transform society to use ELECTRICITY as primary transportation medium for energy.
B) Go for most efficient nuclear cycle available and maybe cut some red tape around it.
World CURRENT energy use is ~10 billion tons of oil equivalent per year.
With fast breeders, one ton of natural uranium equals of 2 million tons of coal. Annual energy needs are worth of ~5000tons of uranium.
Current cheap uranium reserves ~5.5million tons. A bit more expensive uranium 4.6 billion tons from seawater.
Let me restate “Get fast breeders instead of the crap they sell us as more proliferation proof reactors, that only use tiny percentage of uranium.”
@josmala “with current energy consumption.” Did you not understand exponential growth, or oil replacement?
I suggest you Google “A cubic mile of oil” and you will see how much uranium we would need to replace fossil fuels.
Does hydrogen store energy better than current batteries?
Uranium shortage fallacy is based on that those reserves are counted in which
~0.02% of uranium:s energy is worth way under cent. The US has historically banned use of 99.98% of that due to fact that those processes have high potential for nuclear weapons use. I’m pretty certain that USA has enough nuclear waste to fuel its next generation reactors few decades. With that LOW quality sources of uranium are abundant enough for last thousands of years with current energy consumption.
“shooting barrels of oil into space”LMFAO!!!
There is no cheap replacement for cheap oil liquid transport fuels which our society depends on to function……some will claim there is….
I was really hoping you would put the nuclear and some other options on the chart at the end. Also I was hoping you would touch on the nuance with how the solar and wind efficiency is calculated. Namely, the return on investment over time within the confines of wear for solar as well as the reliability losses in efficiency and utility for weather based energy extraction. On a whole I am immensely appreciating this course ^__^.. thumbs.
Bush knew all that. The point of his policies were depopulation. As he said, “This sucker is going down”. The “sucker” being us.
Some farmland with good soil, a clean and reliable water supply, and a horse & cart, is looking better and better…
Perhaps a 3 to 1 return on energy invested is sufficient if the general population doesn’t have to carry a leisure class?
Humans are a global problem. There is no limit to the fuel, money, greed, fears, and desires of Western world humans. Now they want to spread their disease to India, China, and others who will devour the world. Big mistake. The solution is to have less, live on less, do less with less waste. Waste is a status symbol in the West. No human is worth more than one million dollars a year. We have to control our fears and desires. We have met the problem and he is us. Live on less.
The time has come for Free energy to be revealed ,But the Oil companies want these technologies unknown to the masses,if you want a real Free energy Magnet Motor, get the blueprints at LT-MAGNET-MOTORdotCOM ,take part in the revolution!
Where did you get the numbers for EROEI?
@artyfarty3 hi . . seen your ? . . look up hydrogen booster for car engines on utube .
a car engine makes the hydrogen with the excess electric current from the alternator ”maybe its called a generator in U.S.” . i live in Scotland . . we call it a alternator here . well anyway – you pass a current through a container that has water and bicarbonate of soda in it . which then makes hydrogen . its then just feed into the carb with the air intake. watch some utube vids to understand
With nuclear, we have abundant energy available, yet we tie ourselves to burning oil one way or another. Coincidentally (not!) both are condemned by environmentalists Don’t get me wrong, global warming is real, the destruction of the environment is real and the need to take precautions with nuclear is real. But there is no shortage of energy unless we choose to stifle the supply through listening to misleading propaganda.
Sorry if you have to re-write your course now, Chris
The *other* thing with nuclear power is that it doesn’t replace oil as fuel in internal combustion engines or as industrial feedstock. But hydrogen and batteries will, not might, replace the gas tank very soon, so transport is not an issue.
In any case, GM algae grown under artificial light from cheap nuclear power will provide carbon-neutral biofuel and will be a regular part of any oil refinery before the mineral oil crisis hits – but only if we adopt nuclear.
That’s one E down, two to go.
Peak uranium? This is a fiction. Oil will physically run out sooner or later. Uranium won’t – not for millions of years. Currently uranium is very cheap. Obviously in a competitive market, it has to be mined inexpensively, but as demand goes up and the price goes up the effect on energy price will be negligible because the cost of the raw material will still be a tiny fraction of the overall cost of production. Get hold of a tame physicist and do the maths! It really is mind-boggling.
@ChrisMartensondotcom Hi Chris:
Love your course. Liquid Fluoride Thorium and travelling wave (Bill Gates presented at TED) are about the only sources I’ve read about to get us out of this pickle. Cheers.
isn’t hydrogen something like 20% of air we breathe ? and water , isn’t that oxygen and hydrogen ? surely there must be some way to extract it relatively cheaply from those sources . I heard there is one company in USA that makes hydrogen cars – how do they get their fuel source and how much does it cost to make ? I think the oil barons are keeping a tight lid on those technologies and will not share the true results until the oil runs out .Only then will they switch to new industry.
@timgranville The thinking now is that off-peak base-load power might be used for hydrogen (via electrolysis). Wind power generally goes to waste in the evenings and investors are looking for all sorts of efficient storage. Hydrogen is OK for that and of course provides a reasonable energy density for replacing liquid fuels.
Unless we innovate nuclear (Liquid fluoride Thorium or travelling wave) traditional light water reactors are going to face big problems as uranium is getting scarce.