World population is growing 20 million people every 3 months

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by Group9

Part of the reason for the out of control population growth, and this is going to sound cruel, is our modern propensity to make sure that people who are incapable of taking care of themselves or their families have everything they need to keep producing more kids they can't feed, house or clothe.

Define "out of control".

Population growth rates are going down everywhere. That is not "out of control"

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Yes!

But you need a "holy grail" battery to have an absolutely great one which solves most problems. We're already almost there, if we can just get energy density of batteries up one single order of magnitude. It's impossible to predict technological chance, but c'mon -- that's got to be doable in the fairly short term, considering the tens of billions being invested now in battery technology.

Batteries alone will not solve the issue.

Even if you can get the energy density up by an order of magnitude.

The main issues are:
- Winter versus summer. People forget how far north Europe is for example. Where I live the total solar input is only a sixth in the winter of what it is in summer, and it is in winter that our energy use is highest. Go to Scandinavia and you have to deal with winters that are very dark

- The biggest item on our energy budget is transportation. For most household their cars are 2/3 or more of their entire energy consumption. A few solar panels on the roof won't help here...

[AiniA]

Originally Posted by leftbrainstuff

It's predicted to taper off quite sharply later this century. It's logarithmic not exponential.

Apart from the Catholic obsession with procreation birth rates have tapered off to below sustainable levels in most countries.

Add in a few wars, epidemics and the internet and i don't see population growth as a problem.

Fertility rates in Catholic countries are just as low as in non-Catholic neighbours. Italy is at only 1.42, poorer countries, Mexico is 2.29. Couldn't find stats for Vatican City.

[AiniA]

We are nowhere near doing it, but I read a book years ago about converting our energy system into one based on electricity and hydrogen. Electricity would be what is generated from whatever source, nukes, hydro, solar, wind. It would also be used for consumption in vehicles (fuel cells or directly), industrial use, home heating/cooling etc. Hydrogen would be used for energy storage and transport - and lets not even talk about the Hindenburg, we are not dealing with 1937 technology. No idea how this could be implemented since it is such a fundamental change.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by AiniA

Couldn't find stats for Vatican City.

One of the biggest mistakes the Catholic Church made was to impose celibacy on its priests.
As a result they are literally dying out in Europe...

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

- The biggest item on our energy budget is transportation. For most household their cars are 2/3 or more of their entire energy consumption. A few solar panels on the roof won't help here...

Very few people realize that, and that is the reason reason why electric automobiles won't work large scale. Cause we have no where near the electrical generation required to charge those cars.
However if you had panels on your roof, that charged your car during the day, and your car could also be used as an energy source to get you through the night, then that might be viable to some extent.
A problem with that, is most people automobiles sit in the parking lot at work during the day, so you would need the panels there, not at home.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Very few people realize that, and that is the reason reason why electric automobiles won't work large scale. Cause we have no where near the electrical generation required to charge those cars.

However if you had panels on your roof, that charged your car during the day, and your car could also be used as an energy source to get you through the night, then that might be viable to some extent.

A problem with that, is most people automobiles sit in the parking lot at work during the day, so you would need the panels there, not at home.

That won't work in Northern Europe in Winter...

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

Batteries alone will not solve the issue.

Even if you can get the energy density up by an order of magnitude.

The main issues are:
- Winter versus summer. People forget how far north Europe is for example. Where I live the total solar input is only a sixth in the winter of what it is in summer, and it is in winter that our energy use is highest. Go to Scandinavia and you have to deal with winters that are very dark

- The biggest item on our energy budget is transportation. For most household their cars are 2/3 or more of their entire energy consumption. A few solar panels on the roof won't help here...

You didn't understand what I meant, and I'm guessing you will agree with what I was trying to say.

I was not saying that good batteries will make solar the universal power source, and I don't believe that.

I meant that oil is toast as a motor fuel as soon as battery technology advances that much. Because the only reason why we depend on oil for motor fuel is because of its high energy density, which makes is easy to carry in a moving vehicle. A battery an order of magnitude better than what we have now will make it possible to use electrical power generated in any way whatsoever, to power transportation. That will be a revolution and will signal the end of the world's dependence on oil. Only for transportation, is oil not easily replaceable with other energy sources, as of 2017.

Actually even present battery technology works ok for cars, as we are seeing, just with some limitations in range. It's already good enough for a practical electric car, which you can already buy. This is the future, at least in the medium term. There will be more and more electric cars, and petroleum powered cars will gradually disappear as battery technology and installed charging infrastructure improves. This process will gather momentum -- as more and more electric cars are made, there will be more and more investment into battery technology, and progress should accelerate. More acceleration, artificial acceleration, may occur from any taxation of carbon emissions or other artificial incentives. Also in case oil prices start to go up again, this will increase investment into battery technology.


Not a minute too soon, as China motorizes and worldwide demand for air travel continues to grow. It would be nice if this goes fast enough to keep petroleum prices down low enough that we will still have cheap petroleum fuel for aircraft and our own boats, which are most dependent on ultimate energy density. Whether this happens or now comes down to a race between increasing demand, and progress in battery technology.


Something not much discussed is charging infrastructure. Another way, besides better battery technology, to mitigate the energy density/range problem of electric cars, is to make it easier to charge them. Besides a good network of charging stations, there are also some cool things possible using inductive charging in the roads -- to allow you to charge at stoplights or even while moving. Self-driving electric cars can also help with the charging problem -- they can drive off by themselves and find a charging station, while you're shopping or whatever. It's all really exciting as serious investment in electric cars has started only recently, and there are so many interesting technological solutions which are possible. It will be fun to watch. I wish I were a bit younger.

One thing for sure, I think -- the next generation will look back on this discussion, and laugh, and say, "They were really so worried about that?"

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

That won't work in Northern Europe in Winter...

Likely there will be no one solution, but a multitude of solutions, wind is viable, in certain areas, other areas, not so much for example.
You really might can harness tides and waves too, only work near the ocean of course.

Thing I think will make electric automobiles more viable is a quick change standard battery, that way you could take a trip by exchanging batteries like propane tanks are done now.

[ctl411]

Originally Posted by UAEguy

Funny you should ask StuM, multi-use solar farm reservoirs are on the drawing boards enabling efficient energy storage, evaporation protection and cheap surface area for PV.

Two reservoirs at different altitudes work to provide extremely efficient and reliable energy storage.

A power plant like this is in northern Michigan. Pump big lake water up on the dunes at night release back down during the peak day time. It's a buy "cheap" sell high model but could benefit from solar and or wind power.

[Cottontop]

Serious demographers agree that world population will peak around 8 billion. None believe it will exceed 9 billion.

At the density of Hong Kong, a nice city, 8 billion people will fit in the US state of Ohio.

And we have plenty of natural resources. After all, every atom of iron, etc. is still here. Natural resources are never "used up." (We might have to get better at recycling.) There is a resource distribution problem, but that is a political/technical problem.

And we're learning how to build everything out of carbon. There's loads of carbon (think of all of it we're currently storing in the atmosphere).

The sky is not falling.

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

You didn't understand what I meant, and I'm guessing you will agree with what I was trying to say.

I was not saying that good batteries will make solar the universal power source, and I don't believe that.

I meant that oil is toast as a motor fuel as soon as battery technology advances that much. Because the only reason why we depend on oil for motor fuel is because of its high energy density, which makes is easy to carry in a moving vehicle. A battery an order of magnitude better than what we have now will make it possible to use electrical power generated in any way whatsoever, to power transportation. That will be a revolution and will signal the end of the world's dependence on oil. Only for transportation, is oil not easily replaceable with other energy sources, as of 2017.

But we will need to replace it. If we electrify all our transportation we will need to find energy somewhere. If we replace all our cars with electric cars we will probably need to triple our electricity production. At the moment renewable energy can't even keep up with growth in electricity demand.

And how are we going to power those large container ships? The only solution I see there is nuclear.

But in stead of investing in Nuclear the world is going back to coal. Even Germany. Especially Germany...

One thing for sure, I think -- the next generation will look back on this discussion, and laugh, and say, "They were really so worried about that?"

Just as we laugh about the worries of previous generations. At the end of the 19th century people around the world were worried that the horse manure problem in the cities was unsolvable...

[UAEguy]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

- Winter versus summer. People forget how far north Europe is for example. Where I live the total solar input is only a sixth in the winter of what it is in summer, and it is in winter that our energy use is highest. Go to Scandinavia and you have to deal with winters that are very dark

I have a great idea for you...MOVE SOUTH!

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Very few people realize that, and that is the reason reason why electric automobiles won't work large scale. Cause we have no where near the electrical generation required to charge those cars.. . .

Where did you get this idea? That's actually not true at all, and I posted actual figures above. The U.S. electrical power system at the moment has about 30% spare capacity, which is more than would be needed to eliminate all gasoline consumption (granted, not diesel), which would require about 1 terawatt/hour per year of power. And it might even work out better than that if most charging of electric vehicles is done at night when there is lots more spare capacity.

Spare generating capacity has been growing every year in the U.S. since the '70's. We have a very robust electrical power system which can certainly cope with more demand.

Obviously not overnight -- it takes some time to add generating capacity, but it also takes time to change over the nation's whole fleet of cars, probably measured in decades. So all in all, generating capacity is not generally considered to be a major obstacle to conversion to electric cars. Some areas like California have so much excess generating capacity that they are reinforcing their interconnections with other systems to allow them to sell off the unused power. Someone posted about that above.

The huge advantage of electric cars is that they are completely indifferent as to how the power is generated -- it can be done by coal, gas, wind, solar, tide, nuclear -- whatever. The source of power for electric cars is far more robust and flexible, than for petroleum fueled ones, and is totally independent of any importation from anywhere, so isolated from any geopolitical issues, totally unlike oil.

Roll out a bunch of new-tech solar, and build a few 5 gigawatt nuclear plants, and we'll be cooking with gas (so to speak ). It does not take more time, than phasing out the existing fleet of dino-burners, and the system will already power a whole bunch of electric cars without any increase in generating capacity at ll. For those who care, we will at the same time dramatically reduce carbon emissions. This is really the right way forward, and I predict that it will actually happen, and pretty fast, too.

[newhaul]

Nuclear has its problems just study up on the wppss projects.
Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS) - HistoryLink.org
There are many more issues than that page stated. Suffice to say poor management and shoddy inspection procedures caused the NRC to condem the entire project.