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America’s Fossil Fuel Economy is Heading for Collapse – It Signals the End of the Oil Age


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2 minutes ago, snoughnut said:

What a load of BS, calm down there Eeyore. :lmao:

Eeyore GIFs - Get the best GIF on GIPHY

What the article doesn’t take into consideration is the massive increase of EV’s over the next decade. That in itself will decrease rather drastically the need for certain fossil fuels. Just like strong MPG standards from the EPA and use of LED lighting decreased America’s energy requirements. Fossil fuels will definitely get more expensive, but they’re not going away. 

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2 minutes ago, Skidooski said:

You just gave Bohuca an erection! 

He thinks EV’s are going to take over. I’d estimate their use will reach 30-35% of consumer vehicles before it plateaus. By then some new form of energy storage will come along. Americans seem to have this weird idea that they have to have tank to pour liquid energy into or they don’t want it. 

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the rest of the world that's not going to transition to EVs is :roflcrying: their asses off 

26% of oil isn't used to make gazzerline or deesuhl

in 2022 the US consumed about 7.4 billion barrels of oil, so roughly 1.9 billion barrels... just in the USA

 

 

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Just now, Crnr2Crnr said:

the rest of the world that's not going to transition to EVs is :roflcrying: their asses off 

26% of oil isn't used to make gazzerline or deesuhl

in 2022 the US consumed about 7.4 billion barrels of oil, so roughly 1.9 billion barrels... just in the USA

 

 

America is actually trailing the rest of the major players in the transition to EVs 

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:whistle:

 

Alexa - When will the world run out of Oil??

Alexa - Global reserves could almost double by 2050 despite booming consumption, oil major says. The world is no longer at risk of running out of oil or gas, with existing technology capable of unlocking so much that global reserves would almost double by 2050 despite booming consumption, BP has said.

 

:lolz:

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3 hours ago, gravy davey said:

How many years have we been hearing this peak oil bullshit? 20 or 30 years or so. 

Heard that back in 1973, on TV all the time.

Edited by XCR1250
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It is just incredible how some think it's such an easy transition off of fossil fuels.

We can barely keep our electrical grid running in the summer, when there is a heat wave, and that's just moving heat, not creating it.

To think we can heat buildings with electricity with what we have, is just to ignore reality.

To replace the natural gas boiler, that only heats my shop, with an electric unit would require 40 kw, or 160 amps @ 240V. 

To do this with multi unit residential buildings such as apartments is, in my opinion, impractical, if not impossible, and I build electric heating systems for industry.

The grid was never designed to take the heating load that natural gas services.

I think the twats that draw this shit up on a napkin, at a bar, need to be sat down and schooled on energy and energy density.

 

If the retards fully go on electric for everything, I'm going to restart my electric heater business.

It will be needed.

 

Edited by Voodoo
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4 hours ago, spin_dry said:

What the article doesn’t take into consideration is the massive increase of EV’s over the next decade. That in itself will decrease rather drastically the need for certain fossil fuels. Just like strong MPG standards from the EPA and use of LED lighting decreased America’s energy requirements. Fossil fuels will definitely get more expensive, but they’re not going away. 

Natural gas has always been a cheaper energy source than electricity. It’s all a load of bullshit driven by the radical nut job GW libtards. Fossil fuels won’t be going anywhere, ever, I promise you. 

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2 minutes ago, snoughnut said:

Natural gas has always been a cheaper energy source than electricity. It’s all a load of bullshit driven by the radical nut job GW libtards. Fossil fuels won’t be going anywhere, ever, I promise you. 

Ignore cost. 

If natural gas was unavailable and everyone switched to electric, the grid would fail in seconds.

 

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11 hours ago, spin_dry said:

It will signal a fuck of a lot more than that . Old Joe is doing a bang up job making dam sure the USD will no longer be the world's trade currency.  

Is Saudi taking the yuan for oil  yet ?

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11 hours ago, Ez ryder said:

It will signal a fuck of a lot more than that . Old Joe is doing a bang up job making dam sure the USD will no longer be the world's trade currency.  

Is Saudi taking the yuan for oil  yet ?

So you're all for US hegemony? Good to know. Very few on this site are in favor of it.

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Revolutionizing Renewable Energy: Using Sunlight To Produce Hydrogen Fuel Out of Thin Air

By EPFL, 2023

Abstract Technology Energy Plasma Physics Concept Art

Scientists have made a significant step towards creating a device that can harvest water from the air and generate hydrogen fuel using solar energy. They have developed a system that combines semiconductor-based technology with novel electrodes that are porous and transparent to maximize contact with water in the air and sunlight exposure of the semiconductor coating. When exposed to sunlight, the device takes water from the air and produces hydrogen gas.

A device that can harvest water from the air and provide hydrogen fuel—entirely powered by solar energy—has been a dream for researchers for decades. Now, EPFL chemical engineer Kevin Sivula and his team have made a significant step towards bringing this vision closer to reality. They have developed an ingenious yet simple system that combines semiconductor-based technology with novel electrodes that have two key characteristics: they are porous, to maximize contact with water in the air; and transparent, to maximize sunlight exposure of the semiconductor coating. When the device is simply exposed to sunlight, it takes water from the air and produces hydrogen gas. The results are published on 4 January 2023 in Advanced Materials.

What’s new? It’s their novel gas diffusion electrodes, which are transparent, porous, and conductive, enabling this solar-powered technology for turning water – in its gas state from the air – into hydrogen fuel.

“To realize a sustainable society, we need ways to store renewable energy as chemicals that can be used as fuels and feedstocks in industry. Solar energy is the most abundant form of renewable energy, and we are striving to develop economically-competitive ways to produce solar fuels,” says Sivula of EPFL’s Laboratory for Molecular Engineering of Optoelectronic Nanomaterials and principal investigator of the study.

 
Kevin Sivula

Kevin Sivula in his lab. Credit: Alain Herzog / EPFL

Inspiration from a plant’s leaf

In their research for renewable fossil-free fuels, the EPFL engineers in collaboration with Toyota Motor Europe, took inspiration from the way plants are able to convert sunlight into chemical energy using carbon dioxide from the air. A plant essentially harvests carbon dioxide and water from its environment, and with the extra boost of energy from sunlight, can transform these molecules into sugars and starches, a process known as photosynthesis. The sunlight’s energy is stored in the form of chemical bonds inside of the sugars and starches.

The transparent gas diffusion electrodes developed by Sivula and his team, when coated with a light harvesting semiconductor material, indeed act like an artificial leaf, harvesting water from the air and sunlight to produce hydrogen gas. The sunlight’s energy is stored in the form of hydrogen bonds.

Instead of building electrodes with traditional layers that are opaque to sunlight, their substrate is actually a 3-dimensional mesh of felted glass fibers.

Marina Caretti, lead author of the work, says, “Developing our prototype device was challenging since transparent gas-diffusion electrodes have not been previously demonstrated, and we had to develop new procedures for each step. However, since each step is relatively simple and scalable, I think that our approach will open new horizons for a wide range of applications starting from gas diffusion substrates for solar-driven hydrogen production.”

From liquid water to humidity in the air

Sivula and other research groups have previously shown that it is possible to perform artificial photosynthesis by generating hydrogen fuel from liquid water and sunlight using a device called a photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell. A PEC cell is generally known as a device that uses incident light to stimulate a photosensitive material, like a semiconductor, immersed in liquid solution to cause a chemical reaction. But for practical purposes, this process has its disadvantages e.g. it is complicated to make large-area PEC devices that use liquid.

Sivula wanted to show that the PEC technology can be adapted for harvesting humidity from the air instead, leading to the development of their new gas diffusion electrode. Electrochemical cells (e.g. fuel cells) have already been shown to work with gases instead of liquids, but the gas diffusion electrodes used previously are opaque and incompatible with the solar-powered PEC technology.

Now, the researchers are focusing their efforts into optimizing the system. What is the ideal fiber size? The ideal pore size? The ideal semiconductors and membrane materials? These are questions that are being pursued in the EU Project “Sun-to-X”, which is dedicated to advance this technology, and develop new ways to convert hydrogen into liquid fuels.

Making transparent, gas-diffusion electrodes

In order to make transparent gas diffusion electrodes, the researchers start with a type of glass wool, which is essentially quartz (also known as silicon oxide) fibers and process it into felt wafers by fusing the fibers together at high temperature. Next, the wafer is coated with a transparent thin film of fluorine-doped tin oxide, known for its excellent conductivity, robustness and ease to scale-up. These first steps result in a transparent, porous, and conducting wafer, essential for maximizing contact with the water molecules in the air and letting photons through. The wafer is then coated again, this time with a thin-film of sunlight-absorbing semiconductor materials. This second thin coating still lets light through, but appears opaque due to the large surface area of the porous substrate. As is, this coated wafer can already produce hydrogen fuel once exposed to sunlight.

The scientists went on to build a small chamber containing the coated wafer, as well as a membrane for separating the produced hydrogen gas for measurement. When their chamber is exposed to sunlight under humid conditions, hydrogen gas is produced, achieving what the scientists set out to do, showing that the concept of a transparent gas- diffusion electrode for solar-powered hydrogen gas production can be achieved.

While the scientists did not formally study the solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency in their demonstration, they acknowledge that it is modest for this prototype, and currently less than can be achieved in liquid-based PEC cells. Based on the materials used, the maximum theoretical solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of the coated wafer is 12%, whereas liquid cells have been demonstrated up to 19% efficient.

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On 3/31/2023 at 11:15 AM, gravy davey said:

How many years have we been hearing this peak oil bullshit? 20 or 30 years or so. 

Shaddup and buy an EV!

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