Reply To: Fusion Oil

[Breakable]

Brian H wrote:
I think if you look at the options (other than modular nuclear), from cradle to grave, and include all the associated “backup” costs (the sun/wind variable sources must have quick-response 100% conventional backup available, because the chance of drop-off to very low, even zero, output for even brief periods is intolerable), plus the subsidies, the EROI for any plausible improved versions still are terrible.

There are solutions to backup issue without sacrificing much EROI.
1)Combining CS with existing (or new) gas plants to preheat or boil water when sun is shinning and turning up the gas when it is not should be probably done with minor engineering and cost investments. And the cost is minimal because most of the infrastructure is shared,
2)Hydro is being used as storage capacity for a long time.
3)Smart grid or just simple planning (adjusting demand side, instead of supply) should soften some issues.
4)New generation of renewable’s are going to have cheap inherited storage, that is better than baseload – “dispatchable generation”:
Molten salt
http://www.altenergystocks.com/archives/2009/04/why_csp_should_not_try_to_be_coal.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-use-solar-energy-at-night
Underwater compressed air
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUhlsV32iHk

Also how do you include the cost of lives, health and businesses lost in the humanitarian and ecological disasters?

Brian H wrote:
The arguments against using every bit of fossil fuel available before resorting to hyper-expensive renewables are nonsense, of course. If every gram of known coal, oil, and natural gas were burned they would add about 1/3 to the current CO2 content of the atmosphere, with a hypothetical maximum temperature impact of a degree or so over the course of a century.

The only rational course is to make efficient use of hydrocarbon fuels until FF or some equivalent is available, and then, as Eric indicates, use the hydrocarbon supplies as feedstock for useful stuff (organic molecules of all sorts).

That area is off-limits.
Please dont go there, especially with incorrect information and bias.
Just look at the historical chart how much co2 we had historically in the atmosphere and where it is now. Magic isn’t it?