Reply To: Remnant heat of Focus Fusion

[vansig]

I doubt we’ll ever be looking at a shortage of carbon, on this planet.

Returning to the original topic, the referenced formula uses the term LOE, as “the lease operating expenses in dollars per well per month”. Cheap energy, increased equipment reliability, and greater automation will each reduce this, in the long term.

Some Alberta tar sands producers are already looking at the use of nuclear thermal reactors to help them extract oil more cleanly and completely.

But cheap energy will also increase the competitive advantage of virtually every recycling process.

Eventually, as fossil fuel resources are depleted, it will become cheaper to burn waste, capture the gases, pump them through algae tanks, and use sunlight to make bio-diesel. Cheap electricity comes into this equation, but it isn’t the lion’s share of costs.

So the question on my mind, is: at what price per barrel of oil will this make economic sense?