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
Crash Course: Chapter 17b – Energy Budgeting by Chris Martenson
Posted by admin on August 28th, 2010
Posted in Depression Videos 
@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.
Chris, cant we produce hydrogen from water? so then use hydrogen to make more hydrogen????? and Exponentially increase the mount of hydrogen to surplus levels?????
im interested in learning more about this stuff because im a conservative but im always open to new views and ideas to continue to educate myself and adapt to more sensible views
Hey, let's build a dyson sphere! that'll solve all our problems =P
My sum up to the entire thing? We need to hurry up and find alternative means of energy. Today or thirty years from now, it dosn't matter. If we have thirty years, good, we have a little bit of time to start searching, because oil WILL run out eventually (economically).
This all makes sense, and not to insult you, but you repeat things occasionally a few to many times (though it does help it make sense). I was wondering what your thoughts on Fusion power was? (vs. Hydrogen fuel). This video really makes sense, states nothing but facts, then you help to sum it up while still stating facts (the values that make a great teacher.
Social complexity is built ion surplus energy.The international banksters Rothschilds, Rockefellers, etc. have used that fact to control and recondition needs based people starting about 1920 to become consumers. Followed by further conditioning people and societies to be debt based.
They created the lifestyle for you in order to keep the free-range livestock from leaving the farm enmasse.
One ten thousand the sunlight that hits Earth is required to meet all our energy needs. Solar energy PV panels/cells production out put is exponential. Doubling each year for the past 20 years while reducing cost of production in half -- despite inflation. In ten years the production output will be enough to meet all our energy needs and the cost will have been halved dramatically thanks to nanotechnology research and development..
After the wandering hunter gatherers man progressed to stationary agricultural communities, it was at that point that a few realized that since man can produce more than he consumes it was worth the effort to control or outright enslave people.
Statism is Dead - Part 3 - The Matrix: watch?v=P772Eb63qIY
and
Statism is Dead - Part 4 - Free Range Empires: watch#v=02rvMwSlAu0
The author completely misses the most important social element for the suvival of a civilization. The delicacy to sustaining and increasing abundance is not delicate at all. The robust character and fortitude of human beings is what brought civilization this far -- not government or banksters. The delicate part is on the shoulders of the powers that be to keep hidden from the populace the Ultimate Solution.
Still sneaking up on the Ultimate Solution.
Hydrogen? No. Forget the energy requried to produce it, infrastructure, etc. The exhast from a hydrogen vehicle is water vapour, right? Harmless? NO!Water vapour is the most prevelant and most significant GREENHOUSE GAS in the atmosphere. By adding to it may actually cause a REAL problem.
Frostlander is correct when he says it all comes from the sun. Everything CM is commenting about has it's origins in solar insolation. The most relevant question, imho, is how are we utilizing the sun?
Petroleum may have gotten us this far, but I don't think anyone seriously believes it's sustainable. So what's left?
All of the obvious alternatives have pros and cons that warrant scrutiny. But in particular, it seems that CM is unaware that he is regurgitating the spin of...
And finally the obvious power source is solar. There is no other source of energy that is quite as sustainable as solar. "But it only works during the day." To that I say, "So just because you're not making money right now doesn't mean you're broke." Simply put, use higher power generation capacity to harness when light is available with an accompanying storage medium. Properly designed with the areas average sunlight in account it would function (backup power option sold sperately).
Of course this also warrants increasing infrastructure power capacity to include transportation. This, as we know, is a great expansion and may be very difficult if the mass production and distribution portion of the system is not upgraded in efficiency by a great magnitude. My suggestion would be making energy production a more local task. An example would be having generators per neighborhood, or maybe one at each home integrated together. But this is a large change to infrastructure.
Hydrogen as an energy storage medium sounds like a practical method for vehicles seeing its energy density (whole system), compared to say current capacitors and batteries. However the cost of making a hydrogen battery system is quite great in comparison to most other systems especially when one includes integrating an entire infrastructure for it. My suggestion would be capacitor/battery because they are easily integrated with existing infrastructure.
Hydrogen power? I hope your all kidding. Where are you going to get the resources to build the infrastructure in order to obtain this clean energy? Oil, and when it's not there, it can't be built. Not to mention, you need oil not only for gasoline, but proper lubrication on moving parts, such as the machinery you need to build the clean energy infrastructure which can't happen because not enough oil will be available in order to do so.
here is the scientific aspect of it: you take the electricity provided with the wind and solar, and take a tank of water. you charge the electricity into the water to split it into oxygen and hydrogen. than you can use the hydrogen just like oil. when you burn it, it goes back to being water and you can use it again, and again, and again, and again until the sun burns out. really, is it that hard, ik its expensive but its the ONLY good option.
HOW FUCKING HARD IS THIS?? hydrogen CAN replace oil, sure, its return is less than 1, but, if you put it in combination with solar and wind, it can EASILY replace replace oil and be used in cars and stuff in which you need an on-the-go energy carrier.
I liked the second house! Who the hell would want too live in the horrifying plastic "mansion"?
The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.
This is true, and why I have come to the conclusion that if Hydrogen is going to become a viable energy source/conduit, it has to be generated on demand. In the case of a car, it would require mixing water and a aluminum/gallium alloy that produces hydrogen when it they come in contact with eachother. The aluminum eventually becomes spent, which requires reprocessing at a regional solar, wind or nuclear facility. Why this idea hasn't been moved forward, I just don't understand.
I know a lot of people think that Hydrogen is the sexy choice for our liquid fuel needs, but are we neglecting that the Hydrogen molecule is the smallest molecule known to Man? You put the space shuttle on the launch pad, fuel it up, and if it sits there for more than three days, they have to refuel, because it loses about 2-3% every day. And this is NASA we're talking about! THEY haven't figured out how to contain the Hydrogen molecule...
Yes. But you have to generate the electricity first, right?
Though of course, we should use exclusively renewable energy sources to produce the oil polymers, because having an oil-making factory run on oil is totally pointless.
Synthesizing oil is possible but with current technology it will not have a net return in energy. Why do I bring this up? Artificially made oil polymers might have a future not in energy, but to use it to make some basic needs like fertilizer and rubber. We might not be able to produce lots of it but at least some of it would still exist, for vital purposes.
Um of course. If you have read up on peak oil then that is the only answer you can give.