About energy supplies and transportation...

[bobsmith1492]

I've been seeing all these posts about engines and power sources and have been thinking lately about the possibilities of transportation in the future - please feel free to think with me!

The other day I was wondering - what would happen if a "world war" broke out in, say, the Middle East and major political disruptions in other countries suddenly cut off vast amounts of the oil supply to the US?

My main concern was the food supply; the vast majority of the US buys food from grocery stores which is shipped in from around the world. Without gasoline/diesel to transport these supplies, entire cities could starve within the month.

On a local level, my family owns some property and we are fairly avid farmers. I was thinking we could become subsistence farmers; my father thought the best crops would be potatoes, beans, and squash due to their storage longevity and ease to grow.

I realize there would be major implications in the "civilized" cities (riots, etc.), but what would you do if you could not be assured of easy food purchase for an indefinite amount of time?

What, if anything, chould be done to reduce the possibility of this happening (reliance on local energy sources for transportation?)

Just how far-reached would be the implications if we had to run on mostly local oil supplies, say 25% of the US' current supply? What technologies are the most likely to come through under that kind of pressure?

 

[rgwalt]

IIRC the majority of the crude refined in the US comes from this hemisphere (gulf of Mexico, Alaska, Canada, and South America). Also, the US has one of the largest, if not the largest, supply of coal in the world. We can convert this coal into petroleum products via liquification or even gasification (with Fischer-Trope) technology. The only reason it is not used currently is price. However, if war broke out and drove up the price of oil significantly, I would imagine that the process would become economically viable. Furthermore, if we needed the technology to fuel agriculture, distribution of goods, and a war machine the government would likely "sponser" the construction of these plants.

There would be some significant inconviences, but I doubt we would see starvation in the population centers of the US just due to being cut off from the mideast oil supply. Now, the situation could be very different if the refining capacity in the US was severly crippled. However, in order to reduce the refining capacity in the US by 25% you would have to destroy the 11 largest refineries in the country (out of 144).

R

 

[BrownTown]

Yeah, in terms of oil supply, the US im much more diversified than many people believe, a disruption in oil from the middle east is of coruse a big thing, but it will by no means be the breakdown of our civilization. The strategic reserve has enough oil to last us for a decent amount of time, and if oil was really becoming incredibly constrained than the government would limit the amount being allowed for nonessential activities, certainlly the amount of oil needed to supply the basic needs of our civilzation (like food and water) could be secured for long enough that new alternatives could be made. You could always bring back all the coal fired trains to transport large amounts of food over good distances, and of course oil is almost never burned to make electricity, so there would be no disruption of electrical power. Really, the whole energy crisis thing people try to postulate where modern society breaks down just is not a very likely scenario.

 

[Aluvus]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
The strategic reserve has enough oil to last us for a decent amount of time

The CIA lists our consumption at 20.03 million bbl/day, and production at 7.61 million bbl/day. In 2005, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve was ordered to expand to 1 billion barrels. So at current consumption, that would be around 80 days worth of oil. After that, we wouldn't be out, but we would only have enough to meet about 1/3 of our normal consumption. Obviously, consumption could be reduced to help stretch this further.

A bit for the OP: the US is one of the world's largest agricultural producers. We (narrowly now) export more food products (in dollar value) than we import. While a major war or severe embargo would reduce the overall diversity of food available to people in the US, you're not looking at mass starvation. The overall climate of the United States is friendly to a variety of crops, including staples like potatoes and grains.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Aluvus
A bit for the OP: the US is one of the world's largest agricultural producers. We (narrowly now) export more food products (in dollar value) than we import. While a major war or severe embargo would reduce the overall diversity of food available to people in the US, you're not looking at mass starvation. The overall climate of the United States is friendly to a variety of crops, including staples like potatoes and grains.

Don't forget how extraordinarily reliant the US agriculture industry is on oil...from fertilizers to pesticides to planting and plowing and harvesting, it's extremely energy-intensive, and that's before the goods even go to market!

 

[Pulsar]

1. Learn to fish.
2. Purchase a decent hunting rifle and associated ammunition. (30-6 is good).
3. Purchase a good shotgun for bird hunting.
4. Learn to garden.

As we saw during the major black - gasoline is no more important than electricity. Without electricity all the major stores had rotten food on the shelf after 4 days (when their gennies had run dry and there was no electricity to pump gas at the stations).

If you wanted to cripple the US, wiping out the power centers supplying heavily populated areas would do far more damage. Imagine the West Coast without power for a month.

The US HAS gasoline that could be rationed to critical operations. But there ain't no way to truck electricity in by the gallon.

 

[bobsmith1492]

I could see that gas would be rationed, for sure. Topping the list as far as I can see: food transportation/production, military, energy/industry transportation (someone has to ship the coal from the mine to the plant as LsDPulsar noted), and at the bottom, personal pleasure and vacationing. I could see the airline business shrinking reeeealy fast...

 

[Cogman]

I think that the US would start to think more seriously about using Nuclear power. There would probably be less of a question about the enviroment and more about our survival as a country.

This would not cause us to fail as a country. It would hurt and may cause a depression but I don't think it would cause us to die.

 

[BrownTown]

Yeah, but if oil were suddenly cut off and the congress immediately voted to build new nuclear plant the next day it would be at LEAST 3 years before they can get one up in running unless they decide to cut a bunch of corners in terms of safety. Also, you can only build so many in parellel because there arent enough skilled laborers in the US to construct more than a few nuclear power plants at a time. Also, no company in the US has the ability to forge nuclear pressure vessels and other nuclear equipment, only a very small number of companies can do this, the only ones I know are in France and South Korea. The capacity of these plants is likely already nearly full with new construction in other parts of he world, and even at best they can produce the equipment for a vert limited number of plants a year. It is simply not possible to have say 50 nuke plants 5 years from now, the manufacturing capacity simply doesnt exist, and it would take years to build new foundries and train new workers before large scale construction can begin. Obviously the oil reserves would dry up long before then making the construction of such foundries and the subsequent plants prohibitively expensive.

Not like this is something that needs to be worried about in that context, moreso in the context of the ability of this country simply to produce enough new nuclear plants to even begin to make a considerable dent in the energy market, let alone completely change it.

 

[bobsmith1492]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
Yeah, but if oil were suddenly cut off and the congress immediately voted to build new nuclear plant the next day it would be at LEAST 3 years before they can get one up in running unless they decide to cut a bunch of corners in terms of safety. Also, you can only build so many in parellel because there arent enough skilled laborers in the US to construct more than a few nuclear power plants at a time. Also, no company in the US has the ability to forge nuclear pressure vessels and other nuclear equipment, only a very small number of companies can do this, the only ones I know are in France and South Korea. The capacity of these plants is likely already nearly full with new construction in other parts of he world, and even at best they can produce the equipment for a vert limited number of plants a year. It is simply not possible to have say 50 nuke plants 5 years from now, the manufacturing capacity simply doesnt exist, and it would take years to build new foundries and train new workers before large scale construction can begin. Obviously the oil reserves would dry up long before then making the construction of such foundries and the subsequent plants prohibitively expensive.

Not like this is something that needs to be worried about in that context, moreso in the context of the ability of this country simply to produce enough new nuclear plants to even begin to make a considerable dent in the energy market, let alone completely change it.

See, we should think about these things NOW, before there's any sort of crisis that could inhibit a change of habits energy-wise. Like you said, I'm sure something like I've stated is not likely to happen (or the government won't let it happen, military-wise if necessary), but some shift of portable energy sources will HAVE to happen eventually due to the finite oil sources available. Due to the costs of major shifts like this, it will take either major government intervention (which will likely screw it up majorly like all things bureaucratic) or a crisis. Preferably, we can slip slowly toward more electric storage generated by fission (maybe eventually fusion) plants, but will that happen? Is oil price the main driving factor?

 

[BrownTown]

No, oil price is in no way a driving factor for electrical production because like I said before oil is NOT used for electrical production. Oil and nuclear are not in direct competition in any way, niether has any ability to replace the other without a huge shift in infrastructure (like moving to electrical cars). Nuclear powers opposition is COAL, coal and nuclear are the only 2 methods for producing cheap and reliable power in the US today (hence they are #1 and #2 in electrical production). Since there is no immediate concern over the supply of coal any desires to move to nuclear power cannot be motivated by supply, but isntead by a fear of pollution and global warming. A big reason for the new resurgence in interest in nuclear power is the fealing that in a few year the US will likely enact a carbon tax which will allow nuclear plants to take the upper hand from coal in terms of economics. The issue with the supply of oil, and the so called "peak" is a largely unrelated one. In the future the emergence of plug in hybrids may cause electrical power to run cars which will remove the need for oil as a transportation fuel, until such time as that is feasible it would be silly for any power producer to start a huge nuclear construction build since there is not firm indiaction that the demand from electric cars will ever exist to be filled by nuclear power plants. Also, it might go with some note that if there really is a lack of supply of oil the USA as the richest nation in the world will likely be able to buy oil from more sources, those who would be most hurt would be developing countires who simply couldn't foot the bill. And as has been stated before, a large scale oil embargo agaist the US will not happen because people know the US would defend its interests to the point of war if it is nececarry to ensure our national security (which energy security is a part of).

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
Nuclear powers opposition is COAL, coal and nuclear are the only 2 methods for producing cheap and reliable power in the US today (hence they are #1 and #2 in electrical production).

You mean except for hydroelectric, and gas-fired and oil-fired plants, right?

 

[BrownTown]

No, i don't mean that at all. Hydroelectric power in this country is pretty much at its maximum output since there are few good places left to dam, and its hard as hell to get a permit to actually build a new dam in anywhere. Due to that fact hydro power cannot compete with coal and nuclear for new capacity additions since no new capacity can be added. Gas fired plants are NOT economical for large scale power production, the prevelance of these plants is due to a considerable overbuild broguht on by very low gas prices of the past which are no longer present at the current time. Gas turbines cost about 10 times as much as a coal or nuclear plant to run and are only used as peaking power for the hottest times of the hottest days. Combined cycle natural gas plants are considerably more effecient, but they simply are not economical to any considerable extent in this country when compared to coal or nuclear. Their existance is due to a lack of coal and nuclear plants requiring that they be run in order to meet demand. Oil fired plant simply don't exist in any great number, and havent for decades, last i checked oil provides ~3% of electrical production, and with current oil prices i'd be surprised if anyone with a choice would ever even consider running an oil fired plant.

For base load power production there is coal and nuclear and that is IT (unless you are retarded like California and ban them).

 

[bobsmith1492]

I didn't mean that oil was a driving factor for energy production, but that its price seems like the driving factor for the transportation industry and any switch from oil to other power sources in THAT industry is unfortunately dependent on the price of oil.

 

[Calin]

Converting diesel engines to biodiesel is somewhat easy and not very expensive - even with a big part of the fuels production gone, one could convert tens of thousands of trucks to bio diesel in the 80 days until national stockpile is gone (sunflower oil might be the most efficient).
Using railways for transportation is well and good, but I don't think railways (of any country) could cope with such an increase. Also, logistics would become more difficult. Not having electric railways, USA would still need diesel fuel in this case (just less than when transporting products with trucks)

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
Yeah, in terms of oil supply, the US im much more diversified than many people believe, a disruption in oil from the middle east is of coruse a big thing, but it will by no means be the breakdown of our civilization. The strategic reserve has enough oil to last us for a decent amount of time, and if oil was really becoming incredibly constrained than the government would limit the amount being allowed for nonessential activities, certainlly the amount of oil needed to supply the basic needs of our civilzation (like food and water) could be secured for long enough that new alternatives could be made. You could always bring back all the coal fired trains to transport large amounts of food over good distances, and of course oil is almost never burned to make electricity, so there would be no disruption of electrical power. Really, the whole energy crisis thing people try to postulate where modern society breaks down just is not a very likely scenario.

Much more scary would be the price increases for fuel - when a 5% reduction in global production influences the price a fair bit, a 25% would be catastrophic with regards to price

 

[Calin]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
the USA as the richest nation in the world will likely be able to buy oil from more sources

Good point you are rising here.
Isn't USA the country with the biggest deficit? Is USA able to buy oil for any other currency except US dollars?
I hope the US dollar remains strong - but it is just a hope, sooner or later another fall in the value of dollar is probable

 

[BrownTown]

Well, assuming that the fabric of society hasn't completely broken down we could use US dollars. If nobody trusts those any more we could use other forms of payment like gold from Fort Knox, or US coal, hell if it really gets down and dirty there might be a big deman for some of our military supplies too .

 

[bobsmith1492]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
Well, assuming that the fabric of society hasn't completely broken down we could use US dollars. If nobody trusts those any more we could use other forms of payment like gold from Fort Knox, or US coal, hell if it really gets down and dirty there might be a big deman for some of our military supplies too .

The US has always been and still is rich in natural resources and human resources if I'm not mistaken, so it's not like we would be completely out of luck if the money system broke down, right?

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: Calin

Using railways for transportation is well and good, but I don't think railways (of any country) could cope with such an increase. Also, logistics would become more difficult. Not having electric railways, USA would still need diesel fuel in this case (just less than when transporting products with trucks)

Much of Europe could. The standard of comfort might have to go down, though. If India can cram as many people on their trains as they do every day, surely Europe can support a massive influx of passengers without having to immediately add more passenger cars.

Originally posted by: bobsmith1492
The US has always been and still is rich in natural resources and human resources if I'm not mistaken, so it's not like we would be completely out of luck if the money system broke down, right?

I dunno, maybe I should actually talk to those LaRouche people who keep predicting the dollar will fail sometime very soon

 

[Whoaru99]

It would be a bad deal for us if the Chinese all of a sudden decided to dump the US Dollars they are holding on to.