1.) Oil Shale -- yes this is expensive to extract and we need to work on bi-product use... there are many useful byproducts here that help defray costs!! Like: Uranium, vanadium, zinc, alumina, phosphate, sodium carbonate minerals, ammonium sulphate, and sulfur add potential value to some deposits. Also by-products from oil shale include specialty carbon fibers, adsorbent carbons, carbon black, bricks, construction and decorative building blocks, soil additives, fertilizers, rock wool insulating materials, and glass. (Wold Energy Council). We have an estimated reserve of over 1.5 trillion barrels of oil shale of a global 2.8 trillion barrels. This is... according to my math about a 200 year supply of oil for us... that assumes continued efficiency allowing for current consumption patterns to make up for increased needs including population growth which may be a stretch but its the only practicable estimate for our purposes here.
~ So to be conservative proper development of oil shale could prolong our peak by... at current use it replaces oil for 200 years so to be conservative lets say we get 75-100 years out of it if properly developed.
2.) Coal -- Yes its dirty but we have it and someone is going to use it. Thats just the cold hard truth. Those who have read me before know that I'm a fan of clean coal filtered through algal diesel production to sequester the CO2 and use it again for liquid fuel... thus building our abilities to use algae to sequester more CO2 and be a fuels source independently when the coal is gone.. at least thats my hope.
Global coal reserves in 2005 where estimated at 850 billion tonnes. which is enough for 150 years of current consumption...this won't happen because of China and India's current consumption growth rate... but domestically we have enough to last until we find a power solution IMO. I don't suggest coal gasification however because I believe that threatens future electric production and is much harder to make green... power plants with proper infrastructure can be very environmentally friendly and I think we need to work on implementing the technology we have in that respect!
3.) Nuclear -- sure its scary but hey its relatively clean and relatively environmentally friendly. Replacing coal electricity needs with nuclear is the right move into the future IMO.
"Suffice it to say here that uranium resources are plentiful and pose no constraint on future nuclear power development." World Energy Council. Need I say more? The fuel is there... We aren't running out in our life time.
4.) Hydro-Electric -- this is still not entirely tapped or used to capacity. With issues of global warming on everyones mind this would be a great place to look. Water management is one of the biggest issues with global warming and if done properly we can kill two birds with one stone. By managing fresh water reserves to prevent or minimize impact of floods and droughts we can simultaneously produce hydro-electric energy... this is something that needs more in depth planning and study than it currently receives world wide! This is another potential algae infrastructure issue... perhaps integrate a macro algae harvest with this IDK just a thought haven't studied that aspect.
5.) Wave & Tidal -- these are not currently practical economically since estimates put commercial production around 44 cents per KWH which is I guess 4 times the national average. This is from my other reading about 2 times the cost of solar energy. However, as conventional energy is depleted this is a definite saver. This is probably more of a long term thought that short term solution since we would need to greatly increase efficiency or else wait until energy is more costly... but at some point this technology will probably come into play.
6.) Geo-Thermal. -- this is the coolest IMO -- The US is currently the largest producer of GEO-Thermal energy. It is done commercially and there is potential to greatly increase domestic out put if we are willing to invest in it.
MIT Panel
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ith a reasonable investment in R&D, EGS could provide
100 GWe or more of cost-competitive generating capacity in the next 50 years...
we have estimated the total EGS
resource base to be more than 13 million exajoules (EJ). Using reasonable assumptions regarding how
heat would be mined from stimulated EGS reservoirs, we also estimated the extractable portion to
exceed 200,000 EJ or about 2,000 times the annual consumption of primary energy in the United
States in 2005.
![[smilie=eusa_think.gif]](https://udev.peakoil.com/forums/images/smilies/eusa_think.gif "eusa_think")
I need more ammo.
