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What happens to power boating when we run out of oil?

Discussion in 'General Yachting Discussion' started by CaptCook, Oct 22, 2013.

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  1. Capt J

    Capt J Senior Member

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    50 years is a long way out. Also they're developing better and better ways to extract oil where they could not before, like from shale. At that time, Nuclear power might even be a viable option, who knows......remember that the diesel engine was origionally developed and did run on cooking/ vegetable oil.
  2. CaptCook

    CaptCook New Member

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    ... that's the biodiesel. It takes time and lots of resources to grow corn. In comparison, algae grows much faster and all it needs is water and sun. There are experimental plants in NM and Hawaii that already produce very cheap biodiesel. They need much broader acceptance (from consumers) and economies of scale (expanded production and network) to become profitable.

    Imagine your bow covered with network of plastic tubes bubbling with green stuff producing pure ethanol and fueling your diesel engines for free while you are fishing or cruising. It's not as ugly as it seems. It's like a mini floating green house. :)
  3. wdrzal

    wdrzal Senior Member

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    There are already nuclear reactors being tested by USA National Laboratories that are designed to power from 5 to 20 homes that are completely self contained ,self regulating and maintenance free. You just bury one in the back yard and your good to go for 20 years. Not a big leap to see them in private yachts some day.

    As to the guy who mentioned using water by splitting the 2 hydrogen atoms from the 1 oxygen atom. That process uses more energy than the fuels provide. So you have a net loss of energy. Don't believe every thing you see on YouTube.
  4. CaptCook

    CaptCook New Member

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    I'm pretty sure they will invent something to power a light car or aircraft (solar panels have been tried without much success) before it comes to a much heavier boat. Still, hydrogen is more likely to succeed here. It will most likely come from space technology.

    http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/hydrogen/hydrogen_fuel_of_choice.html
    NASA - Fuel Cell Use in the Space Shuttle

    Buses use diesel engine similar to power boats and already run on hydrogen:

    http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/hydrogen_bus.html#.UmcdxxZg_ZQ
  5. wdrzal

    wdrzal Senior Member

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    Hydrogen will be a major fuel of the future. But you need a additional energy source (nuclear, wind, solar, fossil fuels) so you have the additional energy needed to split water molecules.
  6. CaptCook

    CaptCook New Member

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    Sure, as long as it's mass produced cheaper and ecologically friendly than diesel and used on a more efficient, compact and low maintenance engines, that's already a breakthrough. :)
  7. Capt J

    Capt J Senior Member

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    NO. The first diesel engine invented by Rudolph Diesel ran on cooking oil (peanut oil), not Diesel fuel as it hadn't even been discovered yet.

    On February 27, 1892, Diesel filed for a patent at the Imperial Patent Office in Germany. Within a year, he was granted Patent No. 67207 for a "Working Method and Design for Combustion Engines . . .a new efficient, thermal engine." With contracts from Frederick Krupp and other machine manufacturers, Diesel began experimenting and building working models of his engine. In 1893, the first model ran under its own power with 26% efficiency, remarkably more than double the efficiency of the steam engines of his day. Finally, in February of 1897, he ran the "first diesel engine suitable for practical use, which operated at an unbelievable efficiency of 75%.

    " Diesel demonstrated his engine at the Exhibition Fair in Paris, France in 1898. This engine stood as an example of Diesel's vision because it was fueled by peanut oil - the "original" biodiesel. He thought that the utilization of a biomass fuel was the real future of his engine. He hoped that it would provide a way for the smaller industries, farmers, and "common folk" a means of competing with the monopolizing industries, which controlled all energy production at that time, as well as serve as an alternative for the inefficient fuel consumption of the steam engine. As a result of Diesel's vision, compression ignited engines were powered by a biomass fuel, vegetable oil, until the 1920's and are being powered again, today, by biodiesel."
  8. Kafue

    Kafue Senior Member

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    The idea of the peak in oil supply being reached is not a new one and has been written about, by highly qualified people at both ends of the argument.

    New sources are closer at hand each time we find a better way to access the Earths oceans. Considering that the major finds are on land, with possibly 20% offshore, much of it still in the "discovered" phase, not the "production" phase, then I don't think we will run out anytime soon.

    More will be done to find and then recover the oil lying under most the Earth, which of course is in the Oceans.
    Meantime, buy into companies that have good reputations in the exploration side as well as production. I started that in the 1990's when oil was US$20 pbbl.
  9. Chapstick

    Chapstick Member

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    Electric motors powered by yet-to-be-invented graphene batteries with a greater energy/weight ratio than petroleum, charged by land based infrastructure harnessing solar, wind, wave, etc energy...?
  10. CaptCook

    CaptCook New Member

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    We are too far from graphene batteries. Graphene is still too costly to make, over $100 per sq inch the last time I heard. But potential is there to change a lot of things, screens and electronics and eventually boat construction materials, who knows. We are living in the great time of accelerating technology but it seems like the evolution stops at the shore line. Nobody wants to use unproven technology in the open sea. :)
  11. Bamboo

    Bamboo Senior Member

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    Tesla is a "proven" ???
  12. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

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    Not to derail the thread, but have you actually driven one??? I have! As someone who appreciates engineering and mechanical art, I would buy a Tesla in a heartbeat. I'm VERY comfortable that longevity and reliability won't be an issue. Matter of fact, with interchangeable packs, these things will outlast all of us.
  13. CaptCook

    CaptCook New Member

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    I don't understand your point. What are your arguments against Tesla electic cars like Model S?
  14. wscott52

    wscott52 Senior Member

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    We're not running out of oil any time soon. It WILL become more expensive as it becomes harder to extract but with private yachts already topping out over 500' I doubt if the largest yacht owners will care.
  15. Kafue

    Kafue Senior Member

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    The new infrastructure that will be needed to extract existing and future discoveries will be expensive to build, no doubt.
    However, not much more expensive than it is and will be to re-new the existing infrastructures that were built decades, some more than a generation ago.

    These pipelines, refineries, offshore rigs etc,, some of which are in inhospitable areas, many leaking thousands of gallons a day are an "elephant in the room" that no one is talking about.

    I agree the new technology, whether electric, solar, nuclear will be the future, but many will be in partnership with the use of oil and possibly the companies producing it.

    I don't understand the logic that batteries will solve much, unless they are made and charged without using the same power sources used today? If it cost $X to produce a battery, using $X in cost and X in amount of oil to manufacture then all that has changed is public perception.
    So I plug in my car overnight to get charged via a power station that is burning fossil fuels? Check what the car is made from, petroleum products, unless it came out a "renewable plantation pine forest."
  16. CaptCook

    CaptCook New Member

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    Fastforward 50 years from now (hopefully, I will still be alive thanks to life-extention medicine :)), nanotechnology will come up with revolutionary materials across all fabrics of life.

    Look at the most abundant elements in Earth's crust:

    Element/Abundance (% by wgt)/Abundance (ppm by wgt) and .... current production

    Oxygen 46.1%, 461,000
    Silicon 28.2% 282,000 ........ 7,600,000 tonnes
    Aluminum 8.23% 82,300 .... 44,900,000 tonnes
    Iron 5.63% 56,300 ........... 1,100,000,000 tonnes (we are still in Iron Age)
    Calcium 4.15% 41,500
    Sodium 2.36% 23,600 ...... 280,000,000 tonnes
    Magnesium 2.33% 23,300
    Potassium 2.09% 20,900
    Titanium 0.565% 5,650 ...... 6,500,000 tonnes
    Hydrogen 0.14% 1,400
    ......
    Carbon .001% 480

    If you take just silicon, aluminum and carbon (graphene) and make everything out of it and use hydrogen for power we can sustain any production for thousands of years to come. Imagine the world with clean and light semi-transparent materials, silent and efficient.
  17. vwDavid

    vwDavid New Member

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    Do let us know where you'll get the energy to refine all that Al, Si, and Fe cause it ain't coming from H2.

    -David

  18. CaptCook

    CaptCook New Member

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    It well may be coming from H2.
  19. vwDavid

    vwDavid New Member

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    Please let me know where you'll get the H2.

    thx.
  20. CaptCook

    CaptCook New Member

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    I don't need H2. I need an alternative energy source to power my boat cheaper and I believe hydrogen cells are wining a race for now. The technology is not there yet but I have no doubt it will be there in 10-20 years from now.

    If you need H2, there is a list of sources that I know of:
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/EERE_Fuel_Cell_Comparison_Chart.pdf