SOURCE: Ray Songtree (rayupdates@hushmail.com)
SUBHEAD: Empty supermarkets, empty gas stations, even empty ATMs and pubs with no beer.
By Mike Stasse on 23 September 2016 for Damn the Amtrix-
(https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2016/09/23/on-the-thermodynamic-black-hole/)
Image above: An artist’s interpretation of what a black hole looks like. From (http://www.beacontranscript.com/pictures-of-black-holes/6386/).
I recently heard Dmitry Orlov speaking to Jim Kunstler regarding the Dunbar Number in which he came up with the term ‘Thermodynamic Trap’. Transcript here (http://cluborlov.blogspot.com.au/2016/09/kunstlercast-transcript.html)
As the ERoEI of every energy source known to humanity starts collapsing over the energy cliff, I thought it was more like a Thermodynamic Black Hole, sucking all the energy into itself at an accelerating pace… and if you ever needed proof of this blackhole, then Alice Friedemann’s latest book, “When the trucks stop running” should do the trick.
Chris Martenson interviewed Alice in August 2016 about the future of the trucking industry in the face of Peak Oil, especially now the giant Bakken shale oil field in the US has peaked, joining the conventional oil sources. This podcast is available for download here.
Image above: Chris Martenson on "When the Trucks Stop Running" by Alice Friedman (http://energyskeptic.com/). From (https://youtu.be/-EKmNgvUw3k).
Alice sees no solutions through running trucks with alternative energy sources or fuels. I see an increasing number of stories about electric trucks, but none of them make any sense because the weight of the batteries needed to move such large vehicles, especially the long haul variety, is so great it hardly leaves space for freight.
A semi trailer hauling 40 tonnes 1000km needs 1000L of liquid fuel to achieve the task. That’s 10,000kWh of electric energy equivalent.
Just going by the Tesla Wall data sheet, a 6.4kWh battery pack weighs in at 97kg. So at this rate, 10,000kWh would weigh 150 tonnes….. so even to reduce the weight of the battery bank down to the 40 tonne carrying capacity of the truck, efficiency would have to be improved four fold, and you still wouldn’t have space for freight..
There are not enough materials on the entire planet to make enough battery storage to replace oil, except for Sodium Sulfur batteries, a technology I had never heard of before. A quick Google found this…..:
Alice has calculated that Na/S battery storage for just one day of US electricity generation would weigh 450 million tons, cover 923 square miles (2390km², or roughly the area of the whole of the Australian Capital Territory!), and cost 41 trillion dollars….. and according to European authorities, 6 to 30 days of storage is what would be required in the real world.
The disruption to the supply lines of our ‘just in time’ world caused by trucks no longer running is too much to even think about.
Empty supermarket shelves, petrol stations with no petrol, even ATMs with no money and pubs with no beer come to mind.
I remember seeing signs on the Bruce highway back in Queensland stating “Trucks keep Australia going”. Well, oil keeps trucks running; for how much longer is the real question.
See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Can Electric Trucks Replace Diesel 8/22/16
.
SUBHEAD: Empty supermarkets, empty gas stations, even empty ATMs and pubs with no beer.
By Mike Stasse on 23 September 2016 for Damn the Amtrix-
(https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2016/09/23/on-the-thermodynamic-black-hole/)
Image above: An artist’s interpretation of what a black hole looks like. From (http://www.beacontranscript.com/pictures-of-black-holes/6386/).
I recently heard Dmitry Orlov speaking to Jim Kunstler regarding the Dunbar Number in which he came up with the term ‘Thermodynamic Trap’. Transcript here (http://cluborlov.blogspot.com.au/2016/09/kunstlercast-transcript.html)
As the ERoEI of every energy source known to humanity starts collapsing over the energy cliff, I thought it was more like a Thermodynamic Black Hole, sucking all the energy into itself at an accelerating pace… and if you ever needed proof of this blackhole, then Alice Friedemann’s latest book, “When the trucks stop running” should do the trick.
Chris Martenson interviewed Alice in August 2016 about the future of the trucking industry in the face of Peak Oil, especially now the giant Bakken shale oil field in the US has peaked, joining the conventional oil sources. This podcast is available for download here.
Image above: Chris Martenson on "When the Trucks Stop Running" by Alice Friedman (http://energyskeptic.com/). From (https://youtu.be/-EKmNgvUw3k).
Alice sees no solutions through running trucks with alternative energy sources or fuels. I see an increasing number of stories about electric trucks, but none of them make any sense because the weight of the batteries needed to move such large vehicles, especially the long haul variety, is so great it hardly leaves space for freight.
A semi trailer hauling 40 tonnes 1000km needs 1000L of liquid fuel to achieve the task. That’s 10,000kWh of electric energy equivalent.
Just going by the Tesla Wall data sheet, a 6.4kWh battery pack weighs in at 97kg. So at this rate, 10,000kWh would weigh 150 tonnes….. so even to reduce the weight of the battery bank down to the 40 tonne carrying capacity of the truck, efficiency would have to be improved four fold, and you still wouldn’t have space for freight..
There are not enough materials on the entire planet to make enough battery storage to replace oil, except for Sodium Sulfur batteries, a technology I had never heard of before. A quick Google found this…..:
The active materials in a Na/S battery are molten sulfur as the positive electrode and molten sodium as the negative. The electrodes are separated by a solid ceramic, sodium alumina, which also serves as the electrolyte. This ceramic allows only positively charged sodium-ions to pass through.I immediately see a problem with keeping batteries at over 300° in a post fossil fuel era… but there’s more…
During discharge electrons are stripped off the sodium metal (one negatively charged electron for every sodium atom) leading to formation of the sodium-ions that then move through the electrolyte to the positive electrode compartment. The electrons that are stripped off the sodium metal move through the circuit and then back into the battery at the positive electrode, where they are taken up by the molten sulfur to form polysulfide.
The positively charged sodium-ions moving into the positive electrode compartment balance the electron charge flow. During charge this process is reversed. The battery must be kept hot (typically > 300 ºC) to facilitate the process (i.e., independent heaters are part of the battery system). In general Na/S cells are highly efficient (typically 89%).
Conclusion: Na/S battery technology has been demonstrated at over 190 sites in Japan.
More than 270 MW of stored energy suitable for 6 hours of daily peak shaving have been installed. The largest Na/S installation is a 34-MW, 245-MWh unit for wind stabilization in Northern Japan. The demand for Na/S batteries as an effective means of stabilizing renewable energy output and providing ancillary services is expanding.
U.S. utilities have deployed 9 MW for peak shaving, backup power, firming windcapacity, and other applications. Projections indicate that development of an additional 9 MW is in-progress.
Alice has calculated that Na/S battery storage for just one day of US electricity generation would weigh 450 million tons, cover 923 square miles (2390km², or roughly the area of the whole of the Australian Capital Territory!), and cost 41 trillion dollars….. and according to European authorities, 6 to 30 days of storage is what would be required in the real world.
The disruption to the supply lines of our ‘just in time’ world caused by trucks no longer running is too much to even think about.
Empty supermarket shelves, petrol stations with no petrol, even ATMs with no money and pubs with no beer come to mind.
I remember seeing signs on the Bruce highway back in Queensland stating “Trucks keep Australia going”. Well, oil keeps trucks running; for how much longer is the real question.
See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Can Electric Trucks Replace Diesel 8/22/16
.
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