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AreWeDrunkYet posted:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A4W_reactor Very very much so. quote:550 each is well on the way to industrial scale generation. MWth = megawatts, thermal. The plant makes that much heat. We don't care about heat except insofar as we need to cool the plant. What comes out, MWe, megawatts electrical, is what matters. The point of a naval reactor is to generate steam to turn a turbine to turn reduction gears to turn a shaft to turn a prop to make the ship go, the electricity is almost incidental. The Nimitz's electrical generation capacity is around 60-70 MWe, in line with the earlier figures per reactor. quote:It looks like getting 1 GW of modern nuclear generation costs about $4-4.5b. The George H.W. Bush, with similar generation capacity, came in at $6.2b. Strip off the runways, guns, lodging for 5000 people, etc, etc, and I don't see why the cost wouldn't be competitive. See, here's the thing. As I mentioned above, naval reactors use HEU for fuel. They are a huge proliferation concern, or rather, they would be if they weren't either out at see or in ports in secure facilities guarded by lots of men with guns. They do not have the massive containment structures dictated for civilian plants. You cannot just go putting them on barges and parking them off of coastal cities. And you don't just take a nuclear aircraft carrier and "strip off" the stuff that's not a reactor and have it wind up costing *less*. The idea is literally a non-starter. They once stuck a nuclear reactor on a Liberty ship and used it to deliver 10 whole megawatts to the Panama Canal Zone for several years, but it was a low-enrichment plant and it wasn't done because it was economical to do it, *and* it was used alongside a diesel power barge that generated twice as much electricity. Know what would have been cheaper? A second diesel power barge.
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Oct 24, 2014 17:32
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computer parts posted:The main reason coal et all is bad is that you're introducing new CO2 into the cycle. With something like biomass you're not adding anything into the atmosphere that hasn't been there within the past century or so (a pretty short time frame for the big picture). In the case of many forests for example in the Northwest, they may even be more recent than that since the timber industry usually replants. Ultimately, the most method would be using the waste from the timber industry for biomass, then replanting new trees in already established new growth forests. I don't see it something that really needs to be pushed that far, but it may be a interesting subsidization policy for the rural Northwest is Chinese demand for lumber falls. I don't see the reactor on a boat issue not still facing a lot of NIMBYism though, and facing a lot of other hurdles. Ultimately I don't know what it fixes.
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Oct 24, 2014 17:49
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Ardennes posted:In the case of many forests for example in the Northwest, they may even be more recent than that since the timber industry usually replants. Ultimately, the most method would be using the waste from the timber industry for biomass, then replanting new trees in already established new growth forests. I don't see it something that really needs to be pushed that far, but it may be a interesting subsidization policy for the rural Northwest is Chinese demand for lumber falls. Biomass systems are attractive because they're both renewable and dispatchable. Hydro aside, there aren't many options that are both.
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Oct 24, 2014 17:53
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LemonDrizzle posted:Biomass systems are attractive because they're both renewable and dispatchable. Hydro aside, there aren't many options that are both. Ultimately of course the most efficient use if providing heat as well, and due to the fact they produce particulate matter, it is probably better to use them in rural areas. I don't think we need to a "biomass future" but it may be suitable for a niche somewhere in there.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:05
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A4W_reactor Yes MWth is different than MWe. MWth dumps about 2/3 of its MW as waste heat. So it produces around (let's be charitable) 200 MWe. So you'd need about 3 of those ships to match a standard nuclear power plant (about 1200GWe). Another factor that isn't considered would be power delivery. How do you get the power from the ships to the shore? Land-based nuclear plants have large transformer and switchyards to step up the voltage before delivery to large/distant markets. You'd have to use up (typically expensive and challenging to build upon) shore area for transmission purposes. A better response to NIMBYism, in my view, are the buried small modular reactors. Removing the visible symbols of nuclear power plants (large cooling towers and reactor building structures) seems like it would help reduce public angst. Popular culture paints a picture of radioactive rivers flowing out of cracked cooling towers (see: Simpsons, The), so having just some office buildings and warehouses with the power structures underground seems like an positive step.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:09
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Ardennes posted:In the case of many forests for example in the Northwest, they may even be more recent than that since the timber industry usually replants. Ultimately, the most method would be using the waste from the timber industry for biomass, then replanting new trees in already established new growth forests. I don't see it something that really needs to be pushed that far, but it may be a interesting subsidization policy for the rural Northwest is Chinese demand for lumber falls. In any event decomposing plant matter produce methane and nitrous oxide as opposed to burning it which only release CO2. If you have access to large quantities of biomatter you really should either burn it or harvest the biogas from it. Landfilling is both a waste and terrible in terms of greenhouse gasses.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:18
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Anosmoman posted:In any event decomposing plant matter produce methane and nitrous oxide as opposed to burning it which only release CO2. If you have access to large quantities of biomatter you really should either burn it or harvest the biogas from it. Landfilling is both a waste and terrible in terms of greenhouse gasses. How does harvesting biomass for burning differ from allowing it to decompose in terms of soil quality? I thought that decomposition of plant matter provided the nitrogen and other nutrients necessary to allow for plant growth in the first place, and that cutting and burning trees and plant matter elsewhere was what contributed to the eradication of rich topsoil.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:30
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Sinestro posted:MWe = MWth * thermal-to-electrical efficiency, Considering that that's about 30% with current turbines, I'd say that's rather a big difference. Phanatic posted:MWth = megawatts, thermal. The plant makes that much heat. We don't care about heat except insofar as we need to cool the plant. What comes out, MWe, megawatts electrical, is what matters. The point of a naval reactor is to generate steam to turn a turbine to turn reduction gears to turn a shaft to turn a prop to make the ship go, the electricity is almost incidental. The Nimitz's electrical generation capacity is around 60-70 MWe, in line with the earlier figures per reactor. Pander posted:Yes MWth is different than MWe. MWth dumps about 2/3 of its MW as waste heat. So it produces around (let's be charitable) 200 MWe. So you'd need about 3 of those ships to match a standard nuclear power plant (about 1200GWe). Thanks, that helps clarify things. AreWeDrunkYet posted:e: Interesting, it seems like data centers already use their UPSs to reduce the amount of peak power they draw to save on costs. Same benefit, and a lot less complex to manage. To what extent can power-shifting like this make renewables more viable? Even expanding on the idea to residential, the same people who may not be interested in having a utility draw power from their electric car battery when there is too much grid demand may be willing to offset some of their personal peak (expensive) consumption by drawing from that same battery. Personalizing it may remove some selfishness from the equation, as well as make it easier to do the math if the cost savings justify the additional wear and tear to the battery.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:31
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Thanks, that helps clarify things.
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Oct 24, 2014 18:32
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hobbesmaster posted:Biomass is concerning because all of those "80% renewable by 20xx!" plans seem to involve large amounts of biomass. May as well start counting clean coal if you're doing that. 70+% of the biomass in the NREL 80-90% plan is waste biomass that would already release carbon to the atmosphere.
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Oct 24, 2014 19:01
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Pander posted:How does harvesting biomass for burning differ from allowing it to decompose in terms of soil quality? I thought that decomposition of plant matter provided the nitrogen and other nutrients necessary to allow for plant growth in the first place, and that cutting and burning trees and plant matter elsewhere was what contributed to the eradication of rich topsoil. I suppose it does but it's the case either way when we remove it from a field or forest and eventually dump it in a landfill.
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Oct 24, 2014 19:14
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Phanatic posted:It's the *Republicans* who hate nuclear power now? The Republicans hate the government providing services to the people, especially green energy. Doesn't matter whether it's nuclear, wind, or whatever. They're totally on board with private business providing these same services, but that would preclude the US Navy. hobbesmaster posted:Oh come on, the reactors would be built by westinghouse, the ship would be built by northrop and it'd be run by some utility spread throughout as many congressional districts as possible. "The government" wouldn't build a thing, they'd just hand out cash. But it wouldn't be a warship that actively defends our waters and our boys abroad, therefore it's wasteful government spending and the GOP would be opposed to it.
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Oct 24, 2014 19:53
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I want something like the Toshiba 4S nuclear reactor in my backyard
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Oct 24, 2014 19:56
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Ardennes posted:Ultimately, I think "5%" of total production is a bit of an absurd limit to wind production considering we are at 4.67% already, which means we pretty much need to stop most wind construction at the moment because we have "too much of it." Obviously there needs to be a balance here, but it needs to be reasonable. I admit, other people seem pretty confident that maybe up to 20% can be done, and I'm probably being overly pessimistic. Even if 20% is perfectly possible (at current wind prices, which are pretty good), you've only reduced the 'other' part of electricity from 95% to 80%. You still need 4 times as much power from something else, and the only existing way to make that as CO2-minimal as possible is nuclear. Other alternatives don't have any hope to be scaled up to that level, and proposals for Sahara solar or algae-farmed biomass are about as realistic as fusion power right at the moment.
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Oct 24, 2014 20:00
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Dilb posted:I admit, other people seem pretty confident that maybe up to 20% can be done, and I'm probably being overly pessimistic. Even if 20% is perfectly possible (at current wind prices, which are pretty good), you've only reduced the 'other' part of electricity from 95% to 80%. You still need 4 times as much power from something else, and the only existing way to make that as CO2-minimal as possible is nuclear. Other alternatives don't have any hope to be scaled up to that level, and proposals for Sahara solar or algae-farmed biomass are about as realistic as fusion power right at the moment. Are you talking technical feasibility or political feasibility? Because from a technical side, I think the NREL 80% renewables models show that we can break 20% wind penetration from a technical standpoint. It will require spending money (even if its not that much more than we used to spend on infrastructure), which has political feasibility issues: Section 3.5 posted:Many renewable resources, including hydropower, geothermal, biomass, and CSP with thermal storage, do not introduce significant integration challenges for electric system operations. Wind and PV, on the other hand, are both variable and uncertain, and both of these resources are found to be sizable contributors to an 80% renewable electricity future. In the six core 80% RE scenarios, for example, 39%–47% of total electricity generation in 2050 was found to come from wind and PV, compared to 3% today and 7% in 2050 in the Low-Demand Baseline scenario. Variable generation was most prevalent (47%) in the Constrained Transmission and Constrained Resources scenarios, whereas wind and PV generation was lower in the Constrained Flexibility and 80% RE-ETI scenarios.  Section 3.5 posted:A future with high levels of variable generation will also require increases in operating reserve requirements. Figure 3-10(b) shows the ReEDS-estimated operating reserve requirements, which include contingency reserves, frequency regulation reserves, and forecast error reserves, during the summer afternoon peak in 2050 for the Low-Demand Baseline scenario and the core 80% RE scenarios.The contingency and frequency regulation reserve requirements were respectively based on 6% and 1.5% of demand, and therefore were largely the same (approximately 56 GW) across these low-demand scenarios, and thus, the differences in operating reserve requirements shown in Figure 3-10(b) are almost entirely due to differences in forecast error reserve requirements. The forecast error reserve requirement in the Low-Demand Baseline scenario was only 6 GW and comprised a minor portion of overall operating reserves. In contrast, the forecast error reserve requirement exceeded 36 GW for all of the core 80% RE scenarios to accommodate variable generation. In the Constrained Transmission scenario, forecast error reserves increased to 58 GW to manage the increase in variable PV and concomitant reduction in CSP with storage. Meanwhile, in the Constrained Flexibility scenario, where the forecast error reserve requirements were conservative by design, 72 GW were found to be required. (http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/52409-1.pdf)
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Oct 24, 2014 20:24
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Honestly the quoted paragraphs are a tough read, with the verbiage being a bit abstract for casual consumption. It seems like every plan revolves around some assumption of various reserve capacity means that I don't fully understand. What are the 30GW of interruptable loads or 20GW of storage? I'll try to read it, but just what you quoted doesn't shed much light other than "some people think it's possible to levelize renewable generation by 2050" which isn't really what I thought was being debated. I also am kinda confused about the first bar graph. It suggests that variable sources have the same ratio of capacity to generated electricity as nuclear/fossil, which given the wildly different capacity factors seems suspect. Either it's omitting discussion of overcapacity or I'm missing something.
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Oct 24, 2014 20:45
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Pander posted:Honestly the quoted paragraphs are a tough read, with the verbiage being a bit abstract for casual consumption. It seems like every plan revolves around some assumption of various reserve capacity means that I don't fully understand. What are the 30GW of interruptable loads or 20GW of storage? I'll try to read it, but just what you quoted doesn't shed much light other than "some people think it's possible to levelize renewable generation by 2050" which isn't really what I thought was being debated. I agree, that its a bit dense for casual readers but since the conversation has dove into the technical, I think its useful to go to the technical resources. The National Renewable Energy Lab, modeled 7 different energy portfolio standards for 2050.  6 of them are at 80% renewables with varying levels of technological improvements and resource constraints and 1 baseline. The needed amount of reserve capacity varies based on the constraints, technology, and renewables makeup of each model scenario. Together, they provide a useful scope for looking at technical feasibility. I didn't quote the rest of the paper that deals with the specifics, but it very much goes into the kinds of storage (mostly compressed air) and interruptible loads. The section I quoted is describing how it is technically feasible to operate a grid with current levels of consumer reliability and 39%–47% of electricity generated by wind and PV. That bar graph is just comparing the installed capacity by makeup and the relative capacity for non-variable generation. Thus the red line being highest on the baseline scenario even though it has lower installed capacity because it has the least renewables.
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Oct 24, 2014 21:25
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Ardennes posted:As discussed earlier though, Nuclear is very much a political nonstarter and at best we are going to be lucky to tread water. As far as politically possible solutions it seems like Wind with grid improvements is a much easier path to navigate at this point, especially since Wind has quite a bit of momentum behind it. Lurking Haro posted:Charging those EVs afterwards would likely cause a peak as well. quote:Nice, charging EVs with EVs.  ANIME AKBAR fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 21:49
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Trabisnikof posted:Are you talking technical feasibility or political feasibility? Because from a technical side, I think the NREL 80% renewables models show that we can break 20% wind penetration from a technical standpoint. It will require spending money (even if its not that much more than we used to spend on infrastructure), which has political feasibility issues: Political/economic feasibility mostly. That report assumes that a lot of storage, 100 GW, can be built. I'm guessing that implies something like 800 GWh of energy storage. Optimistically energy storage seems to cost around $200 per kWh for a purpose built storage system, so we're talking a few hundred billion spent on stuff that doesn't actually generate power (to me, that actually sounds pretty good if it means we can stop burning coal for power, but I'm not the sort of person that needs to be sold on this). The report is honestly pretty light on the details of how storage would be achieved. A lot of it seems to be assumed to come built in with concentrated solar power, where it can be installed for more like $50/kWh, which then raises questions about the feasibility of large-scale CSP deployment and transmission to less sunny places.
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Oct 24, 2014 21:51
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ANIME AKBAR posted:Yeah political feasibility is a thing, but technical feasibility trumps everything. And currently there is no way for solar/wind to provide baseline capacity, full stop. It just can't happen with current technology. You need either a revolution in battery technology, or a smart grid spanning the continent, and neither of those are even on the horizon. Solar/wind doesn't have to provide baseline capacity and we don't need new technology. We need some grid improvements but nothing outside of historic spending growth. That's why I just posted the NREL models of technical feasibility. Dilb posted:Political/economic feasibility mostly. That report assumes that a lot of storage, 100 GW, can be built. I'm guessing that implies something like 800 GWh of energy storage. Optimistically energy storage seems to cost around $200 per kWh for a purpose built storage system, so we're talking a few hundred billion spent on stuff that doesn't actually generate power (to me, that actually sounds pretty good if it means we can stop burning coal for power, but I'm not the sort of person that needs to be sold on this). The report is honestly pretty light on the details of how storage would be achieved. A lot of it seems to be assumed to come built in with concentrated solar power, where it can be installed for more like $50/kWh, which then raises questions about the feasibility of large-scale CSP deployment and transmission to less sunny places. Actually the report talks about compressed air being a larger portion of the installed storage capacity. Plus, there's the nice advantage of sunny places having higher per-capita electricity use due to A/Cs (a demand that mirrors solar production too). If you want the specifics of the energy storage side, check out part 2, chapter 12 of the report: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/52409-2.pdf While the grid improvements would be large, they wouldn't need to be everywhere:  My point in citing these 80% renewables models is simply to show that it is technically feasible. I agree its going to be hard to get anything forward thinking done when policy and politics collide. On the economic feasibility question, I like to think how many aircraft carriers would a plan cost. Edit: They have a cool data viewer thingy I hadn't seen: http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re_futures/data_viewer/ Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Oct 24, 2014 |
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Oct 24, 2014 22:12
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LemonDrizzle posted:I don't see why that's a problem as long as you're planting trees at a sustainable replacement rate, though. From a conservation point of view, land use is pretty much the biggest problem after climate change. Unless we can somehow get super-intensive farming going everywhere (which kinda needs an affordable low carbon energy supply...), we likely do not actually have enough recent secondary habitats to keep loving over for biofuels and biogas power plants before running roughshod over remnants of primary ecosystems.
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Oct 24, 2014 22:25
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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blowfish posted:From a conservation point of view, land use is pretty much the biggest problem after climate change. Unless we can somehow get super-intensive farming going everywhere (which kinda needs an affordable low carbon energy supply...), we likely do not actually have enough recent secondary habitats to keep loving over for biofuels and biogas power plants before running roughshod over remnants of primary ecosystems. But most of the biomass sources come from existing ag or timber waste not new field. Although growing biofuels for transport is worse than switching to electric but its still better than gas/diesel.
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Oct 24, 2014 22:30
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Jeffrey posted:Are you theory-politicking on behalf of the Bad Guys or do you have evidence here? Energy is highly regulated in most states, it's often provided by a government-sponsored monopoly and has strict price controls. The states in which it is the most deregulated tend to be ones that vote democrat, for what it's worth. (Not claiming any causation there.) I'm just claiming based on my chatting with other Texans about the issue when it's come up. A lot of people are vehemently against any sort of government built or run power plant. It may be just local to people in the state, but it falls in line with the larger populace.
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Oct 25, 2014 00:09
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Seems like Japan may be facing its own Energiewende style economic difficulties in switching to green. The government-guaranteed tariff utilities must pay renewable producers is between 30 and 36 cents per khw. The typical price of electricity is 23 cents per kwh. This led to predictable issues. From AP. quote:Traumatized by the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl and encouraged by the highest rates for renewable energy in the world, Japan has been undergoing a green boom. It's now rapidly turning into a fiasco as the cost proves prohibitive and utilities anticipate putting some nuclear reactors, shuttered since the March 2011 Fukushima disaster, back online. The unfolding green glut in Japan echoes similar experiences in Germany and Spain. quote:Hiroaki Fujii, who heads Softbank's renewable business, SB Energy Corp., said Japan needs to define the overall master-plan of what it sees as the "best mix" for energy including wind, solar and others, instead of blindly heading into a renewable push.
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Oct 31, 2014 21:15
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I have a question about energy storage: is there a reason besides cost that we're still using batteries over capacitors? From a layman's wiki-ing, they seem like a much better technology.
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Oct 31, 2014 23:23
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hydroceramics posted:I have a question about energy storage: is there a reason besides cost that we're still using batteries over capacitors? From a layman's wiki-ing, they seem like a much better technology. From Wiki: quote:As of 2013 commercial specific energies range from around 0.5 to 15 Wh/kg. For comparison, an aluminum electrolytic capacitor stores typically 0.01 to 0.3 Wh/kg, while a conventional lead-acid battery stores typically 30 to 40 Wh/kg and modern lithium-ion batteries 100 to 265 Wh/kg. Supercapacitors can therefore store 10 to 100 times more energy than electrolytic capacitors, but only one tenth as much as batteries. Batteries still beat the crap out of capacitors in terms of energy stored per kg.
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Oct 31, 2014 23:26
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Take all the money pissed away on solar and wind subsidies and spend it on a PR campaign to educate about nuclear, would do a hell of a lot more for the environment.
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Oct 31, 2014 23:33
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hydroceramics posted:I have a question about energy storage: is there a reason besides cost that we're still using batteries over capacitors? From a layman's wiki-ing, they seem like a much better technology. Capacitors often don't hold that much charge for the same amount of materiel/space used. You would generally use them, outside of the circuit logic level, for when you have the need to put out short, high current blasts of electricity rather than sustained usage. Baronjutter posted:Take all the money pissed away on solar and wind subsidies and spend it on a PR campaign to educate about nuclear, would do a hell of a lot more for the environment. Why bother with a PR campaign? Just build reactors on the property of large military bases, where most of the surrounding population doesn't exactly have a say against it.
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Oct 31, 2014 23:38
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Nintendo Kid posted:Why bother with a PR campaign? Just build reactors on the property of large military bases, where most of the surrounding population doesn't exactly have a say against it. Oops, I guess we inadvertently overbuilt generation by a couple orders of magnitude on this military base. Might as well push it out to the civilian grid.
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Nov 1, 2014 00:32
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Oops, I guess we inadvertently overbuilt generation by a couple orders of magnitude on this military base. Might as well push it out to the civilian grid. Big Government taking my freedoms~ 
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Nov 1, 2014 00:50
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Given soldiers got electrocuted in the showers in Iraq there's a good chance a nuclear reactor built on a military base would live up to the fears of the anti-Nuclear lobby.
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Nov 1, 2014 01:16
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ReV VAdAUL posted:Given soldiers got electrocuted in the showers in Iraq there's a good chance a nuclear reactor built on a military base would live up to the fears of the anti-Nuclear lobby. No, it really wouldn't. They've already existed without incident.
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Nov 1, 2014 03:30
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Are we running out of oil? Will we suddenly be like "Oh poo poo, there's no oil. Welp, civilization was nice while it lasted..."? I hope not. But that's the perception you get from some places on the internet. Are we just hosed?
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Nov 1, 2014 04:06
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Blue Star posted:Are we running out of oil? Will we suddenly be like "Oh poo poo, there's no oil. Welp, civilization was nice while it lasted..."? We will be out of oil eventually. It's not going to be for a very long time because there's assloads of more expensive ways to get the oil that will be progressively used. Probably at some point in your life so much of the expensive ways will be in use that a barrel will routinely trade for $10,000. Remember that at one point most of world oil supply came from places where it literally just seeped out of the ground of its own accord after all.
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Nov 1, 2014 04:09
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Blue Star posted:Are we running out of oil? Will we suddenly be like "Oh poo poo, there's no oil. Welp, civilization was nice while it lasted..."? Nothing is for certain but it doesn't appear to be a problem for the forseeable future. The issue is the effects it have on climate.
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Nov 1, 2014 04:10
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Don't you worry, there's more than enough economically-retrievable oil and coal to touch off runaway global warming. 
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Nov 1, 2014 04:27
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Blue Star posted:Are we running out of oil? Will we suddenly be like "Oh poo poo, there's no oil. Welp, civilization was nice while it lasted..."? You won't physically run out of oil (even large spots of oil) because it'll become more economical to dump money into electric vehicles/etc.
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Nov 1, 2014 14:15
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Yeah, there is enough supply at especially current prices to last a while, and even if oil ran out, there is a shitload of coal out there especially in the US. The big deal about "Peak Oil" during 2000s was that there was the assumption that much higher fuel prices was because of constrained supply, when it was a bubble of investment in the commodities market. People promptly forgot about in 2008-2009 when the bubble pop and prices dived again. The issue as other said is climate change, and at this point, it is more in China's court if anything else since there are still relying on coal for 80% of their power needs. That said, they're also a large reason why oil prices have taken another dip.
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Nov 1, 2014 14:24
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There were also simply a lot of people, many of them normally quite smart, who completely misunderstood what the term "peak oil" was supposed to mean. Thus they thought that peaking oil production for a year would mean there was no oil left afterwards, instead of it meaning that production would decline. It's especially funny too, because people didn't misunderstand it this way when the peak oil term was first invented int he 20th century. For example, Pennsylvania was retroactively determined to have hit its peak oil back in 1891 - Pennsylvania was one of the major oil states up til then. Then Ohio was the big oil state for another 10-20 years, which was part of why Standard Oil was originally founded in Ohio. Places like Texas and California that we associate with huge oil production today were relative latecomers, and we will see similar shifts over time. The US as a whole hit a peak in the 1960s, though we may actually ramp up past that again with new techniques.
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Nov 1, 2014 17:37
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Nintendo Kid posted:There were also simply a lot of people, many of them normally quite smart, who completely misunderstood what the term "peak oil" was supposed to mean. Thus they thought that peaking oil production for a year would mean there was no oil left afterwards, instead of it meaning that production would decline. To add to this, remember that there is still gobs and gobs of oil in the ground in all those places. While extracting it was too expensive with oil at $20/barrel, it becomes viable at higher price points. Oil will be available for quite a while. So what has "peaked" is cheap oil. As long as there is demand for it at a sufficient price, there will be plenty for a long time.
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Nov 1, 2014 17:41
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