Oil Shale in the US - 5 times bigger than Saudi Arabia's oil reserves

[civic_matic_00]

Originally Posted by ShadowWorks

They have to, there are no more new oil reserves, this is beginning of peak oil and an extra 2 million oil users with money.

Shell are drilling all over the North Sea in hopes of finding more oil, it cost them almost ?150k per drilling rig per day!

I wish we could all get off the Black Heron we use in our cars..

yup, Oil companies have no choice but to drill. as far as getting the Black Heron off of our cars, the Big three has to come on board the hydrogen bandwagon a lot more. hybrids are not even a good temporary solution, but hydrogen or water electrolysis should be explored a lot more by car manufacturers. it will be cheaper than building hydrogen infrstructure for hydrogen only engines.

[ShadowWorks]

There are alternatives and Cold Fusion has been laugh out of the main stream but the evidence is stronger than ever!

Everybody wanted Ponds and Fleishman to prove it was a nuclear process but they missed the whole point, they had more energy out then in, that means you never have to pay another fuel bill again! the implications are world changing.

[opelgt73]

I used to work for a large Power plant and petro chemical construction company. I remember back around 2005 my boss told me that they were beginning the construction of extraction plants in Canada to extract from the tar sands. He said that the break even point was around $45 a barrel. Whether or not it is an Energy intensive extraction process, I'm pretty sure they are profitable today.

[civic_matic_00]

Originally Posted by ShadowWorks

There are alternatives and Cold Fusion has been laugh out of the main stream but the evidence is stronger than ever!

Everybody wanted Ponds and Fleishman to prove it was a nuclear process but they missed the whole point, they had more energy out then in, that means you never have to pay another fuel bill again! the implications are world changing.

I agree...cold fusion is real and is practical compared to conventional nuclear power. the problem cold fusion faces is the heavy-water fuel that is scarce. the hydrogen fuel also releases too much neutrons that will result in high maintenance of the reactor. one suggested solution for this is to use helium-3 which releases a lot less neutrons in the reaction process BUT the only place where there is abundant helium-3 is the moon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helium-3

"Some fusion processes produce highly energetic neutrons which render reactor components radioactive with their bombardment, and power generation must occur through thermal means. However, the appeal of helium-3 fusion stems from the nature of its reaction products. Helium-3 itself is non-radioactive. The lone high-energy proton produced can be contained using electric and magnetic fields, which results in direct electricity generation.[9]

However, since both reactants need to be mixed together to fuse, side reactions (21H + 21H and 32He+ 32He) will occur, the first of which is not aneutronic. Therefore in practice this reaction is unlikely to ever be completely 'clean', thus negating some of its attraction. Also, due to the higher Coulomb barrier, the temperatures required for 21H + 32He fusion are much higher than those of conventional 2H + 31H (deuterium + tritium) fusion.

The amounts of helium-3 needed as a replacement for conventional fuels should not be underestimated. The total amount of energy produced in the ?He + 21H+ reaction is 18.4 MeV, which corresponds to some 493 megawatt-hours (4.93x108 Wh) per three grams (one mole) of ?He. Even if that total amount of energy could be converted to electrical power with 100% efficiency (a physical impossibility), it would correspond to about 30 minutes of output of a thousand-megawatt electrical plant; a year's production by the same plant would require some 17.5 kilograms of helium-3.

The amount of fuel needed for large-scale applications can also be put in terms of total consumption: According to the US Energy Information Administration, "Electricity consumption by 107 million U.S. households in 2001 totaled 1,140 billion kWh" (1.114x1015 Wh). Again assuming 100% conversion efficiency, 6.7 tonnes of helium-3 would be required just for that segment of one country's energy demand, 15 to 20 tonnes given a more realistic end-to-end conversion efficiency."

"Extraterrestrial supplies
The Moon's surface contains helium-3 at concentrations on the order of 0.01 ppm.[21][22] A number of people, starting with Gerald Kulcinski in 1986,[23] have proposed to explore the moon, mine lunar regolith and using the helium-3 for fusion. Because of the low concentrations of helium-3, any mining equipment would need to process large amounts of regolith,[24] and some proposals have suggested that helium-3 extraction be piggybacked onto a larger mining and development operation.[citation needed]

Cosmochemist and geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences who is now in charge of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program has already stated on many occasions that one of the main goals of the program would be the mining of helium-3, from where "each year three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world."[25]

In January 2006 the Russian space company RKK Energiya announced that it considers lunar helium-3 a potential economic resource to be mined by 2020,[26] if funding can be found.[27][28]

Mining gas giants for helium-3 has also been proposed.[29] The British Interplanetary Society's hypothetical Project Daedalus interstellar probe design was fueled by helium-3 mines on the planet Jupiter, for example. Jupiter's high gravity makes this a less energetically favorable operation than extracting helium-3 from the other gas giants of the solar system, however."

[civic_matic_00]

Originally Posted by opelgt73

I used to work for a large Power plant and petro chemical construction company. I remember back around 2005 my boss told me that they were beginning the construction of extraction plants in Canada to extract from the tar sands. He said that the break even point was around $45 a barrel. Whether or not it is an Energy intensive extraction process, I'm pretty sure they are profitable today.

Canada is making billions per year from tar sands oil. they are very profitable.

[civic_matic_00]

Race to the Moon for Nuclear Fuel
John Lasker

http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2006/12/72276

NASA's planned moon base announced last week could pave the way for deeper space exploration to Mars, but one of the biggest beneficiaries may be the terrestrial energy industry.

Nestled among the agency's 200-point mission goals is a proposal to mine the moon for fuel used in fusion reactors -- futuristic power plants that have been demonstrated in proof-of-concept but are likely decades away from commercial deployment.

Helium-3 is considered a safe, environmentally friendly fuel candidate for these generators, and while it is scarce on Earth it is plentiful on the moon.

As a result, scientists have begun to consider the practicality of mining lunar Helium-3 as a replacement for fossil fuels.

"After four-and-half-billion years, there should be large amounts of helium-3 on the moon," said Gerald Kulcinski, a professor who leads the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Last year NASA administrator Mike Griffin named Kulcinski to lead a number of committees reporting to NASA's influential NASA Advisory Council, its preeminent civilian leadership arm.

The Council is chaired by Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison Hagan "Jack" Schmitt, a leading proponent of mining the moon for helium 3.

Schmitt, who holds the distance record for driving a NASA rover on the moon (22 miles through the Taurus-Littrow valley), is also a former U.S. senator (R-New Mexico).

The Council was restructured last year with a new mission: implementing President Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration," which targets Mars as its ultimate destination. Other prominent members of the Council include ex-astronaut Neil Armstrong.

Schmitt and Kulcinski are longtime friends and academic partners, and are known as helium-3 fusion's biggest promoters.

At the Fusion Technology Institute, Kulcinski's team has produced small-scale helium-3 fusion reactions in the basketball-sized fusion device. The reactor produced one milliwatt of power on a continuous basis.

While still theoretical, nuclear fusion is touted as a safer, more sustainable way to generate nuclear energy: Fusion plants produce much less radioactive waste, especially if powered by helium-3. But experts say commercial-sized fusion reactors are at least 50 years away.

The isotope is extremely rare on Earth but abundant on the moon. Some experts estimate there a millions of tons in lunar soil -- and that a single Space-Shuttle load would power the entire United States for a year.

NASA plans to have a permanent moon base by 2024, but America is not the only nation with plans for a moon base. China, India, the European Space Agency, and at least one Russian corporation, Energia, have visions of building manned lunar bases post-2020.

Mining the moon for helium-3 has been discussed widely in space circles and international space conferences. Both China and Russia have stated their nations' interest in helium-3.

"We will provide the most reliable report on helium-3 to mankind," Ouyang Ziyuan, the chief scientist of China's lunar program, told a Chinese newspaper. "Whoever first conquers the moon will benefit first."

[Solarhersteller]

Good idea.

[rgathright]

Shell is convinced that oil shale is no myth and that after years of secret research, it is close to achieving this oil-based alchemy.

ROFL

How typical... no one wants to admit that we need a plan for America's energy independence that does not involve new oil sources.