And if they ever do manage to make them battery electric, not diesel electric like locomotives, how will all these billions of batteries be charged?
Canada's Green Shift Could Displace Three-Quarters Of Oil Workers
- Thread starter licks2nite
- Start date
Alas we are being more than laughed at by non-oil producing countries for continuing to subsidise the oil industry and not at least do the same for other energy industries. We will eventually be unwelcome and left out of the world's progress.
The other drunks made fun of me when I stoped drinking, however they really weren't my priority were they? My long term health, and ability to have relationships with the rest of the world, were much more valuable than what the other guys with the same problem thought of me. I can't help but see a parallel here.
Non oil producing countries still need oil. If Canada doesn’t step up and supply them I’m sure they’re happy to get it from likes of the Saudis, Venezuela, Iran, Angola all such shining beacons of democracy and respect for human rights.
So its a shitty product that despots sell, but we have to beat them to the punch? Whats next, abestos?
I wouldn’t call it a shitty product. Guess you get around by horse and buggy?
An electric car.....oil and transport are no longer tied at the hip
Oil is not going anywhere, Canada is a cold weather country and we can’t run without it. Look at these screen shots of global tanker traffic on Marine tracking, they are the red ones, next to nothing on the west coast of Canada. Oil will continue with us or without us.
Even rail doesn't really. Passenger rail networks in Europe and east Asia are almost all electrified these days - and high speed rail makes it nearly as fast as jet travel.
I guess on this continent we decided ("we" no - those with power decided) to never bother keeping up, or to even dismantle what we already had. Up to WW2, Canada was still building rail networks (especially including for passengers); after WW2 Canada began to dismantle them in favour of freeways and cars/trucks, and then air travel. I guess you could say they could more easily transfer the costs of transportation to individual consumers, by saying "fuck efficiency". Rail is the most energy efficient form of transport for passengers or cargo across land, but when we had cheap oil and thought we could burn massive amounts of carbon fuel without any consequences, "fuck efficiency" was the dominant way of thinking. We took that path because we had the luxury of doing so - in Europe energy was always too expensive to throw it away so easily, so they kept efficiency in mind.
Rail can be fixed and improved, and electrified, if we have the will to do it. Electrified high-speed rail seems to be the standard in any part of the developed world except N. America. We have the technology, but we don't use it because of all the entrenched interests and their political foot-dragging.
Ships are going to remain important, but they do not have to be powered only by inefficient and dirty bunker fuel. (Look it up. They run on the shit that is refinery byproduct, too dirty to use for anything on land. Out of sight, out of mind.) Fuel cells, powered by hydrogen could be a game changer for shipping, if it was adopted. (There are already such ships on the water, but they are military subs.) Energy is the bottom line for that too, but understand that there have always been other ways to power maritime engines - the choice to use bunker fuel was made only because it was (surprise surprise) the cheapest. Our 1st world lifestyle is dependent on 3rd world shipping practices.
Airplanes are the real sticking point. I do not have much faith in the idea of electrically powered airliners. Weight is the enemy for any aircraft, and high speed always has a high costs in energy. Still, there's ways they could innovate here.
Most of a planes energy demand is climbing to altitude - so perhaps burn hydrogen in a jet engine to reach altitude and then switch over to electrical to maintain speed?
If high-speed rail was available for most overland travel, then it would only be the over-ocean / intercontinental travel that would need jet airplanes. That change alone would reduce the carbon impact of the airline industry. Sometimes I think the problem is that they keep wanting to expand the use of air travel, even where it doesn't make sense. People flying by jet to Kelowna from Vancouver; people jetting off to Vegas with [heavily subsidized] tickets so cheap, the taxi ride to the airport costs more. The whole industry is completely distorted; the costs we see are not the actual cost, not by a longshot. Air travel is the least energy efficient, always has been - it is chosen because of speed, not efficiency, and that really only works for small numbers of people going long distances.
Yet, instead of keeping the actual cost (money or carbon emissions) of air travel in mind, we still see industry trying to push the idea of giving people flying cars. The problem was never really the tech; the problem was always that it would be so grotesquely inefficient that it should never be adopted. One flying car zipping around is cool; millions of them would be a nightmare. To work at all, it would require a whole new network of automated flying vehicles - no way you could let people take over the controls and make the same kind of mistakes as they do in ground vehicles. So at most, you're talking about flying limousines for the ultra-elite, and airborne police drones, not everyone commuting in the air like the Jetsons. So in the end, what's the point? To spend enormous amounts of energy just to look cool?
So yeah, I think we will have some use for carbon fuel still going on, but we do not need to use anywhere near as much of it as we currently do, and we should stop using the "we'll always need some of it" as an excuse to stay trapped in this cycle of world-breaking mistakes.
Believe me, if we stopped subsidizing energy inefficiency, and stopped shoving the true costs of transportation under the rug as "externalities", you'd see a rapid shift towards energy efficiency and a reduction in carbon emissions which would follow. It just takes real leadership from those with decision-making power and collective self-discipline among citizens who have to live with their decisions. Unfortunately, our "leaders" do not actually lead, and we just seem to accept their blowhard way of swindling us out of preserving our own survival.
Last edited:
In terms of air travel, i recently read something about Space x being used instead of airplanes- point to point anywhere in 30 min. Not sure how that works out in terms of emmissions, but rockets definatetly dont use coal or gas.
Yeah, don't even ask about what most rockets put into the atmosphere. You wouldn't like the answer. The only saving grace is how rare rare rocket launches are. Or were. Hmph.
I don’t think too many people would be willing to take a trip on something that can blow up after launching, Rockets are far from fool proof. A refined type of kerosene was often used as rocket fuel, mostly hydrogen now I expect.
Space x rockets use kerosene for rocket fuel and some use methane. Both hydrocarbons.
Hydrocarbons when oxidized (burnt with oxygen) gives us CO2.
Hydrocarbons are also the source for all plastics.
Hydrogen would be the best enviro friendly fuel. When it burns it produces water. But most ICE would be too hot for hydrogen. A Gas Turbine burning hydrogen could possible do it, with lots of extra air for cooling turbine blades. Again hydrogen has production, and storage issues. Hydrogen is also the fuel for a fuel cell too.
The goal should be towards hydrogen as a fuel. Anyone with acess to water and sun could produce it. The problem is control of production could go to anyone, some people might not like that.
So unless we have some physics that produce energy out of nothing (vacuum of space), hydrogen should be the goal.
The goal should be to renew the earth, not rape it.....
Hydrocarbons will always play a role due to the plastic manufacture, unless manufacturing goes ceramic. Or we can make things out of stone....
Hydrocarbons are also the source for all plastics.
Hydrogen would be the best enviro friendly fuel. When it burns it produces water. But most ICE would be too hot for hydrogen. A Gas Turbine burning hydrogen could possible do it, with lots of extra air for cooling turbine blades. Again hydrogen has production, and storage issues. Hydrogen is also the fuel for a fuel cell too.
The goal should be towards hydrogen as a fuel. Anyone with acess to water and sun could produce it. The problem is control of production could go to anyone, some people might not like that.
So unless we have some physics that produce energy out of nothing (vacuum of space), hydrogen should be the goal.
The goal should be to renew the earth, not rape it.....
Hydrocarbons will always play a role due to the plastic manufacture, unless manufacturing goes ceramic. Or we can make things out of stone....
Reason to manufacture at home:
World’s 15 Biggest Ships Create More Pollution Than All The Cars In The World
https://www.industrytap.com/worlds-...pollution-than-all-the-cars-in-the-world/8182
World map of ship traffic:
World’s 15 Biggest Ships Create More Pollution Than All The Cars In The World
https://www.industrytap.com/worlds-...pollution-than-all-the-cars-in-the-world/8182
World map of ship traffic:
