Joe Biden has taken us down a rabbit hole

[royamcr]

Producing an ICE car isn't emission free either. Now producing an EV takes more emissions than an ICE car so it is the marginal difference between the 2 that pays off pretty quickly and then lasts over ten years past that payoff.

I saw a Carter clip that said we have about 35 years of oil left, but technology has allowed us to extend that through new extraction methods like fracking. That wasn't known to him at the time. If we are super desperate for oil, ANWAR is a possibility, however conditions for drilling there are extremely harsh on humans. We will have to be dying of lack of oil to go there.

Refineries that can refine the type of oil we produce would help. As it is now we ship off most oil that we can't refine and import what we can refine. That sucks and is inefficient, but it is cheaper to refine oil imported than our own. Our refineries are old, but there is a huge new one being built in Oklahoma, hopefully that will refine domestic crude.

The new $5.6 billion oil refinery in Cushing, Oklahoma will use domestically produced crude oil to make transportation fuels. The refinery will process 250,000 barrels per day of light, sweet shale and light, sweet crudes from the Anadarko, Permian, Denver and Julesburg, and Bakken Basins into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. The refinery will use hydrogen and oxygen as a fuel source to eliminate up to 95% of emissions and greenhouse gas emissions.

Originally Posted by Tiny

I don't believe they pay off in terms of emissions in anywhere close to a year or two. When you count in the emissions for mining, processing, manufacturing, transportation, electricity generation, etc., no way. For Volvo EV's, it's around 6 or 7 years.

And how long have we had around 50 years or less of proved oil reserves left? Maybe 100 years or more? Proved reserves have been identified and determined to be economically producible at current or recent oil prices. More oil will be discovered and technology will improve. If the price of oil goes up, then reserves go up.

The amount of coal resources, which is a broader measure than reserves, is off the charts high. We could keep going for hundreds of years, although I don't think we will.

[westwardho]

Roy, you need to fire up the google machine. Hydraulic fracturing has been around since at least the 1950's. The sum total of what most people know about the oil industry is zero.

[Levianon17]

Originally Posted by royamcr

Or replaced.... And of course right now creating renewables creates emissions. However the emissions from creating a renewable energy product is paid off in the first year or two of use.

Reality is we have about 50 years of proven oil left at current consumption rates. The good news is our consumption rate has leveled off and is actually falling due to transportation converting to electric. We have about double the years left with coal, maybe around 100 so that buys us time with powering electric plants that use it.

Seems like a long ways off, but will be here in a blink of an eye looking back. It has been almost 25 years since the turn of the century, and it feels like yesterday.

The Electric Vehicle may lessen the actual emissions from Gasoline engines but then a new problem will arise. After all 500,000 lbs of Earth are dug up to obtain the necessary minerals just to make one Electric Car Battery how long can that be sustained? It's always going to be something.

[Yssup Rider]

What happens to that dirt, Levi?

Shirley you know a little bit bout mining, or drilling baby drilling.

Suddenly you’re weeping for Mother Earth?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[westwardho]

Big difference between mining minerals and producing oil. A few years after an oilfield depletes and is P&A, you can barely tell it was there. The same cannot be said for any kind of mining operation, but I'm sure you already knew that.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by royamcr

Producing an ICE car isn't emission free either. Now producing an EV takes more emissions than an ICE car so it is the marginal difference between the 2 that pays off pretty quickly and then lasts over ten years past that payoff.

I saw a Carter clip that said we have about 35 years of oil left, but technology has allowed us to extend that through new extraction methods like fracking. That wasn't known to him at the time. If we are super desperate for oil, ANWAR is a possibility, however conditions for drilling there are extremely harsh on humans. We will have to be dying of lack of oil to go there.

Refineries that can refine the type of oil we produce would help. As it is now we ship off most oil that we can't refine and import what we can refine. That sucks and is inefficient, but it is cheaper to refine oil imported than our own. Our refineries are old, but there is a huge new one being built in Oklahoma, hopefully that will refine domestic crude.

The new $5.6 billion oil refinery in Cushing, Oklahoma will use domestically produced crude oil to make transportation fuels. The refinery will process 250,000 barrels per day of light, sweet shale and light, sweet crudes from the Anadarko, Permian, Denver and Julesburg, and Bakken Basins into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. The refinery will use hydrogen and oxygen as a fuel source to eliminate up to 95% of emissions and greenhouse gas emissions.

Originally Posted by royamcr

I'm not going to get into Biden did wrong or right, history will tell that. Biden doesn't operate alone. Congress is responsible for most of the work there and that is split about 50/50.

You should see the huge battery plant being built close to KC. Think it is like 53 football fields in size.

As far as raw materials. Work is being done to extract lithium from sea water. There is about 230 billion tons of lithium in seawater which is 5000 times of that known in land. Problem is extracting it cause it is very dilute. But it is there and we have lots of land based lithium to mine before having to go down that path.

Lithium is also renewable, there is industry to reclaim it from spent batteries and make new batteries.

Interesting, thanks Royamcr. I haven't kept up with downstream oil developments in recent years. It's good to see that we finally may be constructing a new refinery with significant capacity for the first time in a long time, maybe since the 1970's. I'm somewhat skeptical this will get off the ground. Apparently the state of Oklahoma is kicking in $1.5 billion in benefits so maybe it will. What makes me skeptical is using the hydrogen and oxygen as a fuel source, and I haven't heard of the outfit that's doing the project. A few very large oil companies, like BP, have set targets for net zero emissions in their operations. This is disingenuous though IMHO. The reduction in emissions from operations is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of emissions produced when you burn the refined products in cars, trucks, etc. Why you'd want a 95% emissions free refinery in deep red Oklahoma is curious.

I may be unique in this forum in being a free trader who doesn't believe in sanctions. As such, I'm fine with us exporting gas liquids and light oil, and importing heavy, high sulfur oil from places like Venezuela for feedstock in our specialized refineries. So I wouldn't promote industrial policy to become self sufficient in refining capacity. But I appreciate the counter argument. It would provide more energy security. The argument for the Keystone Pipeline expansion that the Biden administration killed is similar. Why not have Canadian oil flowing to the Gulf Coast instead of to western Canada, for export to Asia?

As to lithium, I actually know a LITTLE about that, having a very small investment in a company that's looking to produce it. I don't think you're going to see it extracted in large, commercial quantities from seawater in our lifetimes. It is being extracted from brines in South America and, to a small extent, in the western USA. More lithium is mined though, from mineral deposits, mostly in Australia.

[Levianon17]

Originally Posted by Yssup Rider

What happens to that dirt, Levi?

Shirley you know a little bit bout mining, or drilling baby drilling.

Suddenly you’re weeping for Mother Earth?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

You missed the point as usual. It takes a lot of digging to extract thousands of pounds of Nickle, Cobalt, and Copper ore to produce one Battery. These natural elements don't replenish themselves over night.

[SpeedRacerXXX]

Originally Posted by Levianon17

The Electric Vehicle may lessen the actual emissions from Gasoline engines but then a new problem will arise. After all 500,000 lbs of Earth are dug up to obtain the necessary minerals just to make one Electric Car Battery how long can that be sustained? It's always going to be something.

First, your statement about 500,000 pounds of earth being dug to produce on EV battery has been totally debunked.

https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.328N2RY

Second, you are assuming the future will be the same as the present. It wasn't long ago that an EV battery would get you a maximum of maybe 100 miles. Now one model has broken the 500 mile range, with most in the 200-300 mile range. Innovations in the EV battery technology are taking place rapidly. I expect major changes in EV batteries in the next 5 years or so.

"Toyota Touts Solid State EVs With 932-Mile Range, 10-Minute Charging by 2027

The Japanese automaker says it has found a new material that will help commercialize the elusive, long-awaited solid state battery, but it's light on details."

https://www.pcmag.com/news/toyota-to...te-charging-by

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by SpeedRacerXXX

First, your statement about 500,000 pounds of earth being dug to produce on EV battery has been totally debunked.

https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.328N2RY

Second, you are assuming the future will be the same as the present. It wasn't long ago that an EV battery would get you a maximum of maybe 100 miles. Now one model has broken the 500 mile range, with most in the 200-300 mile range. Innovations in the EV battery technology are taking place rapidly. I expect major changes in EV batteries in the next 5 years or so.

"Toyota Touts Solid State EVs With 932-Mile Range, 10-Minute Charging by 2027

The Japanese automaker says it has found a new material that will help commercialize the elusive, long-awaited solid state battery, but it's light on details."

https://www.pcmag.com/news/toyota-to...te-charging-by

I don't know if 500,000 tons is right and am too lazy to do the calculations, but guarantee you're looking at a lot of rock. And mining and processing the ore involves using lots of diesel and natural gas or coal. A copper grade of 0.5% is pretty good for new mines. I'm Googling that Cobalt grades are around .04% to .08%. Plus you've got to remove the overburden before you get to the ore.

A lot of people are only going to switch to EV's if forced to by government. Or if government throws tons of money at them and the EV manufacturers. Who wants to wait around for 45 minutes for recharging on a trip, even if you only have to do it once or twice a day? The whole EV thing looks to be a boondoggle, although maybe you're right and charging times will come way down and ranges will go up.

Like I said earlier, I read that switching all passenger vehicles in the USA to EV's would only reduce global carbon emissions by 0.18%. Admittedly the person who did the analysis was an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal, but his reasoning looked sound.

[Levianon17]

Originally Posted by Tiny

We're headed that way in energy. I rented a car in Houston recently. Hertz compact sedans with internal combustion engines were going for $70 a day while Teslas were around $50. And correct, with no change in current emissions policies, most of us are going to have to buy EV's (electric vehicles) some day if we want to buy new cars.

I read an analysis the other day that estimated we'd see a 0.18% worldwide reduction in CO2 emissions if all the passenger cars in the USA were EV's. That's just huge, isn't it.

From the the Mark Mills piece in City Journal link, "Since all the Inflation Reduction Act, and related, spending has yet to flow through the economy, it bears asking why economists aren’t alarmed about reigniting inflation. Perhaps, behind closed doors, the Federal Reserve is worried." I agree. Mills notes that a Wood McKenzie analysis shows the price tag of the carbon-related measures in the Inflation Reduction Act will be closer to $3 trillion than the advertised $369 billion figure. Wood McKenzie btw is the most respected consulting firm in energy economics in the world.

Add to the Inflation Reduction Act all the other corporate welfare passed during 2021 and 2022 and you have some big numbers. YoY CPI inflation in the USA is running 3.5%, compared to 2.4% in the European Union and 0.1% in China. I bet part of the reason inflation is sticky in the USA is because of excessive fiscal stimulus. As you say, the Fed's doing its part to control inflation.



I wouldn't have phrased it exactly that way, but yeah. Do we get rid of airplanes? All the materials like plastics derived from oil and gas? Steel, if no suitable substitute can be found for coking coal?



That's an AOC original! Thankfully there are enough sane Democratic politicians who want to win elections so that we'll never get to that point.

Yes, if the desire for Zero Emissions is the absolute goal.

[SpeedRacerXXX]

Originally Posted by Levianon17

Yes, if the desire for Zero Emissions is the absolute goal.

Zero emissions is not the goal. The temperature worldwide is getting hotter. According to the Paris Agreement:

"Its overarching goal is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

However, in recent years, world leaders have stressed the need to limit global warming to 1.5°C by the end of this century.

That’s because the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates that crossing the 1.5°C threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves and rainfall.

To limit global warming to 1.5°C, greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 at the latest and decline 43% by 2030."

https://unfccc.int/process-and-meeti...25%20by%202030.

"New Texas report says future Texas will be hotter, dryer, and more wildfire prone"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ne...ne/ar-AA1nx2SH

[Levianon17]

Originally Posted by SpeedRacerXXX

First, your statement about 500,000 pounds of earth being dug to produce on EV battery has been totally debunked.

https://factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com.328N2RY

Second, you are assuming the future will be the same as the present. It wasn't long ago that an EV battery would get you a maximum of maybe 100 miles. Now one model has broken the 500 mile range, with most in the 200-300 mile range. Innovations in the EV battery technology are taking place rapidly. I expect major changes in EV batteries in the next 5 years or so.

"Toyota Touts Solid State EVs With 932-Mile Range, 10-Minute Charging by 2027

The Japanese automaker says it has found a new material that will help commercialize the elusive, long-awaited solid state battery, but it's light on details."

https://www.pcmag.com/news/toyota-to...te-charging-by

Your article doesn't really disprove anything. In order to produce an EV Battery it takes about five different natural elements Lithium,Nickel, Cobalt, Manganese and Graphite. They are obtained through various methods. It's time consuming, costly and does impact the environment. Trying to debunk how much earth must be excavated is really immaterial because to obtain these minerals it's going to be a lot and it's going to impact the environment and the final product won't be cheap and this magic "Zero Emissions" fantasy still won't be achieved.

[royamcr]

500,000 pounds sounds like a lot but one mining haul truck can carry almost 2x that much. 500,000 pounds is about 1 mid sized haul truck.

Zero Emissions probably will never be achieved but we can shoot for goals headed in that direction.

[Levianon17]

Originally Posted by royamcr

500,000 pounds sounds like a lot but one mining haul truck can carry almost 2x that much. 500,000 pounds is about 1 mid sized haul truck.

Zero Emissions probably will never be achieved but we can shoot for goals headed in that direction.

Yeah for one Battery, not several. Then from all the Earth the Ore for the various elements are separated to use in the production of the Battery. My whole point is there's a lot involved to produce these Batteries. The environment will still be impacted negatively in many ways.

[royamcr]

Moving dirt from one place to another is a problem we don't have. Of course there is energy spent and emissions doing this.

People out there throw around big numbers like 500000lbs to prove a point, but reality is it's half a truckload.

Here's an interesting big number. One battery costs about 16 barrels of oil equivalent to produce.

Therefore, the total energy cost of producing and using the Tesla Model S Long Range battery pack, including battery production, lithium extraction, transportation, the energy cost of building the Gigafactory, battery transportation, battery recycling, diesel fuel required to generate electricity to charge the battery, and the environmental costs of battery disposal and battery fires, is equivalent to about 3,088,431 barrels of oil.

That battery that costs 16 barrels of oil to produce will save 240 barrels of oil over a 10 year lifetime. With about 3 million EVs on the road that is 720 million barrels of oil saved over a 10 year lifespan. And the batteries will go longer than that. 3 million vehicles accounts for about 1% of the registered cars on the road. Imagine if it was 2% then 10%. That's some huge numbers. 10% would be around 7.2 billion barrels saved over 10 years.


https://famguardian.org/3-million-ba...els%20of%20oil.