Glenn Morton will probably address Kenneth Piers's question. One point I
want to make is that many popular writers erroneously lump hydrogen in with
fuel cells and photovoltaics.
Hydrogen is not an energy source but an energy carrier and cannot be
considered an alternative to oil, gas, coal, uranium, or solar. To get the
hydrogen fuel, you have to make it first and that takes more energy that the
hydrogen will supply (second law of thermodynamics). Fuel cells only
convert hydrogen into another form of energy. Photovoltaics do too but, at
least, they start with an energy source that is continually supplied.
It would be helpful if Rauch would have cited some evidence and some proof
that the extrapolation is valid. Without it, it would be dangerous to go on
faith alone.
Chuck Vandergraaf
-----Original Message-----
From: Kenneth Piers [mailto:Pier@calvin.edu]
Sent: Monday January 22, 2001 10:37 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: RE: Energy and Jan. Atlantic
Speaking of depleting petroleum resources, the Jan 2001 Atlantic Monthly
has an essay by Jonathan Rauch (The New Old Economy: Oil, Computers, and
Reinventing the Earth) in which he claims that we are not in danger of
running out of oil. Through adoption of new economy technology
(3Dseismic imaging, Directional drilling, "smart" drill bits, computers,
etc.) we are now finding oil more successfully, at a higher rate and
more cheaply than we were 20 years ago. Knowledge, not oil, limits the
amount of oil we find. So, he says, by the time we move to a new energy
economy (hydrogen, fuel cell, photovoltaic, whatever...) there is still
likely to be large amounts of oil left in the ground unused.
Paradoxically, the more oil we remove from the ground the more oil we
find, says Rauch. This sounds very much like the cornucopian worldviews
propounded by the likes of Julian Simon, Herman Kahn, and Calvin Beisner
. Is there any legitimacy to these arguments?
kpiers
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