I've been thinking about the iminent future... interested to hear peoples opinions, knowledge on whats going on

Ok.... so given that oil is running out, and hybrid cars are starting to appear.... common sense suggests that there will be some alternative fuel that will be able to used in most current engines....
.....Hydrogen and biodeisel seem to be the forerunners.... yet the engine mods for to use these fuels are extensive...........

So whats going to happen to our VW's?...are they gonna become novelty collectors bits, like a pennyfarthing bike, or will they live on?

they should go to being electric like the craze was in the seventies..

rumour has it there was a document on the net, stating that people got a vw engine to run on 100% ethanol.

Not sure if there were any mods though.
probably good investment to have ur own little can field in ur backyard
Its a worry about whats to happen, but those oil companies, if they have commonsense, would realise they are to close down their billion dollar businesses when oil runs out, so they are already most likely looking into many alternate fuels they can produce to keep their organisations alive.

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does it involve those big sails in your avartar

[ Edited on 23/4/2006 by bajachris88 ]

Ethanol made from hemp cause hemp has the highest cellulose count out of all plants, cellulose is what is used to make alcohol/ethanol thats why hemp is illegal cause those big petrochemical crybabies just had to have it their way and that is why the world is f*%$ed greenhouse effect global warming. I love driving hate what we put in the tank, ethanol also runs cooler and has more bang but fuel consumption increases, but we make enough plant waste every year (sugarcane) that supply will be enough for demand. Now to run a VW engine on ethanol all one has to do is increase the CR to 13:1 and advance the timing to 12-32 total. Thats what they do in brazil and have been for years with no dramas. I hate the people that run this world, i wish we could all stop driving for a week and then see them shit themselves. Fight the Power. Cheers Damo.

and get a bigger tank.

Hydrogen is a good idea, but whenever it is discussed no-one ever answers the obvious question. Where will we get the hydrogen from? The answer at the moment is from oil or gas, so we will still need to use fossil fuels.

To get hydrogen out of water uses too much energy, so there is no point in doing that.

Strictly speaking water is not H2O it is H(OH). Water is not hydrogen oxide (H2O), it is hydrogen hydroxyl or the hydroxyl of hydrogen [H(OH)]. The hydroxyl bond with hydrogen is one of the strongest known, which is why it takes so much energy to separate the two and why water is almost everywhere and can do so many amazing things.

Also hydrogen and oxygen combine explosively, so it would be super scary to have a process in a car where water is split into hydrogen and oxygen, which are then recombined to run an engine or fuel cell. Therefore the oxygen would be vented to atmosphere and the hydrogen would be used to run the vehicle, either in a fuel cell or to run an engine.

Technically its possible to run vehicles on hydrogen and it would be an excellent way to do it, but what must never be forgotten is, where will we get the hydrogen from?

what happens when all the oil runs out?

well, first little georgie bush has a cry to himself and a whinge to his daddy and then all of a sudden the middle east wont be worth fighting for.

I wouldn't worry, oil won't run out during our lifetime, or our childrens. By then VW will be over 100 years old and probably legislated off our roads or way too expensive for the average Joe to afford anymore. In the mean time, we have plently of repair parts and a huge aftermarket, so enjoy it, but don't take it for granted.

ooooohhh..... maybe I shouldnt make a post in this one...... I work for *"THE ENEMY"* ..... one of those money grabbing multinational supermajor oil companies..... BP. Admittedly, we are the cleanest, greenest super major, but I guess that doesnt mean anything to alot of people.

Okay, I'll answer the first question, then I'll have a go at some of the other misunderstandings that have been mentioned in this thread.

#1 - The oil will never run out (current estimates are about 40 years, and have been 40 years for about 15 years.....). And it certainly wont ever run out in our lifetimes. What will happen is that it will get steadily more expensive (ie 2001 oil price US $27 / bbl for brent (standard pricing crude oil), 2006 brent is now about $71 / bbl). As the oil gets more expensive, two things will happen.
1 - All the hard to recover oil will slowly become more and more economic to recover - its not simply a matter of drill a hole in the ground and voila, texas tea.... many oil reservoirs are discovered, tested, and then abandoned becuase it would cost more than the oil is worth to recover from the ground. As oil gets more expensive, these will be reassessed and revisited because they will become profitable.
2 - As oil gets more expensive, the alternative fuels will become economical also. Evidence of this - E10 ethanol blend has been for sale in Qld for 3 years, and Oz wide trials are beginning soon. BP has made a committment to pursue biofuels in australia, and this is aligned with BP global also. Ones to watch out for are Ethanol blends, Biodiesel, Gas to liquids (ie make petrol from LNG), LPG / LNG powerd cars, Solids to liquids (ie make petrol from coal), oil shales and oil sands (Alaska already has massive oil sands operations).

Okay other myths about the petroleum industry;

1 - We are here as a service to humanity. No, we exist purely to make a return for our shareholders. As a shareholder of BP, this makes me happy. We just happen to make a product that everybody has taken for granted will exist forever at easily affordable prices. True, oil companies should not price gouge, and I'm that that does happen to an extent in Australia (weekly / fortnightly retail price cycles for one have no justifiable cause), however that arm of our business is run by Marketing, and I dont really know alot about it at all.

2 - We produce enough vegetable waste to make enough ethanol to run the worlds cars. Wrong. We produce nowhere near enough - evidence of this is in Australia the small amount of ethanol used in fuel blends has affected the sugar industry to the point that sugar prices are rising. We will need to utilise our existing biomass very well and also will eventually need to crop more just for fuels (I believe).

3 - You can run a standard Auto engine on 100% ethanol without any *major* modifications. Partially true (as evidenced by the fact a top Alcohol drag engine is not massively different to a conventionally fuelled one) - changes required are to jet sizes / injection rates (needs to be much much more fuel delivered), compression ratio (as mentioned before, needs to be very high) and also many of the seals in things like carbies, fuel lines, o rings etc need to be changed to ethanol resistant products, as they will swell in ethanol service.

Personally, I think electric cars are the way to go. The only issue then is how to recharge them ? hydrogen fuel cells require hydrogen - currently this is either produced by electrolysis (which requires mobs of electricty, usually generated by coal fuelled power stations) or as a by product from refining of crude oil. Solar cells are a great idea, but we would need to make lots of them at a price lower than they are available right now (by the way, who else knew that BP is the second largest producer of solar cells in the world ?).

Its really a very big issue - to break the worlds reliance on oil and petroleum byproducts (plastics, nylon and synthetic fibres, waxes, the rubber in your tyres and a million and one other things) will / would require a massive change to everybody's lifestyle. Unfortunately, its a challenge that is going to be slowly pressed on the world over the next hundred or so years, so it will be interesting to see how we respond as a species.

isnt australia said to have something like 75% of the worlds uranium stores?

might be time to invest?

:P

nick

When the oil runs out, the oil light comes on, then you top it up or *BANG* goes the motor.

Lol, i've seen the affects of running a vw engine without oil, not pretty.

Wasn't my engine either :P, poor 1500 sp....
later spent the arvo shooting a cardboard shape of the kid who blew it up with a beebee gun, Lol. the kid even shot himself. The death of that bush basher was a shame....

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I work for BP as a Mechanical Engineer, have been at the Kwinana refinery in WA for 5 years, worked in maintenance for 3 years, spent a year building a new Diesel Hydrotreater unit (HYD3), and am now working on a shutdown for our RCU (Residue Cracking Unit).

I'm not in PR. I'm not in Marketing. I have, however, been asked approximately 27 million times "Why is petrol so expensive ?" or "Why is Diesel more expensive than Petrol when you dont have to do as much to refine it ?". I know enough about fuels and how they are made to talk most issues anybody on here would like to - and am quite happy to - U2U, email, post or whatever.

I'm no company clone - we do heaps of great stuff, but BP also owns Amoco..... anyone remember the Amoco Cadiz oil spill ? yeah, same company, so we arent perfect by any stretch.

As for the suppressed technologies - yeah, I've heard the stories, and to be honest, my personal opinion is that alot of them are probably true. Dont know which oil companies, and when, but it does seem that as soon as a promising new technology pops up, it often vanishes just as quick....

Keep in mind too that its not neccessarily the so called supermajors (Exxon, Shell, BP, Texaco etc in order of size) that are guilty of that too - many of the state owned oil companies, especially in the middle east have significantly greater turnover and profit than we do, money being the driver of all evil in this world, thats a big driver to buy and suppress new technologies. A conspiracy theory you might enjoy

If you wanna talk pricing..... well, OK, but I cant guarantee everything I say there is accurate - as I said, I'm just a mechanical engineer, I definetely dont work in the marketing and retail department.

Doug

Us mechanical engineers are always trying to delivery the people what they want and keep an eye on sustainability, health, safety, the environment and the community.

The conspiracy theorists that are against large industrial companies obviously don't know anything about those companies or what they try to do. It's easy to blindly point fingers, but difficult to come up with viable solutions or alternatives to the worlds current problems.

Don't worry about what will happen when we run out of oil. The mechanical engineers will come up with something before then...

LOL..... nice one Wes.

its just a worry whether the alternative will be implemented before or after the Poo hits the fan. Usually it is a case when it comes to government, like for roads for instance, they only fix em, when the condition or 'need for upgrade' hits the fan. Organisations tend to be more prepared as it depends upon their future profits and share holders. So i wouldn't be to concerned about petrol companies not looking at alternatives. I'm sure they are just as concerned about finding another alternative product before their current profitable produce runs out. Question is when. For profit and money reasons, they will likely put it off, and off and off, till the price rockets off to pluto, bringing in nutty amounts of $$$.

What would happen i guess, an organisation will stand up and will take the opportunity to introduce and sell a cheap alternative at a cheap cost compared to the fuel prices that are to come, to attract the majority of the buyers in the market with a cheaper price for the new fuel. Then all other fuel companies would have to follow and sell cheaper alternate fuels to catch up with them and their profits.

My real concern is, we shouldn't just be worried about cars here. What about all our other dependencies upon fossil fuels. Especially when it comes to electricity. be a while yet before these resources are extringuished, as most say, but its inevitable it will happen some time. Hopefully things don't turn into mad max II. Despite the fun looking dub rail buggies in that (noticed a VW chassis when on crashed and went flying in the air. lol)

the dependence on oil is insane. petrol, kerosen, lubes, plastic, waxes... Jumbos, trucks,powerstations, cars, and tupperware parties would all be screwed.

[ Edited on 24/4/2006 by bajachris88 ]

[ Edited on 24/4/2006 by bajachris88 ]

tupperware and lubes??? hehe
now that sounds insane!

nick

I can live without my car, but not my Tupperware and Lubes !!!! god save us.....

Just go to John Sherman on the Gold Coast and buy an Electric motor to VW gearbox adaptor (I'm almost sure he would have one!) and a bloody huge battery tray:thumb

Doug WHY? is diesel more expensive? Mitchell

Because. :P

The explanation I have been given can be distilled from a long winded speech down to two things;

1). Supply and Demand - there is a huge demand for diesel in Australia, and especially in places like Europe, this is only increasing.

2). Impact on import parity prices of Euopean and US climates and demand. In a market like Australia, where we make fuel, its only logical to sell it for a price that is about 1c / L cheaper than you can import the fuel from anywhere else (usually Singapore) for. This price is called the import parity price. As a result, our prices are set via what the fuel is selling for in Singapore, and those prices are set basically by supply and demand in the US and Europe. Demand in the US and Europe is heavily influenced by weather factors that we dont see in most of Oz (ie being snowed out for days at a time).

Does that help ?

In the 1950s an American oil engineer, whose name escapes me, said that when half of the total amount of oil known to exist has been used, the price of oil would go sky high.

That's the situation now. That China and India have come on stream and are making such demands for oil and gas is coincidental.

If another Middle East size oil deposit was discovered it would delay the fateful day of no oil left by only about 30 years.

What will happen when the oil runs out? I believe that it will be cornered by governments so that they can continue to run the world their way with them being the only people to have access to energy which will give them the ability to bully us who will not have access to it. I will be long gone when that time arises.

When in the 1960s we discovered the amount of gas that Australia has I said that we should stop importing oil, and run this country on gas and use the small amount of oil that we have to supply us with lubricants and plastics.

The response was. "What would you know, boy?" Well I was right wasn't I? Maybe it's time for Australia to stand on its hind legs and tell the world to piss off because we're alright when it comes to energy supply.

HAH!!!!! AS IF!!!!!!

LOL this could turn into a 'Ask Doctor Doug' thread. I am interested in ethanol and alcohol. Why? Because I can modify a 36hp to run on it and nobody will know the difference. If I whack an electric motor in there, I'm pretty sure even someone who discovered VW's yesterday will be able to see something aint right. The only drawback I see is added wear in the bottom end due to the CR.

SO here are the questions....

#1 Lets say my very precisely tuned VW 36er is running stoichiometricly (is that the word?), how much MORE fuel am I going to need if I drop ethanol or alcohol in it.
#2 The 10% ethanol blends here... how much more fule do I need for that? I'm guessing that the 1 or 2 cents a litre cheaper isnt going to cover it.
#3 When Petrol goes up 10 cents per litre, 10% ethanol fuels should only go up 9 cents shouldnt it? If that is the case why isnt the gap between the price of ethanol laced and 'pure' petrol increasing each time theres a price rise.
#4 Why is it that the petrol price rises when there is a price increase in crude oil. Surely the price shouldnt increase until the tanker docks in Kurnel (or Kwinana) gets refined, loaded onto a truck and delievered to my local servo. ONLY THEN should the price go up, unless I am mistaken. All oil companies are rorting us.
#5 When servos were illicitely lacing fuel with ethanol, they were doing it because it wasnt taxed like petrol. Is that still the case?

Sorry, the majority are price driven, but you just gotta get the questions off your chest and out there huh

PS I'm sure you and Wes are smart guys but if we're relying on people like the mechanical engineers I worked with at BHP to save us then I might just start saving up for a 40 foot mast to attach to my roof. And an electric fan to blow into it on still days.

*stoichiometrically, good old 100% ideal reaction efficiency. Can't believe i remember that from yr 12 chem, it has no relavence to me, Lol.

Certainly is a very good word to use at parties. Makes people confused. :P

Pretty surprised no one has suggested the flintstones method yet. Hehe



[ Edited on 24/4/2006 by bajachris88 ]

No oil? I'll be dead by then,
and my Dub's will be in the 'Staggers Museum of Automobiles'
-Staggers.

Quote:

PS I'm sure you and Wes are smart guys but if we're relying on people like the mechanical engineers I worked with at BHP to save us then I might just start saving up for a 40 foot mast to attach to my roof. And an electric fan to blow into it on still days.

I rekon your car is enough evidence of mechanical engineering passion!!

We're counting on you Wes.:thumb

no pressure.... Lol.