 | World Energy to 2050: A Half Century of Decline | The Oil Drum: Canada | The Finance Round-Up: November 16th 2007 |  |
331 comments on Energy Decline and National GDP in 2050: The Growth of Destitution
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
User login
Archives
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
GAIA Host Collective
One comment wrt projected natural gas declines in the US. If we are looking at that severe a decline, then I think that it is reasonable to assume that there will be a much bigger push to put in anaerobic digesters for agricultural and municipal wastes to generate methane. The technology is mature and has been widely deployed throughout the world. It is not super-high-tech, I'm not aware of any rare minerals involved that could create a bottleneck, and the technology is not super expensive. The technology is scalable from home-brew rigs for individual homesteads up to massive operations.
Such a widespread biogas generation deployment could imply a higher overall level of renewables by 2050 than you have anticipated. It might not make a huge difference, but it will help a little.
WNC Observer,
In the 1990s I was involved in a few attempts to develop prototype anerobic plants. Even when you explain that anaerobic digesters are NOT open to the atmosphere you keep getting remarks that people don't want the smell.
And when you do get an area for a foundation you sometimes have "accidents" that look remarkably like acts of sabotage; but I know that it's really my imagination and that sturdy brick structures do crumble naturally... and quite often.
Actually, you do need to worry about the sulfur based gases, which is something that was supposed to be looked into in this research. Currently, the gases can be "trapped" by using metal filings to bind with the sulphur. The research projects I was interested in was looking into a more sustainable method of capturing sulfur (with a positive EROEI). I haven't kept up on this... maybe this problem has already been solved.
During the aparthide embargoes, some South African farmers reportedly had great sucess in running their farms on livestock-produced methane; but, I don't know what weather conditions they had to deal with.