Thread: Interesting e-mail I've received today "Fuel: The Mass Debate"

Crikey! He'll be seceding and starting his own country next!

Unfortunately, he has at least some of his facts wrong, for example, excise is a fixed sum of $0.38, not 46%, so that part of his argument doesn't wash.

This invalidates most of his mathematics. What he does not mention, and could have, is that most of the excise does not go into road trauma or infrastructure - it goes straight into consolidated revenue.

Similarly, the concept that diesel is inherently cheaper to produce than petrol is outdated.

Australia does not produce anything like 70% of its own oil, another error. I don't know where he got the cost of producing diesel being far less than unleaded - it isn't. And , for example, the price difference between unleaded and diesel is much the same in the USA as it is here, so it is not unique to Australia.

This has been discussed at length in other threads, and while you can sympathise with anyone feeling the increased cost of fuel, it is a good start to get the facts right.

John

Originally Posted by Ruslan

Pity it is only talks and I don't think we can't do much about

Hmm interesting article... I'll have a go...

Well, for one, burning petroleum produces all kinds of nasty gas emissions including particulate matter (PM), Volatile Organic Conmpounds (VOCs), ozone, Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and carbon monoxide...

... and all these nasties have a range of adverse health effects on humans...

...without going into too many details, the health costs associated with petroleum product emissions (similar to effects of alcohol and tobacco) far exceed the levies collected on these products.

Now while I'm not happy paying the extra cost of fuel, I can hardly argue that its not fair that people who use more fuel shouldn't be making a greater contribution to government coffers which pay for that health care.

As for diesel being more expensive than petrol, I agree, the costs of producing diesel are less than that of petrol, but what of treating its health conesquences? Diesel is a much dirtier fuel to burn than petrol, especially when it comes to particulate matter. Litre for litre, it produces approximately 40 times (not 40%, but 40 times) more particulate matter than petrol. Once again, while not happy about the higher price of diesel, one can hardly argue it is not fair.

And as for oil companies charging us more money and fattening up their profits... they've long ago learned that they don't have to satisfy demand. After all, oil is a finite commodity, and extracting and refining less of it will only result in those that need it (or can afford it) unhappily paying more for it. As for the oil being a finite commodity, what do you think Iraq war is all about? Securing reserves for long time to come. Plans for invasion were drawn up in 1996, well before September 11th and well before George W.

And you know which other "evil" country holds vast reserves of oil?... but we're diverging!

The fact is, fast growing econimies of india and china are going to drive demand, as their populations acquire cars en-masse. Furthermore, as they contain about 1/3 of the worlds population, the demand [edit] is going to skyrocket. Given that the supply rate is finite, what do you think is going to happen to the price of oil?

The average age of oil refinaries in the world today exceeds 50 years. It goes to show big oil don't seem to be interested in building new refinaries, or investing to increase capacity of existing ones for that matter. Artificially limiting supply? Why wouldn't they?

Given all of the above, there is only one way for the oil to go. So better get used to it. Do we really depend that much on oil, and what can we do? At the moment, yes, but there are things that can be done. Hydrogen is a very promising fuel, abundant, cheap enough to produce to rival petroleum (even today), but investment needs to be made into infrastructure to support hydrogen powered cars. At the same time, there have to be enough hydrogen powered cars to support the infrastructure. Catch 22 at the moment, but the future is hopeful (especially when oil price skyrockets).

As for the government, I'd say they appear to be trying to do the right thing. They're subsidising LPG conversions for vehicles, which are significantly cleaner burning than petroleum. They're taking a step in the right direction. It's a start. It's difficult to run a country. Nomatter what you do, you're bound to upset someone. And that someone will get to vote for you in the next election. So the course self preserving politicians take is one which will please the largest number of people... *scratch that* voters, at the least cost. that's how they get re-elected. Its an optimisation exercise really. Problem is that people often don't think or don't know what's good for them. That could come down to a lack of education and/or awareness. Or maybe people just don't care. Collectively, we've had it too good for too long for enough people to care to do something about it. I'm the first to admit I myself fall into that category. But I'm ranting...

I'm bound to upset some people, I know, but every once in a while, it can be a good thing. OK, now I've had my rant, I'm gonna get back to work.

Originally Posted by Offender90

........

1. ...without going into too many details, the health costs associated with petroleum product emissions (similar to effects of alcohol and tobacco) far exceed the levies collected on these products.............

2. As for diesel being more expensive than petrol, I agree, the costs of producing diesel are less than that of petrol, but what of treating its health conesquences? Diesel is a much dirtier fuel to burn than petrol, especially when it comes to particulate matter. Litre for litre, it produces approximately 40 times (not 40%, but 40 times) more particulate matter than petrol. Once again, while not happy about the higher price of diesel, one can hardly argue it is not fair.

.........

3. The average age of oil refinaries in the world today exceeds 50 years. It goes to show big oil don't seem to be interested in building new refinaries, or investing to increase capacity of existing ones for that matter. Artificially limiting supply? Why wouldn't they?

4........ Hydrogen is a very promising fuel, abundant, cheap enough to produce to rival petroleum (even today), but investment needs to be made into infrastructure to support hydrogen powered cars. At the same time, there have to be enough hydrogen powered cars to support the infrastructure. Catch 22 at the moment, but the future is hopeful (especially when oil price skyrockets).


........

While I can't argue with a lot of your post, particularly about the inevitability of the rise in fuel costs, and the effects of the rise of the middle class in China and India, I will comment on a few points -

1. Even if you spread the net very widely to include very indirect effects, the negative health outcomes from petroleum use don't come anywhere near those from alcohol and particularly tobacco. A simple statistical fact demonstrates this - countries or areas with high petroleum use also tend to have low rates of mortality and morbidity (OK, there are a lot of other factors, but certainly there is nothing like the association between smoking and early death)

2. As noted in my previous post, its about time people stopped parrotting that diesel is cheaper to produce than petrol - it isn't, and hasn't been since composition started being tightened up ten or fifteen years ago. Mind you, I doubt very much if it is 20c/litre more expensive to make either! There is not that much evidence to show that diesel particulates represent a significant health hazard - some evidence, but not a lot. And particulates from petrol are insignificant, so forty times insignificant is not necessarily significant.

3. The reason oil refineries average age is over fifty, is simply that the profits from refining are so low as to discourage investment - I was involved in a study by a previous employer to look at getting into refining, and it is simply not viable. Refinery capacity has been boosted, particularly in Australia, but a lot of the money that could have gone into expansion has gone into things like redeveloping to produce low sulphur diesel. Refining margins are set by competition with the large, relatively new refineries built mostly by governments without the need to meet environmental constraints that apply in Australia, and don't need to operate at a profit.

You need to remember that oil companies make money from finding and producing oil, not refining it - and large as their income is, it pales into insignificance compared to the amount governments make on production. Typical government take can be as high as 90+% - before costs for major fields, although 50% before costs is probably more like it, and probably 50% or more of the world's production is owned and operated by governments with no private oil company involved. (Think Saudia Arabia, Iran, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, for example)

4. This is another falsehood that people have been parrotting so long that they believe it. Hydrogen is not a primary fuel. It is not abundant. It is not cheap to produce in energy terms.

Hydrogen does not occur in nature in significant quantities, and hence is not a source of energy. It is simple to produce using electrolysis, for example, but the energy efficiency of this operation is not all that attractive, typically 25 -50%, and the most efficient source of hydrogen is from natural gas, which hardly gets away from dependency on petroleum (and energy efficiency would be perhaps 30% higher using the natural gas directly as CNG).

The attraction of hydrogen is that it produces almost zero pollution at the point of use, as the only waste product is water plus some NOx. While its efficiency can probably be raised higher than any other fuel in internal combustion engines, and even higher using fuel cells, the overall efficiency including the production of the hydrogen is probably very difficult to get any higher than good current practice of direct use of petroleum fuels, particularly CNG.

The other big problem is distribution and storage of hydrogen. And this is not just a catch 22 situation either. Hydrogen cannot be liquefied in practice (critical point about 32 deg. K or -241C at 1.3 Mpa) and needs to be stored at very high pressures to achieve a halfway reasonable energy density, at which pressures it leaks quite rapidly through almost all materials, creating a serious explosion hazard, as it is combustible over a very wide range of mixtures with air. There is some optimism that storage as hydrides may become practical within the next few decades, but in my view, practical electric cars are more likely to appear first, and will lead to loss of enthusiasm for the "hydrogen economy".

John

There you go again John, spoiling a good argument by injecting a few facts, some inside knowledge and some common sense and dispelling a few common misconceptions.

John, you say

Originally Posted by JDNSW

.. that diesel is cheaper to produce than petrol - it isn't, and hasn't been since composition started being tightened up ten or fifteen years ago..

how that can be?

I remember our school excursion to the oil refinery in 1985 where we were told that diesel more than twice cheaper to produce that petrol (A72). Also we had mini benchtop style oil refinery-device at school (ex Uni demo) and used to do labs such as "How to produce petrol and other products..." - something like that. It was clear like black and white that diesel type fuel you can get with less run, while petrol used to take more time, electricity, filters etc.

Heh, hydrogen etc. I agree, it is not cheap to produce, but it is alternative, isn't it? And what about air driven engines? Some protos have very high energy conversion efficiency, good enough to push family car around town, zero pollution and no service stations. All other alternatives are not such profitable as oil market, so nobody interested to deliver it to us, to people on the bottom of the feed level. And talks about green gas emission, ice melting are part of manipulation. (school physics, ice density vs water density; ice in a water, 90% under, 10% above level; volumes calculation before and after melting, etc.)...

Very sad time

Originally Posted by JDNSW

While I can't argue with a lot of your post, particularly about the inevitability of the rise in fuel costs, and the effects of the rise of the middle class in China and India, I will comment on a few points -

John,

When I read the first part of your sentence, I was expecting you'd pick me up on a few small things here and there... you're ripping my arguement apart!!! Lets see...

Originally Posted by JDNSW

1. Even if you spread the net very widely to include very indirect effects, the negative health outcomes from petroleum use don't come anywhere near those from alcohol and particularly tobacco. A simple statistical fact demonstrates this - countries or areas with high petroleum use also tend to have low rates of mortality and morbidity (OK, there are a lot of other factors, but certainly there is nothing like the association between smoking and early death)

One doesn't need to know much about statistics to know that the above quoted statistical fact is.. well, useless (I'm sorry to say). Countries with high petroleum use tend to be developed countries, proper sanitation, clean water, abundant food, functioning health care system, it has it all. When compared to countries where the petroleum use is not as high,(i.e. third world countries that often lack clean water lat alone proper medical care) its a no brainer that they're gonna suffer higher morbidity and mortality rates. (this was probably covered under the "other factors"). So that's no arguement to support the theory pollution related health effects are negligable.

As for the comparison of health effects related to petroleum pollution Vs alcohol and tobacco, I strongly disagree. In alcohol and tobacco use, there is direct correlation between cause and effect. You smoke, you get lung cancer, you drink, you get liver sclerosis. The bloke next to you doesnt drink or smoke, and he's fine. Repeat that 10 times and you've got your proof.

The effects of air pollution are so much more widespread, they affect entire cities. A 22 year old man develops testicular cancer. A 5 year old kid's got asthma. A 42 year old woman gets a cold like infection every 3 months. A 31 year old man suffers chronic sinusitis. Why? Who knows. Yet every one of the above symptoms are related to various petroleum pollutants.

VOCs including BTEX compounds (benzene, tolulene, ethylbenzene and xylene), I,3-butadiene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PACs) are all known carcinogens, benzene in concentrations as lilttle as 1 ppm.

Ozone impairs lung function, causes asthma, harms the immune system, causes fetal heart malfunctions. PM 2.5 causes asthma, respiratory ilnesses, stuns fetal development and is correlated to infant death. And so on. Point is, its not easy to attribute one of these to air polution, yet morbidity and mortality ARE disproportionate in cities with high air pollution (Mexico City, Bangkok, Jakarta, Los Angeles).

EPA in California conduct a lot of studies on the effects of air pollutants on health, and the results are... well, alarming. Strong correlation have been shown between morbidity and mortality rates and levels of air pollution, even on a daily basis. More about that below.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

2. As noted in my previous post, its about time people stopped parrotting that diesel is cheaper to produce than petrol - it isn't, and hasn't been since composition started being tightened up ten or fifteen years ago. Mind you, I doubt very much if it is 20c/litre more expensive to make either! There is not that much evidence to show that diesel particulates represent a significant health hazard - some evidence, but not a lot. And particulates from petrol are insignificant, so forty times insignificant is not necessarily significant.

OK, I may stand corrected on the diesel production costs on account of outdated info. Comes from my father who was an oil refinary engineer up until about 17 years ago. Costs may have gone up with touger standards. certainly wasn't the case in his time.

As for particulate matter, as you probably know, its measured as large particles (10 microns or less (PM 10) ans small particles 2.5 microns or less (PM 2.5). While I will agree there isn't a large body of evidence to suggest that PM 10 is particularly harmful (soot from fires and dust from unsealed roads are major contributors to PM 10), PM 2.5 (the major source of which is incomplete combustion from gasoline in internal comustion engines, and in particular diesel combustion) has been shown to cause asthma, cardiopulmonary disease, lung cancer, premature death, and a host of pregnancy and birth related issues (low birth weight babies and infant death).

Once again, a lot of useful info from studies carried out by EPA in Los Angeles. Their research concludes that ilnesses such as asthma and lung cancer, and death rates rise on days when the amount of particulate matter in the air also rises. Conversely, evidence also shows the benefits of decreasing particulate matter in air: illnesses and death rates drop. This is after accounting for effects of other air pollutants.

Originally Posted by JDNSW

3. The reason oil refineries average age is over fifty, is simply that the profits from refining are so low as to discourage investment - I was involved in a study by a previous employer to look at getting into refining, and it is simply not viable. Refinery capacity has been boosted, particularly in Australia, but a lot of the money that could have gone into expansion has gone into things like redeveloping to produce low sulphur diesel. Refining margins are set by competition with the large, relatively new refineries built mostly by governments without the need to meet environmental constraints that apply in Australia, and don't need to operate at a profit.

You need to remember that oil companies make money from finding and producing oil, not refining it - and large as their income is, it pales into insignificance compared to the amount governments make on production. Typical government take can be as high as 90+% - before costs for major fields, although 50% before costs is probably more like it, and probably 50% or more of the world's production is owned and operated by governments with no private oil company involved. (Think Saudia Arabia, Iran, Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, for example)

Fair enough, something I didn't know. But now I see another reason why Iran is "evil" and must be dealt with! Do you think after it's "liberated", the new government will retain control (and therefore profits) of oil? or will the proceeds go to US companies to pay for "rebuilding"? Hmmm...

Originally Posted by JDNSW

4. This is another falsehood that people have been parrotting so long that they believe it. Hydrogen is not a primary fuel. It is not abundant. It is not cheap to produce in energy terms.

Hydrogen does not occur in nature in significant quantities, and hence is not a source of energy. It is simple to produce using electrolysis, for example, but the energy efficiency of this operation is not all that attractive, typically 25 -50%, and the most efficient source of hydrogen is from natural gas, which hardly gets away from dependency on petroleum (and energy efficiency would be perhaps 30% higher using the natural gas directly as CNG).

The attraction of hydrogen is that it produces almost zero pollution at the point of use, as the only waste product is water plus some NOx. While its efficiency can probably be raised higher than any other fuel in internal combustion engines, and even higher using fuel cells, the overall efficiency including the production of the hydrogen is probably very difficult to get any higher than good current practice of direct use of petroleum fuels, particularly CNG.

The other big problem is distribution and storage of hydrogen. And this is not just a catch 22 situation either. Hydrogen cannot be liquefied in practice (critical point about 32 deg. K or -241C at 1.3 Mpa) and needs to be stored at very high pressures to achieve a halfway reasonable energy density, at which pressures it leaks quite rapidly through almost all materials, creating a serious explosion hazard, as it is combustible over a very wide range of mixtures with air. There is some optimism that storage as hydrides may become practical within the next few decades, but in my view, practical electric cars are more likely to appear first, and will lead to loss of enthusiasm for the "hydrogen economy".

Impressive knowledge... what line of work are you in again?

I agree with almost all of the above, but I believe that hydrogen as a fuel is promising indeed and will be the fuel of choice rather than electric.

Let me explain.

While hydrogen is not a primary fuel, and rarely exists in its pure form, it is readily available through the electrolysis of water. It's analogous to a battery, or more correctly, an energy storage device, where we must put energy in to get energy out. Unfortunately, as you point out, we must put in more than we can recover later. The energy cost ratio for hydrogen is approximately 1.65. In other words, you must put in 1.65 units of energy into it, to recover 1 unit of usable energy at a later date.

When compared with the average energy cost ratio for petroleum of approximately 1.25 it doesnt sound that great. As you said however, in comparison it is extremely clean. Furthermore, the cost ratio of 1.25 only takes into account well to wheel energy expenditure (i.e. the total energy required to get the oil from the well to delivering the fuel to the end user). It doesn't include energy spent in wars and oil defense costs, cleaning up oil spills and other externalities. Also, as oil reserves get depleted, we have to drill deeper, (requiring more energy) and the oil retrieved from the bottom of the pool contains more sulfur so higher energy costs once again to remove it.

This is only going to get costlier, as we are forced to extract from lower quality wells. It is estimated that as much as 85% of remaining oil reserves are embedded in shale and tar sand deposits. Techniques to extract these are not very efficient to say the least. Shale deposits are heated to temperatures of approx 350 degrees for as long as several years before oil can be pumped out to the surface, and tar sand yields approximately 10% oil recovery, which then requires cooking at 500 degrees before it becomes similar to crude oil. The energy cost of recovering both of these is closer to 5 is to 1. But I'm diverging.

At the moment production of hydrogen as a fuel is 25% more costly in terms of energy. However, it can be converted into energy efficiently, and more importantly, cleanly in ICEs, and with even greater efficiency in fuel cells.

One of the problems currently lies with the cost of fuel cells. Approximately 10 times the cost of equivalently powered ICE (internal combustion engine). But with mass production, costs will come down significantly. The great thing about fuel cells is that they're scalable, so to get more power, all you need is more fuel cells stacked together. So the same fuel cells used in cars can be used in buses, trucks etc, hence the potential to reduce costs significantly with mass production.

Which brings us to the problem of distribution and storage. All that is needed for production of hydrogen is electricity. Production can therefore be localised to distribution points. The equipment to make hydrogen from electrolysis and compress it ready for car refuelling has been packaged for demonstration purposes to a dishwasher sized unit. In theory each household could have this particular unit work on off peak electricity (similar to your electric hot water system) for refueling vehicles for the next day.

This is neither practical nor cost efficient, but it demonstrates feasibility of smaller electrolysis units that extract hydrogen from water. Perhaps, hydrogen could be made at refuelling stations, or perhaps each community or township can have a "hydrogen plant". (Certainly doesn't need to come from Singapore. ) Transportation distances are thereofre minimised, as fuel is delivered directly to the end user. Off peak electricity can be utilised from spare production capacity during the night time, bringing production costs down even further. Of course, the fuel is only as green as the source of electricity used in its production.

Both fuel cell cars and electric cars exist today. Electric cars have a practical range of about 250 to 300 kms, and hydrogen powered cars as much as 500kms (they are combined with an electric motor which stores electricity from braking and reuses in acceleration). The main advantage of hydrogen powered cars is that they can be refuelled much like we refuel todays cars. Electric cars on the other hand need an overnight charge to resume travel. Electric cars may therefore be feasible as runabouts, shopping carts etc, while hydrogen fuel can truly replace current petroleum fuels.

So it is a catch 22, the technology to integrate it into everyday life exists, but teh manufacturers are waiting for distirbution outlets and vice versa. California is taking first steps, as much for demonstration as for public use, but it has commenced building its first "hydrogen highway" with refuelling stops every 20 miles.

Problem is, oil companies and automakers have been trying to kill both the electric and hydrogen cars. The first for lost revenue, and second for money already invested into existing technologies, but thats another story altogether.

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