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pwnasaurus
Stranger



Registered: 07/16/08
Posts: 12,317
Loc: Canada
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Re: The oil industry .... [Re: dontknow]
#19172053 - 11/21/13 07:37 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
dontknow said: So would you experts suggest a college student to go for petroleum or electrical engineering?
Either are good. <insert discipline here> engineering is never a bad plan. I would say electrical engineering and take all the programming / computer science courses you can. That's what I did, it's working out pretty damned well.
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Xingu
Stranger

Registered: 10/20/12
Posts: 932
Loc: NC
Last seen: 6 years, 7 months
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Re: The oil industry .... [Re: mpd]
#19172062 - 11/21/13 07:39 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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No matter how much oil we do produce, it's still expensive to do so. Solar is in freefall, with significant research phase breakthroughs regularly:



There's the added benefit of individuals being able to play the role of an investor with these technologies as well, as they generally produce energy for decades after they pay themselves off. That instead of a model where you can never possibly achieve a net gain seems much more desirable for anyone except energy executives.
Quote:
mpd said: By 2015 the United States is expected to be the world's largest oil-producing country. Electric cars don't stand a chance at this point. Just a fad for liberals to hang on to like everything else.
A fad? Hardly.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2012/12/owner-satisfaction/index.htm
A 35k coupe with 200 mile range comes out in 2015, with larger car companies projecting regular significant range increases with models that are currently at ~100 mile ranges. Research phase batteries using graphene and nanomesh's which are a not distant reality are achieving charge rates and energy densities that are orders of magnitude better than lithium ion.
Even if you produce the electricity for the vehicles with oil or gas, it's more energy efficient to use electric motors and batteries charged with industrial turbines that kick the shit out of any internal combustion engine, it's the unavoidable nature of the thermodynamic realities of both of those technology types.
How this is a liberal or conservative issue is beyond me, unless, of course, you're one of the people that believe you're more informed than the consensus of the scientific community in that climate change to the speed it's currently occurring is a primarily human caused phenomenon. Conservatives, in terms of claimed values, should be far more concerned about the transition to more efficient powertrain and power production systems than liberals.
As to the price, I think that's still up in the air. Just depends what the true supply numbers are like and where demand goes when the energy landscape shifts to new technologies.
Edited by Xingu (11/21/13 07:46 PM)
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Khii Khwaay
black tooth grin

Registered: 04/16/12
Posts: 2,277
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Re: The oil industry .... [Re: Xingu]
#19172379 - 11/21/13 08:01 PM (10 years, 2 months ago) |
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Now, I'm no engineer, but from what I've read about solar and wind technology, it seems that there is the problem of energy being generated at times when it in not necessarily needed, thus requiring some type of system of energy storage. As far as I've read, the most efficient way of storing large amounts of energy is pumped storage, which is very expensive to build, and only about 70% efficient.
Electric vehicles are pretty cool, though. Electric motorcycles are lapping the Isle of Man mountain course at over 100 mph now.
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