Energy East Pipeline

[Elthy]

Also harvesting oil sands isnt realy good for the local enviroment, i would realy like to avoid those.

45 minutes ago, Jovus said:

And that's assuming that crude oil isn't a renewable resource, which isn't at all for sure.

Of course Oil is renewable. Problem is we are burning it about a million times faster than its regenerating.

[kunok]

It doesn't matter how much oil are still available, the important parameter is the energetic return ratio (literal translation from spanish maybe is not the most correct translation), if you use lots of energy only to extract a little multiplier of that energy in fuel, you are doing it wrong, more even if you are damaging the enviorement. The price is important, but is very dependent of speculation and other non "reality" based activities.
Currently a lot of renewable technologies have a better energetic return ratio than alternative methods of extracting oil, and the former are improving the ratio but the latter tends to decline. But I must admit that I don't know figures for sand oil in particular.

[mikegarrison]

21 hours ago, Ignath said:

Which tells me that the trend I was seeing the previous data was something of a recent event and the 'apparent' renewable fuel subsidy that was given in the past was related to corn-based ethanol production (a net loser in the long run, but a money-maker for the ethanol gas companies).

Politically it's actually more about pumping money into farmers.

[DerekL1963]

2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

2 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

Oil is nothing by hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and a few trace contaminants - and we know how to synthesize it's derivatives from nothing but those raw materials.   The problem, and the reason oil itself is so useful, is that the synthesis process is very energy intensive.   But once you have spare energy, that's no longer a problem.

That's like saying space launches are easy as long as you are willing to spend lots of money. Yes, we can make synthetic oil, but why burn real oil and then spend way more energy making synthetic oil?

No, it's nothing like saying space launches are easy as long as you are willing to spend a lot of money.  It's everything like saying renewable and/or non fossil energy sources can provide even in the complete absence of any input fossil hydrocarbons.    The original question was "is there anything we get from oil that we can't get elsewhere?", and the answer to that is a resounding NO.
 

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Practically, there will always be enough in the deep oceans and tar sands for plenty of (non-burning) oil uses- at least for the next century (minimum).

Yep.  And natural gas and coal tars can also provide a source of input hydrocarbons.  So can methane extracted from fermentation processes.   So can various plant and animal derivatives.   There's also work afoot on various methods of breaking down plastics into their source hydrocarbons.   And that's setting aside that we can start with constituents in their elemental forms.

[AngelLestat]

Well, I imagine that this pipeline could be used for hydrogen transport in the future. But yeah..  Canada is committing another huge mistake with its ongoing commitment to oil.

But this is a complex topic, is not so easy to analyze, because countries had founds.. but a big part of the infrastructure is made by private companies, and we have thousands of old companies which are still tied to the only thing they know to do.. which is oil applications. So It is no surprise to see that the wheel keeps rolling.

Take a look to this graphic:
http://knoema.es/rqaebad/cost-of-producing-a-barrel-of-crude-oil-by-country
The difference between the bar and the red point is the real cost of the oil barrel, Canada is paying a lot of extra money for its oil barrel instead buy it to foreign countries, this is because politicians get their head wash (by oil companies) on old energy strategies based in exploit and secure resources, because it can provide energy independent and in case the oil in the world run out, they will could have enough to sell.
Which is completely pointless, because if all that money would be put from the beginning in "true" renewables sources and infrastructure, they get the same energy independence and the revenue would be bigger (without counting the real economic cost of climate change and pollution or the environment). 

The European Community did in 2014-2015 a HUGE study on the cost of change to 100% renewable energy including the transport sector, the conclusion was that they just need to spent almost the same money they spent each year in their energy budget, so there is almost no extra cost for most of the countries, this can be done for 2050.

But well, hydrogen is a real alternative to all those companies that are tied to the oil industry, because they can produce hydrogen from fossil fuels with a 90% of co2 capture which they can also sell for high quality carbon fibers, they can sell h2 in the fuel stations, they can even produce locally in each station, people can produce in their houses too, at lower cost than storage that energy in batteries, the natural gas grid can be used as storage and to distribute h2 without need of trucks, because you can put a h2 filter in any exist that will only let pass h2 and not methane (in can be measured and charged separately)
H2 can be burned in residential homes or industry, reducing the amount of co2.

On 7/3/2016 at 4:39 AM, Darnok said:

Also once we go 100% to electric... how you are going to produce, so much power?

Wind and Solar can be enough, they are very competitive and cheap, this include to the whole transport sector, which the 70% will use h2.

On 7/3/2016 at 11:43 AM, shynung said:

Is there something, some sort of resource, that we cannot get from anywhere else but oil?

You will keep using oil to make plastics or tons of other products, but the problem with oil comes when you burn it.

On 7/3/2016 at 2:39 PM, Darnok said:

Wind is least reliable energy source from all we can use today.

And it sounds funny, but what is wind power plan impact on local environment?
It has to have some kind of impact since physics says we can't drain energy from environment and do not cause side effects/reaction/whatever you call it.

Wind is the energy source with less environmental impact of ALL, is the cleanest source of energy, even if you use the 100%, it does no affect the climate because the amount of power in the wind is hundreds of times more just in the surface, if you go with airborne technology that it will be the most economical form of wind, you can have much much more.  But it is a better solution to combine solar and wind, because solar produce only in day hours which is the moment of major consumption.

20 hours ago, fredinno said:

The enormous amount of transmission infrastructure, storage, and real estate (for wind and solar, unless you build on the ocean, which opens a whole new can of worms) makes renewables much more difficult than it seems- most particularly solar, waves, and wind, which are both intermittent and need lots of area.

That is wrong, you can storage any excess producing h2 when the energy is cheap that will be used in the transport sector or in the natural gas grid.
By excess I mean that your energy sources will  produce as minimum output enough to supply the electrical grid, and all the excess is used to make h2.

Edited March 8, 2016 by AngelLestat

[fredinno]

21 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

Well, I imagine that this pipeline could be used for hydrogen transport in the future. But yeah..  Canada is committing another huge mistake with its ongoing commitment to oil.

But this is a complex topic, is not so easy to analyze, because countries had founds.. but a big part of the infrastructure is made by private companies, and we have thousands of old companies which are still tied to the only thing they know to do.. which is oil applications. So It is no surprise to see that the wheel keeps rolling.

Take a look to this graphic:
http://knoema.es/rqaebad/cost-of-producing-a-barrel-of-crude-oil-by-country
The difference between the bar and the red point is the real cost of the oil barrel, Canada is paying a lot of extra money for its oil barrel instead buy it to foreign countries, this is because politicians get their head wash (by oil companies) on old energy strategies based in exploit and secure resources, because it can provide energy independent and in case the oil in the world run out, they will could have enough to sell.
Which is completely pointless, because if all that money would be put from the beginning in "true" renewables sources and infrastructure, they get the same energy independence and the revenue would be bigger (without counting the real economic cost of climate change and pollution or the environment). 

The European Community did in 2014-2015 a HUGE study on the cost of change to 100% renewable energy including the transport sector, the conclusion was that they just need to spent almost the same money they spent each year in their energy budget, so there is almost no extra cost for most of the countries, this can be done for 2050.

But well, hydrogen is a real alternative to all those companies that are tied to the oil industry, because they can produce hydrogen from fossil fuels with a 90% of co2 capture which they can also sell for high quality carbon fibers, they can sell h2 in the fuel stations, they can even produce locally in each station, people can produce in their houses too, at lower cost than storage that energy in batteries, the natural gas grid can be used as storage and to distribute h2 without need of trucks, because you can put a h2 filter in any exist that will only let pass h2 and not methane (in can be measured and charged separately)
H2 can be burned in residential homes or industry, reducing the amount of co2.

Wind and Solar can be enough, they are very competitive and cheap, this include to the whole transport sector, which the 70% will use h2.

You will keep using oil to make plastics or tons of other products, but the problem with oil comes when you burn it.

Wind is the energy source with less environmental impact of ALL, is the cleanest source of energy, even if you use the 100%, it does no affect the climate because the amount of power in the wind is hundreds of times more just in the surface, if you go with airborne technology that it will be the most economical form of wind, you can have much much more.  But it is a better solution to combine solar and wind, because solar produce only in day hours which is the moment of major consumption.

That is wrong, you can storage any excess producing h2 when the energy is cheap that will be used in the transport sector or in the natural gas grid.
By excess I mean that your energy sources will  produce as minimum output enough to supply the electrical grid, and all the excess is used to make h2.

The problem is that the near-term problem is that oil will be carried for the near future out of the tar sands- Electric/biofuel/hydrogen/hybrid tend to have a negative taboo due to their historically (and often current) bad performance. They also don't sell well, at ALL. http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/06/19/why-hybrid-car-sales-are-stalling.html

And there also is the paradox that if people use less oil via alternative cars,that just lets more people use more oil-using cars via lower oil prices. SUVs are still immensely popular, so this would require a cultural shift to trigger the change from oil to alternatives.

Seriously, let's face it, most people would rather have marginally better performance than have a car that produces 50% less CO2. It's not like carbon dioxide emmissions actually impact people directly on the short term.

And TBH, Canada needs to be able to access the global oil market with its tar sands oil- it's depending on it for the near-term future. It's dependant enough on it that low oil prices will likely cause economic recession here. It's already in recession in Alberta- it's entire industrial base is based off the assumption of high oil prices.

There is no easy way out.

21 hours ago, DerekL1963 said:

No, it's nothing like saying space launches are easy as long as you are willing to spend a lot of money.  It's everything like saying renewable and/or non fossil energy sources can provide even in the complete absence of any input fossil hydrocarbons.    The original question was "is there anything we get from oil that we can't get elsewhere?", and the answer to that is a resounding NO.
 

Yep.  And natural gas and coal tars can also provide a source of input hydrocarbons.  So can methane extracted from fermentation processes.   So can various plant and animal derivatives.   There's also work afoot on various methods of breaking down plastics into their source hydrocarbons.   And that's setting aside that we can start with constituents in their elemental forms.

Yep, and oil is cheaper to extract that stuff from.

[AngelLestat]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

The problem is that the near-term problem is that oil will be carried for the near future out of the tar sands- Electric/biofuel/hydrogen/hybrid tend to have a negative taboo due to their historically (and often current) bad performance. They also don't sell well, at ALL. http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/06/19/why-hybrid-car-sales-are-stalling.html

If they use that money to improve the renewable infrastructure, the cost of oil will rise due transportation cost, which is also good because you need to incentive people to change to renewables!

What you mean by bad performance?  The only thing bad on hydrogen vehicles right now is the lack of fuel stations or places to recharge.
The efficiency of hydrogen conversion does no matter if in the future would be equal or even lower cost than battery electricity.
When you compare co2 free technologies, efficiency does not matter, the only that matters is final cost.

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

And there also is the paradox that if people use less oil via alternative cars,that just lets more people use more oil-using cars via lower oil prices. SUVs are still immensely popular, so this would require a cultural shift to trigger the change from oil to alternatives.

No, because at the same time it will cost more to maintain the oil infrastructure, nobody will keep investing in oil companies which between other things it will increase the cost for those companies.

About your SUVs example, I guess you are confuse..
It does no matter your power requirements, from a cellphone to a Bagger 288, the only thing that matters is the time you need to provide that power and how fast you need to recharge it.

Batteries are cost efficient only for things that no require more than 3 hours of use AND with slow recharging needs.
Fuel cell are cost efficient for things that require more than 3 hours of use OR fast recharging needs. 

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

Seriously, let's face it, most people would rather have marginally better performance than have a car that produces 50% less CO2. It's not like carbon dioxide emmissions actually impact people directly on the short term.

And TBH, Canada needs to be able to access the global oil market with its tar sands oil- it's depending on it for the near-term future. It's dependant enough on it that low oil prices will likely cause economic recession here. It's already in recession in Alberta- it's entire industrial base is based off the assumption of high oil prices.

There is no easy way out.

The oil subsidies data that was shown few pages back, it only has into account the oil cost of electric generation just in USA, it does not have into account all the oil infrastructure and their subsidies for all the oil applications in the world.
So oil is still hard subsidized, but you dont need to force people to change..  people will always choose what is better for them, but if you keep subsidizing oil infrastructure instead to invest in renewables, you will go nowhere.
Each person can not see the overall cost that keep burning fossil fuels has, but governments can, they see their revenues go down due climate change all years and the money they lost being delay in a new power alternative.
  

[fredinno]

14 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

If they use that money to improve the renewable infrastructure, the cost of oil will rise due transportation cost, which is also good because you need to incentive people to change to renewables!

What you mean by bad performance?  The only thing bad on hydrogen vehicles right now is the lack of fuel stations or places to recharge.
The efficiency of hydrogen conversion does no matter if in the future would be equal or even lower cost than battery electricity.
When you compare co2 free technologies, efficiency does not matter, the only that matters is final cost.

No, because at the same time it will cost more to maintain the oil infrastructure, nobody will keep investing in oil companies which between other things it will increase the cost for those companies.

About your SUVs example, I guess you are confuse..
It does no matter your power requirements, from a cellphone to a Bagger 288, the only thing that matters is the time you need to provide that power and how fast you need to recharge it.

Batteries are cost efficient only for things that no require more than 3 hours of use AND with slow recharging needs.
Fuel cell are cost efficient for things that require more than 3 hours of use OR fast recharging needs. 

The oil subsidies data that was shown few pages back, it only has into account the oil cost of electric generation just in USA, it does not have into account all the oil infrastructure and their subsidies for all the oil applications in the world.
So oil is still hard subsidized, but you dont need to force people to change..  people will always choose what is better for them, but if you keep subsidizing oil infrastructure instead to invest in renewables, you will go nowhere.
Each person can not see the overall cost that keep burning fossil fuels has, but governments can, they see their revenues go down due climate change all years and the money they lost being delay in a new power alternative.
  

Governments have little incentive to reduce GHG emissions- unless the fossil fuel in question must be imported, then it is a problem, as importing is expensive. Canada, China, etc, can, and have, easily got away with not sticking to their GHG reduction goals.\

 

And you are using a gross oversimplification for Batteries vs fuel cells. Fuel Cells are often worse due to a lower density fraction. Batteries are more expensive, but are improving much faster. http://evobsession.com/hydrogen-cars-vs-electric-cars-detailed-comparison-efficiency/

 

Yeah, the "bad performance": http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/fsev/compare.pdf

"First and foremost is the limited range available with current battery technologies. The driving range between recharging using existing batteries is between 50 to 150 miles. New battery systems are being developed that will increase this range, and prototypes of these batteries have demonstrated ranges up to 200 miles between recharging."

The performance is still generally lower, as I said earlier. The cost of the new infrastructure for 3 new types of fuels, all competing in a post-oil world (a scenario that seems the most likely at this point, each fuel has advantages and disadvantages) is going to be expensive, and is a bill noone wants to pay for.

Gas prices are the key determining factor right now for people who want to use electric cars, and low oil prices can just throw that out the window.

 

TBH, Canada economically needs oil to go on for a while, or it will likely result in another regional depression, and possible liquidation of the Province of Alberta (who is in serious debt)

[AngelLestat]

I have another quote technique for you, press quote, inside the quote find the paragraph you want to quote, take the cursor to the final of that sentence and press many times "ENTER", the quote will cut just leaving your sentence quoted, you can do the same with the rest of the quote, erasing or cutting the quote in many parts as you like.

3 hours ago, fredinno said:

Governments have little incentive to reduce GHG emissions- unless the fossil fuel in question must be imported, then it is a problem, as importing is expensive. Canada, China, etc, can, and have, easily got away with not sticking to their GHG reduction goals.\

What is the difference?  Other countries that no produce oil pay less for the barrel than Canada which is actually a huge producer.
And dont get confuse with the current export price of a oil barrel from canada, because they are selling at that price to just maintain their infrastructure in case the oil cost rise in the future and to maintain independence. But if you take a look to the real cost of extraction + infrastructure development to achieve that, you will notice that the real cost of canadian oil barrel should be much higher.
As I said.. countries was fooled by old strategies of find and exploit a resource, in my country happens the same thing, they know that they have a really big oil reserve at X meters of deep, but exploit that will require an oil barrel cost of 60 dollars, now we are consuming our oil at 60 dollars to just maintain the infrastructure we already have, which increase the transport and energy cost that in consequence increase the cost of all our products.

3 hours ago, fredinno said:

And you are using a gross oversimplification for Batteries vs fuel cells. Fuel Cells are often worse due to a lower density fraction. Batteries are more expensive, but are improving much faster. http://evobsession.com/hydrogen-cars-vs-electric-cars-detailed-comparison-efficiency/

Fuel cell (tank+fuel cell+ electric motor) has lower density than all components of a normal diesel or otto engine.
Batteries has lower volume/energy density at ranges lower than 800km or power times of 10 hours vs fuel cells, but its weight is also much higher.
Also it does not matter that little difference in density if the price at that point (800km range) is 3 times higher than Fuel cells, no even mentioning the time it will take to recharge that.
Let me explain of other way:  a car with 250km range in just 1 or 2 years will cost the same if it use batteries or fuel cells, that is the line..
If you want to increase your range to 500km, with the fuel cell vehicle you just need to increase your tank size by a 30% (which double the volume), with batteries you need to buy double the amount and your weight increase a lot.  

Fuel cells is a new concept which many bloggers does not understand yet, so they just cling to Elon Musk words which is the most partial in this.
Right now hydrogen lacks of infrastructure, but that is already changing in many countries because that infrastructure can be paid almost by free taking into account the amount of money each country save in storage for renewable energy.

3 hours ago, fredinno said:

Yeah, the "bad performance": http://avt.inel.gov/pdf/fsev/compare.pdf

"First and foremost is the limited range available with current battery technologies. The driving range between recharging using existing batteries is between 50 to 150 miles. New battery systems are being developed that will increase this range, and prototypes of these batteries have demonstrated ranges up to 200 miles between recharging."

Batteries had 10 years of development advantage vs Fuel cells that are just starting now, each time is harder to improve a little more in battery technology, fuel cell by other hand, they are growing much faster now and they are receiving more investing, I follow both technologies of close with google alerts, I receive 4 times more news on fuel cells tech than in batteries.
In 3 years fuel cells reduce its size 3 times and lower its cost to half, a lot of new improvements are coming.
Platinum cost a 30% less than gold, when few years back cost was 30% higher than gold, and fuel cells each time use less platinum with the same efficiency.
Range and recharge time is not a problem of fuel cell vs normal fuels.

3 hours ago, fredinno said:

The performance is still generally lower, as I said earlier. The cost of the new infrastructure for 3 new types of fuels, all competing in a post-oil world (a scenario that seems the most likely at this point, each fuel has advantages and disadvantages) is going to be expensive, and is a bill noone wants to pay for.

Now you will start to see the age of hybrids, this will happen because oil infrastructure will not disappear from one day to the next,
-Full electric with batteries
-Fuel cell vehicles (which include oil, methane or h2) all using electric engines.
-Diesel engine + generator + some batteries (or hydraulics) and electric engines 
But in the future the oil engine will disappear, and we will have a 70% of the transport sector with fuel cell + h2 and the rest 30% with batteries.

3 hours ago, fredinno said:

Gas prices are the key determining factor right now for people who want to use electric cars, and low oil prices can just throw that out the window.

TBH, Canada economically needs oil to go on for a while, or it will likely result in another regional depression, and possible liquidation of the Province of Alberta (who is in serious debt)

There are strategies to make the change without hard economic impacts on local cities; after all, you are expending overall (country) much more money to not let go the oil infrastructure than make a sustainable clean change in the whole energy budget.
Of course that requires very intelligent people to plan and start that change with state policies to guide it.

[fredinno]

7 hours ago, AngelLestat said:

I have another quote technique for you, press quote, inside the quote find the paragraph you want to quote, take the cursor to the final of that sentence and press many times "ENTER", the quote will cut just leaving your sentence quoted, you can do the same with the rest of the quote, erasing or cutting the quote in many parts as you like.

What is the difference?  Other countries that no produce oil pay less for the barrel than Canada which is actually a huge producer.
And dont get confuse with the current export price of a oil barrel from canada, because they are selling at that price to just maintain their infrastructure in case the oil cost rise in the future and to maintain independence. But if you take a look to the real cost of extraction + infrastructure development to achieve that, you will notice that the real cost of canadian oil barrel should be much higher.
As I said.. countries was fooled by old strategies of find and exploit a resource, in my country happens the same thing, they know that they have a really big oil reserve at X meters of deep, but exploit that will require an oil barrel cost of 60 dollars, now we are consuming our oil at 60 dollars to just maintain the infrastructure we already have, which increase the transport and energy cost that in consequence increase the cost of all our products.

Fuel cell (tank+fuel cell+ electric motor) has lower density than all components of a normal diesel or otto engine.
Batteries has lower volume/energy density at ranges lower than 800km or power times of 10 hours vs fuel cells, but its weight is also much higher.
Also it does not matter that little difference in density if the price at that point (800km range) is 3 times higher than Fuel cells, no even mentioning the time it will take to recharge that.
Let me explain of other way:  a car with 250km range in just 1 or 2 years will cost the same if it use batteries or fuel cells, that is the line..
If you want to increase your range to 500km, with the fuel cell vehicle you just need to increase your tank size by a 30% (which double the volume), with batteries you need to buy double the amount and your weight increase a lot.  

Fuel cells is a new concept which many bloggers does not understand yet, so they just cling to Elon Musk words which is the most partial in this.
Right now hydrogen lacks of infrastructure, but that is already changing in many countries because that infrastructure can be paid almost by free taking into account the amount of money each country save in storage for renewable energy.

Batteries had 10 years of development advantage vs Fuel cells that are just starting now, each time is harder to improve a little more in battery technology, fuel cell by other hand, they are growing much faster now and they are receiving more investing, I follow both technologies of close with google alerts, I receive 4 times more news on fuel cells tech than in batteries.
In 3 years fuel cells reduce its size 3 times and lower its cost to half, a lot of new improvements are coming.
Platinum cost a 30% less than gold, when few years back cost was 30% higher than gold, and fuel cells each time use less platinum with the same efficiency.
Range and recharge time is not a problem of fuel cell vs normal fuels.

Now you will start to see the age of hybrids, this will happen because oil infrastructure will not disappear from one day to the next,
-Full electric with batteries
-Fuel cell vehicles (which include oil, methane or h2) all using electric engines.
-Diesel engine + generator + some batteries (or hydraulics) and electric engines 
But in the future the oil engine will disappear, and we will have a 70% of the transport sector with fuel cell + h2 and the rest 30% with batteries.

There are strategies to make the change without hard economic impacts on local cities; after all, you are expending overall (country) much more money to not let go the oil infrastructure than make a sustainable clean change in the whole energy budget.
Of course that requires very intelligent people to plan and start that change with state policies to guide it.

Yes, if it can't get up the money to keep the infrastructure up, then that means Canada's economy is in real trouble. The oil prices are rising again, as shale oil production collapses (you need to constantly make new wells to make this possible)

Also, Hydrogen is most often made with Natural gas right now, so a "clean" H2 production line would require a LOT more new infrastructure on the production side too. Batteries are already produced in huge amounts. Again, here is a list of new battery types under development: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/130380-future-batteries-coming-soon-charge-in-seconds-last-months-and-power-over-the-air Batteries also have a net 73-75% source to wheels efficiency compared to 60% for fuel cells, and both involving current vehicular systems demonstrated.

Bullsh*t, fuel cells have been used since Gemini. Batteries are also used in an insane amount of things compared to fuel cells, the total development money is far higher- likely batteries have reached a point where higher and higher efficiency is more difficult to obtain.

Yes, the oil engine will likely disappear. When that happens is up to serious question. After all, electric renewables are much more viable due to not being limited to energy density, and have had far more investment, and only now is it starting to become apparent that it will likely become more economical than fossil fuels within a few decades, accounting for new technology in both areas. I'm going to expect a conversion time from oil to alternative vehicles from 2050-2060, which coincides with the likely decline of oil production due to lack of supply (accounting for unconventional oil).

Lastly, hybrids have been stagnating. http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/06/19/why-hybrid-car-sales-are-stalling.html

Wow, way to show optimism. Good luck on that. You and I would wish it's that easy.

 

[Spaceception]

On 3/6/2016 at 0:42 AM, Nibb31 said:

We should be trying to rely less on burning stuff for producing power, rather than trying to find ways to burn more stuff.

Renewables ftw!

[AngelLestat]

4 hours ago, fredinno said:

Yes, if it can't get up the money to keep the infrastructure up, then that means Canada's economy is in real trouble. The oil prices are rising again, as shale oil production collapses (you need to constantly make new wells to make this possible)

why it will go down if you are investing the money in something with more revenue???  Even from 2013  economic consultants are saying that renewable energy has more revenue and lower risks than fossil fuels, from that year wind and solar drop their prices around 20%.
The oil prices will stay in an average of 30 to 40 dollars, because they are already losing a lot of ground vs renewable, in fact they drop the prices just to fight the change and to avoid new fossil reserves to be exploit it, because they know that the oil time is reaching its end, so they need to sell most of the oil before that happen.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-14/solar-and-wind-just-did-the-unthinkable  (take a look to the video)

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/04/bloomberg-news-renewables-overtake-fossil-fuels.html

If the people who only cares about win more money are telling you that renewables are the way to go, why you want to go in the opposite direction?
But if you dont want to hear me or to my sources, hear your own people (2 days ago):
https://ipolitics.ca/2016/03/09/fossil-fuels-probably-dead-says-canadian-pacific-railway-ceo-hunter-harrison/

Quote

Also, Hydrogen is most often made with Natural gas right now, so a "clean" H2 production line would require a LOT more new infrastructure on the production side too.

You are missing the huge change and revolution that is happening with hydrogen in many countries, Japan is decided to jump to a hydrogen economy, they will produce hydrogen from wind in fukushima (nobody left there, so nobody will complain about wind turbines), they will produce hydrogen also from a new type of mineral, the hydrogen fuel cell cars cost around 45000 dollars are already subsidized by the government for a selling price of 10000 dollars. Many companies are already lessing these cars and they will produce its own hydrogen, which they will get paid to help in the storage.
Germany goes in the same route, california, iceland, Denmark, taiwan, UK and many other countries, all seek a future hydrogen economy.
Current hydrogen production is already in the past, now you have cheap methods to produce hydrogen from methane capturing the co2, and electrolysis or reversible fuel cells are dropping cost at super high rate.
 

Quote

Batteries are already produced in huge amounts. Again, here is a list of new battery types under development: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/130380-future-batteries-coming-soon-charge-in-seconds-last-months-and-power-over-the-air Batteries also have a net 73-75% source to wheels efficiency compared to 60% for fuel cells, and both involving current vehicular systems demonstrated.

You said it, batteries are produced in huge amounts and still its cost is very high..   Elon Musk gigafactory will double the world production and this will be just enough to reduce the batteries cost by 25%.
About those air batteries are still "air".  I told you.. there is no news on renewable energy that I did not read before, that air battery it seems it will be like fusion, always 10 years ahead, the same with graphene layers able to split the moisture in the air to increase the range of fuel cell cars by a lot, it was tested in laboratory, but until you have a commercial application and it works in real conditions is always 10 years ahead or more.
Batteries now has 80% to wheels efficiency, electrolysis 82% (normal) and fuel cells in current cars 55%, they are still way below its practical efficiency limit, for electrolysis 90% is easy achievable in the next 2 years, it can reach 120% if it takes waste heat from external process, fuel cells has its practical limit at 80%. 
But as I said.. it does not matter efficiency when you compare clean energy sources..  only the final cost, and h2 can have much lower cost because it helps to storage 

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Bullsh*t, fuel cells have been used since Gemini. Batteries are also used in an insane amount of things compared to fuel cells, the total development money is far higher- likely batteries have reached a point where higher and higher efficiency is more difficult to obtain.

And batteries exist since 1780...
But it does not matter, because batteries had their big investments and development push in the last 15 to 20 years, fuel cell and electrolysis had their incentive push just 5 years ago.
About the efficiency is the same that I say.. they will no keep improving so fast as before, but you will see that in fuel cells.

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 After all, electric renewables are much more viable due to not being limited to energy density, and have had far more investment

What you mean?   electric renewables?    And why energy density is so important for you that you prefer to ignore cost, weight and recharge time.

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and only now is it starting to become apparent that it will likely become more economical than fossil fuels within a few decades, accounting for new technology in both areas. I'm going to expect a conversion time from oil to alternative vehicles from 2050-2060, which coincides with the likely decline of oil production due to lack of supply (accounting for unconventional oil).

In the whole world, yeah.. but many countries will achieve that just for the 2030.

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Lastly, hybrids have been stagnating. http://www.thestar.com/business/2015/06/19/why-hybrid-car-sales-are-stalling.html

Wow, way to show optimism. Good luck on that. You and I would wish it's that easy.

I show you bloomberg and you show me "thestar.com"?  Is like talk about climate vs weather.
Sales, stocks and many other things goes down and up, but the overall trend is what it matters.
Each time you will see more and more Hybrid engines, just make a quick search on google with news and you will realize of that.
 

Edited March 11, 2016 by AngelLestat