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14 comments on Beginnings of UK “Oil Age”
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14 comments on Beginnings of UK “Oil Age”
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Thanks very much for these graphs!
What they show is that Cambell's predictions for the maximum rate of Oil production is greater than what is needed to stablize the global climate temperature to a rise of 2 degrees or less.
This is generally regarded as requiring a 60% decrease in in CO2 output from 1990's levels, which would be 24 MPD by 2050.
In other words, we have to do better than Peak Oil would allow us. So it's not a matter of "if" Peak Oil will occur, it is matter of how can we do better than Peak Oil.
Ah but oil is a pretty small amount of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions. See this graph from the James Hansen article:
That shows the cumulative atmospheric concentration of CO2 from each fuel with a peak oil/gas very roughly around 2030. There just isn't enough oil/gas to get to past 400ppmv. Climate change is all about the coal and non-conventional oils in my mind. In fact I'm not convinced non-conventional oils are ever going to economically scale up so maybe it's really just about the coal.
Thanks very much! This is most informative.
This also seems to illustrate "Peak Coal" at 2050.
I am not sure what constitutes 'scale' on non conventional oil, in your mind, but I am fairly certain Canada will reach 5m b/d of Tar Sands oil, and Venezuela has equivalent capacity of its heavy oil *however* greater infrastructural challenges and political issues.
Whether Canada could get to 10 m b/d I don't know.
I would think, if oil was say, $120/bl, that 5-10m b/d of Coal-to-Oil and NGL would be quite likely.
In both cases, the GW consequences are pretty frightening. I believe the burning of a barrel of tar sands oil has, end-to-end, 3 times the CO2 emissions of a barrel of conventional oil.
Agree with your tack that coal is the primary GW issue (along with deforestation, non CO2 greenhouse gases, etc.).