DrumBeat: April 7, 2007
Posted by Leanan on April 7, 2007 - 8:36am
Topic: Miscellaneous
A Discussion on the GAO Report: Crude Oil - Uncertainty about Future Oil supply Makes It Important to Develop a Strategy for Addressing a Peak and Decline in Oil Production. Matt Simmons is the guest.
Pioneering Welsh town begins the transition to a life without oil
There is, as the ads say, no Plan B. The age of cheap oil is drawing to a close, climate change already threatens, and politicians dither. But the people of Lampeter, a small community in the middle of rural Wales, gathered together earlier this week to mobilise for a new war effort. They decided to plan their "energy descent".
Energy Crossroads: A burning need to change course - a documentary about peak oil and climate change
Peak Moment Television presents five new online videos
Moment Television has produced five new online videos focusing on community localization topics from local currency to electric cars, plus a conversation with Richard Heinberg.
Russia dismisses ‘gas Opec’ suggestions at Doha meeting
Russia’s energy minister yesterday poured scorn on suggestions that gas exporters would announce a “gas Opec” at a meeting in Doha next week, pledging that Russia would never take part in such an organisation.
US repeats opposition to Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline
The United States says it is ready to help Pakistan get over its energy crisis through "financial and technical support", but remains opposed to the $7-billion Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project to bring gas to the Indian sub-continent.
Tajikistan: Subsidies for the Poor Go up
The Tajik government has vowed to continue offering gas and electricity subsidies to low-income families, but NBCentralAsia observers say it will not make much difference if energy supplies continue to be erratic.
Bangladesh - Energy crisis: Contemplating some possible way-out
Bangladesh, geographically, is one of the smallest as well as densely populated countries in the world. Nonetheless, it is blessed with natural resources like coal and gas that are of prime importance as raw materials for electricity generation. Nation's economic emancipation greatly depends on the development and use of these energy sources.
Kenya: State Oil Firm to Ferry Products By Road
Government has allowed oil market to transport petroleum products by road from Kipevu Oil Storage Facility in Mombasa to stem fuel shortage upcountry.Due to limited capacity of Mombasa-Nairobi pipeline, release of petroleum products from the storage has failed to meet demand leading to shortage around the country.
Turkey suspends pipeline talks with GDF, says decision not final
Turkey has suspended talks with Gaz de France (GDF) over the proposed acquisition by the French group of a stake in a major gas pipeline project, but the decision is not final, a foreign ministry official said Friday.
China and Japan struggle to narrow energy divide
China and Japan have bathed their bruised ties with soothing rhetoric ahead of a visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, but they remain far apart in settling energy disputes that dog the relationship.
Sri Lanka: Work on Upper Kotmale second phase begins
Minister Seneviratne said that the project would be one of the two options available to face a possible power crisis in the near future, the other being the Norochcholai Coal Power Plant which would be fully operated by 2012 adding 900 MW to the national grid.
Guatemala entices Indian oil PSUs
The government wants state-run oil companies Indian Oil, Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum to participate in a refinery-cum-power project in Guatemala.
Ghana: Energy cost bites industry hard
Despite the obvious increase in the cost of production of most local manufacturing companies due to the load shedding exercise, they are scared to increase the prices of their goods to absolve the additional cost.
Australia already on the 'downside' of Peak Oil
Australia has already peaked as an oil producer, MGSM Professor John Mathews said today. But the continued emphasis on fossil fuels – attempts at discovery and further infrastructure investment – mean that Australian companies are missing out on important business opportunities in renewable energies and biofuels.
Ottawa set to announce 'mandatory' pollution cuts
Ottawa is set to announce stricter limits on greenhouse gas emissions following the release of a UN report that warned climate change will have a grim impact this century, the environment minister said Friday.
Forecaster blasts Gore on global warming
A top hurricane forecaster called Al Gore "a gross alarmist" Friday for making an Oscar-winning documentary about global warming."He's one of these guys that preaches the end of the world type of things. I think he's doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about," Dr. William Gray said in an interview with The Associated Press at the National Hurricane Conference in New Orleans, where he delivered the closing speech.
Climate refugees -- the growing army without a name
"According to some estimates, there are already almost as many environmentally displaced people on the planet as traditional refugees," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)."As the impacts of climate change strike home, the numbers are likely to rise considerably, possibly as high as 50 million by 2010," de Boer said on Friday on the sidelines of a meeting in Brussels of the UN's top climate panel.
Jeb Bush part of global trio touting ethanol
An unlikely international trio is making the biofuels pitch for Latin America by taking on Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, and attacking U.S. tariffs on ethanol.
Peak Coal and Mountaintop Removal
Lucky for us: There may not be as much coal left as the industry has claimed.
John Edwards embraces enviro politics, a little too warmly
Sure everyone loves to drive, and it would be political suicide to say what really needs to be done -- bring an end to the automobile's dominance of transportation. But at least Edwards could avoid singing the praises of the SUV, if not the car itself. Why can't someone call for a resurrection of passenger rail in this country. James Kunstler suggests that restoring America's once glorious rail era ("we used to have a passenger rail network that was the envy of the world, now it would shame Bulgaria") would go a long way toward boosting the nation's confidence in our ability to reshape the country along environmental lines. And he's right. "A Better Amtrak" isn't exactly a winner of a campaign slogan, but I'm sure Edwards' people could come up with something.
Refiners boosting diesel fuel output in chase of profits - Usage growth rate outpacing gasoline
Rising global demand for diesel is reshaping the U.S. oil refining industry.While most U.S. motorists pay scant attention to the high price of the trucking fuel when filling up their cars with gasoline, refiners have taken note and are moving to boost capacity for the production of diesel. With long-distance freight hauling increasing steadily in the U.S., and diesel consumption in Europe and Asia growing even faster, fuel producers are looking to diesel for profit growth as the race to supply the U.S. gasoline market gets more competitive.
As population grows, so does responsibility
That's why we're looking at coal, a readily available, relatively inexpensive fuel source that can be used cleanly and safely to generate electricity with new technology that is transforming the industry. The proposed FPL Glades Power Park will be one of the cleanest coal plants in the world.
The amount of money spent on reconstruction is not at all trifling. It is equal or greater than the money in inflation-adjusted dollars spent by the United States on restoring post-Nazi Europe under the Marshall Plan. There are, of course, clear differences between the Iraqi and German experience, as there was less violence and the Europeans were allowed to plan their own reconstruction. The grant money was spent on local companies, not U.S. companies. Most of the money went to fertilizer, food, fuel, raw materials, and semi-manufactured products, not for gigantic building projects.
Asphalt Price Pleases Springdale Official
John Reeves, owner of Asphalt and Fuel Supply in Tulsa, Okla., said suppliers and users of asphalt products stocked up at the end of 2006, pushing the price artificially higher. The supply and price of oil products remained better than expected."It was a false shortage," Reeves said. "People bought too much and the demand has decreased."
According to our best, most realistic estimates, here’s how things stand globally:Oil: peaking some time in the next three years, possibly already past the peak.
Gas: peaking some time in the next three to thirteen years.
Coal: peaking some time in the next thirteen years.
Nuclear: probably peaking some time in the next ten years, with lots of variables, but its use won’t increase substantially.
A question on Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel - I have read comments that it has less BTU energy per unit volume (?) than the older formulation, and that it is closer to #1 diesel. Can anyone verify this? The comment I read said it was 1/4 fewer BTUs, and this would be significant. You would think it would have to increase fuel consumption if true.
Sulfur is actually a fairly decent fuel (minor pollution problem with the exhaust, but if the price is right ...)
I am not sure which has more specific energy per volume; sulfur or diesel. but Road diesel in the US has been limited to 0.5% sulfur for over a decade. So the delta from 0.5% to 0.015% sulfur cannot be large.
The most common way to remove sulfur (AFAIK) is to bubble hydrogen through it, creating H2S (rotten egg gas). This also reacts with some few oil molecules and tends to shorten them (shorter > less dense > less energy/volume). A minor effect other than a reduction in lubrication. (#1 diesel has very low lubrication). Additives are supposed to bring the lubrication back up to "acceptable" levels.
I add a cetane improver to my 1982 M-B 240D :-) which also improves lubrication.
I could believe a 1% reduction in specific energy/volume (don't know) but not more.
Best Hopes,
Alan
Alan, the acetane improver do you have a brand name? My r-hand man here handed me a bootle of a fuel additive that is supposed to give @20% increased fuel economy and only adds 3% to the price per gallon. I want to research this as the economics play out very well for our trucks.
I also use slick 50 oil additive which I think saved my engine during a oil loss where I had to drive 8 mi. with intermittent oil pressure.
Thanks D
I use by "Diesel Kleen Cetane Boost" by Power Service.
From memory, Walmart claims slightly over a 1% gain in fuel economy from diesel fuel additives. If you have a fleet, trying to talk to one of their truck manahers. etc. would be a good idea.
Checking tire pressure alos helps, as well as synthetic lubricants (everything from wheel grease to differential fluid to transmission fluid is WELL worth it given small volumes and long life. Engine oil is questionable).
Also, just cleaning dirt off and waxing helps !
Best Hopes,
Alan
It's actually 500 ppm (so called low sulfur diesel) or 0.05% to 15 ppm for ULSD (0.0015%). I have not noticed any mileage differences between LSD and ULSD, although I do see a ~5-6% (2-3 mpg) hit going from (U)LSD to bio. Bio has about 10% lower energy density than diesel, but significantly higher cetane and better lubricity.
Keep in mind that production of ultra-low-sulfur diesel also requires a bunch of natural gas, to produce hydrogen, to remove the sulfur. In other words, more energy invested per BTU delivered.
Re: Kenya
I wonder how much fuel they'll be able to get to Nairobi and Kisumu by road. The roads are pretty bad and those big trucks drive slowly. I would guess that it would take one of those trucks about 14 hours from Mombasa on the coast to Nairobi. And then another 10 hours to get to Kisumu. Those are probably conservative estimates.
It's strange to hear of these shortages. There weren't any problems when I was there about a year and half ago, though people were beginning to question why the price of oil was going up. The only answer at the time was "stronger demand from China".
Toronto Plans 60+ km of Light Rail over 15 Years !
Toronto city officials have announced a $6 billion dollar plan to build an ambitious light rapid transit network that will include seven rail lines that will crisscross the city.
"No Torontonian should be disadvantaged because they don't own a car," TTC chairman Adam Giambrone said on Friday. "Everybody should be able to get to every corner of the city."
Giambrone says the 15-year plan would cost the city about $400 million each year. The seven rail lines would include about 120 kilometres of track... 250 Light Rail Vehicles...
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20070316/ttc_announcement...
This, in addition to an excellent streetcar system and a couple of subways.
I guess this means less tar sands oil for them and more for the US ! :-P
Best Hopes,
Alan
Alan;
with regards to the Campaign Slogan that was NOT recommended for John Edwards, 'A New Amtrak', or some such.. Have you heard or do you have a proposed business model to counter the attitudes around Amtrak's current (possibly perceived..) systemic problems, and the Monopolistic abuses of earlier railway companies, both of which seem to effectively make Rail such an unattractive option for a broad swath of people across the political spectrum?
It is such a massive piece of infrastructure, what are some useful models possibly from around the world that can make the development of a lot of rail into a healthy part of the system, without the glint of 'inappropriate levels of Gov't Buraucracy' or Corporate Monopoly?
Regards,
Bob Fiske
The Interurban, Bob. The Portland Railroads. There was a whole slew of private and municipal transportation companies right here in Maine.
One of the things that would be useful would be legislation tailored specifically to encourage muni or community trusts for transportation, food, manufacturing. Massachusetts did something along the lines of enabling communities to come up with their own "utility standard offer". That being noted, it could also be done within the corporate charter - various restrictions on ownership, etc.... But doing it through the legislative process to charter these trusts like the old Blues is probably more robust. Ownership must stay in the community.
cfm in Gray, ME
Thanks!
I'll have to read up on the Portland systems. It would probably be feasible to run a commuter (w/freight?) line from Portland to Augusta, considering the professional traffic between them, too.
Bob
Hi i am from Serbia and first just want to apologize for my weird English.
I learned it from movies as a kid.
I want to give a proposal. We live in world of economics for hundreds of years and it matters in ours everyday lives. Price off oil achieved its anti peak in 1998, 8 dollars per barell, my country was at that moment at war with world so i didn't got it, but seems to me that economy was at its highest point at that time. I believe we are on downslope ever since. It makes sense, money is what aloud s you to buy more and more toys, all made from plastic, metal, and lots of fossil fuel consumed energy don't forget that much more than half of produced fuel is used in industry. So when the price jumps so does products, it cost more to produce as simple as that. So we are in effective peak oil scenario all the way back to 1998. its almost ten years sins it hit. Flow dosent mater, its a mater of money sorry for this “Cornucopian” point of view but i just wanted to point out this fact.
I think we are headed towards economic crash caused by high oil price stress.
After that?
Probably a die off.
How strange this new land would be, high unemployment, homeless people and more and more cops at the streets. Violent clashes with police, looting and then nothing. Food will be gone in just a few days, hunger is very strong motivation.
Happy holidays from Serbia and sorry again for my poor English.
Hi sorry to be off topic .
http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM6avr07.pdf
This is the latest UN Global Climate change report.
BTW rale, don't worry about weird English, I love it that's why i cum here now. 8$ oil? I couldn't remember it but it sure looks low on this graph at that time even in current dollars:
http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1947.gif
I also don't think your cornucopian idea of die off misplaced, as I am sure the planet will, at days end, not become Venusian.
Ok my bad.
The price was 12.72$ in 1998 dollars, value is around 15$ for inflation adjusted price. 8$ was in 1864 (100$ in new dollars). Data comes from “BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2006”
And if i remember Clinton's era is marked as a “good years” and it was a time of budget sufficit in US.
If you are interested for totally destroyed country by lack of fuel (and any imported goods) you could check the last 15 years of Serbia's history. In the beginning of 1992 (may) the security council voted for complete ban of any economic activity with the outside world (like Cuba only worse). Only oil we had was here in Vojvodina, the place i live. The regime choose d to show the world how smart we are, that one system with population of 10 000 000 (Bosnian Serbs include t) can create a economic miracle. Miloshevic claimed that this is just a minor difficulty on our way to Swedish standard. They planed to do this by printing money and giving it to industry in order to push-start the economy. Result was the greatest inflashion ever recorded. With a aide of new printing press we managed to become nation of billionaires. It was a joke, you res eve a pay which you must change in anything solid, if you are quick you can get 80 DM. After few days the value was 5 marks or less. Petrol was bought on the streets, in plastic bottles. It was officially illegal to do this but those who were on black market helped life to continue. I don't know how much oil we had in those days, maybe less than a half normal.
We now live normal, more or less. But im afraid that soon there would be another crisis. This time there wont be food from international aide agencies and times would be very easter islands type. That is what bugs me. This is die off im a fraid.
About climate, when we stop with pollution nature would return in its full glory in short time. Maybe different but healthy.
Rale, I think the price of oil bottomed in 1999 at $10/barrel. And I don't think the global economy has been going down since. It depends on where you live. The Indian and Chinese middle classes have never had it better. But in general I think you are right. As oil becomes more and more expensive and scarce, life will get harder.
Skipping the details, and from my semi - knowledge, that all makes sense, and makes an important point.
Ppl tend to forget the break up of Yugoslavia, its media and ‘military’ success, and the economic and energetic consequences for the ppl who live there, the intertwining of sanctions, war, invasion, and ‘oil’ as well as wider political considerations such as the extension of the EU and NATO (indirectly to be sure.)
It is never quoted as an example (in the mainstream) except as a success for Clintonian foreign policy (to make it short.)
rale
My USE of English is pretty bad, as I was criticizing my poor memory about the value of oil in 1998 and not your figures, and I agree with you... when we stop with pollution nature would return in its full glory in short time. Maybe different but healthy. and I would like to hear what you have to say on that subject.
We tend to drink our own bath water here, so something fresh from you would be great.
Rale,
Thanks for posting. I think a lot of us are worried about the same things you are. The higher prices of oil are starting have already started to hit some of the poorer countries, but it is likely that the richer countries will be feeling the effects in not too long as well.
None of us have found complete solutions to the problems. But we are trying to look for things that would help such as local food production in sustainable ways. We can also try to find things to be happy about now - our friends, our families, ways we can help ourselves and others, favorable weather.
Even if we cannot solve the problems, we can at least focus our thoughts in ways that don't make us depressed now.
Hello Rale, your english is good. You even spelled 'weird' right which most english speakers get wrong.
Could you provide evidence that the world economy peaked in 1998 as you say? I believe the world economy has grown significantly since then. For instance, many people in Asia and Eastern Europe have more money and better economies now than then.
Hi Keith,
Even if the economy has increased, so has the population as well as upward flow of capital and resources. It's just an old standard tune being played, the rich get richer and the poor?, well who cares.
I don't think there can be any solution to our problems until there is some equality,or at least the attempt at it, do you?
Serbia probably has the skills and experience to survive any social disruption, as this photo of the Arkans mobile die-off unit at work shows. Note the cool sunglasses & the cigarette. The dead woman was pregnant by the way.
I find this offensive. Could it be removed?
Yes it could Gail, by a redistribution of wealth.
Sorry about going all political.
Gail,
I find it disturbing but having it removed is akin to having pictures of the concentration camps removed from sites that discuss World War II.
Having it removed is "wrong" on multiple levels, imho.
I too find this incident offensive.
The image has haunted me ever since I saw it some years ago,
We sometimes need reminders ... especially in forums which discuss "Die Off" like it was a casual walk in the park.
I find this offensive.
Yeah! So?
NO CENSORSHIP!!!
Gail...if you use Firefox and Ad-Block, you can block any image with a click.
When unemployment reach some 50% you have plenty of people with nothing to loose and loot to have. The fact they claimed its for good of Serbian nation dosent make them any less criminal they are. Most people here were normal, non warrior type. They were the victims of insane nationalism brought by incompetent dictators who cared only about power and nothing else.
In extreme situation people do extreme tings.
Peak oils effects could very well lai hand in hand with far right or far left, it would be great opportunity for extremist to gain foot in wider public, only need to claim that Mexicans did it (remember Germany in 30-s).
What is your opinion on the regime changes in the decade after '89? How did the different regimes compare? Where there certain keypoints where (identifiably) wrong or right choices have been made?
The United States may be different in certain respects with regards toward industry. Most industry in the US is powered by electricity and very little of our electricity is fueled by oil. It is just a guess but I once heard that 1/2 of our rail and truck traffic is for transporting food which would mean 1/2 of our diesel fuel is used to transport food. Biodiesel has a much better EROEI than ethanol plus creating producing diesel fuel from waste materials via thermal processes is much easier than producing a gasoline substitute.
Some areas of the US have had high levels of unemployment and homelessness for decades and riots are still quite rare. What few riots we've had were usually instigated by police incompetence. Unlike civilized countries the police in the US are mostly financed on the local level. This means the police forces don't pay enough to attract the enough people of the higher intelligence level needed for the job. Therefore areas with high unemployment and homelessness have fewer policemen per capita than the rich suburbs. Ironically areas with high levels of homelessness usually have higher levels of empty dwellings. Its all about ability to pay in America despite what the Country Club Cry-babies say about this being a welfare state.
Hello Rale! Welcome to The Oil Drum! Don't worry about your English, I'm sure very few Americans can do as well as you writing Serbian or any other European language.
I also believe that most people do not care about the actual date of peak oil production, but instead care about the price to them of the products that they use and the availability. Although I see a die off as not very likely, you can find many people who hold your views on William Kunstler's website dieoff.com.
I am curious how you found The Oil Drum. Were you referred by another person, did you find us through a search engine? Also, how old are you, what is your occupation?
I am 55, I work in oil and gas exploration in the United States, I was referred to the site by an old friend who is in oil and gas exploration and was one of the founders of ASPO USA.
Saw this report/analysis by Juan Cole in today's Informed Comment. May affect the oil markets soon.
The Rumayla fields have 500 wellheads and produce most of the 1.8 million barrels a day of petroleum that currently support the Iraqi economy. The northern Kirkuk fields most often cannot export at all, because the pipeline to Ceyhan in Turkey constantly gets blown up by Sunni Arab guerrillas. If the Rumayla pipelines start being routinely targeted by Shiite militiamen in the south, it might spell the end of the Iraqi government of Nuri al-Maliki. It is not as if the government takes in much revenue from taxes, or has any great prospect of doing so. This pipeline bombing has been little noticed, but it is very important if it signals the beginning of a series of such attacks.
http://www.juancole.com/
So we should watch for a further decrease of "Saudi" oil output as a result? :-)
We may want to quibble a little with the details, but Chris Nelder in Energy and Capital pretty much sums our plight in No Time to Lose above. Perhaps things will be somewhat better than he says, but what he is saying is certainly a possible outcome. Also, he doesn't include in his list fresh water shortages and climate change. These may further add to our problems.
I wonder if this kind of message now will start filtering out - first on the internet, then into mainstream media. It is easy to get worried.
Hi Gail,
I do not know where Chris Nelder gets his information nuclear from, as he doesnt say, but here are three sites and a statement by someone who, as well, I have never heard of before.
The effort made thus far in uranium exploration is absolutely negligible compared to the many hundreds of billions (trillions?) of dollars that has been invested in oil and gas exploration, technology development, and extraction, etc… As the history of oil and gas shows, as these investments are made, more and more reserves are found. As discussed earlier, we stopped exploring for new uranium deposits relatively soon after we started looking, since we rapidly found “all we need”, due to sluggish nuclear expansion and the glut of uranium from decommissioned weapons. Now, even the majority of known sites and mines lay idle due to the low ore price (although this is starting to change James Hopf, Nuclear Engineer
http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/uranium.html
http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2006/uranium_resources.html
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/cnf_sectionG.htm#uranium_supply
I think there could be a little more openness about nuclear power. There are not all that many options open, other than a good and bloody die off for a cure, are there?
I agree the nuclear part of his analysis may quite possibly be overstated.
But it is difficult to be hugely optimistic about nuclear. I understand that quite a few nuclear facilities now are sufficiently aged that we need to be talking about replacing them. If we have to both replace old facilities and add new, there will be a huge amount of investment involved - at a time when both oil and natural gas are likely to become less plentiful, so everything is becoming more difficult.
There are also the issues of waste disposal and of safety, if we are living in a world that is quite different than today.
IIUC, the major problems are neutron embrittlement of the reactor vessels and corrosion of the steam generators (in PWR's). Annealing the vessels will give them decades of additional life, and the steam generators aren't overly complex (tube-in-shell, I believe) and can be replaced or perhaps rebuilt.
You will not have to replace:
If we can even get a couple more decades out of a plant by refurbishing it, that's a whole 5 units a year required to keep them all going.
If the climatologists are right, the arid zones are going to get even more so for quite a while. We could park the high-level waste in dry casks in Nevada for a couple of centuries and not have to worry about it; the only thing to disturb it would be us.
More than overstated, the nuclear analysis was completely mistaken. We have debated this frequently in other threads on this site. There are people who just want to believe nuclear has no future and are spreading all kinds of disinformation about it. The best information I have seen seems to suggest that current nuclear plants have EROEIs of about 100 and that there is about one trillion tons of recoverable Uranium in the world's shallow crust (each reactor needs 200 tons/yr), enough for at least thousands of years at dramatically increased levels of usage. If we wanted to and were willing to make the investment, we could supply most of the world's energy from nuclear, indefinitely. The waste issue and the other frequently stated objections the critics throw out are much less real problems than the critics would have you believe.
For some reason there is this intense aversion to fission that to me defies logic and my understanding. It's as if people want to have this huge die-off to return the world to some sort of imagined bucolic agricultural state and they see the prospects of nuclear ruining their plans. They seem completely blind to how the catastrophe of a massive die-off would wreck the world. Imagine that picture you objected to above repeated billions of times around the world in the near future.
Actually I'm more worried about food than electricity.
Sterling. as an engineer I say- right, everything you say is probably true- but then I start to think as an ordinary human being and say to myself- well, if I had some money and wanted to get some energy, wouldn't I get more for less, and more quickly, by simply wasting less? And then there's all the easy stuff one can do with solar and natural swings of temp, like for example, summer water heating, and winter food cooling.
What could more stupid than using a nuke to run a fridge inside a warm house when it is frigid outside?
Right, using coal to run a fridge when it is frigid outside would be even more stupid. So?
Ah, well. Every time I go around this circle I come to the same point-just make the price of energy reflect the full true cost, and all will be well. So, for example, that coal kilowatt hour will cost maybe 4 times as much- at least- as the cost of that little heat pipe connecting the fridge to the winter blasts.
Anyhow, I am having a lot of fun thinking up a great solar power widget that is gonna save humanity. But then I get to wondering if humanity is what I want to save. Problems. Problems.
If you think about this for a second, as an engineer, its not stupid at all; Especially if the house uses electric heat to begin with.
Sorry to be late to the party. I just discovered this thread.
My unhopeful forecast for nuclear energy is not because I "just want to believe nuclear has no future" or due to an "intense aversion to fission." It's because I've looked at some data and considered the practical realities of nuke plants and concluded that it's just not much of an answer to the peak oil problem. It's certainly no panacea.
As I have replied to Sterling in private email, regarding http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2323:
I spent several hours reading most of that thread and the comments, and what I learned from it is that there is a great deal of debate without much in the way of peer-reviewed data. The two ends of the debate are too far apart for me to figure out exactly what I think is probable, at this point. In particular I'm extremely suspicious about the data offered for the true costs (and CO2 emissions) of plant construction and decommissioning, since historically those costs have been foisted onto the public and not paid by the plant operators. But I will continue researching it.
However I did do some research on the topic before I wrote that article, believe it or not. Here's one source I consulted:
http://www.feasta.org/documents/energy/nuclear_power.htm
At any rate, even if the energetics of the fuel actually work out, and even if there are ample supplies of available fuel, and even if we either solve the waste storage problem and/or find a way to make breeder reactors and reprocessing really work at scale, and even if we somehow overcome
NIMBYism...even if we do all of those things, the sheer numbers of plants we'd have to build to compensate for the energy loss from fossil fuels just beggars belief that it will ever happen.
To borrow from a blog poster:
-------------------
Nukes provide less than 4% of our energy in the US.
[that's the equivalent of 100+ nuke plants for the US.]
And that's not just building only 100+ nukes.
That's putting into operation 100+ nukes each and every year at a 2% growth
rate.
This is only to make up for oil loss at the Plateau. This is only to continue 2% energy growth.
If we want to make up for depletion then we need even more.
So if oil production is flat now, then:
1. in 2008, 100+ brand new nukes have to go online.
2. in 2009, 100+ brand new nukes have to go online.
3. in 2010, 100+ brand new nukes have to go online.
4. Continue.
This isn't about adding them one. We have complete over 100 projects every year.
A 1% loss in oil imports in the US equals the capacity of over 50 nuclear power plants.
Consumption table in nuke units:
1. Oil = 2020 nukes
2. Natural Gas = 1130
3. Coal = 1140
4290 nukes in all are needed to replace fossil fuels today. Next year it'll be 4390...
-------------------
Therefore I do not believe that nuclear energy, as a practical matter, will ever be a major factor in compensating for peak oil/gas/coal.
BTW, in all of the major studies that I have read on peak energy, published by the likes of the DOE, GAO, EIA, Hirsch & Bezdek, etc., none of them imagines nuclear to be a major part of the solution to energy depletion in the future. I can only assume there are good reasons for that, beyond all of them being misled by bad data.
I will continue to research what nuclear might be able to do for us. Personally, I'm still very uncomfortable with the waste issue. If we can crack the nut of feasible, scalable, reprocessing/reuse/burning, I might feel differently about it. But not until then.
My best assessment as things stand today is that we simply must decrease demand. It's the only sensible way. I just don't think it's tenable to build that many reactors...or substitute that much of anything, really. As far as I'm concerned, the name of the game going forward is depopulation and conservation.
--Chris Nelder
Energy consultant, writer, blogger GetRealList
Re. "No time to loose"
..wanted to chip in about water here..
This brief and alarmist article from the BBC discusses water scarcity and picks out some elements of the Water Management for Agriculture report of 2006.
BBC
As can be seen, they distinguish between physical water scarcity (ex. a strip along N. Africa) and economic water scarcity - places where water is potentially available but where the infrastructure is lacking, as it is too expensive to install. We have all seen on the TV some humanitarians digging wells and providing an African village with water, and hopefully, with the tools, materiel, and expertise to keep it coming.
Little black children cheer, laugh, and splash... women need not any longer walk 5 miles...etc. But it doesn’t happen often, is publicized when it does, and is never a large scale operation. Unsurprisingly, these ‘economic scarcity’ areas are all in Africa. In short, a large part of the world does have water, but not the means to pump it; other parts waste a lot.
I realise all is more complicated than that; I just wanted to point out that Africa, as usual, is forgotten, or dismissed as ‘hopeless’ either thru political considerations or because of mythical geo-climatological stuff, ‘drought’, etc. Of course there is drought if you are dependent on rain, ask any Swiss or US farmer.
**PDF**
Not to reduce the plight of the people in Africa, but Florida, and of course other US costal states and in the southwest US if they don't get more rain and snow over the next 5-10 years,will very soon faces severe economic water scarcity-I would say physical, and in many places that will be true as wells dry up and salt out, but water is always available near the ocean..if you just pay to get the salt out.
In Tampa they have had a desalination plant that wasn't used much for years because of the high cost of treatment and the maintenance issues they had. It's currently undergoing 'remediation' and is expected to reopen this Spring...it's also right next to a power plant (coal I believe) in Apollo Beach.
http://www.tampabaywater.org/watersupply/tbdesal.aspx
New Matt Simmons Interview
It was mentioned late yesterday by Beyond Oil.
The interview basically contains lots of stuff that I'm basically not sure I've heard him say elsewhere. Basically worth a listen.
Here is a quotation from the interview where basically Simmons mentions The Oil Drum :
Ya beat me to it! Here's my transcript, from minute 16:40,
How much did Iraq's production go up and down month to month over the last couple of years again?
How much did Iraq REALLY produce, How much did SA REALLY produce?
Robbing Peter to Pay Paul??
Having just listened to this interview, one could fairly say that Simmons is an 'alarmist.' Here at TOD, alarmists are not considered cool. Just yesterday, our Drumbeat Editor, got this tossed at her by Euan Mearns.
Simmons has said that Jim Kuntsler could turn out to be an optimist. How come Simmons gets cut so much slack?
My theory is that the culture of TOD is dominated by scientists and engineers. This is not necessarily bad, but it does have implications. It seems to me that problems that cannot be treated quantifiable means are held in disdain. The same is true for those who speak from the opposite source of knowledge: intuition.
This means that some of the most important areas of the PO debate -- the implications -- are treated with the least amount of rigor. Is it because rigor is just not possible?
I've been really puzzled by the amount of effort that Euan and Robert put into trying to rebut the near term Peak Oil case.
Might have something to do with them not looking for any excuse whatsoever to barricade themselves in a Texas compound.
Well, the simplest explanation is that they believe it. Although RR, as I recall, claims that he is rebutting the certainty around the near term peak as opposed to its possibility.
But what I am trying to address is that we have a depleted debate around the implications of peak oil. We basically have the The Alarmed talking to each other, and the Numbers People who don't bother to go very far into the discussion. SS has done some work on this, as I recall. The weakness that the Numbers People have in the issue of addressing the implications is that they don't have a methodology that can address complex, chaotic systems. Therefore, any discussion at all is around addressing narrowly defined problems--or nothing at all.
To give an example, I took a hike up the mountainside just outside of town. I stopped to rest and as a kind of goofy activity my wife just rolls her eyes at, I began rolling pine cones down the mountainside. Pretty soon I was fascinated by the various routes the pine cones took. I picked a spot where I wanted the pine cones to end up just as an experiment. Of course, I could come nowhere close after 30 or so attempts. I tossed one last cone and started to walk away giving up. I paused to see that that one cone came very close to its target.
That's how I see the consequences of PO. There are so many variables coupled with the unexpected, that precise prediction is impossible. One thing for sure, the pine cones rolled downhill every time. My own guts tell me that things will range from bad to catastrophe. That is a very wide range indeed.
I guess my point is that I wish the discussion around the implications of PO were more robust here at the Oil Drum.
I have written an article for Contingencies magazine titled, "Our Finite World: Implications for Actuaries". This talks quite a bit about some of the financial implications of peak oil and peak gas. This is the lead article for the May/June issue, which I expect will be published on the internet around May 1 and in hard copy a little later.
Perhaps I can write something for The Oil Drum about that article close to that time, and link to the article for those who are interested.
Hello GTA,
Please, give us an alert when this is available. I suppose you can't sneak it on to TOD first? I will be interested to see how you will treat this from your perspective.
Yes, please do link us. I would be very interested in reading this. Thanks very much.
Dear Sam,
The problem is, it's really difficult to look into the future with any degree of certainty. The implications for society, the world, in relation to Peak Oil are enormuous.
Clearly, with the fuzzy data we have on even one oil field in Saudi Arabia, predicting Ghawar's future is not easy.
Now that's just one field. Trying to speculate about the impact of the effects of many fields in different parts of the world beginning to decline/crash, is like multiplying the difficulties with Ghawar by a thousand! So we'll really be out on a limb. One coul say almost anything, and the darkest, gloomiest prediction/speculation could well be the most popular and at the same time the most wrong.
I, for example, still think there's time to mitigate Peak Oil. I choose to believe we can face the challange in a civilized fashion, if we utilize the very best in our culture. I choose to live and think as an optimist, mainly because I don't see what good pessimism does. I just find it easier to get up in the morning believing in the best in mankind. I also have children. It's hard to look at them and emotionally accept that we could be heading for barbarism.
Hello writerman,
I am a card carrying pessimist. When I think of PO, I take present trends of centralization of economic power, the growing nativism in the US, increased abuses power of the military/intelligence centers, the growing trend toward private, corporate militaries, and more. My feared future world is one in which Blackwater USA allies with various economic and theocratic interests to enforce their version of order. The alleged "goodness of humanity" is in little evidence these days. They will provide the Arkan-services if we are not pro-active.
Planning for PO means planning for the social disruptions that will surely happen. The people who stand to 'gain' from this coming catastrophe are the very ones who need to be kept from power.
But having shot off my mouth, I am still advocating and hoping that people with actual expertise will emerge to work these issues in a more knowledgeable way.
Yes, those of us with the inclination and means to do so have already built our lifeboats and cast off. Seeing as it is still business as usual, with adequate food in most of the world and the financial system still working, others can still plan. But this is not that kind of site, Matt Savinar's site and forum is the place for that:
www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
Yosemite Sam,
You ask for a more robust discussion, after explaining that there are too many unknown variables to have that discussion?
Our present religion is science. The belief that science is good and beneficial is so strong and omnipresent, it's useless to even try and question it. If you would try to point out that science has produced many things detrimental to us, the response would be that that is our fault, not that of science. It's as untouchable as any worshipped entity. And just as millions of people have been and will be killed in the name of a peaceloving god, so our beneficial science will cause the death of billions. As in any religion, priests are trained to speak in languages incomprehensible to those not in daily contact with the deity. And as in any religion, some questions are taboo. Never doubt the deity,
The final blow is shaping up as we speak, and this site has plenty examples of that: large groups of people believe that science can save them, by solving both energy issues and climate problems.
And it's no use trying to warn them that you can't solve problems with the same exact tools that got you into trouble in the first place. What makes science such a pervasive religion is the fact that everyone denies it's a religion at all.
Of course, you might argue that we have strayed far from what science should be: a balanced weighing of evidence. We presently interpret it differently: we want 100% proof that something is true, even if that means we get killed while looking for the last 10%. In that sense science is like democracy and free markets: theoretical assumptions, never tested in practice.
This is all with regards to what we call exact science, Economics and other social sciences are even worse, of course. Freud and Jung are the most influential people of the 20th century, but how many people know why the ad on TV says what it says? What shapes the politics and speeches of Clinton and Bush? If you manage to convince people that they’re smart, you can do with them what you will.
The focus here is indeed skewed towards predicting The Peak. Which hardly seems the most pressing issue at hand. Once that's done, the site can close, (it never developed a model for other issues), just as the problems begin. The self-nominated smarter part of our population fills its time with calculating how many fluorescent lightbulbs they can theoretically run on a cowfart, and then it stops.
Moreover, there are so many postings about science based answers to the peak, such as ethanol, electric cars, trams and trains, that you would have to wonder what a discussion focused on what to do once the peak has passed would look like.
For instance, all these proposed solutions require huge amounts of money. Whether that will be available is ignored. This would seem to indicate that no science is needed to save us from financial trouble: the debt pays itself. Posts about fianaces are seen by many as off-topic.
Most people, both here and in the outside world, are "a bit" clueless when it comes to life after peak. We have grown up being taught ad nauseum that we are smart (look at all the gadgets we can come up with!!) and that we are inherently good (but how many people have we let die while inventing those gadgets?).
I'd say most people have neither the courage nor the brains to have that robust discussion. Good thing the Serbia picture is there: now everyone can ask themselves why they react to that the way they do, and whether they think the US in 10-20 years is more likely to look like that, or if it will be a happy organic lovefest on bicycles with a nuke plant in the center of town.
Hello HeIsSoFly,
If you have read my post to writerman above, you can see that I am no optimist. The picture of the Serbian Cigarette Smoking Man is living in my brain. As you can surmise, I have already figured out how that can happen in the very corporate legal way we have of destroying things.
However, I do hold out some hope that we can have a soft landing of sorts. That is what I think of in my "robust discussion" remarks. How can we Powerdown without turning turning to neo-feudalism for comfort?
YoSam,
We can't.
We are just about completely unaware of what makes us tick, why we do the things we do. We are convinced we act and react driven by our intelligence, while in reality it's far more primitive parts of our brains that lead us. That's why TV ads deliver no information about products, but a feeling. A pick-up truck is shown in endless unspoiled landscapes, often with minimum one pretty young girl. In your unsub-consciousness, if the ad is well-made, that landscape and the girl will pop up as soon as you see that truck, and its logo, in real life.
These unconscious images, and the positive feelings they induce, along with a healthy shot of dopamine, are what makes you go out and buy the truck. But you will never know, you have learned that you choose on rational grounds. And so you will fool yourself into thinking that you have.
All our decisions are made in similar ways. Just think for a moment about why we have turned it all into such a terrible mess to begin with: that's the product of decisions executed on the level of yeast brains (OK, perhaps salamander). Smart brains would have prevented it. Your consciousmess would never wreck its own living space; it calls doing so "stupid".
And that's why we can't go softly: we're led by neurons that can't oversee the consequences of our acts, they're geared towards accumulating stuff. It's not about having stuff, but acquiring it.
First we make an unbelievable mess, then we convince ourselves we are so smart that our science will save it all, and when that turns out not to work we start killing each other to survive a bit longer.
The smart brains are then used to tell ourselves something/anything that justifies that: a nonsensical soft science story abour social Darwinism might be the flavor of the day. This prevents us from seeing ourselves as stupid or evil.
PS: A few pictures of bloated corpses in New Orleans alongside the Serbian one might be good, lest Americans think these things only happen in far away lands.
Is your spelling of "consciousMess" just a typo?
That's because the implications are just too depressing for most people to contemplate. The only person who has analyzed actual human nature (the way real humans in the real world behave, not the way we want them to behave) is Jay Hanson. He has recently published a paper on the subject called the Thermo/Gene Collision:
http://www.warsocialism.com/thermogenecollision.pdf
Jay is a controversial figure in peak oil circles because he's considered a "doomer". And most people just can't handle the truth.
I'd suggest that it IS possible to look at the post peak world through scientific eyes - using the analysis of systems and systems dynamics to cast some light on reactions to peaking.
As a quick throw away, you can look at worldwide consumption and make estimates of what higher oil prices will do to demand destruction around the world. That gives you a first cut of what prices will need to be for different production level to balance supply and demand.
However there is a key factor in all of that - not the date of peaking, but the decline rate post peak. A decline rate of 1-2% would hurt, there would be recession, but the world as a whole could adapt. A decline rate of 14% would be catastrophic - impacting on the ability of the global community to react successfully. Somewhere around 5-8% is my current gut feel, and I also feel this is beyond the scope of the world economy to successfully react to.
Thus if the decline rate is key, its important to pull apart fields such as Ghawar - in order to understand their decline phase rather than academic discussions of URR or peak dates. The two areas of study go together.
There aren't many around with the background to do this sort of thing - but the predictions they can make even if not accurate can be useful.
“A decline rate of 1-2% would hurt, there would be recession, but the world as a whole could adapt.”
Posted by garyp
We could adapt for a while, maybe for 10-15 years. But if we continued to decline at this rate, eventually the increased efficiencies we adopted would be done, the alternative energies that do have some potential will be exploited to the limit, while depletion marches on. We can only do more with less for so long; at some point the economy will retract and TSWHTF.
This, of course is assuming that once it becomes clear that we are post-peak, even with only a 1-2% annual decline, that the investor community doesn't panic, with financial markets imploding; an almost immediate '30s style Great Depression being the result.
Antoinetta III
We could adapt for a while, maybe for 10-15 years. But if we continued to decline at this rate, eventually the increased efficiencies we adopted would be done, the alternative energies that do have some potential will be exploited to the limit, while depletion marches on.
I'm not sure how to describe this, but every barrel we don't burn now is a barrel available in the future. So by reducing demand, we can actually increase the time we have. The sooner we start, the more time we have.
Think of it this way. (these are just made up numbers) Say this year we have the ability to produce 85mbpd of oil, and that 5 years from now we'll only be able to produce 75mbpd of oil, and 10 years from now only be able to produce 65mbpd. Well, if we were to take the oil as fast as we can pump it out of the ground we would definitely be down to 65mbpd by ten years from now. However if we were to wave the magic wand and go from using 85mbpd today to using only 75mbpd today...then we could save (85-75)mbpd that first year, maybe (83-75)mbpd the second year, etc...such that we could take the curve and string it out a little further, and by ten years from now still be producing at 75mbpd instead of the 65mbpd as would have been if pumping flat out.
So that's why starting before the slide is so important. Once in the slide, you must adapt faster than slide. But as you adapt faster than the slide, you gain more time by making the production curve lower, but flatter...less of a cliff, more of a hill, and potentially manageable.
This, of course is assuming that once it becomes clear that we are post-peak, even with only a 1-2% annual decline, that the investor community doesn't panic, with financial markets imploding; an almost immediate '30s style Great Depression being the result.
Again, Peak Oil really is a social thing more than a technical issue. We can replace cars ultra efficient commute-o-pods, build ultra efficient houses, ultra efficient lighting, computers, etc...but if we insist on breeding like bunnies, driving SUVs and Trucks, Suburbia, Long Haul trucking and JIT, we're going to get wars, death and destruction.
We could easily do more with more. Large diesel engines can be run on powdered coal (and probably torrefied biomass) and rail can be electrified, so railroads could be converted and be entirely immune to further depletion. Oil is only about 3% of current electric production already, and that might be convertible to bio-oil with relative ease. Simply parking all of our 15-MPG SUV's and replacing them with diesel cars in the range of 30-50 MPG would buy years of time at even 5%/year. Wind power is on an exponential curve doubling about every 2 years; if we stay on that for a while, 5 years will see wind taking up all new electric demand and 8-10 will see it cutting steadily into the share of gas and coal. PHEV's powered mostly by electricity could achieve 80% liquid-fuel savings, buying 15 years even at 10%/year decline rates (~30 years at 5%/year).
Later this year, I intend to put down a deposit on a PHEV with a 20 mile all-electric range and 100 MPG economy on gasoline. I expect my effective economy to be in the neighborhood of 160-200 MPG, which is a savings of more than 75% from what I'm getting now and about 87% over what I got up to 3 years ago. If the nation does even half as well, we'll get by.
What we really need is action from the bully pulpit. GWB owes too much to the Saudis to even tell people to slow down and buy less-thirsty cars. Someone willing to say that speeding around in a 4x4 is unpatriotic (giving aid and comfort to the enemy) could work wonders, and that's one measure that costs nothing.
What vehicle is this?
VentureOne Q100.
Nuts,
I was hoping it was a real car.
It'll prove the market for the "real cars" you want, which is the point: neither Washington nor Detroit will have any excuses left.
It'll also be my first real venture into the group of "early adopters". I'm doing it because it really matters.
To pick up on HeIsSoFly, looking at post-peak scientifically isn't going to be enough. Science, technology, economics - they are all mired in the current cultural milieu.
What production? We don't produce oil; we gather it. Prices to balance supply and demand? Is there really any such thing? Prices are socially determined by our technologies and as such seem more to guarantee extraction/destruction of the periphery (Iraq, Africa) than anything else. They transfer wealth/exergy to the core and never pay back the source; they cannot, because a profit must be made to maintain the core infrastructure.
I really think there is something to the idea that we have sucked so much out of so much of the world that it is descending into chaos. That vast parts of the world no longer have the necessary energy to self-order. What happens to the wealthier core when it loses the energy subsidies necessary to maintain its own internal order, as happened to the Soviet Union? I was just listening to Heinberg in one today's links talk about building a public transportation fish-net with cell phones and private cars - but that depends on our maintaining our infrastructure which is itself embedded energy "informed", eg materialized.
It seems to me what price to balance supply and demand isn't a big enough question; it seems culturally conditioned from the get-go. Kunstler uses a phrase, something like "we can't see over the edge of the box". Our language doesn't even permit it.
cfm in Gray, ME
What production? We don't produce oil; we gather it.
Hmm...this is going to cause some people some problems. Here they are thinking they're all sophisticated...and they're still hunter/gatherers.
E&P...Exploration & Production... Exploration is just a fancy way of saying hunting, and Production is a fancy way of saying gathering. Interesting stuff.
Agreed. This is why Nate Hagen's post of this week knocked my socks off and the work that SS, FF, EM, etc. and you has been so mesmerizing. A near-term peak with a slow decline rate may not be a problem - or at least is manageable. Nate pointed out that if you linearly extrapolate our historical EROEI for oil extraction, you get to 0% oil usable for society by 2022. Even if a linear reduction in EROEI is wrong, if Saudia Arabia declines as quickly as Mexico is, I don't know if western industrial civilization can make a smooth transition.
Even if the decline rate is small, the Hirsch report concluded that we need 20 years to mitigate. Hirsch is in a good position to look at the overall system effects. I can't see this ending well for the US if the Saudis drop off fast or if Nate's extrapolation turns out to be correct.
Don't forget that US production isn't falling nearly as fast as Cantarell, etc. and we could still drill ANWR (using the stranded gas in Prudhoe Bay to power it).
Worse comes to worst, we could put a 20 kW wind turbine on each pumpjack from Texas through Kansas and Missouri and turn wind into transport fuel. It might have a lousy EROEI from generator to crude oil tank, but if it's off-peak power that wouldn't have sold for much anyway, who cares? Besides, it'll create this huge arbitrage opportunity for the first 10 million people to get plug-in vehicles.