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Australia: What to do, what to do about our energy situation?
Posted by aeldric on May 15, 2008 - 7:00pm in TOD: Australia/New Zealand
Topic: Miscellaneous
Tags: local solutions [list all tags]
Introduction
In my last post I suggested that over the next 5 years Australia’s ability to import oil will be severely constrained. We won’t be able to just switch suppliers, because that is what everybody will be trying to do – we need smarter solutions and they need to start now. In this post I look for the responses that we need to make.
There is no better group of people to answer this question than the TOD community. The calamity that we had warned of seems to be occurring, and the words "Peak Oil" now appear in mainstream media news articles on a regular basis. Our warning was heard late - probably too late for some - but it is being heard.
It is now time to turn our minds to defining solutions. This area has been approached by several TOD contributors (with valuable insights ranging from specific technical approaches to the more general ELP approach). I propose that we now need to organise and categorize the full range of actions needed. If we are going to call on politicians and business leaders to act, we need to define what actions are required. It is not enough to scare people - we need to provide a call to arms, not a call to panic.
Obviously solutions will need to address political, social and economic issues. In addition solutions need to be framed within the context of the environmental problems that we face. Clearly the scope of this question is immense. But a start must be made, so here are some thought-starters:
The First Effects
If oil is constrained, what will be the effect in Australia?
In 2005 the US Department of Energy commissioned a study by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to look specifically at the impact of high oil prices. In the conclusion this study finds that:
This analysis also confirms that the three components of oil dependence costs (wealth transfer, potential GDP loss, and macroeconomic adjustment costs) are approximately equal in size. Thus, focusing on the costs of oil price shocks alone and ignoring wealth transfer and the persisting effects of high oil prices on potential GDP losses would underestimate the true costs of oil dependence by about a factor of 3.
Constrained oil leads to higher oil prices, and high oil costs have three economic consequences:
1. Impact on GDP
2. Transfer of wealth from importing nations to exporting nations
3. Macroeconomic costs
The first pain that we feel will be economic pain, and it will be felt in those three areas.
The Next Effects
What comes after the economic impacts?
If the economic impact of high oil prices includes a transfer of wealth to the oil producing nations, then there will come a time when large, powerful importing nations will conclude that this transfer of wealth is not in their national interest – and that a military solution is a better option.
Although we are not an oil exporter, we are an energy exporter. Australia exports coal, natural gas and uranium. We have one of the highest ratios of energy resources per capita, (also arable land per capita, mineral resources, etc), so it might be wise for us to watch what happens to oil exporters, as our own situation may have some similarities at a later date.
What Are The Solutions Here in Australia?
There are those who tell me that we are doomed by the fact that, with a population rapidly approaching 7 billion, the Earth has already exceeded its carrying capacity. I have this answer: The population of Australia is only 21 million. Yes, we have a shortage of water and oil, but these shortages will only lead to certain disaster if we do nothing.
There are multiple areas where solutions must be found. Below is a list of broad areas that must be addressed and a few points about how to address them. I suspect that the list is far from complete and I have no doubt that the TOD readership is well equipped to add to this list.
Solutions: Technical.
Like it or not, we cannot transition to a renewable energy base in a day. Both non-renewable and renewable energy sources will be required for decades to come.
Environmental issues must be addressed. Power solutions that require large amounts of fresh water are just as crazy as water solutions that use large amounts of high-quality power (such as desalination), and neither can be entertained.
Overcoming the Constraint in Liquid Fuels
Above all, we must remember that this is a liquid fuel emergency. Liquid fuels such as petrol, and diesel are easily transported (no wires required) and very energy dense (45 kg of petrol will take a car about 500 km, while 45 kg of lithium batteries will only take it a fraction of that distance). These capabilities make liquid fuels hard to replace.
However technological solutions are already practicable:
- Battery/electric cars. Removing the requirement for liquid fuel by developing battery-powered cars is a partial answer as it gives us the capacity to move people and goods on short journeys to destinations outside of public transport routes. Some battery cars are already in limited production, and GM claims that it will be bringing out a large-production car (the Chevrolet Volt) in 2010. Hybrid cars and PHEVs also provide a partial solution. Although electric cars offer part of the solution, we will still need the capacity to move large loads for long distances.
- CNG vehicles. Australia has significant gas deposits. LNG and CNG are likely to be part of the Australian solution.
- Synthetic fuels. Producing liquid fuels from our gas and coal deposits (CTL and GTL) is another part of the likely solution, but there will be an environmental cost. We will need to find a way to soak up the CO2, and ways to address the other environmental issues.
- Solar power. Australia is richly endowed with sunlight. Solar Thermal and Photovoltaic (including thin film) technologies are both likely to be part of a solution. Solar generally delivers electricity, not a liquid fuel, but this energy can fill needs that would otherwise be provided by fossil fuels.
- Algae oil. Algae oil is one of my current crusades. In the geological past algae proved to be a great sink for CO2. Australia has enormous potential for growing algae to offset the CO2 produced by GTL and CTL processes. The oil can then be removed from the algae, leaving a significant amount of waste (around 70%) to be sequestered. Sequestering will probably be done by charring the waste (possibly by fast pyrolization) in a solar thermal furnace, then using the char as a soil enhancer.
Which solution do we need? None of the above solutions is a complete answer to the liquid fuel issue. We will need all of them.
Increase energy efficiency to cut energy dependence
Reducing power requirements also reduces water requirements. The quantity of water that is consumed by power generation is rarely appreciated. A single 60 watt bulb can consume nearly 1 liter of water of water per hour if left on.
Increasing energy efficiency will require more than just turning off the light switches. Whole new technologies may be required:
- Improving train infrastructure. There are existing lines that are currently unused. Restoring these lines offers a cost-effective approach to increasing transport efficiency. Unfortunately, this process will take decades, and there will never be a train to everywhere.
- Improved sea/water transport. Water transport (River and ocean) is extremely energy-efficient.
- Air transport by dirigibles is an old technology that is making a comeback. Dirigibles that look like giant wings is an emerging technology that shows great promise.
- Improvements in sail technology make local water transport even more attractive, sail powered river ferries are a possibility wherever winds are reliable.
- Sea transport powered by giant kites is a technology already being implemented
Solutions: Changing The Economic Paradigm
The current Fractional Reserve Banking system requires growth in order to supply the extra money required to service interest on debt. If energy is constrained and growth is not possible, an intolerable strain is placed on this system. A Steady-State economic system may need to be put in place. Once again, this is a big change – it may take time, and is likely to be politically unpalatable.
Solutions: Business
Business is already feeling the pinch, making this a difficult time to be proactive. However action is required. Goldman Sachs has been consistently right with oil price predictions and are now forecasting a “Price Super-spike” of $200/barrel. The events following that are hard to predict, but that there will be effects is not really in doubt. Businesses need to address the issues now, rather than wait for them to reach full impact. Now is not the time to be running lean inventories and a just-in-time supply chain. Agility and resilience will be the key to surviving the associated effects.
- Conduct an inventory to establish vulnerability to a liquid fuel shortfall. The most likely area will be transport. Is your business dependent on transport? To what extent are your staff dependent on transport? Are your business partners dependent on transport? Your supply and distribution?
- Develop redundancies and move to alternatives.
- Increase inventory to allow for supply interruptions
- Locate any single points of failure and assess the vulnerability
- Create scenarios. Workshop if necessary.
- Plan mitigation.
Can your staff work from home? Do you have IT Infrastructure in place to support a large number of staff working from home? Has your HR signed off on working from home as an OH&S option?
Solutions: Government/political.
Links to oil producers will be required. We need to remember that we are a food exporter at a time when a food crisis is emerging across the world. Most of the oil producers are food importers.
If they want our food, then our farmers need their oil.
It might seem that we can just choose one oil importing country and offer them food in exchange for their oil, but unfortunately, many of these countries are quite unstable. For this reason, it would be wise to diversify as much as possible, so that we are not dependent on one source.
Many of our current sources of oil have no requirement for our food, but there are a few logical targets. The logical targets are:
- Iraq. We already have a history of supplying food to Iraq. It might be time to create an explicit link between food and oil, perhaps introducing the concept of a “Most Favored Trading Partner” status, with associated discount wheat in return for guaranteed oil. Sadly, this country is not stable, reinforcing the need to diversify.
- Angola. Angola is not a traditional supplier of oil to Australia. However they have relatively new fields with expanding production. And they have a food problem. Sadly, this is another country with stability problems, so the need for diversification of supply is again underlined.
- The Philippines. This country is one of our current oil suppliers, and they have a current (acute) food problem. Now might be a good time to negotiate a long-term food for oil trade relationship.
- UAE. Another of our usual oil suppliers, UAE currently imports over $145 million/year worth of Australian wheat, meat, fruit, dairy and grains. Once again, it would be relatively easy to link oil with food.
There is one potential flaw in this plan. Several of the oil exporting nations know that food is a significant vulnerability, and they are seeking to address this problem by buying farmland in foreign nations. If this trend becomes widespread, then Australia’s leverage as a food producer would be significantly reduced. The amount of wealth available to Middle Eastern nations is significant. They could certainly buy enough farmland to guarantee food security if they prioritized this as a goal.
This makes negotiations with nations such as Angola and the Philippines even more important.
We also need to form alliances in order to minimize our profile as a resource-rich, sparsely-populated target. In a time when the world is recognizing the emergence of several new super-powers, it is hard to know how to achieve this, and it will undoubtedly require a delicate touch.
Military planning and procurement needs to be considered. If a price of $225/barrel for oil is assumed, what impact will this have?
The current trend towards large, heavy vehicles and the profligate use of fuel to support troops must be reversed. In some cases this may be as simple as replacing steel armour with composites (eg. replacing the steel in the Bushmaster armoured car with Kevlar composites), but in other cases it will require new strategies and tactics (more use of “light fighter” troops, more emphasis on air defense, rather than air support, etc).
Solutions: Environmental
The most pressing environmental problems in Australia include climate change, greenhouse Gas emissions and water scarcity.
Greenhouse gasses
Reducing emissions will not be enough. We need to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and we need to start now. Algae has already been mentioned as a promising way to achieve this goal.
Saving Water
Water is a problem here in Australia. The latest solution is desalination plants. However desalination uses so much power that it has been likened to “bottling electricity”.
If reducing our energy requirements and CO2 footprints is a priority, then we may have to face the reality of recycled water.
Desalination is one of the most glaring examples of solving a problem by making another problem worse, but it is certainly not the only one. The fact that we flush our sewage out into the ocean is another example that will leave future generations speechless in disbelief.
Solutions: Localization
Cheap oil made it possible to move goods immense distances at minimal cost. This allowed economies of scale to outcompete the advantages enjoyed by local producers. This trend will need to be unwound in some areas. In some cases localization of production may even devolve down to individual families.
Localization: A worked example.
“Victory Gardens” is a concept that emerged in response to the resource constraints that the government faced during WWII. Significant resources were freed up simply by removing the necessity to produce and distribute some of the more difficult-to-handle vegetables.
The key to success is to identify which vegetables save the most energy if grown at home, and which benefit more from the economies of scale offered by industrial agriculture. As a simple illustration of the difference, consider grains and leafy vegetables. Should we localize wheat growing? Or lettuce growing? Or both?
Harvesting a home-grown lettuce and preparing it for consumption consists of going out to the back yard, picking it, bringing it in, and washing it. A farm-grown lettuce, on the other hand, requires sophisticated and very energy-intensive processes just to transport it intact. The head of lettuce must be carefully packaged to minimize damage to leaves and then it must be transported rapidly, in temperature-controlled vehicles. Encouraging people to grow lettuce at home offers clear advantages. It is easy to grow, harvest and prepare.
However the reverse is true for grains such as wheat, rice or oats.
It is not very practical to grow your own wheat in an average backyard garden. The amount of land needed to grow enough wheat for a family will usually exceed the amount of land the family has available. In addition, wheat is hard to process. Harvesting, separating wheat from chaff, and grinding are all processes that benefit from economies of scale. But, unlike lettuce, once wheat has been grown and processed it is very easy to transport and store.
Clearly lettuce is a candidate for home-growing, but wheat benefits from the economies of scale offered by Industrial Agriculture.
The energy cost of producing and delivering food was the subject of a study that occurred after the first “oil shock” of 1973. A significant finding from this study was that massive inputs of energy are necessary to produce and deliver meat.
In addition to growing vegetables at home, if even a small percentage of the energy load associated with meat production could be avoided, the energy savings would be significant. There are obviously three strategies in approaching this goal:
1. Encourage people to eat less meat
2. Encourage people to eat less energy-intensive meat (i.e. move away from beef, to meats that require less energy, such as chicken)
3. Encourage people to go back to traditional practices such as keeping chickens, rabbits or similar animals in their back yard.
Localization: Generalizing the Principle
The example of lettuce and wheat was provided above, but this approach can be applied to all foodstuffs, and indeed all energy using activities. It is worth noting that this approach addresses two problems at once – it reduces CO2 emissions and energy requirements.
When considering if a given activity should be localized in response to energy constraint, the questions to be asked are:
- What resources and energy does a given activity need, and can this activity be further broken down (e.g. breaking energy consumption down by food type reveals that meat and vegetables may benefit from changes, but grains probably would not).
- Is there a need for this activity to be done and is the need a priority when compared to other needs?
- Can the need be met by completely different, more effective processes (e.g. moving some percentage of protein production away from cattle and towards the localized raising of smaller animals).
- If the current process is to continue, can it be done more effectively (by using less material, less energy, reusing or recycling of components, etc)?
- If the activity is heavily centralized then, given that we face an increasingly energy and carbon constrained environment, would it make sense to decentralize the activity?
Fostering Social Solutions at the Local Level
People’s behavior needs to change. In addition we need to deal with the social consequences of economic and environmental difficulties that we face.
We need to educate the public early and enlist them as part of the solution.
We need to encourage people to analyse energy usage and rationalize it. The personal use of energy must be viewed as a social issue. Activities such as walking or cycling to the train station must be viewed as a social obligation.
Local social units must be fostered at every level – for everything from carpooling to swapping seedlings and gardening tips.
Local task forces need to be encouraged. If correctly handled the costs should be minimal. Many people are almost evangelical about their hobbies, and would welcome the chance to set up localized groups that address issues such as:
- Vegetable gardening
- Bicycle building and maintenance
- Modifying your house to reduce energy needs
- Creating a no-dig garden bed
- Backyard permaculture
In general the local knowledge exists and the infrastructure exists. The only intervention needed is organizing and promoting the activities.
As part of a move to localization of production it may be necessary to encourage local councils to do an inventory of local strengths and weaknesses. Are there any goods and services that should be produced locally that are not? This will require identifying activities and deciding on an appropriate level of localization for each activity. For example, it might be appropriate to expect an electronic and computer repair capability at the local level, but it would be inappropriate to expect a computer production facility at the local level.
Local councils should also address related questions: Are there any locally produced goods or services that are vulnerable to a disruption in the supply chain? What would be the impact?
Many local areas have regular “Computer Swap Meets”, or similar organized markets. It would be wise to foster these events and try to broaden the base of locally-produced goods and services available. Doing this should reduce the strain on infrastructure at the wider level, by reducing the necessity to bring in these goods and services.
Summary
Our society has evolved into a "network of systems" and it now faces a corresponding network of problems. The danger is that our tightly-coupled, mutually-dependant society could suffer from a sudden, cascading collapse. This happened, to a limited extent, in the Russian collapse of a decade ago - but Russia's systems were loosely coupled with a lot of built-in resilience. Russia did not have the lean, "just in time" inventories and single-point-of-failure systems that we now depend on.
Our ability to meet the challenge will depend on our ability to do three things:
1. Decouple the dependencies in our system and build in resilience. Resilience has fallen out of favour, we currently favour "efficiency" instead, but there is a danger inherent in this efficiency. Just-in-time inventories and single points of failure offer great economic advantages when they work, but they are not the correct model for the turbulent times ahead.
2. Remodel our society and economy in line with the new situation
3. Solve the technical challenges (probably the easiest of the three to achieve)
Achieving this is not going to be easy. The problem permeates every level of our society, so it is time to take an inventory of the solutions – at every level of our society.
Aeldric
A very good summary of the problems we face. It is encumbent on our cities to save as much liquid fuels as possible so that rural areas where no alternative exists are not disadvanatged.
One major area has to be Melbourne, Sydney Brisabane rail alignments to encourage faster transit times for freight by rail. This has to be a serious national priority.
We cannot afford to continue with road building as if its business as usual. The dollars need to flow to rail.
True. I seriously considered a "What not to do" section. Building new airports at a time when airlines are cutting back flights or going out of business? No.
Building new roads? Better make sure it is easy to retrofit them for streetcars or light rail.
Here are a couple of "not to do" things i have been preaching on about:
An immediate ban on sales of gas-guzzlers so that even the rich can't avoid this. For example, ban sales of new cars that emit more than 255g CO2/km with a plan to reduce this every year.
Stop expansion of airports and roads with immediate effect.
Electrify all railways – do not order new diesel engines.
Do not allow consumer goods to be produced with poor performance. People often tend to just look at the initial price and others who have no interest in the running costs just the up-front costs e.g. landlords, builders.
For removing the CO2 from the air some people are trying to figure out if it can be done by planting trees,look at:
http://10ba.org/?gclid=CMKQmq659pACFUaPOAodjkoh1w
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/co2-carbon-dioxide-emissions,5358.html
The electrification of railways only works at reducing emissions if we get rid of coal-fired plants. Currently in Australia electrified railways are responsible for more emissions per passenger or tonne-kilometre than diesel rail because of where the electricity's coming from.
Figures?
Electric traction is 4 - 5 times more efficient than ICE traction. Even though the burning of Coal produces more CO2/kWh than Oil, I doubt it's 4 - 5 times as much.
Generating a kWh of electricity from coal (one-through, no combined cycle/gasification/whatever) emits about a kilo of CO2, basically 1:1. I don't have the figures for trains handy, but a EVs (car) regularly get 200Wh/km, so effectivly emit 1 kilo of CO2 for every 5km travelled, or 20kg/100km.
Looking at the BP website, Petrol emits 2.3kg/Litre. If a modern ICEV get's 9.4L/100km (2008 Pertol Mondeo), that's... 21.62kg/100km. Almost even.
Diesel emits 2.63kg/km. The Diesel Mondeo gets 7.4L/100km, so that's 17.28kg/100km. Better, but still almost even.
Over 25,000km, the difference between Coal (EV) and Petrol is 405kg of CO2 in favour of coal, and between Coal and Diesel is 680kg in favour of diesel.
Over the cars lifetime, say, ten years, and assuming it's maintained properly (hah!), the differences would be 4050kg and 6800kg respectivly.
These figures would indicate that you are right, and that it would be better to buy Diesels rather than Electrics. However, the scope to improve the efficiency and reduce emissions is much, much greater for electrics than it is for diesels. Shutting down a Coal plant and replacing it with CSP+PS yields an instant improvement. I don't like the odds of having much Diesel in ten or twenty years anyway.
Thus, I don't advocate killing off Diesels, but rather putting the emphasis on Electrics and cleaner generation.
Subsitiuting Oil fuels with something else is still problematical. We can use Anhydrous Ammonia (generated with Green electricity, Nitrogen from the Air, and the last step of the Haber Process) in ICEVs without, apparently, too much modification, but we might as well just use the electricity directly if we can.
Once a train is moving, it doesn't take much energy to keep it there. Where electric traction shines is in tractive power (ie, getting stuff moving). You just have to look at the QLD coal fields to see the motive preference.
It may be worthwhile to realign the railways, but given the tractive benefits, it may be better to focus on simply electrifying the lines.
You're underestimating emissions due to coal-fired electricity generation. It's not 1kg CO2e/kWhr, more like 1.3 kg CO2e/kWhr.
According to the National Greenhouse Office,
But we have to consider not simply the emissions compared to electricity generated, but emissions compared to electricity actually reaching the lines above the tracks. If for example a power station emits 1,000kg of CO2e while producing 1,000kWh, but 250kWh are used by the power station, lost in transmission and so on, so that only 750kWh reaches the electric train, then we must in all fairness look at the total emissions of 1,000kg CO2e compared to the useful energy of 750kWh. So instead of 1kg CO2e/kWh we get 1.33CO2e/kWh.
The UIC, drawing on printed sources, says,
So we get that of all electricity generated, 83.3% goes on to be actually used for some end purpose. But we can look at more raw numbers if you prefer. To be generous to electricity and its emissions, we can compare 2006 generation with 2005 emissions.
So we have 279.4Mt CO2e emissions for 210 billion kWh useful electricity, and thus 279.4/210 = 1.33 kg CO2e/kWh. That's for all electricity sources - coal's obviously higher, wind turbines obviously less.
So going on your figures of 200Wh/km, electric cars hose electricity comes from our current mostly-coal generation mix will have effective emissions of 0.2*1.33*100 = 26.6kg CO2e/100km. There is thus no greenhouse emissions advantage in electrifying transport if the electricity generation remains in its current high fossil fuel mix.
The other thing to consider is that electric vehicles generally require more energy - and thus usually more emissions - to produce than internal combustion vehicles.
[original source: Institute for Life Cycle Environmental Analysis, site apparently now defunct, however the study was led by this guy at Seikei University]
I don't know of any studies of complete life-cycle analysis of electric vs diesel or other trains, but I don't see why they'd be that different to electric vs petrol etc automobiles. A train's diesel or electric engine is not magically different from a car's. So I'd expect to see the same results: that electric vehicles have more emissions than fossil fuel driven vehicles in manufacture, but that emissions during use depend on how you get the electricity.
Basically, it's as I said: if you get your electricity from fossil fuels, it makes not much difference to total emissions whether the fossil fuels are burned in a power station or on the vehicle. But if you get your electricity from renewables then electric's the clear winner overall.
Thus, it's not enough to electrify transport, we need to reduce emissions due to electricity generation. Or else we're just shuffling the pollution to a different spot, overall it's pretty much the same.
A powerfull argument.
I think this post of yours and my previous post are agreeing with each other? I.e. no net benefit as things stand but the potential for enormous improvements in the future if we electrify.
I have no idea if the LCA you cite took into account that EVs generally last longer than ICEVs.
But if you're including line losses in your calculations for Electricity, you should also include transportation losses for fossil fuels (from, say, the refinery to the vehicles tank). It's only intellectually honest. Otherwise we're comparing Oranges with Mandarins (almost the same thing, but not quite). We could go all the way bac to Mine -> Rail and Resiviour -> Rail, but things start getting fuzzy.
One advantage the electric traction has over motor vehicles or domestic users is that the lines use higher voltages, so line losses are reduced.
Agreed. There are people in high places who are pushing forthis. Tim Fischer (ex deputy PM) is one of them but unfortuneately all Australian governments are now edded to the idea of small governemnt and Public Private Partnerships for any infrastructure. The public componenet is now only put in as land seizure and enabling legislation bu the money has to come from the private sector. Private enterprise will only invest in something that has a chance of making a profit which owning of rail track does not. Thats why governments had to build it in the first palce.
This is the fundamental reason that Peak Oil cannot be acknowledged by government. It would require them to act in ways that the institutions of government are no longer equipped to do. Every skill is now outsourced to somewhere else so the collective knowledge required to coalesce into wisdom at the top, is no longer possible. Governments just aren't strong enough anymore to make bold decisions in case it upsets the god of the markets.
Given that most of us seem to expect, at the vesy least, lowered economic activity post-peak, I doubt transit times are all that important for most freight.
People will still probably want to travel faster, so realigning the lines and allowing 105kmh travel for (electric) passenger tains might well be an option.
Agreed. Any road project that hasn't already broken ground and/or won't be finished in five years should be abandoned.
My understanding (from a TOD comment a while ago) is that algal oil needs a lot of phosphorus (and peak phosphorus was 20 years ago). However I guess that it is still in the waste after the oil is removed. So if the waste can be made into a bulkier but equivalent substitute fertilizer that can be used by farmers, then running the phosphorus through the algal oil process first won't be too bad. There is the question of whether there will be enough phosphorus production to make useful amounts of oil, or alternatively can the phosphorus be completely extracted from the waste and reused?
I also read somewhere that dirigibles are not more fuel efficient than propeller planes?
If there is the widely predicted economic recession in energy importing countries, then the chance that governments will impose more pain to prevent global warming is nil. That will let Australia off the hook to follow the government's plans for GTL and CTL. Of course they'll say "CCS will be added as soon as we've got the bugs out". Australia could easily convert transport to CNG, reducing pollution of many sorts including CO2. The previous government tried this but found the chicken and egg problem too hard and gave up.
Also on global warming: there is a suggestion there will be a 10 year break in actual temperature rises. If that is combined with more winters like the last one in central Asia then there will be a few more people worrying about the end of this interglacial. That's what worries me.
Phosphorus, iron, and other nutrients. The smart way to address this is to grow the algae in sewage, brackish water, water with a high salinity, or a mixture of any or all of these. The ideal place would be in outback areas with lots of sunshine, some distance from towns, where there is access to town effluent and other sources of low-quality water. Remember that the intent is to pull CO2 out of the air, so the algae sludge must be sequestered. The phosphorus will not be removed and reused, but the sequestered ash will probably end up on a farm somewhere, so the phosphorus will probably stay in use (and may end up in a cycle: algae->ash->farm->food->sewage->algae ).
You could be right. My research in this area was superficial. I remember concluding that dirigibles offered a huge improvement over jet travel, but I did not compare them to prop-driven aircraft.
This is one of my darkest fears. Carbon Capture and Sequestering is economic suicide for any company that is trying to do it at the point of production. CCS at point of production (given current technologies) does not make sense. However pulling CO2 out of the air using algae is very fast - it has been a reliable way to change global CO2 levels for the last few hundred million years... algae reproduces faster than we do. This might be the cheap way out.
I am concerned about that too. However I think there is a possibility (not a probability) that we may face a rapid collapse of the Greenland ice sheet in few years causing sea levels to start rising by a significant amount.
I have no idea what the global response will be as low lying areas, including in cities such as New York and London, as well as significant areas in the non Western countries might induce a panic cut back on coal use, leading to impossible economic conditions.
Dealing with PO in these circumstances will be impossible.
Interesting Saildog, to find someone else that thinks it's a possibility that Greenland could have a partial collapse and flood low lying coastal regions. If that does happen it would be the best case scenario as far as providing a potential way to stop global warming. If enough fresh water were to be released in a partial collapse, it would slow or stop the thermohaline conveyor, and the weather would shift into a short or long term ice age. Since the oceans hold a thousand times more thermal energy than the atmosphere, water temperature rules the weather (as evidenced by La Nina this past winter). The result would be a growing ice sheet in the north and super hot hurricane and tornadic driven weather at the equator. The areas of the Earth conducive to human civilization would diminish, however the planet would be saved from the methane hydrates along the continental shelves releasing into the atmosphere, which are 25 times more potent than CO2 in their green house effect. If all that methane did release without the induction of an ice age, then the Earth would become such a hot environment, human existence would be a small fraction of today's population.
They may not be more fuel efficient, but they can almost certainly carry more cargo.
TASK 1
Public education program about peak oil and global warming and its interdependencies; nation needs to be put on a war footing; change of value system; participation of public is absolutely essential; prepare motorists for car-pooling because this is the only "solution" if an oil crisis were to hit tomorrow
TASK 2
Immediate moratorium on new freeways, toll-ways, airport and port expansions, car dependent shopping centres and subdivisions, multi-level cars parks etc.
TASK 3
3.1 Set aside – by legislation – oil and gas fields for diesel, petrol and CNG supplies to civil works needed to mitigate the impact of peak oil and to de-carbonize our economy
3.2 Build up Strategic Oil Reserve; prepare fuel rationing plans
TASK 4
Re-industrialization of Australia on the basis of renewable energies; focus on essential tools, products and parts
TASK 5
Abandon unrealistic car dreams; electrification of land transport system is required which must be more efficient by an order of magnitude; urban rail on all free-ways (Transperth) and major roads; all genuinely renewable energies produce electricity, not fuels. Time is now running out for these solutions; too late for large scale rail tunnel projects
TASK 6
Bio fuels to run farming machinery, trucks and other vehicles to transport agricultural produce and implements; revive rural rail lines
TASK 7
Develop compressed natural gas (CNG) for buses, trucks, construction and mining machinery
TASK 8
Replacement program for all coal fired power plants; re-tool car factories and suppliers (BEFORE they go out of business after peak oil) to mass-produce components for wind farms, solar power plants, solar water heaters.A 1,000 MW coal fired power plant requires the continuous sequestration 150 Kb/d of liquid CO2. NSW alone has 12,500 MW installed. Australian oil handling capacity around 500 Kb/d. 1,000s of km of CO2 pipelines needed. Huge challenge. Difficult while oil production is declining. May come too late to fix climate.
TASK 9
Drastic power down and energy efficiency. Permanent Earth Hour.
TASK 10
Interstate rail development and electrification; both passenger and freight; replace domestic flights with night trains; coastal shipping for freight
Matt
I think you hit the nail on the head with Task 1. While as Aeldric points out that the term "Peak Oil " has now become mainstream, the general public is simply not conscious of the scope and ramifications of the problems we face. They are not prepared for the sacrifices and pain that is coming. This is clearly evidenced by yesterdays announcement by the Liberal party of a policy for reduction in the fuel excise. The Liberals would not have taken this action if they did not trully believe there will be substantial votes in it for them.
Until the public are sufficiently concerned over the future problems we face, no politician will take the subsequent action we all know are required.
I don't think we have time to wait for anything unproven, ie CCS, algae oil, CIGS, granite geothermal, wavepower or cheap electric cars. Localisation will come slowly since we still have a commuter economy and mindset. The quickest measures might be road to rail switching, CNG for heavy vehicles and assistance in home energy conservation. Specifically commuter rail should be maxed out as well as split mode long distance freight. Encourage pushbikes on trains and buses. Fleet operators should get fuel or company tax breaks for CNG conversion. Both homes and businesses should get help with cutting energy use using a mixture of carbon cop makeovers, smart meters and time-of-use shifting. Electricity retailers should install various solar apps out of their own pocket then get it back slowly from the customer.
Composting and water saving by councils and farmers should get help. Apply both carrot and stick to the coal scourge with a no b-s carbon cap plus handouts for renewables. I say order the first nuke plant (perhaps BHP could build one at Whyalla) and if a miracle power source crops up in the mean time then cancel it. That's just for starters.
We don't have to wait for cheap electric cars, they're here now. What we need are changes in the design rules and road regulations to allow them to be used.
In many jurisdictions these very light electric cars are classified as motobikes (or even their own category - quadricycles) but this is not possible under the australian road rules (which define motorbike in a restrictive way).
We need to revisit our legislation to allow us to use the technical solutions which already exist.
I don't care if I have to wear a motorbike helmet in my "car".
A link to these cheap electric cars please ?
Jmygann, this link provides a list of most of 'em:
http://www.evfinder.com/city_evs.htm
Can petrol motorscooters use your EV lane on the freeway, too? If we're talking about high payload ratios and energy efficiency, scooters cost typically 20-50% of the EV purchase cost quoted on the City EVs page; are already fully developed and street legal; can flow with the traffic better than the 65kph Riva and Piaggio; and have lower CO2 emissions per km travelled (if the plug-ins are being recharged with coal-generated electricity).
The big issue with scooters is their safety on roads dominated by 4WDs and trucks. A dedicated lane would be just peachy.
EV Album. ;)
This is an area I have thought about for a long time. I remember seeing a race car that was faster than any other on the track and it only had a very small capacity engine, something like 1.2L. It was light and made of the kind of materials that shatter on impact with a zone around the driver acting as a safety cell keeping the driver relatively safe rather than subjecting him/her to the danger of heavy metals.
If society was moved away from the traditional concept of what a personal car is, could we still use internal combustion engines in our vehicles but at a dramatically reduced scale?
Getting heavy transport off our roads would dramatically reduce the need for such high levels of safety measures. Very small one or two seater 'cars' for every day use, with dedicated lanes/roads during a transition phase, could very well become chic and cool to own. I'm thinking along the lines of the dedicated bus lanes that are scattered around Sydney. If the people plodding along in their old Commodores in peak hour on the M5 (Sydney Motorway) see tiny vehicles whizzing along unresticted past them, they may think quickly about updating. We need to get away from the idea that 'bigger is better' to 'smaller is better'.
Modern technology could allow these cars to talk to each other further reducing the likelihood of them crashing into each other. These cars would be very cheap to manufacture, therefore the selling price would be much lower. Running costs would be very small with less parts to repair, fuel costs would be lower because of more fuel efficient engines and lighter vehicles.
Making large vehicles prohibitavely expensive to run, such as increasing registration on 4WDs and any vehicle above a certain capacity would certainly push people into smaller vehicles. The hip pocket is the greatest driver for any change.
"""There is no better group of people to answer this question than the TOD community."""
A better group would be the National Academy of Sciences. TOD is heavily weighted with technoxers who believe that solar, wind, etc. will bail us out of this mess. Most technofixes yield electric power, which is not what we need. And worse, these solar, wind, oilgae (a failed liquid approach/see below) approaches will waste much oil, natural gas and coal, as well as capital. We need a focus on contingency planning and risk management.
The crisis is here now. As soon as oil production declines, recession sets in and we will have plenty of spare electric power, that is until the oil needed to support the power grid drops to the point where it won't support the grid. Then everything stops and nothing functions. That time is not far off.
The concept of producing biodiesel from algae (also called oilgae, or algal biodiesel) shows some promise of providing limited amounts of liquid fuels, though there are major obstacles:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2541#more
And the billions (or trillions) of dollars of capital investment needed for large scale these ventures will be unobtainable in an era of high inflation, high capital costs, and high energy costs (oil and natural gas energy would be needed to build the infrastructure of these mega-projects.
We are where we are, and the National Academy of Sciences will provide a working team of the best scientists from diverse fields to make recommendations about energy policy. Clifford J. Wirth
I agree, but my proposal was not to produce biodiesel from algae. I was obviously unclear. My proposal is to get CO2 out of the air, and do it quickly. The biodiesel is a nice bonus - but on its own the production of biodiesel from algae is probably not economically viable.
If (as seems likely) we go down the path of CTL anf GTL, then we need a way of sequestering CO2. (The alternative is moving my son to venus, since the climate is going to be nicer there.) Algae has truly amazing doubling times. It can pull CO2 out of the air fast.
Quite sensible CJ.
Australia has 21 million people spread over enormous distances.......completely unsustainable.
Victoria and Tasmania could easily accommodate the whole population.
They have abundant hydro which could be supplemented with renewables if a mass migration was to eventuate.
Like the rest of the world, populations will begin to move just as soon as their own locale becomes unsustainable. They will of course move to where they see a chance for them to obtain work.
When the people depart and the rivers recover, Australia can easily support the 20 odd million people, with the assistance of oil and the ICE.
Australia can't survive by trying to feed the world.
Vast tracts of land which are given over to wheat, rice, rape, cotton, sugar sheep and cattle have devastated the river regions.
Of course the sensible and painful realities of what must be done will be confused with technological evangelism.
Billions of dollars on electrification, which will rust and fail due to a lack of patronage and funding for maintenance is a probable outcome.
The questions are asked...what must we do to avert or mitigate the coming crises? The answers are build billions of electric cars, build trams and electrify the railways, build windmills all over the place, solar panels on every roof.
Are these projects advanced because they make the proponents feel good or what? I really think it's because of human nature, it's self preservation a form of narcissism and a disregard for future generations.
The cry goes out "it may not work but we have to try something, we should expend everything we have and attempt to stave off the coming crisis". They want to try and preserve as much and for as long as possible, that what we have now for themselves. They don't want to even share the pain.
Are they assuming a shortage of oil won't affect business and employment? If I thought that I would certainly propose such projects.
But I sincerely feel the economy which depends on growth and rampant consumerism will most likely collapse.
If that is the case, what will be the need for electric cars and enormous electrical rail networks?
Where will the oil and money come from to maintain roads and railways? Who is going to use the railways to generate a revenue stream to pay for wages and maintenance?
They can only have a short term mitigating effect.
The inevitable (to me) chronic economic downturn, will leave them as a monument to our generation of excess and wanton disregard for future generations.
Conservation, power down and a method to keep the population from growing is my forlorn wish.
We need pain now for everyone, to give our children and children's children a chance.
Can't we please try and leave some clean air to breathe, healthy oceans, seas, lakes and rivers, fauna and flora, life in the soil and minerals to mine for our grandchildren and their grandchildren?
Most of the population is in the 5 major cities though. These themselves could quite easily (if vocally opposed) be compacted into a smaller area, perhaps 1/4 of their current size without overclowding, but there's no need to transport everyone to Victoria and Tasmania. Britain did that 200 years ago, and look where it's gotten us. :)
I don't believe that I'm a cornucopian. I think that unless serious measures are taken right now, we (and the world in general) are in for a really tough time. I have a girlfriend, and I'm not happy about prospects for her personal safety during a Hard Crash. A managed, measured crash, over a 20 - 50 year period is a much better option, humanely (if you put aside Humanity and popular morality, a hard crash is probably the way to go. Although, a hard crash suggest to me we'll end up burning everything we can on the way down, in a desperate attempt to prop up our current unsusatinable life, instead of moving what we can save to cleaner methods of generation).
Hi Cliff,
I'm glad to see you propose this again. Here are my questions:
1. "A better group would be the National Academy of Sciences."
Could you please write up *exactly* what it is you propose they do?
(Please!)
Because I see many potential problems - as many as you see here at TOD. Namely, (and first) - what is the direction they will be given and by whom?
How can you make sure they have enough information to cover the crucial issues you see here?
How do you know they will not simply skip the essential point you appear to be making that a switch to renewables is not desirable (Is this your main point, BTW?)
2. re: "We need a focus on contingency planning and risk management."
What is the content - or some examples of content - of what you mean by "contingency planning" and "risk management"?
Could you possibly please provide some examples?
Could you please expand on this?
3. "Most technofixes yield electric power, which is not what we need."
Why is it not what we need? Yes, we need LTF - overwhelmingly.
However, *if* we had electric power and the infrastructure to support it, and everything else to maintain so