Charlie Hall: How much oil and gas will increased drilling provide? Geology's Answer: Not Much.
Posted by Nate Hagens on August 15, 2008 - 9:15am
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: charles hall, drilling, eia, eroei, eroi, gas, oil, original, peak oil [list all tags]
Annual rates of total drilling for and production of oil and gas in the US, 1949-2005 (R2 of the two = 0.005; source: U.S. EIA and N. D. Gagnon). Since drilling and other exploration activities are energy intensive, other things being equal EROI is lower when drilling rates are high.
As oil prices increase and the presidential campaigns heat up there is a lot of discussion about increased drilling for oil. In economic theory higher prices will give market signals to increase exploration and exploitation of resources and hence deliver more to society, although at a higher price. Will this in fact occur with oil for the United States? Of course we will not know until we do it, but we can look to the past for hints. The enclosed figure represents the history of drilling and production for oil and gas in the United States. The answer seems inescapable: the rate of drilling for oil in the United States has been unrelated to finding or producing oil and gas, which is determined principally by geology. Mother nature, not market theory, determines resource availability, at least in this case and probably many more. (Source: Hall, Powers and Schoenberg (in press))
I wrote this post to counter "drill, drill, drill" and it is worth reposting here.
The US post peak is a good counter example to the idea that oil production is dropping from lack of investment as opposed to geology. The peak and decline happened despite record high prices and an enormous increase in drilling effort.
Here is a series of charts that tell the story. Perhaps these could be worked into the peak oil FAQ page.
First, here is the history of US oil production showing the peak and decline of the lower 48 states.
And we can see in this inflation corrected oil price chart the increase in oil price that followed the peak. Interruptions in the flow of imported oil caused prices to hit highs that were unmatched until very recently.
These high prices brought on a huge increase in investment into drilling. This drilling rig count and utilization chart shows that every availiable rig was put into operation to take advantage of the higher prices. But oil production still fell.
And actually, the industry way over invested in drilling. Look at the number of rigs available and how rapidly they declined. Many more were built than were put into active use.
Source links
http://www.energywatchgroup.org/Oil-report.32+M5d637b1e38d.0.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/business/worldbusiness/03cnd-oil.html?...
http://drillingcontractor.org/dcpi/dc-novdec05/Nov05-rigcensus.pdf
Here is a more detailed rig census for last year. (But the graphics are not as pretty).
http://www.worldoil.com/magazine/MAGAZINE_DETAIL.asp?ART_ID=3318&MONTH_Y...
With the details at worldoil.com this looks pretty much like a typical pork cycle...
Thanks for posting this. The absence of any knowledge of geology or the earth sciences shows during this debate.
The forest is lost for the trees:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS211536+23-Jun-2008+PRN20...
Note the disconnect between politico's breathless press release and the letter from AAPG. The conspiracy theory always seems to play well in the US. Unfortunately these are very large issues; adults are needed!
"this looks pretty much like a typical pork cycle..."
Exactly, you just have to remember that we are talking about politicians so they are not going to make any decisions based on reason, logic or eroei but just their ability to get elected and re-elected:-(
People are complaining about the high price of gas and they want politicians not only to "feel the pain" but do something about the pain. From my perspective in Europe it seems that at the moment any US candidate who does not support more drilling stands no chance of being elected.
I get that for oil but what about the new Gas production coming online in North America, well, mostly the US.
I don't see this discussed much here if at all.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energy_in_brief/natural_gas_production.cfm
Natural gas production in the Lower 48 States has seen a large upward shift. After 9 years of no net growth through 2006, an upward trend began that generated 3% growth between first-quarter 2006 and first-quarter 2007, followed by an exceptionally large 9% increase between first-quarter 2007 and first-quarter 2008.
You should use "search the oil drum with google" by entering key words. Having done this you had found the following links:
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/3/8/222920/5485
www.theoildrum.com/node/3673
www.theoildrum.com/node/2693
www.theoildrum.com/tag/unconventional_natural_gas
www.theoildrum.com/node/3726
www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/11/12/0150/4833
etc. etc...
Those links are all old, and don't address the recent phenomenon that SeanTOD is talking about. The referenced report from the EIA is dated June 11, 2008.
Euro,
It's funny you should suggest doing a Google search. I read TOD almost every day as well as keep up on the energy markets via the financial news. What I've been hearing from companies in the US nat gas business does not match what I've read here over the years. The North American Nat Gas companies are talking about tremendous expansion in supply due to new drilling techniques.
Here? We get posts titled like this one where nat gas is lumped in with oil.
So I did a Google search on "natural gas statistics" and got the EIA page. A link on that page asked "Is natural gas supply increasing?"
The answer is yes. For North America anyway. You should check with Putin.
I would think this would be big news here.
The problem is the speed of decline of the new well technology. We are going to get a huge boost in production from Haynesville Shale - perhaps 1.5-2 TCF per year by 2012 which is almost 10% of our production. But the horizontal wells expected to be drilled decline 60%+ in the first year. If we keep stacking old wells and new production from unconventional gas plays we still have the same treadmill phenomenon witnessed on conventional gas plays - the shale plays only extend the start of overall decline. At the same time, these new bursts of production give the market false senses of lower long term prices, which make it likely incorrect longer term policy choices are made. Already natural gas use in electricity production is up 33% in past 4 years. I wonder how much of this is due to refinery needs....anyone with that stat please enlighten...
Sean TOD,
You should start a thread "Peak OIl in 2008 does NOT mean Peak Gas in 2008".
Many of the usual suspects on TOD don't grock this.
If we use the analog of the lag between peak U.S. oil and gas production (1971 to 2015?), we won't hit worldwide peak gas production until 2050 or so.
However whats intresting with Natural Gas is that even with this surge in production we are now seeing that NG storage is persistently staying in the middle of the average range even with decent injections.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/natural_gas/ngs/ngs.html
It will be interesting to see how it goes over the next few months.
My opinion is that this extra NG is going three places. First into industries that can switch between NG and fuel oil for steam boilers.
Next into our upgraded heavy/sour oil refining capacity.
And finally into ethanol production.
US net imports of NG are way down, by about 20-30% year-on-year from 2007 levels Source. Total exports from Jan-May 2008 were up by 48% over 2007 Source. No opinion necessary. I looked it up. :-)
I knew LNG imports were down never really paid attention to exports. I assume that they go to eastern canada and maybe some into Mexico ? I don't think thats a permanent condition once prices are right we can attract LNG import again. Internal production should have more than made up for this. Which means demand for NG is up in the US. Given that the economy is slowing and has been for a while then we must have added new demand for NG thats causing problems. NG is not bad but given the strong growth one would think NG storage would have been higher like it was back in 2006-2007. Something seems to have changed this year.
Personally I'm very skeptical of the long term production from both deep water gas and shale. It takes a tremendous amount of drilling in the shale deposits to just stay even and we pretty much have all our rigs deployed drilling for NG and oil right now.
http://www.wtrg.com/rotaryrigs.html
Given the rapid declines of shale NG sources in my opinion we simply can't throw enough rigs at shale to stay even much less expand more production without older source going into steep decline.
If the recent strong pull back in NG prices continues which it may we may even see a slow down in drilling that would be problematic because in my opinion if we back off even a little bit from exploiting the shale reserves we probably won't be able to catch back up. We are going to have to stay drilling pretty much all out for NG and keep expanding the rig fleet just to stay even. In any case given we are pretty much flat out on the drilling side it will be interesting to see how NG production changes over the rest of the year and next. Given that the shale NG well lifetimes are like one-two years then the flow decreases dramatically we should in my opinion start seeing NG production again heading downwards.
http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2002/07jul/barnett_shale.cfm
I'm not saying we won't get a lot of gas out of these fields overtime but I can't see how they can keep overall production from again declining without a major increase in the number of rigs drilling.
In the link below they actually think that LNG should be heading higher.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&refer=asia&sid=aqPVo2P33...
Ouch. That is 300% more than we paid last winter, on average. The US uses about 3x as much NG as the whole world market for LNG. Imagine the price spike if the US tried to get into that market in a major way.
Its a interesting dynamic even if the shale plays don't result in a overall increase the cheaper prices here keep up out of the LNG markets. Also the drilling costs for shale I've seen set it above 5 at the well head so you have a very strong floor on prices. Drop to low and drilling in the shale plays will practically stop.
Long term what may happen is US NG prices continue at a fairly steep discount vs LNG however they may drift higher or lower the problem is if we assume that NG supplies will eventually turn downward the differential between US NG and LNG might be pretty large.
So you could go along for a while with fairly cheap NG in North America but see a large price increase the moment NG supplies are not adequate and potentially even more to attract LNG supplies.
If LNG prices go high enough you could even see significant exports of LNG from the US.
The dynamics are interesting to say the least since it seems like the shale plays have economic restrictions that are pretty tight. To much NG and they go unprofitable but the decline rates are steep so within a year or so you go from oversupply to a fairly big shortage. If you keep within the price range but LNG gets expensive export possibilities creep in.
The biggest problem that I still don't have a good answer for is whats the long term production from these plays. I've seen reports that the well lifetimes in total are about 5 years so a lot of the early wells put in in 2001-2002 are finally reaching the end of their life. So basically starting this year we are starting to see the effects of decline enter into the picture. So on top of expansion we also have to replace all the wells drilled in 2001-2002 then 2003 etc.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3673
The reason why I'm very interested is that assuming we are maxed out on rigs then effectively we are loosing a percentage of our early production each year going forward.
From the graph and assuming all of the 5Tcfa of unconventional developed in 2000 needs to be replaced in addition say 1-2tcfa of conventional decline we actually need 6-7 tcfa this year to stay flat.
This is really rough but the point is that we have reached the point that decline of older unconventional wells is now a major factor. The honeymoon period for unconventional is ending. Only a major expansion of the drilling fleet can keep gas production up.
Just looking at the plot conventional discovery and production give me the impression that it is dangerously close to the point there conventional discovery must go up now or the conventional production will fall.
I found data on conventional reserves on this page http://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-060/index.html "Page Last Modified: Mon Aug 22 18:08 EDT 2005" (this date is probably not important) and the actual document here http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/WEcont/world/woutsum.pdf They put "Remaining reserves" (conventional) at 172 Trillion cubic feets but how old is the document and the data?
The document is marked with "US SURVEY WORLD PETROLEUM ASSESMENT 2000-- ..." in the lower right corner.
Data for undiscovered conventional and reserve growth conventional is marked with stars and are from 1995-1995 but remaining reserves is not marked with anything so they should be from 2000?
I followed the link abore and Jean Laherrere as extrapolated "US conventional natural gas creaming curve" between 1995 and 2005.
? What is the US conventional reserves now?
Doing the calculation with annual production 20 Tcf/a and withdraw discovery 5 Tcf/a 172/(20-5) = 11.5 years. But should it be from 1995-1996? 2000? or now?
BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2007 http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/re... put remaining reserves at end of 2006 "Natural Gas: Proved reserves" at 209 trillion cubic feet but are BP using all reserves or just conventional?
I guess it's nothing to worry about after all US has 527 trillion cubic feet undiscovered natural gas they just have to go out and find it or.
The haynesville may add 5bcf/day to the gas supply in the U.S by 2011. Cost is less than $5/MCF ALL IN. There are probably at least a dozen more basins in nam like the haynesville, but more remote. All in cost more than $6.50. I don't think rigs will be a problem (not hard to make more), tho crews could be.
And we havent even talked about unconventional NG reserves overseas.
Our ability to use modern seismic methods is about the only thing keeping the oil and gas industry alive. I remember the first oil crisis back in 1973, and the second in 1980, and reading about how the barrels of oil found per foot of drill tube was in terminal decline in onshore America.
The development of modern computer seismic capability made it possible to continue oil drilling by shifting to offshore and smaller onshore fields.
Now, thirty five years later, we have seismic so good we can detect cracks in the shale a mile deep and figure out which way to drill a horizontal well to actually get some decent production.
If it wasn't for silicon valley, we wouldn't have a domestic drilling industry onshore or offshore. We can't afford to drill without the modern seismic technology.
I wrote this post to counter "drill, drill, drill" and it is worth reposting here.
The best argument for "drill drill drill" is the view -- tirelessly promulgated and reinforced by this website -- that oil is like oxygen, and any decline in oil production will have catastrophic effects. It's idiotic to tell people that they're running out of oxygen; but please don't struggle to the utmost to acquire more. "Without oil, we'll die" is the best talking point that the "drill now, drill everywhere" crowd has, and the peak oiler greens are handing it to them on a platter.
A far better approach would be to stress all the numerous reasons why we DON'T need oil , and why massive reductions in use can be made with almost no pain at all. Then the argument for drilling loses its force.
Stupid blanket statements. Many of the people reading TOD actually like to understand what is going on, and try to aid other people in their own understanding. It is called analysis.
Go ahead and bury your head in the sand, the oil industry honchos would be happy that you stay clueless about what the real numbers are.
So this is an argument then in favor of drilling in known geologies that are more favorable.
such as ANWR and the continental shelf.
And to develop oil shale which is a known resource.
Work the geologies where there is guaranteed return.
It is an argument that to increase production you must drill in new territories. Frenzied drilling of existing territories just wastes casing pipe and money. Here is a paper by Dr. Hall discussing the subject:
Petroleum drilling in the United States: Yield per effort and net energy analysis (PDF Warning)
Shale oil has a very low EROI. It is basically a battery. A much better investment would be splitting your investment into lithium batteries and wind power. Much, much higher EROI and far less environmental damage.
Have you looked at the EROI and environmental damage of Gail the Actuary draft animal plan ?
Just wondering if there is any attempt to validate or coordinate the recommendations of different contributors and editors at TOD.
Should there at least be some summaries and polls of five editors and 21 contributors so that readers could quickly glance and know where the TOD editors and contributors are coming down on recommendations. If you are agreeing to disagree then where are those points.
Are the only fundamental agreements that oil will peak and run out at some point between now and X years in the future?
Are the choices for mitigation based on EROI ?
How many actually think like Gail that a powerdown is realistic and desirable?
Is there any attempt to reconcile plans with actual developments in other countries ? Like that fact that China is gearing up mass production of high temperature nuclear reactors and AP1000 reactors. 71,000 square meter AP1000 factory built in 11 months in China. It can make components for two AP1000 reactors per year.
75% of new power added from 2010-2020 is projected to not be in the OECD. No political uncertainty in China, Russia, India.
Of the
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html
nuclear reactors being built (36) or where millions have already been spent on planning for imminent build start (93).
Only 12 are in the USA.
31 in China
17 Russia
16 India
13 Japan
8 South Korea
5 Canada
the rest in 14 other countries (1-3 each)
Just wondering if there is any attempt to validate or coordinate the recommendations of different contributors and editors at TOD....
If you are agreeing to disagree then where are those points.
I would think (and hope) that there is no need at TOD even to agree to disagree, much less coordinate. Let there there be debate, fierce even, but not nasty. That's what's needed here. It's too bad the US public isn't hearing more in the way of debates around PO. Policy isn't decided here. Policy is decided the way it is because the public is in the dark about the fundamental issues.
Party of the beauty of TOD is that the founders seem to have no intention of establishing a single message, unlike what is typically required from an organization like, say, the IEA.
So I can't speak for the future, but I think it's fair to say, "no" to most of your questions right now.
TOD is working very well right now, in my view, making sure all sides are covered, including nuclear. And were someone to come out with a well-thought out plan that includes all your points, I'm sure it would be posted.
Perhaps you are that person?
Yes, I have that plan. I have had one article posted so far on the Oil drum (nuclear power for the oilsands).
One other one on deaths per TWH, went back and forth a few times but unfortunately has not been posted yet.
This is where I compared the deaths from all energy sources.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.h...
While I believe that current reactors are far safer than coal and oil and natural gas and comparable to solar and wind I believe that all of them can be improved. For solar power that means no rooftop power, but like Coolearth putting solar over rural areas or undeveloped city land for municipal solar. That way there will not be deaths from falls from roofs.
The worst case scenarios about nuclear are not credible.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/indian-point-worst-case-nuclear.html
If one were worried about it then get some less than 10 million for the equivalent of golf driving range netting or 10-15 story batting cage fencing around the reactors [only for the reactors by high value areas like New York). Planes would hit the barrier first and the containment domes would absolutely be able to withstand minor collaterol damage.
Improved radiation protection will address even those mostly unnecessary fears.
At some point in the future, there is some probability of nuclear war and there is definitely the continued threat of hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes. This is not because of increased nuclear power increasing the risks, it is because improving technology makes it easier and easier to make weapons in general and the knowledge of nuclear weapons have already (past tense) proliferated.
The side effect of actually deploying simple technology like better nails and improved construction to make us mostly immune to nuclear weapons (10-1000 times fewer deaths per megaton) is that society will pay less because of reduced hurricane and earthquake damage.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/re-inventing-civil-defense.html
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/simple-and-affordable-defences-against....
Deploying radiation protection will mean not having as many deaths in the event of nuclear war and zero deaths in the event of ANY nuclear accident.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/progress-in-radiation-protection.html
But there should still be development and deployment of the improved technology for reactors and protection of people.
Deep burn reactors should be produced and scaled up and the best current reactors should be massively scaled up.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/07/deep-burn-and-seriously-scaling-nuclear...
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/07/responding-to-al-gores-clean-energy.htm...
Energy Technology Plan
This site has proposed an energy plan with a greater focus on applying better energy technology. The plan is not solely focused on CO2 emissions.
Short term
Efficiency and drilling for regular and enhanced recovery, policy that discourages coal and fossil fuel and encourages nuclear and renewables. Try to reduce fuel usage 2-4% per year and try to increase oil from drilling and biofuels by 3-6% per year.
Accelerate the development and deployment of inflatable electric cars and adapting cars like the $2500 Tata nano to be plug in electric vehicles.
Accelerate the development and deployment of new building technology like Calera cement which removes one ton of CO2 for each ton of cement instead of adding one ton of CO2 to the air. If all cement worldwide were able to use this then instead of adding 2.35 billion tons of CO2/year there would be a removal of 2.35 billion tons.
Encourage the adoption of electric bikes and scooters. China has 80 million and is building 21 million per year. Electric scooters can reach highway speeds and folding e-bikes can be rolled onto public transit.
Build the factory mass producible meltdown proof high temperature nuclear reactors. Accelerate the factory mass producible Hyperion power Uranium hydride reactor. [currently targeting 2012 deployment]
Build the Fuji Molten salt reactor which can use thorium and can burn 99% of the thorium, uranium and plutonium which only leaves 30 year half life material.
Mid Term
Big nuclear buildup and thermoelectric and transmission efficiency Triple nuclear power by 2020 by using new (MIT annular nuclear fuel can increase power by 50% for existing reactors) uprate technology and advanced thermoelectrics and some new plants. (25% of all energy from nuclear instead of 8.2% and 17% less fossil fuel. First reduce coal first - 30,000 deaths from coal air pollution, 60,000 deaths from combined coal [over 13 times all US forces deaths from the current Iraq war] and fossil fuel air pollution in the USA. Plus moving 1.2 billion tons of coal is 40% of freight rail traffic and 10% of diesel fuel usage.) Can get up to six times more nuclear by 2030. Displace all coal and a lot of oil.
Mid-Long Term
Very advanced nuclear fission and nuclear fusion and better renewables (geothermal, wind [kitegen, superconducting wind turbines], solar [concentrated solar in municipal or rural power configurations. My favorite is CoolEarth's solar balloons], genetically modified organisms for biofuel)
Also part of the near term steps, but which would not likely have impact until the mid-term is to fully fund the best nuclear fusion power generation possibilities. Create policies to accelerate research and deployment.
btw: since I have covered all the points. Then this should be posted as a main article on TOD right?
What the ......!! After browsing through your collection of posts on your nextbigfuture blog, I suspect I'm not the only one that wants to ask.. "Are you on drugs?"
A radical redesign of cars to safe, lightweight electrical cars is beyond the your imagination, but converting modern societies to be draft animal centric is "one of the best posts ever" [several commenters to Gail's financial doom posts].
Who is pushing the better plan ?
- "We cannot have lightweight electrical cars, they are not safe because we have SUVs and trucks".
Air bags work to protect in a collision. Lightweight cars bounce from collision with heavier vehicles.
Formula One race cars weigh 400kg but drivers can survive collision at 200mph.
Air bags inflate and are tough enough to survive collisions.
- the stated alternative in the same sentence was converting the $2500 cars like the Tata Nano to be plug in hybrids or all electric and making them lighter.
How safe will you and Gail be riding your draft animal on roads that still have cars and trucks ?
Tata has stated that electric and hybrid cars are on their development path. They will be making over a million/year Tata Nano's within a few years.
Tata promises an electric car within 12 months (by Aug 2009)
Five electric car models by Tata
There is a company (XP Vehicles) that claims to be trying to make the inflatable electric car.
Toyota and other companies are working on more lightweight materials for cars
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/08/materials-to-make-cars-lighter-and-more...
Who is pushing the draft animal programme in the USA or Europe ?
So again which is further from reality ?
Also, there was the claim that TOD is open to well researched alternative points of view and plans. So this was presented. Where is the TOD openness ?
That's pretty disconcerting. IMO relative risk is one of the most ignored aspects of the energy debate.
I think the reason for this may be that nuclear energy wins hands down, or at least fares no worse than wind and other 'clean' alternatives. Which upsets a lot of people.
Carry on commenting, advancednano! I've added 'NextBigFuture' to my favourites.
I think your approach suffers from all plans that involve nuclear energy:
* the no long term solution to the waste problem
* building more reactors at the cusp of energy descent seems to me like a foolhardy thing to do. We will struggle to decommission the existing reactors safely, never mind any new ones we build.
Is it possible that we've painted ourselves into a corner and no good options are left to us?
As for your post, write it up and submit it. You won't know if it will be posted unless you try and I'm the wrong person to ask.
-Andre'
"I think your approach suffers from all plans that involve nuclear energy:
* the no long term solution to the waste problem"
Short term solution to the waste problem is to do what France, the UK, and Japan does. Recycle. My understanding is that 75% of spent fuel is recyclable. I recently read somewhere on the web that the US would have 22 years worth of nuclear fuel for our existing reactors if we recycle.
Long term solution? We have that, too, sitting under a mountain in Utah. Use it. The US merely lacks the political will to recycle and store nuclear materials.
Are you, perchance, referring to the DOE's high-level nuclear waste storage facility? Because DOE's site is in Nevada, not Utah. If you can't get basic geography right, are the rest of your opinions well-researched?
Or are you referring to the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indians Reservation storage plan? Talk about a CF.
Many proponents of nuclear power attempt to tar all their opponents with the brush of ignorance..."if those in opposition to more nuclear power were not so ignorant and fearful"; but many who oppose nuclear power generation have well-grounded concerns. In addition, many appreciate the nature of the human species and how complex systems interact with that nature. Glib assurances that "all problems are solved, trust us" don't reassure those who have seen how commonly incompetence, greed, ignorance, and fraud govern human actions.
Maybe the reason many ordinary people fear the expansion of nuclear power is that they intuitively understand the frailties to which humans are prone.
Nuclear waste is not "recyclable."
Dropping irradiated fuel rods into acids to precipitate out the unfissioned U is the most toxic industry ever developed.
If we were a planet of peaceful robots nuclear fission might have a role, but since nuclear reactors give their operators access to bomb materials and since all nuclear reactors create massive amounts of DNA destroying radionuclides, the only safe form of nuclear energy is solar power. Future generations of all species are in the current genetic materials, peeing in the gene pool is not good for your great great great great grandchildren.
http://www.oilempire.us/nuclear-climate.html
Nuclear Climate:
Nuclear power makes climate change worse
Coal inputs into the fuel cycle, tremendous heat generated, energy to babysit the wastes for eons
Nuclear reactors generate electricity.
Nuclear power cannot displace the use of oil (which mostly powers transportation, very little oil powers the North American electric grid).
An enormous amount of coal power is required to run the nuclear fuel cycle: uranium mining, milling, enrichment and fuel fabrication. The amount of energy required to babysit the wastes for millennia cannot be calculated, but it is arrogance beyond description to assume future generations will be able to take care of our problems.
August 13, 2008
Climate scientist James Hansen was on the Charlie Rose show tonight (Aug 12, 2008, aired locally on Aug 13 - video at www.charlierose.com), saying how we need to leave some of the fossil fuels in the ground to save the air. He clearly said that we are essentially at Peak Oil.
But when he was asked about alternative energy, he said that nuclear energy had "good potential to be part of the solution," claiming that fear was the real problem with nuclear reactors. He did say afterwards that solar and wind are good and have lots of potential.
He doesn't seem to understand that making electricity and making liquid fuels are two very different things.
His promotion of nukes is for a new design that supposedly doesn't make long lived nuclear waste. "We wouldn't have to mine more uranium in the next few hundred years if we used the nuclear waste" we already have - in other words, he is promoting reprocessing of nuclear waste to extract the leftover U and Pu. Dissolving nuclear fuel rods into acids to precipitate out the fissionable materials is the single most toxic technology yet invented, even garbage incineration, paper mill chlorinated wastes and chlorinated herbicides don't have as long lasting health impacts on future generations. Some of the isotopes make the timelines of ice ages seem very short in comparison.
Hansen also said that "we shouldn't rule out nuclear because it scares us" which is a remarkably ridiculous point of view for a scientist internationally famous for being attacked by the Bush administration for daring to tell the truth about climate change.
He claims that "fourth generation" nuclear reactors would supposedly eliminate the problem of long lived nuclear waste, although the process of fissioning uranium is not substantially changed by the type of reactor design -- all fission reactions create hundreds of isotopes not present on Earth before 1938, some of which have very long half lives and all are toxic to life.
Fourth generation nukes would still poison distant generations, would require massive fossil fuels to build and fuel, they are not in commercial operation (so they're untested) and the resources that would be spent on building lots of reactors would be better invested in energy efficiency, relocalization and renewable energy.
The 1975 "Barton Report" from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission admitted that a police state would be needed to safeguard the nuclear materials if "reprocessing" was used to "recycle" nuclear fuels.
Perhaps, like James Lovelock, he merely doesn't understand the climate (and health) impacts of running nuclear reactors. If we were a planet of peaceful robots this might have some more validity, but DNA and ionizing radiation are incompatible and all reactors give bomb materials to their operators (even fourth generation nukes would still do this, especially if reprocessing of irradiated fuel rods was done to provide some of the new fuel).
I look forward to the day when people who get on TV to talk about "moving beyond oil" understand that electricity and liquid fuels are not the same things, that fossil fuels are more concentrated than alternatives, and that renewable energy that doesn't destroy DNA can power a stable state society but not a growth based economic system.
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