The Oil Drum

When the real energy crunch comes, be it next year or ten years from now, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that environmental concerns related to energy production and use will go right out the window.  I say this based on my 30+ years of experience in the environmental field. The 'environmental ethic' or whatever you want to call it gets huge amounts of lip service from politicians (after all, who WOULDN'T be for the environment?) but very little long-term commitment, particularly if that involves spending money.  In other words, it is a highly expendable issue.

When the real energy crunch comes, we will of course do what is most expedient to alleviate the problem. And what looks to be most expedient is to ramp up tar sand or coal-to-oil projects ASAP. Even though this is the quick and dirty (very dirty!) solution, it will still be enormously difficult to displace even a relatively small fraction of our current oil consumption.  

One sometimes hear that Nazi Germany successfully went the coal-to-oil route during WW II. Yes, they did, but their production was almost totally devoted to military use and was at a relatively small scale and at a very high price. For instance, in 1940 Germany produced something like 4.25 million metric tons of oil from coal. That works out to an daily average production rate of only 76,000 bpd. Even if production in the later years of the war increased several-fold beyong this level,  the output would only be that of a single average size modern US oil refinery.

Even following the path of least resistance is not going to be any picnic.