Home Page 2009 May

by Webmaster May 31, 2009 12:00
Sometimes complex truths become more clear when we put them in very simple terms. Around the world, political leaders are still living in the delusion that we have time on our hands to find sensible alternatives to oil. But global oil production has peaked.
Peak Oil Production 2008

A significant example of collapsing oil production is Cantarell, recently the largest oil field in the Western Hemisphere. From over 2 million barrels per day in 2004-2005, Cantarell is now producing at around 700,000 barrels per day.

Technology can help - and on this website various energy technologies are examined (sitemap). But humanity needs more than technology - we need high leverage methodologies as well. And, at the very least we need a new way of thinking about the impact of fossil fuels on the environment.

We had our chance to evolve gradually toward a sustainable economy, but that opportunity has been squandered. Now primary ecosystems services are collapsing and we must accelerate our response, manifesting a revolution - more precisely, a SolaRevolution.

University students are invited to participate with us in this SolaRevolution under the guidance of SolarQuest®. Contact us for more information.

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Home Page 2008 August

by Webmaster August 31, 2008 12:00

New Energy for America(and more) Barack Obama [2008 August]

"Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.

"As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I'll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy -- wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced."

Obama's acceptance speech. Better than McCain's plan, but Obama needs a lot of help too.

The Challenge to Repower America [2008 July 17]

"On July 17, Al Gore challenged America to produce 100 percent of our electricity from energy sources with zero carbon emissions - and to do so within 10 years. His speech, and the resulting dialogue, is resetting the way Americans think about our energy future and the climate crisis. It may also be resetting our understanding of what is possible. The goal is ambitious, but achievable."

Pickens Plan [2008 July 17]

"IT'S TIME TO STOP AMERICA'S ADDICTION TO FOREIGN OIL

"America is in a hole and it's getting deeper every day. We import 70% of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year - four times the annual cost of the Iraq war."
Curiously the earliest entry on Pickens' website is the same day as Al Gore's speech. Ed.

Hard times for airlines [2008 July 1]

"...[T]here are no serious alternatives to jet fuel for airliners. And even if there were, they could never be cheap in a world of expensive energy. The problem is not that oil is scarce: the production has never been this high -- that's why we call it Peak Oil. The problem is that energy supply is not meeting global demand: until demand abates, any type of energy will end up costing the same, be it classical kerosene, gas-to-liquid synthetic jet fuel, or biodiesel. Regardless of the environmental footprint. Just know that if it was technologically feasible, filling an A380 tank with biofuel would use up 150 hectares of yearly yield, considering an optimistic figure of 2000 litres per hectare for Jatropha biodiesel. You'd need 150x2x365x150 = 16 million hectares -- the arable land in France -- to power the currently ordered A380 fleet.

"Meanwhile the fuel efficiency improvements do not come anywhere close to compensating the price surge. Boeing claim that their new 787 will burn 20% less fuel than current jets of the same category (namely the 767 or A330). 20% is how much oil prices rose between the beginning of April and mid-May 2008: 30 years of technological improvement in aircraft and engine design will offset six weeks of price increase, and no technological Deus ex Machina will change that deal."

New GAO Peak Oil Report Provides Urgent Call to Action: U.S. Vulnerable and the Government Unprepared for Unacceptably High Risks of Oil Supply Shock, by Congressmen Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and Tom Udall (D-NM), co-chairmen of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus [2007 March 29]

"This GAO peak oil report is a clarion call for leadership at the highest level of our country to avert an energy crisis unlike any the world has ever before experienced and one that we know could happen at any time. Only the President can rally the country to take the urgent steps necessary. Potential alternatives to oil are extremely limited. Technology won't save us without time and money to develop and scale them up."
GAO Peak Oil Report (Complete), Highlights
"... [B]y 2015 these technologies could displace only the equivalent of 4 percent of projected U.S. annual consumption. Under these circumstances, an imminent peak and sharp decline in oil production could have severe consequences, including a worldwide recession. If the peak comes later, however, these technologies have a greater potential to mitigate the consequences."

Within the energy profession there are groups (e.g., ASPO, ASPO-USA) grappling with the challenge of "Peak Oil." While the efforts of Al Gore and others have raised awareness of the threat of global warming, society is not in any way prepared for the imminent decline in global oil production.

In the near term, declining production will impact certain countries more than others. Cantarell, the largest field in the western hemisphere, is declining rapidly. Over the next couple of years, Mexico's economy will be hard-hit.

Without imports, the USA's domestic oil reserves would be exhausted in three years at the current rate of consumption. The Oil War option is losing favor. Technological breakthroughs will be too slow and voluntary conservation will be too shallow to avert widespread disruption of economic activity, especially transportation and consequently food. Lacking the political will to make conscious, rapid, drastic changes, Americans will be subjected to Mother Nature's adjustments; She did not negotiate with the Mayor of New Orleans; nor will She negotiate the American Way of Life when Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field collapses of its own accord.

Liquid fuel substitutes (tar sands, coal-to-liquids, oil shale, surprisingly even ethanol and biodiesel) are carbon intensive and will only exacerbate global warming. Plus they cannot be scaled up on a timely basis.

It would take one new nuclear power plant every week until 2050 to fill the oil gap. Minor detail, uranium shortages would emerge long before 2050, unless as yet unproven breeder reactors come on line soon.

While it will take time, direct conversion of solar radiation to electricity (photovoltaics and concentrating solar power) can be scaled up. One viable sustainable alternative also exists for repetitive travel (e.g., commuting -- more than half of all urban transport). It is the rapid build-out of solar powered electric vehicles on fixed guideways (the "podcar"). A continuous solar array, well within the width of the guideway, is sufficient to provide 100% of the power required for this efficient form of high capacity transit.

 

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Home Page 2007 August

by Webmaster August 31, 2007 12:00
New Energy for America(and more) Barack Obama [2008 August]
"Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.

"As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I'll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I'll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I'll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy -- wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced."

Obama's acceptance speech. Better than McCain's plan, but Obama needs a lot of help too.

The Challenge to Repower America [2008 July 17]

"On July 17, Al Gore challenged America to produce 100 percent of our electricity from energy sources with zero carbon emissions - and to do so within 10 years. His speech, and the resulting dialogue, is resetting the way Americans think about our energy future and the climate crisis. It may also be resetting our understanding of what is possible. The goal is ambitious, but achievable."

Pickens Plan [2008 July 17]

"IT'S TIME TO STOP AMERICA'S ADDICTION TO FOREIGN OIL

"America is in a hole and it's getting deeper every day. We import 70% of our oil at a cost of $700 billion a year - four times the annual cost of the Iraq war."
Curiously the earliest entry on Pickens' website is the same day as Al Gore's speech. Ed.

Hard times for airlines [2008 July 1]

"...[T]here are no serious alternatives to jet fuel for airliners. And even if there were, they could never be cheap in a world of expensive energy. The problem is not that oil is scarce: the production has never been this high -- that's why we call it Peak Oil. The problem is that energy supply is not meeting global demand: until demand abates, any type of energy will end up costing the same, be it classical kerosene, gas-to-liquid synthetic jet fuel, or biodiesel. Regardless of the environmental footprint. Just know that if it was technologically feasible, filling an A380 tank with biofuel would use up 150 hectares of yearly yield, considering an optimistic figure of 2000 litres per hectare for Jatropha biodiesel. You'd need 150x2x365x150 = 16 million hectares -- the arable land in France -- to power the currently ordered A380 fleet.

"Meanwhile the fuel efficiency improvements do not come anywhere close to compensating the price surge. Boeing claim that their new 787 will burn 20% less fuel than current jets of the same category (namely the 767 or A330). 20% is how much oil prices rose between the beginning of April and mid-May 2008: 30 years of technological improvement in aircraft and engine design will offset six weeks of price increase, and no technological Deus ex Machina will change that deal."

New GAO Peak Oil Report Provides Urgent Call to Action: U.S. Vulnerable and the Government Unprepared for Unacceptably High Risks of Oil Supply Shock, by Congressmen Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and Tom Udall (D-NM), co-chairmen of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus [2007 March 29]

"This GAO peak oil report is a clarion call for leadership at the highest level of our country to avert an energy crisis unlike any the world has ever before experienced and one that we know could happen at any time. Only the President can rally the country to take the urgent steps necessary. Potential alternatives to oil are extremely limited. Technology won't save us without time and money to develop and scale them up."
GAO Peak Oil Report (Complete), Highlights
"... [B]y 2015 these technologies could displace only the equivalent of 4 percent of projected U.S. annual consumption. Under these circumstances, an imminent peak and sharp decline in oil production could have severe consequences, including a worldwide recession. If the peak comes later, however, these technologies have a greater potential to mitigate the consequences."

Within the energy profession there are groups (e.g., ASPO, ASPO-USA) grappling with the challenge of "Peak Oil." While the efforts of Al Gore and others have raised awareness of the threat of global warming, society is not in any way prepared for the imminent decline in global oil production.

In the near term, declining production will impact certain countries more than others. Cantarell, the largest field in the western hemisphere, is declining rapidly. Over the next couple of years, Mexico's economy will be hard-hit.

Without imports, the USA's domestic oil reserves would be exhausted in three years at the current rate of consumption. The Oil War option is losing favor. Technological breakthroughs will be too slow and voluntary conservation will be too shallow to avert widespread disruption of economic activity, especially transportation and consequently food. Lacking the political will to make conscious, rapid, drastic changes, Americans will be subjected to Mother Nature's adjustments; She did not negotiate with the Mayor of New Orleans; nor will She negotiate the American Way of Life when Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field collapses of its own accord.

Liquid fuel substitutes (tar sands, coal-to-liquids, oil shale, surprisingly even ethanol and biodiesel) are carbon intensive and will only exacerbate global warming. Plus they cannot be scaled up on a timely basis.

It would take one new nuclear power plant every week until 2050 to fill the oil gap. Minor detail, uranium shortages would emerge long before 2050, unless as yet unproven breeder reactors come on line soon.

While it will take time, direct conversion of solar radiation to electricity (photovoltaics and concentrating solar power) can be scaled up. One viable sustainable alternative also exists for repetitive travel (e.g., commuting -- more than half of all urban transport). It is the rapid build-out of solar powered electric vehicles on fixed guideways (the "podcar"). A continuous solar array, well within the width of the guideway, is sufficient to provide 100% of the power required for this efficient form of high capacity transit.

 

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home Page 2007 March

by Webmaster March 31, 2007 12:00
Interactive Oil Depletion Atlas from David Strahan, whose new book, The Last Oil Shock, was released in April 2007 and can be obtained in the Americas from Amazon Canada.

 

"There are currently 98 oil producing countries in the world, of which 64 are thought to have passed their geologically imposed production peak, and of those 60 are in terminal production decline."

Condenados a muerte prematura por hambre y sed más de 3 mil millones de personas en el mundo, Reflexiones del Presidente Fidel Castro [2007 March 28]

English Translation

New GAO Peak Oil Report Provides Urgent Call to Action: U.S. Vulnerable and the Government Unprepared for Unacceptably High Risks of Oil Supply Shock, by Congressmen Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and Tom Udall (D-NM), co-chairmen of the Congressional Peak Oil Caucus [2007 March 29]

"This GAO peak oil report is a clarion call for leadership at the highest level of our country to avert an energy crisis unlike any the world has ever before experienced and one that we know could happen at any time. Only the President can rally the country to take the urgent steps necessary. Potential alternatives to oil are extremely limited. Technology won't save us without time and money to develop and scale them up."
GAO Peak Oil Report (Complete), Highlights
"... [B]y 2015 these technologies could displace only the equivalent of 4 percent of projected U.S. annual consumption. Under these circumstances, an imminent peak and sharp decline in oil production could have severe consequences, including a worldwide recession. If the peak comes later, however, these technologies have a greater potential to mitigate the consequences."

 


Within the energy profession there are groups (e.g., ASPO, ASPO-USA) grappling with the challenge of "Peak Oil." While the efforts of Al Gore and others have raised awareness of the threat of global warming, society is not in any way prepared for the imminent decline in global oil production.

In the near term, declining production will impact certain countries more than others. Cantarell, the largest field in the western hemisphere, is declining rapidly. Over the next couple of years, Mexico's economy will be hard-hit.

Without imports, the USA's domestic oil reserves would be exhausted in three years at the current rate of consumption. The Oil War option is losing favor. Technological breakthroughs will be too slow and voluntary conservation will be too shallow to avert widespread disruption of economic activity, especially transportation and consequently food. Lacking the political will to make conscious, rapid, drastic changes, Americans will be subjected to Mother Nature's adjustments; She did not negotiate with the Mayor of New Orleans; nor will She negotiate the American Way of Life when Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field collapses of its own accord.

Liquid fuel substitutes (tar sands, coal-to-liquids, oil shale, surprisingly even ethanol and biodiesel) are carbon intensive and will only exacerbate global warming. Plus they cannot be scaled up on a timely basis.

It would take one new nuclear power plant every week until 2050 to fill the oil gap. Minor detail, uranium shortages would emerge long before 2050, unless as yet unproven breeder reactors come on line soon.

While it will take time, direct conversion of solar radiation to electricity (photovoltaics and concentrating solar power) can be scaled up. One viable sustainable alternative also exists for repetitive travel (e.g., commuting -- more than half of all urban transport). It is the rapid build-out of solar powered electric vehicles on fixed guideways (the "podcar"). A continuous solar array, well within the width of the guideway, is sufficient to provide 100% of the power required for this efficient form of high capacity transit.

 

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Home Page 2007 January

by Webmaster January 31, 2007 12:00

State of the Union
Excerpts on Energy Policy
January 23, 2007

"Extending hope and opportunity depends on a stable supply of energy that keeps America's economy running and America's environment clean. For too long our Nation has been dependent on foreign oil. And this dependence leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes, and to terrorists – who could cause huge disruptions of oil shipments ... raise the price of oil ... and do great harm to our economy.

It is in our vital interest to diversify America's energy supply – and the way forward is through technology. We must continue changing the way America generates electric power – by even greater use of clean coal technology ... solar and wind energy ... and clean, safe nuclear power. We need to press on with battery research for plug-in and hybrid vehicles, and expand the use of clean diesel vehicles and biodiesel fuel. We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol – using everything from wood chips, to grasses, to agricultural wastes.

We have made a lot of progress, thanks to good policies in Washington and the strong response of the market. Now even more dramatic advances are within reach. Tonight, I ask Congress to join me in pursuing a great goal. Let us build on the work we have done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next ten years – thereby cutting our total imports by the equivalent of three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East.

To reach this goal, we must increase the supply of alternative fuels, by setting a mandatory Fuels Standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017 – this is nearly five times the current target. At the same time, we need to reform and modernize fuel economy standards for cars the way we did for light trucks – and conserve up to eight and a half billion more gallons of gasoline by 2017.

Achieving these ambitious goals will dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but will not eliminate it. So as we continue to diversify our fuel supply, we must also step up domestic oil production in environmentally sensitive ways. And to further protect America against severe disruptions to our oil supply, I ask Congress to double the current capacity of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. These technologies will help us become better stewards of the environment – and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change."

text provided by the Office of the Press Secretary at the White House

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Home Page 2007 January 29

by Webmaster January 29, 2007 12:00

Within the energy profession there are groups (e.g., ASPO, ASPO-USA) grappling with the challenge of "Peak Oil." While the efforts of Al Gore and others have raised awareness of the threat of global warming, society is not in any way prepared for the imminent decline in global oil production.

In the near term, declining production will impact certain countries more than others. Cantarell, the largest field in the western hemisphere, is declining rapidly. Over the next couple of years, Mexico's economy will be hard-hit.

Without imports, the USA's domestic oil reserves would be exhausted in three years at the current rate of consumption. The Oil War option is losing favor. Technological breakthroughs will be too slow and voluntary conservation will be too shallow to avert widespread disruption of economic activity, especially transportation and consequently food. Lacking the political will to make conscious, rapid, drastic changes, Americans will be subjected to Mother Nature's adjustments; She did not negotiate with the Mayor of New Orleans; nor will She negotiate the American Way of Life when Saudi Arabia's Ghawar field collapses of its own accord.

Liquid fuel substitutes (tar sands, coal-to-liquids, oil shale, surprisingly even ethanol and biodiesel) are carbon intensive and will only exacerbate global warming. Plus they cannot be scaled up on a timely basis.

It would take one new nuclear power plant every week until 2050 to fill the oil gap. Minor detail, uranium shortages would emerge long before 2050, unless as yet unproven breeder reactors come on line soon.

While it will take time, direct conversion of solar radiation to electricity (photovoltaics and concentrating solar power) can be scaled up. One viable sustainable alternative also exists for repetitive travel (e.g., commuting -- more than half of all urban transport). It is the rapid build-out of solar powered electric vehicles on fixed guideways (the "podcar"). A continuous solar array, well within the width of the guideway, is sufficient to provide 100% of the power required for this efficient form of high capacity transit.

 

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Home Page 2006 December

by Webmaster December 31, 2006 12:00
Wake Up!!!

Remarks by Al Gore [2006 September 18]

"Each passing day brings yet more evidence that we are now facing a planetary emergency — a climate crisis that demands immediate action to sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions worldwide in order to turn down the earth’s thermostat and avert catastrophe.

"The serious debate over the climate crisis has now moved on to the question of how we can craft emergency solutions in order to avoid this catastrophic damage."

Hermann Scheer, A Solar Manifesto

"Today, more than ever before, there is the most urgency for answers to the question of why there are no political strategies, long overdue, to achieve peace with nature."

As humanity comes to terms with the inevitability of a world beyond oil, the remaining oil supply will be exploited in three ways:

  • To maintain the global economy;
  • To create a new solar economy which will not depend upon oil;
  • To fight over the oil that remains.

Oil will become more expensive and less available. This will be painful in the industrialized countries which have become totally dependent upon oil, and in the less developed countries where oil use is extremely sensitive to price escalation.

What are humanity's alternatives to ever greater dependence on increasingly expensive oil? Consider: the sunlight that intersects the earth in 24 hours is more energy than all the conventional oil that has been or ever will be extracted.. As renewable energy technologies are put into mass production, the goal of a sustainable economy will be obtainable.

Information has been gathered on this website from expert geologists and petroleum engineers around the world who have had the courage to warn about the impending global oil crisis. With the latest data at hand, you will be able to shape your future based on lasting values rather than expediencies. Compare curves produced by government agencies, oil companies and the experts. Review detailed analyses by Campbell,Duncan,Fleay,Hubbert,Ivanhoe,Laherrère, other experts, and the US EIA.Consider the growing gap, and contribute your viewpoints through our online news service.

Thoughts to Ponder

 

"We do not inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children." Saint Exupery

""I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait 'til oil and coal run out before we tackle that." Thomas Edison

 

"The fifth revolution will come when we have spent the stores of coal and oil that have been accumulating in the earth during hundreds of millions of years... It is to be hoped that before then other sources of energy will have been developed... Whether a convenient substitute for the present fuels is found or not, there can be no doubt that there will have to be a great change in ways of life. This change may justly be called a revolution, but it differs from all the preceding ones in that there is no likelihood of its leading to increases of population, but even perhaps to the reverse." Sir Charles Galton Darwin, 1952

"Why did you transport that oil halfway across the earth?" Pliny Fisk III


Books
Solar Economy The Solar Economy:
Renewable Energy for a Sustainable Global Future, by Hermann Scheer
Geodestinies:
The Inevitable Influence
of Earth Resources
on Nations and Individuals, by Walter Youngquist
The Coming Oil Crisis, by Colin Campbell.

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home Page 2006 September

by Webmaster September 30, 2006 12:00

Remarks by Al Gore [2006 September 18]

"Each passing day brings yet more evidence that we are now facing a planetary emergency — a climate crisis that demands immediate action to sharply reduce carbon dioxide emissions worldwide in order to turn down the earth’s thermostat and avert catastrophe.

"The serious debate over the climate crisis has now moved on to the question of how we can craft emergency solutions in order to avoid this catastrophic damage."

Hermann Scheer, A Solar Manifesto

"Today, more than ever before, there is the most urgency for answers to the question of why there are no political strategies, long overdue, to achieve peace with nature."

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Home Page 2006 July

by Webmaster July 31, 2006 12:00

Tom Brokaw's Global Warming: What You Need to Know
Shows again Saturday, July 22, 8 pm ET/PT

Special Takes Viewers Around the World to the Front Lines of the Research-

Discovery Channel visits global warming tipping points across the globe, talks to the world's leading experts and examines the latest evidence to determine the facts about global warming in Global Warming: What You Need to Know. Produced by the global alliance of Discovery Channel, the BBC and NBC News Productions, and hosted by award-winning journalist Tom Brokaw, the two-hour special presents the facts and leaves it up to the viewers to determine their own truth about global warming. Global Warming: What You Need to Know premiered Sunday, July 16, 9-11 PM.

"In the case of global warming, knowledge is more than just power - it is a crucial ingredient in how we choose to live our lives," said Jane Root, EVP and GM of Discovery Channel, The Science Channel and The Military Channel, U.S. "As our planet evolves, Discovery Channel is there dissecting the science happening all around us into useful, vital information."

Global Warming: What You Need to Know will decode the buzzwords and arm viewers with an arsenal of clear definitions and visual depictions to explain the greenhouse effect, carbon dioxide emissions, CFCs, effects on weather and rising sea levels. Visceral CGI and cutting edge climate computer models will help viewers see into the future at a world significantly changed by unchecked global warming.

The special will take viewers to global warming hot spots where the planet is most affected by climate change - into rushing sub-surface rivers deep in Patagonian glaciers; into the drought-stricken Amazon; on coral reefs ravaged by rising ocean temperatures; into a massive Chinese coal mine, and many more.

The international team of experts, including NASA's top climate scientist Dr. James Hansen, and Princeton University professors Michael Oppenheimer and Stephen Pacala, will discuss the current realities of global warming and predict the future of the planet. Many of the experts will address natural warming and cooling cycles going back 600,000 years, and discuss if the present warming trend is unnatural.

Global Warming: What You Need to Know will demonstrate how much carbon dioxide the average American family produces and present a graphical timeline of global warming throughout history. Finally, the special will look at technical solutions, both great and small, from giant gas injection rigs in the ocean, to more efficient architecture in cities, to what the average American family can do to slow global warming.

Global Warming: What You Need to Know is being produced for Discovery Channel by the BBC and NBC News Productions. Michael Mosley is the executive producer for the BBC. Carol Williams is the executive producer for NBC News. Paul Gasek is executive producer for Discovery Channel.

 

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Home Page 2006 April

by Webmaster April 30, 2006 12:00
Since first reading about the work of Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere in April 1994, I have witnessed a great awakening of interest and understanding of the global Hubbert Peak. Now we are entering into a new phase; even the President of the United States has acknowledged that an oil problem exists.

As energy costs rise, we are seeing a remarkable resurgence of new energy solutions. Old ideas are being dug up from the trash heap of history and enthusiasts are promoting perpetual motion machines, cold fusion, nuclear power, tar sands, "zero-point" energy and ethanol. Clean This and Smart That, Sustainable Solutions and Carbon-Neutral Technologies. Billionaires and mad scientists alike are seeking their way in uncharted waters, sometimes protected - at least until they plow our future into the ground - from the Second Law of Thermodyamics by government subsidies.

In this confusing arena, it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. In the USA, a self-appointed "national" commission with a big budget cites a fraudulent study to advance their hidden agenda, and well-meaning policy wonks (who know how to do library research but didn't do so well in high school algebra) gobble it up as if it were gospel.

We could stand by and watch from the sidelines if we had plenty of time and resources to rearrange things before the big crunch hits - say when global oil supply declines by 10-20% and everybody starts freaking out. Unfortunately, a temporary "transitional" solution could be more damaging than doing nothing. We would adjust to alternative fuels - tar sands, coal-to-liquids, ethanol, who knows what - and then these sources would run dry too. Then we would be completely in over our heads, even deeper than we are now, because we would have exhausted all the easy fossil fuels as well as the marginal sources (with more associated greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fossil fuels) without having built a viable, sustainable solution. This we cannot afford to do. We have to get it right. And there is no time to waste.

How do we go forward? Answers must come from careful analysis of energy alternatives based on scientific fundamentals, not expedient economic metrics. It is tempting but altogether too dangerous to base societal-level energy investments on economic models shaped by the policies which are causing the status quo to fail in the first place.

Many factors are critical to success, keeping the decision matrix full of complexities. I want to highlight just two key issues for the moment, and refer you to a matrix if you want to investigate options in greater depth. These two key issues are scalability and net energy.

Due to the visibility of the US presidency, two proposed responses to peak oil are receiving a great deal of attention - hydrogen and ethanol. The "hydrogen economy" is also a favorite theme in Europe. However, though it is represented as a potential energy solution, hydrogen doesn't even qualify as an energy source - it must be created at considerable thermodynamic penalty from natural gas, electricity, or other sources. Ethanol - from corn, sugar cane or cellulose - requires prodigious amounts of fossil fuel for processing and cannot be brought to scale without destroying our planet's remaining forests, cultivated lands and aquifers.

We can address the scalability of unconventional fossil fuel options, nuclear power, or renewable energy solutions by considering the ultimate recoverable amounts of fuels (including uranium) versus the staggering amount of sunlight that is imparted to the earth on a continuous basis. For example, all the conventional oil that has ever been consumed is equivalent to the energy of the sunlight intersecting our earth's surface (178,000 TeraWatts) for 12 hours. Turning then to the various forms of solar energy, in comparison to the average 13 TeraWatts (TW) of power actively produced by human ingenuity, it has been determined that, on land, the theoretical limit of photosynthesis is 7-10 TW, wind energy is 2-4 TW on land (more over water), hydroelectric is 0.7 TW and direct solar is at least 60 TW, making direct sunlight the most scalable source - if humanity can perfect the instruments at sufficiently large scale to convert sunlight into useful thermal, mechanical and electric energy.

Net energy can be likened to interest on a loan. Higher interest rates mean better returns; if your bank's interest rate is negative, your bank deposits shrink. Net energy returns of 100:1 in the early days of the oil bonanza made societal transformation possible. But now energy return on energy invested for new oil discoveries is typically 5:1 and declining, and because of poor uranium ore quality, the return for nuclear energy is of the same order, even before consideration of long term consequences. So, regardless of price and supply volatility, it makes sense to find alternatives which have a higher net energy yield. Such alternatives exist: at 50:1 or more, wind energy can deliver yields at the same order of magnitude as the oil fields of old. At 40:1, the latest thin-film solar cells can run circles around new oil in terms of net energy yield.

If we squander our remaining fossil energy reserves, either in profligate consumption or into solutions with poor energy yields, we risk global economic collapse. It is essential that we invest the energy in our finite fossil fuel reserves into solutions which can lift us out of the depletion cycle onto a stable, sustainable platform. [Ed.]

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