h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Might have happened in July last year.

I've been reading up on energy lately, not specifically about this though, but a few things did pop up. One is that the International Energy Agency (IEA), officially-optimist Energy experts of the West, has been bringing down estimates for oil production from now til 2030. I think a few years back it was 120m barrels a day, now it's about 105m. Also, there was a story in the Guardian that some IEA employees had said that this was a case of massaging the figures for political reasons (ie that everyone would go apeshit if the true state of things was revealed).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

This was supported by a study by the university of Uppsala in Sweden; "We find the production outlook made by the IEA to be problematic in the light of historical experience and production patterns. The IEA is expecting the oil to be extracted at a pace never previously seen without any justification for this assumption."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/nov/12/oil-shortage-uppsala-aleklett

Over the next few years, there's going to be an oil supply crunch, according to the IEA's chief economist, due to lack of investment over the last few years, so it's possible, maybe probable, oil production will be lower til 2015 than it is now. That in itself doesn't mean peak oil, though, it might just be a blip. BUT...

The one thing that really surprised me, though, was this graph:
http://www.theoildrum.com/files/Oil%20price%20production%20plot.jpg
from this article
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5969#more
What it shows is that as prices went from $20-40 per barrel, production rose to follow suit: when they went to $50, $60 etc all the way up to an astonishing $145 though, production stayed the same. I mean, wtf? If that doesn't say that production is at out-and-out full capacity, what does?

One of the reasons people think Peak Oil seems to be happening pretty much now is the decline of the really big oil wells. It's happening faster and faster; one of the world's biggest is in Mexico, and has declined by about 35% in the last five years; in Saudi, the 'megafields' seem to be at full capacity too. The (world's) biggest is called Ghawar, and they're pumping 7m tonnes of water a day to get 5m barrels. When this started, the oil basically flowed into the barrels, so it seems that even the Saudis are close to peak production. And don't even *mention* how they work out their reserves.

Anyone else worried?

You can see why the Canadian Prime Minister avoids whenever possible any mention of the environment. Canada has the second largest oil reserves in the world but it's in the form of tar sand.

We're going to make a few million barrels of money but everyone will choke on it.

Don't worry Tumsup, you need cheap oil to extract oil from tar sands, and there's not enough cheap oil left. Remember that your country will be wanting increasingly more oil, not just enough oil to keep the economy as it is now. It's unlikely that it can afford to maintain its economy, have it grow and extract that oil.


The principle I've been reading about lately is the concept of net energy. That's where you look at how much energy you use to create energy to use for other things. We're supposed to create more energy than we use to create that energy, but we're not.

>>
Perhaps the most significant limit to future energy supplies is the “net energy” factor—the requirement that energy systems yield more energy than is invested in their construction and operation. There is a strong likelihood that future energy systems, both conventional and alternative, will have higher energy input costs than those that powered industrial societies during the last century...

... It is a central purpose of this document to systematically review key limiting factors that are often left out of such analyses.We will begin that process in the next section. Following that, we will go further into depth on one key criterion: net energy, or energy returned on energy invested (EROEI).This measure focuses on the key question: All things considered, how much more energy does a system produce than is required to develop and operate that system? What is the ratio of energy in versus energy out? Some energy “sources” can be shown to produce little or no net energy. Others are only minimally positive.
<<

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/50695

That report basically says that we can't continue to rely on oil, coal and nuclear, or transition to alternative energy (because of net energy problems). The best solution now is to use less energy and to gradually reduce the human population.

eg in NZ some people want to build lots of large scale wind farms. But you need cheap oil to mine the materials and then construct them. If you don't have cheap enough oil then the cost of the wind farm means that the electricity it produces is incredibly expensive and our economy can't cope with that. So the best option is for NZ to use less energy and to gradually reduce population so the demand for energy decreases.


The fact that the IEA lied about how much oil is left (and that it's lower than they were reporting) and that this is now getting coverage in MSM is huge, especially following on from the last few years economic crises and the general climate change issues. I think it's fair to assume that all oil producing countries are now lying about how much oil they have. It might be worrisome, but I take it as a good sign because it's going to wake alot of people up (hopefully ).


Am I worried? Yes and no. I've been part of the general post-peak oil movement for 5 years so I've had time to look at how we can respond to this. Many people say the biggest initial issue here is psychological because if we can no longer be an oil based society, things are going to change beyond our comprehension and most people simply aren't prepared mentally for that (let alone pragmatically).

Once one accepts the reality of peak oil, or even the possibility of that, (and peak everything consequent to that), then there is good news and lots of good things being done. I don't think it's going to be easy though.

I was wondering when this would start happening.

They are exploring the idea of building nuclear reactors to get the heat to cook the sand. These would be much cheaper than a typical reactor since there's no heat exchangers, turbines and generators as in power plants. They only want the heat. You can build a nuclear core in a moveable box and just drag it around in the oil sand and suck up the oil.

If you point out that that will just add nuclear pollution to the regular kind, I can point out that it's Alberta where the environment isn't considered an impediment to profit.

Harper's environmental views are already one of the worst in the world.......and he doesn't even have his majority yet.

Well...yes. Isn't the point that we can't use the remaining oil? If e do - we're dead. We have to divest into renewables.

The oil companies/nations can do one of two things about this:

1) Panic.

2) Adapt their existing infrastructure. Scottish/Scandiwegian offshore marine technology -> turbines; Saudi industrial infrastructure -> solar.



'course the eventual result is that energy will be free and we'll emerge into communism.

btw...I'm not against nuclear from first principles. I have too many friends involved in nuclear safety certification for that. (including in Canada).

But when renewables get going properly...they'll simply be cheaper.

Ed, adapting the infrastructure will take years and £billions (probably $trillions worldwide). Norway probably funded its hydro by selling its oil. Even here* we've *nothing* like the infrastructure to actually harness the electricity renewables might produce.

Coupla other things too; one, tidal power isn't mature yet. The stresses are enormous on the turbines and housing units; it could be ten or twenty years before they're ready and contributing to the grid. Also, the SNP has already sold off plots for the Pentland Firth; if they've sold the best bits to firms which don't come up with the best technologies (and that's a crapshoot) then it could be decades before we harness it.







*Scotland

<>

Yeah, cheaper than oil will be then, but not necessarily cheaper than oil was until recently.

One other thing I heard recently. Professor Steven Salter, who's been inventing wave-power stuff for decades, came up with a freakin' *brilliant* idea, which apparently will stop hurricanes *and* global warming!

It's a tube, about 100m in diameter and 200-300m long, floating vertically in mid-ocean. It's got one-way valves which allows water to flow in but not out. So, water flows in the top and out the bottom. The clever bit is that between roughly 30N and 30S, the oceans are a bit of a desert. The waters are warmer above than below, so there's a warm layer with no nutrients in it, and therefore not much life. The water coming out the bottom of the tube is warmer than the surrounding water, so it rises, mixing with the cold water and dragging up nutrients.

The result will be, hopefully, a huge increase in plankton. The prof reckons that a few *hundred* of these tubes will generate enough growth to suck the excess CO2 out the atmosphere. And the cooler waters will stop or reduce hurricane formation.

I'd love this to work, it's such a simple, elegant idea.

That's a clever idea. One thing I don't understand. The valves mean that the water can only go in one direction but there still has to be a power source to drive the water.

I just answered my own question. If the tube is much longer that the waves are tall then the tube will remain motionless with respect to the vertical motion of the waves. There's yer pump right there.

The only impediment now is, in a capitalist economy, if there's no potential profit, it won't happen.

There's no power source, it doesn't need one. I don't know how waves would affect it - the important bit is that water gets in the top and must leave the bottom.

I was told that we'd need about 500 of them. If they cost £100k a go then £50m would stop global warming. Even George Bush would fund that.

>>They are exploring the idea of building nuclear reactors to get the heat to cook the sand.<< tumsup

Does that mean they don't have the technology yet? That's it's a new way of oil extraction? What are the reactors going to be built out of and how, and how are they going to be transported, and all the people fed and sheltered, without cheap oil?

Ed, I think both you and tumsup missed the point about net energy. We've missed the boat on conversion to alternative energy sources. The amount of energy needed to convert is simply no longer available in a way we can afford.

Further to the energy issue, I heard a piece on the radio this morning about electric bikes. They were talking about the number of cars that are going to be needed in China in 20 years time if China keeps on in the direction it's going. Problem is there isn't enough metal on the planet to make them. Really, people don't seem to understand that we're a finite planet with finite resources. Yes wind and sun are replenished, but the materials to hold them aren't. At some point we have to stop growing (population and economy). Many people say we're at that point now.

Even if there was infinite metal, the only way we get to mine massive amounts of metal (and uranium) is because we've had cheap oil.

As an aside to that, wind, solar and tidal aren't 'renewable'. You can't renew metal, there's a finite amount on the planet, and recycling takes large amounts of energy which are uneconomic once you've run out of cheap oil. That takes us back to the net energy issue.

Pedro, I'm not sure if you've also missed the point about net energy. Have you looked at analyses of that?

kea, as you kinda hint at, the problem with materials boils down to available energy. We're literally scratching at the surface in terms of mining etc, whether they're accessed depends on the costs of getting them out.

I've not looked in depth at analyses of net energy; generally the economist-type view would include them in costs. Eg, Saudi Arabia's costs for oil extraction are rising, which in a way reflects net energy extraction, but also the prices of the inputs (metals, pumping water into the wells, yadda yadda). It is something I've been aware of though.

The OP wasn't a definitive statement of the world's energy status.

I think that there's no point discussing peak oil if net energy isn't also being discussed in depth. I'm not sure if economists *are taking it that seriously. It doesn't appear to be on the agenda properly yet, certainly not to the general public.


>>
We're literally scratching at the surface in terms of mining etc, whether they're accessed depends on the costs of getting them out.
<<

China is buying up used metal from across the globe, so presumably that's cheaper than making it anew.

Re net energy, economists who specialise in financial stuff probably don't know much about it. Ones who deal in energy most certainly do. They would tend to lump it in with costs though.

As for China, I dunno what point you're making. So it's cheaper to recycle than mine? Good.

Although I am aware of 'peak oil' I have not come across anything about 'peak iron ore' , or any running out of other raw materials . But I do appreciate that the planets resources are finite .
The problem is of course a never ending spiral of consumption led ecomomic growth coupled with an ever expanding population .

Google 'peak everything'.

Water and soil seem the most important ones to me, more so than oil and metals.

No argument from here, kea. There are other things, too.

I recently attended a talk by a research man in the field of medicine, on the subject of dementia and our ageing population. This being something that may come closer to my heart, and having seen something - just a little - of it, I find myself wondering...

Overall, not with a bang but a whimper?

This is kind of terrifying.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas