Accumulating risks' to world energy supply

The world is not running out of crude oil and natural gas but there are "accumulating risks" to securing global supplies through 2030, a high-level board of U.S. oil company executives found in a report obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

Those risks include "political hurdles, infrastructure requirements and availability of trained work force," according to the study by the U.S. National Petroleum Council, conducted at the behest of U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman.

[Link: Reuters]

I have seen a lot of these kind of articles lately. Basically they follow a line of logic as follows. We don't really have an oil supply problem. There is plenty of oil out there. Enough to last us for a long time. The only problem is that we are having some difficulty getting to it, or there are political problems barring access to the oil, or there is insufficient funds to provide adequate levels of development of new reserves, or there is a shortage of critically skilled workers to work the fields, or that inadequate technological innovations are being applied to the existing fields, or..... Doesn't it strike you that maybe that is, in fact, exactly what peak oil looks like. When the easy oil is disappearing there are probably uncounted ways that are going to make the rest of the oil hard to get at. Peak oil chroniclers often state that we won't be able to know whether we have reached peak oil until long after the event has actually occurred. The reason for that must at least partly be due to the fact that many of the early manifestations of peak oil just look like another bad day at the office.

Energy crisis cannot be solved by renewables, oil chiefs say

The world is blinding itself to the reality of its energy problems, ignoring the scale of growth in demand from developing countries and placing too much faith in renewable sources of power, according to two leaders of the global energy industry

[Link: Times Online]

This is very serious talk from the heads of major oil. Most of the things they are talking about are not news to anyone who has been following the oil depletion story line. Maybe not news but a little more intimidating when you consider the source.

Demand for hydrocarbon fuels will outstrip supply. Inadequate supply will not be sufficiently bolstered by renewable fuels. Attempts to deal with climate change will falter as we resort to burning coal and trying to convert it to liquids for transportation. If the heads of Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil say so it might make sense to listen.

But what do they suggest we do to tackle these problems? Are you ready for this? Reduce our consumption (otherwise known as conservation or, as they suggest, "energy efficiency"). That is really the revolutionary message in this article. I have not seen anyone of any stature in industry or politics(especially the oil industry) suggest that we actually try to consume less. Isn't consumption what makes America tick? Certainly a politician couldn't say something like that. Let's keep our eye on this trend. It could actually change things.

Coal-to-Liquid Boondoggle - washingtonpost.com

To turn coal into liquid fuel it must be fired up to 1,000 degrees and mixed with water. Then the gas that's created is transformed into fuel that can be used in cars and jets. Unfortunately, creating CTL, as it is known, is a very intensive process requiring coal, water and cash. To wean the United States off of just 1 million barrels of the 21 million barrels of crude oil consumed daily, an estimated 120 million tons of coal would need to be mined each year. The process requires vast amounts of water, particularly a concern in the parched West. And the price of a plant is estimated at $4 billion.

[ Link: washingtonpost.com]

Does anyone notice a huge hole in this discussion of the pros and cons of coal liquification? The purpose of this new wonderful technology is to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, right? Supposedly, that will help us with our national security, help fight climate change (if we handle it right) and lead the way in our response to oil depletion. The only problems are water and financing. We have all the coal we could ever want. The article does mention in passing that the process is accomplished by heating the coal up to 1000 deg. F. However, where that energy is going to come from they don't say. Natural gas? More coal? Oil? Nuclear? Whatever is going to be used to heat the coal is either going to add back to our dependence on foreign energy and/or limit the net energy from the process, isn't it? By definition we don't have any extra fuel laying around or we wouldn't be doing this. And what about all of the energy required to catch and store all of that CO2? I'm sorry but I don't see how this is going to help.

From Peak Oil To Dark Age?

Even if the peakists are wrong, we would still be better off taking these actions. And if they're right, major efforts right now may be the only way to avert a new Dark Age in an overheated world.

[Link: Business Week]

I will have to say that I am surprised at this reasonable opinion under the banner of a publication like Business Week. Like many recent Peak Oil discussions in the media, this article seems to be picking up on the causal relationship that Peak Oil and Climate Change enjoy. A while ago they talked about the two subjects as independent problems. Now they have started talking about the two being like two sides of the same coin. Eventually they will understand that the two problems are really just two, admittedly bad, side effects of recklessly using (AKA: releasing back to the atmosphere) the vast accumulation of carbon pulled from the atmosphere and stored in the earths crust over many millions of years. When they understand that, they will start to comprehend what a real solution looks like. Less consumption or fewer people. Almost certainly both.

As oil production fails to meet demand our climate is going to have more than coal to worry about too. Every thing that can be burned for heat or eaten will be stripped from this earth by the hydrocarbon hordes that have arisen to feed off of the cheap and plentiful oil. If it can't be burned for heat or eaten it will be stripped from the earth to make room for something that can. It won't be pretty.

Reducing your personal footprint while you still can.

Resource limitations and climate change are on the tongues of everyone nowadays. Most of us have a vague idea that we are facing some big change in our lifestyle sometime in the future. Almost nobody, however, has stepped up to the reality of that impending change.

Consider the conversations we all have about reducing our environmental footprint. How many of us really understand why we should do that? Most of our thinking is still stuck in the '70s mindset. We are reducing our energy/resource consumption to do our part in reducing environmental degradation. Wrong! There is little we can do to limit the environmental change that is overtaking us. We (humankind) will use all of the hydrocarbon resources that we can obtain and then some. The climate will adjust to that full load of carbon saturation by reverting to the searing climate profile that it demonstrated the last time all of that carbon was out in the open. No, you are not going to prevent that from happening. There are too many of us.

In fact, what you are doing when you reduce your use of resources is practicing. You are getting ready for a new world that is coming, no matter what any of us do. You are making adjustments to your consumption profile while you still have a choice. Listen carefully. This is not a temporary belt tightening. While you have time, buy a new belt. Better yet, learn how to make one. There are no significant new hydrocarbon resources being created for our next energy binge.

Those who are looking for a change of technology rather than a reduction in consumption are fooling themselves. They are still doing their thinking in an oil-age brain. We should not accept any technological fix until we can see it producing a viable net output entirely independent of hydrocarbons. Show me a windmill that has been built entirely from scratch using only windmill energy to obtain and move raw materials, manufacture the infrastructure and build, install and maintain hardware on site. We won't get nearly enough net power from that model to provide anything approaching the present Western lifestyle for even a fraction of the present population of the earth let alone the projected overshoot population that is set to increase into the future. Technology is energy. With less energy there will be less technology. With less technology there will be less energy.

So make your lifestyle changes. It is important. For you.

Global warming exaggerated, insufficient oil, natural gas and coal | EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse

Climate change and global warming has become part of our everyday life, and central to this debate is the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). The fossil fuels that we use contain carbon and hydrocarbons, and in the combustion of these fuels, carbon dioxide is released along with energy.

In the present climate debate, however, the amount of available fossil fuels does not appear to be an issue. The problem, as usually perceived, is that we will use excessive amounts in the years ahead. It is not even on the map that the amount of fossil fuels required in order to bring about the feared climate changes may in fact not be available.

[Link: Kjell Aleklett - Original article translation from EnergyBulletin.net | Peak Oil News Clearinghouse]

Now here is a classic good news/bad news situation. The shorter version: we may not be destroyed by climate change because we may not have enough fossil fuels to do full damage to the climate. It looks like a race to the bottom doesn't it. Will we destroy our climate or our civilization first. Of course, that is a simplification. If he is right, we will be fighting what climate change there is with a much reduced tool kit so it will be a mix of both.

This should not be a surprise, because climate change and fossil fuel usage are joined at the hip. The climate is a function of how much carbon is in the atmosphere. By returning all of the carbon that was locked up in the earths crust to the atmosphere we have fiddled with that carbon balance. We are getting exactly what we bargained for. Take your pick, livable climate or 100 years of free and easy energy.

Scientists link world's big dams to methane and global warming

In a study released earlier this month, the scientists claim the world's 52,000 dams contribute more than 4 percent of the warming impact linked to human activities. The study even suggests that dams and reservoirs are the single largest source of human-cased methane, a gas that traps heat in the atmosphere.

[Link: Shaun McKinnon - AZCentral.com]

Well, that pretty much does it. All of this time I have been quietly patting myself on the back as I used all of my electrical tools and toys. I live in Seattle. Most of the electrical power in these parts comes from the massive Columbia hydroelectric system. No greenhouse contributions from me, I thought, as long as I keep my power usage electric. This article has torn a big hole in that construct. So much for electric cars and public transport as a way for Seattle to do its part for global warming. The more we understand the less we know it seems.