Oil Above $135 a barrel and Heathrow Expansion On-Hold.

The price of crude oil has reached a new record at $135.08 a barrel. It is amazing to think it was near $20 five or six years ago. The blame for this latest increase is placed on an unexpected drawdown in oil inventories coupled with a weaker dollar. US crude has increased in price by 20% since the beginning of the month with supply concerns making traders cautious about selling oil. Sam Bodman, the US Energy Secretary commented that these hitherto unknown oil prices are a fair reflection of tight supplies and strong demand for oil globally, rather than the cost being artificially elevated by investors.

I don't see the situation getting any easier either in terms of supply or demand, and the $150 barrel by the end of 2008 that I reckoned both recently and a couple of years ago seems very likely. Goldman Sachs have said that oil will top $200 a barrel by the end of 2010, but my own feeling it it will get there by the end of 2009.

Meanwhile, advisers to the UK government have recommended that the expansion of Heathrow and Stansted Airports should be put on hold for years, such is the controversy attending such actions. There are plans to build a third runway at Heathrow and potentially a sixth terminal, which has alarmed environmentalists. It is thought that there may not be a firm decision made until 2011.

Now this is an interesting coincidence, namely that some analysts estimate the arrival of peak oil by exactly then. I have said so before, but I simply don't understand why in the face of an alleged determination to cut CO2 emissions there is even the glimmer of an idea that the number of flights should be tripled by 2030. What will anyone put into the planes by way of fuel by then, anyway?

More likely there will be the economic brake of rising fuel costs and airport taxes which will act to constrain air-travel, the budget carriers will go out of business and there will be a huge downturn on tourism. This will be especially tough on countries e.g. the Czech Republic whose economy has grown well on cheap tourism. I read the other day that Prague is now the sex-tourism capital of Europe, having taken-over from Amsterdam.

I also noted a news-item this morning that the price of food is expected to increase at twice the rate of inflation year on year for the next ten years, but who knows really? It does seem clear that prices in general even of basic items like food and fuel are going to rise remorselessly and people will begun to hang onto their cash. The upshot of that will be a knock-on effect to the service sector, with people being laid-off there, less circulating money and taxes available and a downward economic spiral.

The Governor of the Bank of England commented last week that "The nice decade was over", and I'm sure he is right.

Related Reading.
[1] "Delay Heathrow airport expansion, say government advisers." By Andy Bloxham. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1999057/Delay-Heathrow-airport-expansion,-say-Government-advisers.html
[2] "Oil hits record to surpass $135 a barrel. Reuters. http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/05/22/business/22oil.php
[3] Mervyn King: Bank of England has no room to maneuver." http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article3930094.ece

British Airways to Cut Flights by a Half.

Now here's one we've touched on before - that matter of how on earth is the airline industry going to expand its number of flights three-fold by 2030, in the face of peak oil. What exactly are they going to put into the planes by way of fuel? We have the third runway at Heathrow Airport under discussion, and Terminal Five in actuality - but for how much longer will these ventures serve purpose?

Confirmation of the latter conundrum is now exhibited by a recent analysis to the effect that British Airways (BA not AA) are now scheduled to slash their number of flights by a half. BA has made a designed cut of the price of its transatlantic flights, which now amount to a mere £249 to fly from London to New York. Nor bad: perhaps I will make that trip to the US, as suggested over there, to promote my novel, which has just been accepted by a publisher. It is an acerbic black comedy entitled "University Shambles" based around the disintegration of the British University system, which I gladly abandoned to set up my own consulting business 5 years ago, which has done pretty well, all things considered.

"It is a bloodbath", so one airline industry senior has allegedly said, in reference to the squabble among airlines who are now vying among themselves to offer the cheapest flights. It is, of course, the price of fuel that currently is responsible for this trend and inevitably will be the determining factor in the future too. If the cost of oil persists at above $120 a barrel (and I see no alternative to this, working on the basis that its elevated price is a consequence of it being harder and more exacting to pull the stuff out of the ground, and to refine high-sulphur "sour" crude) then BA is expected to lose its profits this year. A real headache indeed, but no surprise really.

I keep hoping that peak oil is a big hoax, as some conspiracy theorists claim, probably in the addicted denial of the cataclysmic change in the Western way of life that is imminent, but increasingly the evidence is in support of a rapidly consigning "Oil Dearth Era".

Interestingly, Sir Richard Branson (Virgin Airlines, among other of his many and successful enterprises) is now endorsing an imminent $200 price tag on a barrel of oil, and this will hit his businesses too - both air and rail-borne. Sir Richard reckons this will come by 2010, and I predict it will be with us by the end of next year (2009). Virgin Atlantic's fuel bill has increased by 70% in the past year.

Related reading.
[1] "British Airways will ground part of its fleet over rising fuel cost." By Dominic O'Connell. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3953811.ece
[2] Sir Richard Branson: $200 oil on way. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/05/18/cnbranson118.xml

Oil in Them There Hills - Sussex that is!

I attended the University of Sussex, which is located about half way between Brighton and Lewis, and on the edge of the Sussex Downs. Now, I see that desperation and oil prices have risen to the extent that companies are set to drill for oil there. In my day: 1979 - 1982 for my undergraduate degree (in Chemistry) and 1982 - 1985 for my D.Phil (that's Ph.D in all but name, but Sussex being unofficially entitled as "Balliol by the Sea" retained the Oxford tradition of thus describing its doctorates), there were no oil-rigs in Sussex, and nor, in that flush age of North Sea oil, would anyone have dreamed there could be.

However, it is now reckoned that up to 200 communities have oil reserves underneath their feet, which prospectors say could be worth "billions". 54 different companies have submitted 60 applications to the government to explore 182 oil "plots". The issue is sensitive, as many of these locations are villages and hamlets which are lovely, tranquil and "English" in the spirit of St. George's day which we are not allowed for some inexplicable reason to celebrate, although we do thoroughly acknowledge St. Patrick's Day, the Scots St. Andrew's Day and when I was a small boy in South Wales, we had a half day off from school in honour of St. David, the patron saint of Wales. Quite right too.

Interestingly, in this village of Caversham where I now live, we do celebrate St. George and on the 23rd of April (2 days after my Birthday, the 21st, which is the same as Her Majesty the Queen) many houses, pubs and local businesses sport the red-cross on the white background flag, which is our tradition in England. For its many historical culpabilities, England has much to be proud of, having produced some of the greatest scientists, engineers, inventors, writers and other artists the world has ever seen. We also stood up against fascism and abolished slavery. Sadly, we have always been rather poor at developing our talent into a commercial consequence, and it is often other countries that have put up the cash to do so, especially the US, a nation that is to be admired for its deliberateness in all enterprises.

According to one estimate, there may be 200 million barrels of oil under the south of England, which would be worth £13 billion, assuming a $128 barrel. If as expected by Goldman Sachs and in my humble opinion too, the price of oil reaches that diminishingly illusive $200 price, we are talking about a grand reserve of £20 billion. It may be a while before Northern petroleum begins its operations in Markwell Woods, but locals are already forming opposing ranks to the eyesore and disruption of civil local English woodland/village life, to this, the first onshore drilling programme in the UK.

The Woodland Trust has called the idea "an act of vandalism", and it would hardly be the first such act upon this soil, but this represents the destruction of around one hectare of ancient woodland, which is the choicest habitat for British wildlife. The Trust rates this as being equivalent to the destruction of the rainforests. It isn't, in terms of controlling CO2 emissions, but I think it would be a rather sad compromise, and yet the world including the United Kingdom is desperate for oil. To place the "find" in context, 200 million barrels of oil is about enough to fuel British transportation for about 6 months... followed by a return to those village communities we would have destroyed in the pursuit of it. Perhaps it might be better to focus on the inevitability of a return to the small community without the intermediary mayhem.

Related Reading.
"Search for black gold is sweeping the country." By Valerie Elliott. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3949936.ece

Oil Companies Hit by Rising Costs.

CERA, the Cambridge Energy Research Associates, has published a report showing that the costs of capital equipment, ranging from refinery parts to oil-rigs and platforms, has in some cases doubled since 2005. The escalating fuel prices and according huge profits reported by Shell and BP - a total of around $7 billion in the past year - have caused anger among drivers and haulage company proprietors, and yet it seems that some of the apparently generous returns will need to be fed-back into the business to maintain oil and fuel production and to develop new potential oil-fields. Meanwhile, in Russia lurks the spectre of lack of investment, and the oil-companies there are calling for tax-breaks which will encourage the development of the Russian oil-industry.

Major new projects are being put on-hold by their cost-burden, and this may well impact on oil-production across the world and thus on the price of oil, which is now edging toward $130 a barrel. The chairman of CERA, Daniel Yergin, is quoted as saying that production costs are a significant factor in driving-up the price of oil, and a shortage of skilled workers has resulted in rising salary costs too, all of which must be borne by the industry and hence passed-on to the consumer.

The British economy is in a pretty pickle, by the looks of things. The price of basics, particularly food and fuel increases relentlessly, and a U-turn on the 10% tax-rate has cost the government almost £3 billion. I watched an item on the news yesterday evening to the effect that the total amount of money being borrowed by the Chancellor, Mr Darling, is around 38% of the national GDP, a mere 2% shy of the 40% watershed which Mr Brown has pledged not to break.

The price of petroleum products at the "factory gate" has increased by 25% during the past 12 months and the price of fuel "at the pump" has risen by 2.7% per month. As I have commented before, it is an intriguing coincidence that in terms of the numbers, the price of a barrel of oil in $ is about the same as that of a litre of diesel in £, i.e close to $127 and £1.27, respectively.

To compound the price of fuel, there is a shortage in refinery capacity across Europe, due in part to the recent strike at the Scottish Grangemouth facility, along with a serious fire at a refinery in Finland. Goldman Sachs commented last week that we are due for a "super-spike" in the price of oil to $200 a barrel as producers become unable to maintain pace with "blistering demand" from China and the Middle East.

There is a huge contrast in the price of fuel between the UK and the US (which works out to around $8 and $4 respectively for a US gallon), and this reflects directly the tax differential imposed between the two nations. In Britain around 70% of what is paid at the pump ends up in the government's coffers in the form of fuel-duty and VAT. It is reckoned that the average British driver pays £900 a year in fuel-duty.

However, I doubt the government will reduce fuel-taxes despite the pain to motorists' pockets, since it has to get its money from taxes generally to support the economy, banks, welfare system including the NHS, and keep the country stable. Thus we can all simply expect to pay more and more for everything, leading to an eventual destabilisation of society.

Related Reading.
[1] "Petrol prices set to rise as refineries struggle." By James Kirkup. http://www.odac-info.org/node/2204
[2] "Oil companies struggle with spiralling costs." By Robin Pagnamenta.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/
natural_resources/article3926200.ece

Peak Oil = End of Cheap Oil.

"Peak Oil" does not mean that oil is "running out" but that cheap, plentiful oil is. The bottom of the well is not in sight. We will be able to extract crude oil for decades, but the depletion of existing wells, the necessity to make explorations in increasingly inhospitable regions of the world, e.g. in deep-sea locations - drilling through miles of water, rock and salt - and in the Arctic, does mean that oil will be forever an expensive, and scarcer commodity. The Antarctic thus far remains sacrosanct, but resource pressure may change this particular status quo of environmental conscience.

It is claimed that making synthetic oil from coal (CTL) would be much cheaper than drilling for crude, but that axiom needs to be measured against the sheer quantity of engineering required to do the job on a petroleum-equivalent scale and other resources, including water, and probably natural gas, and the potential environmental consequences of mining and processing coal, and that coal based fuel overall results in the release of far more CO2 than does the oil-based product it is aimed to replace. In any event, it cannot be done quickly enough that one can simply be switched for another, meaning that overall production must still fall, let alone there being any excess capacity of CTL to maintain growth.

Put another way, peak oil tells us that the earth's hydrocarbon resources are precious, and the end of their production growth is nigh. What can be recovered in the future, by whatever technology, even some claims that I cannot find much detail for (not surprisingly given the significance of them if they are true) that CO2 can be reduced into hydrocarbons, cannot be done cheaply, I am sure. A recent article [1] neatly and succinctly speaks of "future flow rates" for oil, that "peak oil" = "peak flow". In accord with the Hubbert analysis, once the half-way point is reached, the "flow" or production of oil will thenceforth decline. Hubbert's peak does not tell the whole story about future oil production, but refers specifically to the kind of cheap oil the world is built upon, and probably many Hubbert curves could be drawn to describe the production/depletion of the more intractable kinds of oil e.g. from the Middle East wells beyond their peak, oil from tar-sands, from shale or from the Venezuelan Ultra-heavy oil - a specific curve for every case.

The upshot is there will be less oil to be apportioned among a growing number of consumers. A paradigm shift in consciousness about how we live our lives might reduce demand (and must), but only if harsh economics first tilts that awareness by increasing the cost of fuel, food and all else in this oil-underpinned world, so that the bulk of consumers begin to economise - or become extremely poor and have no choice but to use less.

[1] "Peak Oil: 'It's the flows, stupid!'" By Steve Andrews and Randy Udall. http://www.energybulletin.net/print.php?id=44078

Coal is Dirtier than Gas.

There is much discussion currently concerning the relative merits of coal or natural gas as a fuel. It is debatable just how much extractable coal is in the earth, and there are estimates ranging from10 trillion tonnes down to around 0.5 trillion tonnes. To put this into perspective it is thought there is around 1 trillion barrels of readily extractable crude oil, or around 0.15 trillion tonnes, and a comparable amount of natural gas that will be recovered. Coal, then still looks like a good bet in terms of its quantity.

The heat of combustion of methane (which is what natural gas is mostly) is 891 kJ/mol, which amounts to 1 x 10^6 (g/tonne)/16 (g/mol) x 891 x 10^3 = 55.69 GJ/tonne. This can be compared with around 28 GJ/tonne for coal (the figure varies according to the nature of the coal, but this is a fair estimate).

When methane burns the process can be expressed as: CH4 + 2O2 --> CO2 + 2H2O

and for coal (being largely carbon) as: C + O2 --> CO2

Thus each tonne of methane yields 44/16 = 2.75 tonnes of CO2, while each tonne of coal yields 44/12 = 3.67 tonnes of CO2.

But since less heat is obtained per tonne of coal than per tonne of methane, we need to burn more coal to get the same amount of heat from it, and so a relative CO2 yield per unit of heat can be derived:

3.67/2.75 x 55.69 GJ/tonne/28 GJ/tonne = 2.65, or over two and a half times as much.

Either way, using natural gas or coal, produces a lot of CO2. For example, a typical 1 GW power plant burns 3 million tonnes of coal per year or half that amount of natural gas, and produces around 11 million or 4 million tonnes of CO2, respectively. For oil-fired stations (which exist mostly in Asia but are being phased-out and converted to coal), approximate thermal values of 42 GJ/tonne are often quoted, and there are some at 45 GJ/tonne, depending on the exact nature of the oil. For comparison, a value may be obtained for n-octane (a reasonable model for oil-based refined fuel) of 47.87 GJ/tonne.

We burn around 7 billion tonnes of "carbon" annually, which ends-up as 26 billion tonnes of CO2 - of which only about half is removed by natural processes, including photosynthesis. Thus the atmospheric concentration of the gas can only increase, unless we were to reduce fossil fuel use by around 50%.

People talk much about renewables, since they are ideally sustainable and non-polluting. i.e. They don't consume irreplaceable reserves like coal and gas and oil, or contribute to greenhouse-gas emissions, but matching the amount of them that we get through to sustain our current quality of life, by renewables is a long way off, if it can be done at all. Localised energy production, e.g. through CHP and micro-hydro generation might come some way to providing for relatively small communities, if the dearth of oil and hence transportation fuel forces civilization to take this course, but generating enough electricity to run power utilities on the scale of conventional power stations and the national grid will prove extremely challenging.

Blight on Wheat... all we need!

We are aware of world food crises, but now it appears that a new (but historically recognised) infection is on its way to kill-off wheat-crops, and that is about all we need. A recent analysis predicts that by 2024, the world population will "peak" at 7.1 billion (from 6.7 billion now) and then decline to around 2.5 billion by 2100. This "new" infliction goes back to the Romans, and is called "black stem rust" because that's what it looks like, and it hit the North American breadbasket in 1954 - eradicating 40% of the nation's wheat crop - and during the cold-war between the US/West and the USSR, both sides of the argument stockpiled stem rust spores as a biological weapon against the other.

The Romans used to pray to a stem rust God, called Robigus, and the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Norman Borlaug told the New Scientist magazine recently that Ug99, which appeared in Kenya in 2002, is due for a reappearance in consequence of complacency - TB in humans is similarly blamed for its recent resurgence. As is the case with most research, a lack of funding is blamed, and yet when I see what the various research councils are spending their money on - matched against the backdrop of oil-depletion, and the energy-crunch, I do wonder if we have our priorities arse-about-face.

Borlaug came to fame fifty years ago, and at 93, he is focussing on the long-game. He commented that because travel has vastly increased during the past 40 years, there is the concomitant opportunity and likelihood that Ug99 spores might be accidentally spread around the world, rather than erupting in isolated pockets. This is true indeed of all kinds of infection, as one might envisage. He further suggests that the responsible genes might be located undetected in other grains and grasses, for example rice, which is facing a shortage and an accordingly elevated price, with detrimental consequences for half the world's population who depend on it as a staple food.

Borlaug concludes: "We have to rely on fungicides, wheat breeding (to secure invulnerable strains, temporarily at least) and luck!" Yes, we are going to need some of the latter, along with strategic planning to get through the Oil-Dearth Era.

Related Reading.
"Billions at risk from wheat super-blight." By Deborah Mackenzie. http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19425983.700

Oil at $122 and Predicted to Reach $200 - Deja Vu.

Friday, September 01, 2006

$200 a Barrel Forecast for Peak Oil!

Prompted by this morning's news item to the effect that the price of crude oil has risen above $122, my memory latched back to a previous posting of almost two years ago, as noted above. At that time the price was around $70 and the benchmark $100 was a figure that most thought was still a long way off. Accordingly, the estimate of $200 did seem alarmist. I also wrote an article "Hubbert Peak Oil" (Friday, October 26th, 2007) in which I aver that the cost of everything, driven by the underpinning price of oil, will double, and that once peak oil is reached, judging from the $100 figure as pertained at that time, this would correspond to the new magic "ceiling" of $200. Lord Oxburgh made a prediction at around the same time of a $150 barrel, and this now seems inevitable.

Guided mostly by hunch and more roughly by curves of oil production and depletion, I predict that the price of oil will reach $150 by the end of this year (2008) and $200 by the end of 2009, by when the world will be a considerably more fractious place with supply being increasingly stretched to meet rising demand; a tug-of-war contest the latter must ultimately lose.

The latest hike in oil price is blamed on supply troubles in Nigeria and a slow-down in Russia. Arjun Murti, an analyst for Goldman Sachs, noted that while Western nations are discussing the necessity to reduce oil consumption, and that of energy more generally, the excess production that is necessary to cool the oil-market is not evident. He said: "though predicting the ultimate peak in oil prices, as well as the remaining duration of the upcycle, remains a major uncertainty... a multi-year decline in global oil demand is needed in order to create a spare capacity cushion and bring about potentially lower energy commodity prices."

Fair enough, but this is an economist talking while the underlying problem is one of geology. There was only so much oil in the ground to begin with and we are getting through it too quickly. Mr Murti reckoned that the oil price could hit $150 - $200 within 24 months, which is about my prediction too. The OPEC member nations are now producing oil at near full-capacity, the increase in production in Russia is slowing and that from Mexico is in decline. Nonetheless, demand from markets such as China climbs relentlessly.

I suspect that the world production of oil is pretty much at the plateau of maximum output -" peak oil" if you will - and that soon, economics must give-way to geology.

Related Reading.
"Goldman predicts crude prices will 'super-spike' to $200 per barrel." By Stephen Foley:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/goldman-predicts-crude-prices-will-superspike-to-200-per-barrel-822235.html?r=RSS

Correspondence.

I get quite a lot of interesting correspondence about the subjects in this blog of which the letter posted following my reply, next, is a fine example.

Dear David,

many thanks for your interesting and supportive message! The blog is just me thinking out-loud really, and trying to find some solutions to the energy-crunch, but also to recognise the scale of the problem and the relative impact that can be made by e.g. biofuels etc. and the likelihood (or not) of the hydrogen economy etc.

I have also tried to keep optimistic rather than a "Kunstler" scenario where we disappear into the pages of a Thomas Hardy novel or the wild-West as he is an American.

When I talk about a relocalisation of society I am not thinking of this scenario but a focus on local production of food etc. as far as possible to take pressure off transportation which must become a problem with the escalating price of oil and its inevitable scarcity.

I am reading quite an uplifting (if a bit idealistic) book called "The geography of hope" by Chris Turner, which does indeed focus on the "local" and also in the sense of revamping inner-city areas turning problems into positive outcomes.The "clever" Danes get quite a lot of coverage in this, and he focusses on their many ingenious and holistic energy solutions where one process or the waste from it feeds another - there is one lovely example where due to its geometry it is impossible to mow the grass around a power station using machinery... the solution: to graze a flock of sheep there who have no trouble at all getting to the grass!

I think that the sum total of many "solutions" made acting at the community level may go some considerable way to providing sustainable solutions. We can each of us do something and as there are getting on for 7 billion of us, maybe our number, which is thought of as the major source of the problems we face as a human species, might go some way to mitigating the worst aspects of them.

Turner is highly critical of architecture especially the grid-layout of most US cities, which he points-out is divisive, by which I mean in one place there is just accommodation, no shops, no other businesses or other amenities, and a necessity to drive everywhere. He cites European models, e.g Heidelberg (or Caversham where I live, for that matter) where everything is integrated. So we have houses within 5 minutes walk of all else that is required.

In the latter aspect, Kustler and Turner are in agreement, and indeed, in Caversham, beyond the village, are large "developments" with nothing there other than houses and so everyone has to drive down in to the village or into town (Reading) to buy what they need, go to leisure-centres etc. etc.

Thanks very much for your information which I think will make (unattributed or attributed as you wish) a useful article.

Kind regards,

Chris.



On 4 May 2008 at 14:40, wrote:

Dear Mr. Rhodes,

I have been reading quiet a few of your articles and have quite enjoyed them. Some of the stuff is nothing more than rehashed from more than 30-40 years ago. The barrage across the Bristol Channel was on the drawing boards then. I think it got the Bums rush because it wasn't environmentally friendly silting up of Swansea harbour was one of the complaints if I remember correctly. It didn't stop the French though from going along with the Rance barrage which came on stream at about the same time if I remember correctly.

Here are a couple of other things to think about which might be of interest too you. During the oil crisis, I was living in Denmark and the oil shock got the wily Danes doing some heavy thinking. They have always been dependent on imported energy there was some small deposits of Brown coal over near Herning in Jutland, but they were worked out during the 40s and 50s. One of the things they did was to make the production of electricity tie in with the production of hot water to heat towns. Copenhagen has been for decades heated by two electrical generating stations Svanmollen and H.C. Osteds verks. The hot water generated during the production of electricity was pumped through insulated pipes round the city and tapped off to heat building complexes. The Danes also contemplated shipping hot water from Iceland where they have a surplus in the large tankers that were being then mothballed in the Norwegian fjords mooring them by the large coastal town and then pumping around the towns to keep them warm in winter.

What the Danes did do which has benefited them ever since was to set very high building standards with high insulation norms and also set in motion a large government research project in windmill technology of all places in the grounds of their Atomic research centre at Riso near Roskilde. This has continued uninterrupted supported by what ever party was in power and has given the Danes a lead in Alternative energy production. Denmark now accounts for 50% of all installed wind energy around the planet they are opening new factories around the world to take advantage of the boom and there expertise. This unfortunately is causing some complaining by the people around the factories as the transport of the large loads round the clock to the Docks is causing congestion on the the motorways. They now produce 20% of there electricity from wind power. They are very lucky as they can off load any excess onto Germany at one point during a storm several months ago they generated I think 70% of there electricity from wind. Not bad for a country without any resources apart from a stiff breeze.

We the Brits who live on an island made of coal and surrounded by a sea of oil and gas and a government obsessed with the concept that the market knows best, have to import most of our coal from Australia and fair amount of our oil from the middle east.

It doesn't take much or cost much to have an energy plan for self sufficiency. The trouble is that it usually tend to end up as a political football in Britain. I worked in the mines in northern
England and I watched while Attila the Hen [sic. Margaret Thatcher!] and her minions, who should be in prison as traitors. Wilfully destroy the energy base of the British Isles and don't believe the shit that they tell you that they can open the mines up quickly again. They can't, they can clear the shafts easily enough, but you can bet your life that the roads have filled up with water and most will have closed up under any circumstances. Let me just give you an example which you have certainly not thought about. Lots of coal seams have clay floors. These tend to throw, they well up and bow in the middle you can drive a road through solid ground make it twelve feet tall and in the space of a couple of months it has closed up to six feet by the clay welling up leave it a year and it is completely closed.

I worked on a coal face , we drove it not more than a mile before we had to close it down because the roads kept closing in, we had to abandon most of the equipment. Most of the coal that is left is several miles from the pit bottom and if the road have to made anew this will mainly have to be done by hand as it is difficult to automate. That will make it expensive and slow plus the price of building new infrastructure on the surface will be expensive if not prohibitive. The site of the old pit where I worked and know that there is 40 years of coal left in 3 unworked seams underground was sold off and is now what you call a logistical centre for some large firm, plus several small factories.

I would also like to thank you for your interesting articles. I tend to agree with what you have to say and only disagree in the detail but I think that the real solution to the energy problem will be even more esoteric than even blacklightpower and there are a few that are bobbing about just below the radar at this very moment.


Deep Regards...

David.

Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson, Fuel Prices and Peak Oil.

Ken Livingstone may have lost the London Mayoral election last night to Boris Johnson by 6% of the votes, but I note a legacy from him in terms of coming-clean about peak oil, which I had not heard any politician do hitherto. This was in a statement made at an environmental hustings earlier in the run-up to the election. When David Strahan from Global Public Media asked him what he would do to protect London from the impact of peak oil he replied: "I don't see this as a threat. I see it as an opportunity... [which] may be the only way that we face-up to having to reduce our energy-consumption".

He continued: "Almost every government on the planet is too cowardly to tell its people how much they should pay for energy, [but when peak oil brings escalating prices] we'll know the real cost of putting oil in the tank of our car, and we will scale down our energy consumption to cope with that".

I couldn't agree more, but a golden-age is unlikely to be the immediate consequence. When peak oil does bite, and I think we are seeing the onset of this now, the price of oil will increase to an unforeseeable level from its current $120 dollars a barrel (some analysts are talking about $200 but it's really unpredictable). However, policies or suggestions of how exactly oil will be replaced in practical terms were not offered by any of the three final Mayoral candidates, other than the usual references to "renewables", e.g wind, solar, hydroelectric and carbon capture (i.e. to make coal-fuelled power cleaner). It should be noted that none of these means address directly Transportation, which is the major end-user of oil.

There was support for Combined Heating and Power (CHP) from all three voices, but exactly how sustainable this is depends on the fuel used. On a smaller scale, these units can be run on wood-chips, but to fuel a city the size of London, natural gas is the more likely source, and there is much speculation about European supplies of gas over the next decade. Recently Ukraine froze when Russia cut its gas-supplies by 50% over money apparently owed, and even acknowledging the much greater efficiency of CHP which can yield substantial economy in both fuel consumption and hence CO2 emissions, such a strategy would be vulnerable to the vagaries of gas provision in the wider context.

Probably it is dangerous to rely too much on any single source of energy. The biggest issue over peak oil in this country and the rest of the world is how to keep transportation running if oil-based fuels become crushingly expensive and indeed in limited supply over the next decade. Even the CEO of Shell recently commented that there would be a gap in supply and demand for oil by 2015, i.e. not later than this, and many estimates are closer to 2011/2012, i.e. in 3 years or so. For a city like London, public transport is vital and Ken's controversial congestion-charges have reduced car-use to some extent. This and the rising cost of fuel is particularly tough on road-haulage, and I note that the dollar price of oil per barrel is almost numerically the same as the cost per pence of diesel per litre, i.e. around $120 and £1.20 respectively.

Providing biofuels on a comparable scale to those distilled from crude oil is not really an option, because there is only so much arable (crop-) land available and if we grew no food at all we could still match less than half the amount of fuel the UK gets through annually. It is a logical consequence then that the number of vehicles on the roads will fall drastically and the likely scenario is a relocalisation of society into communities of reduced population, but the deconvolution of a conurbation the size of London with 8 million or so people living there, is not an obviously manageable process.

Providing electrified transport, eg. trams, as are used extensively and with great efficiency in other European cities - Prague is a good example - might be one solution to keeping London moving, and I suspect such an undertaking ought to begin around now if it is likely to succeed in time to meet the peak oil energy crash - the "Oil Dearth Era", as I have referred to it.

Boris Johnson suggested extracting geothermal energy from the great underground holes moled-out for the cross-rail transport project which could match the output of a typical power station, i.e. around 1 Gigawatt (1,000 Megawatts), but it would not be trivial to use this as a means to run transportation (e.g. to make hydrogen, for which there is no existing infrastructure); however, it might feed electricity into the national grid to power trains both overground and underground and a putative tram-system.

Either way, for London, this is now Mr Johnson's problem while Mr Livingstone writes his memoirs.

Related Reading.
http://globalpublicmedia.com/london_mayor_peak_oil_opportunity

Brazil - The New Saudi?

While the oil-fields off Brazil may hold oil in a quantity only beaten by two larger reservoirs in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, getting it out of the ground may prove extremely difficult. The latest find is called Carioca, in the Santos Basin, 170 miles offshore, and follows the Tupi field, whose reserves are confirmed at 5 - 8 billion barrels. It is thought that Carioca may contain 33 billion barrels of oil and gas, and if this figure is confirmed it will represent the greatest discovery for 32 years. Among much enthusiasm and speculation, it should be noted that 33 billion barrels is about what the world gets through in terms of oil in a year.

Brazil is now the eighth largest consumer of oil in the world, and last year it became self-sufficient in oil production, largely from the state-oil company, Petrobras, exploiting the country's offshore reserves. If these major new reserves can be tapped, then Brazil will become a major oil-exporter since most of its own transportation is run on cheaper ethanol made locally from sugar-cane. It is a big "if", however.

Brazilian expertise in drilling at depths of over 2,000 metres is relatively recent, and to get at Carioca, Tupi and the giant gas-field, Jupiter, it will be necessary to drill down to a combined depth of up to 10,000 meters (6 miles), going through layers of rock and sand, followed by a layer of salt that might be 1.3 miles thick. Under these conditions, the pressure is in excess of 1,000 times atmospheric pressure (almost 8 tonnes per square inch), enough as has been noted, to "crush a pickup truck". The temperatures are high too, at above 260 degrees C (500 degrees Fahrenheit).

In getting the oil out of the reservoirs, engineers will need to cope with the sudden drop in temperature from that hot enough to melt bismuth (used to transport uranium fuel rods) to near freezing-point at the ocean floor, with a likely concomitant and manifold increase in viscosity. The salt-layer under such conditions of pressure and temperature also exhibits some degree of plastic flow, meaning that there is a tendency for holes drilled through it to spontaneously close-up again.

The technological development and investment is presently prohibitive, but with oil at around $120 a barrel and almost certainly set to rise, some think to $200 within a year or so, the incentive increases commensurately.

Related Reading.
[1] "In Brazil, Another Gusher", By Joshua Schneyer: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/apr2008/db20080415_868659.htm?
chan=rss_topEmailedStories_ssi_5
[2] "Brazil Oil Trapped by 500-Degree Heat, salt Barrier (Update 2)", By Joe Carroll. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aalWn.eJHGZk&refer=latin_america

The New Nuclear.

The UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarcozy have agreed joint strategies regarding nuclear power and illegal immigration. The two nations will undertake the construction of a new generation of nuclear power plants with the aim of curbing CO2, and will export the technology around the world. Almost 80% of France's electricity is made from nuclear energy which is a mature industry, while 20% of the UK's power is made from nuclear, but from reactors that are due for decommissioning within 10 - 15 years, once they reach their working lifetime.

The proposal will doubtless prove unpopular with many who regard nuclear as dangerous, not only per se, but in terms of the radioactive waste that it produces. There are strategies to deal with the latter which essentially involve sealing it into metal (copper) canisters and burying them underground in concrete bunkers, although time will prove the effectiveness of this which will be known only to future generations. It is hoped to create a new nuclear work-force which will be necessary to take nuclear-power into this next and challenging phase, since there is a shortage of nuclear engineers in the U.K., at least so colleagues in that industry tell me.

We can't have it both ways - i.e. maintain current energy use purely using renewables, at least not in short order. Hence, despite the "dirty" image of nuclear power in some quarters, there is an increasing view within the energy industry that "nuclear" could provide a lucrative energy market, certainly if the technology is indeed sold around the world. The nuclear agreement is one of a number of Anglo-French collaborations being discussed.

Another potential cooperation is a new initiative against illegal immigration. Britain is the last link in the European chain of movement and indeed trafficking of people, and many Britons feel that border-controls should be tightened and that this nation and France should act jointly to remove "failed" asylum seekers, who end-up in the U.K. via France. It is all a contentious issue, but the following actions have been identified:

Joint flights are proposed from Britain, stopping in France and then taking migrants back to various countries including Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, alongside more checks being made on lorries at both UK and French ports. There is also an increase planned in the number of French officers working undercover to intercept gangs smuggling people into Britain.

My feeling is that the price of oil and hence the availability of lorries and other forms of transport will impact on the movement of people in general, illegal or legitimate, and populations will become increasingly more restricted as the cost of fuel continues to soar.


Related Reading.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/mar/22/nuclearpower.energy1

Grangemouth may Foretaste Peak-Oil.

The strike at the Grangemouth oil-refinery in Scotland has gone ahead, and while its duration is set for just 48 hours, it is debatable for how long the plant will be closed, in its wake. The news this morning on the BBC was optimistic and seemed to indicate that sufficient operations would be maintained that it could be brought back on-line within days, rather than the month or so originally feared. The whole business reminds me of the year 2000, when I was working in Switzerland, and my wife sent me regular e.mail-updates of the precarious situation in the U.K. at the time. On returning home, there was an "edge" to this normally apathetic and peaceful society, and I realised just how close we are to that fine-blade that divides civilization from anarchy.

At that time, it was a case of active-protest - unusual over here, as noted - that lorry-drivers had marched in London over rising fuel prices (I laugh at this one considering the price of fuel now!) and refineries and fuel-suppliers were blockaded resulting in the temporary but effective closure of 3,000 garages which were starved of fuel. To bring that number into reckoning, there are around 10,000 garages in the U.K. altogether, so it was a significant proportion and as I say, a very edgy time when I first began to realise the underlying fragility of my country, and by implication the entire world, being so entirely dependent on fuel. I must qualify the latter by saying that it is "oil" upon which we depend so much, since only 70% of it is refined into fuel while the rest (apart from a small amount in Europe that goes for heating-oil, and far less than is the case in the U.S.) serves as a chemical feedstock for industry.

The closure of the Grangemouth facility, since it is the only one of its kind in Scotland, will restrict supplies of fuel across not only that country but northern Ireland and the north of England. To cope with the shortfall, imports of fuel have been arranged from Gothenberg and Belgium, among other sources. The reason for the strike is dissatisfaction with changes in the pension-scheme for workers at the refinery, of whom 1,200 are involved. This is not uncommon, and similarly other organisations are abolishing so-called final-salary pensions, at least for newly appointed employees.

All in all, I see the combined-elements of this situation as both a metaphor and an inauguration for the post peak-oil time which I have termed the "Oil-Dearth Era" (http://www.scitizen.com). I am not as pessimistic as James Howard Kunstler that we are on the edge of an apocalypse and I believe we can survive, but forget about pensions, final-salary or of any kind. Dismiss too the transportation-driven economy and manner of living we are all used to in the West, whose prosperity has been literally fed by oil. "Literal" since all modern agriculture depends on oil and natural gas to run tractors and to synthesise fertilizers and pesticides. If transportation fails, people will tend to stay where they are and the morning and evening commute will be relegated to the pages of history. Paper-pages at that, once computers are crashingly expensive along with all other commodities.

Instead, the whole of civilization will take-on a more localised focus, while the concept of the mythical global village recedes into memory. We will depend on local economies, farms and businesses and what we can produce or grow for ourselves. Now there I do agree with Kunstler, as in his novel World Made by Hand, and I expect some of the nastier aspects he imagines will not prove to be far off the mark either, knowing human nature and the well-recorded history of inhumanity when the rules no longer can be enforced. I am thinking of former Yugoslavia, for instance and many African states.

I hope that chaos will not ensue in Scotland and the north, in some microcosm of the oil-dearth era. It is unlikely to be so severe because everybody knows that the refinery will come back on-line at Grangemouth within a short time, bringing back business as usual. But what will happen when there is nothing left or cheap enough to refine, there or anywhere else? We are not merely characters in a novel, all 6.7 billion of us.

Concentration vs Mixing-Ratio.

Here is a reply to a colleague on the matter of "concentration" versus "mixing ratio" (as in my previous posting "Carbon in the Sky", Saturday, January 6th, 2007) which some readers might find interesting.

Dear Alexander,

I agree with your comments about the complexity of "concentrations". Chemists do indeed have various ways of expressing these things! Let's not mention "molality" versus "molarity" to describe the concentrations of solutions of various substances in liquids!

However, so as not to confuse the issue, it is probably better to refer to the amount of CO2 etc. in the atmosphere as "concentration" rather than as "mixing ratio". Yes, both terms are standard throughout the Anglo-American speaking world as far as I know.

For gas-phase species, the most commonly used units are ppm, ppb and ppt. These units express the number of molecules of pollutant found in a million, billion or trillion molecules of air. (Billion and trillion are US, not British). There is also pphm (parts per hundred million) which is sometimes used if the actual amounts of particular species make it a convenient unit. Alternatively, because numbers of molecules (or moles) are proportional to their volumes according to the ideal gas law: (PV = nRT), these units may be thought of as the number of volumes of the pollutant found in 10^6, 10^9 or 10^12 volumes of air, respectively.

This ratio of moles, molecules or volumes of the species to the number of moles, molecules or volumes of dry air is more commonly known as the "mixing ratio".

The use of mixing ratios is widespread for expressing the relative amounts of species at various altitudes throughout the atmosphere. Since the total air pressure and hence the number of molecules in a given volume decreases with altitude, a constant mixing ratio does not imply a constant concentration (i.e. as expressed in moles or molecules per unit volume).

Although not expressly stated in most cases, mixing ratios are usually referenced to dry air. If water vapour is included, the mixing ratio would vary with humidity, which could induce a variation of a few percent.

Although the term "concentration" is used frequently, if the units are ppm, ppb or ppt, it should be understood that this is really a mixing ratio. Some journals emphasize this by writing these units as ppm (v:v) etc. (i.e. to denote volumes explicitly)."

Related Reading.
"Chemistry of the Upper and Lower Atmosphere" written by Barbara J. Finlayson-Pitts and James N. Pitts, Jr. Published by Academic Press, New York, 2000, p 33, which puts the matter succinctly.

Cancer from Global Warming and Russian Peak Oil.

New research indicates that global warming may increase the risk of developing skin-cancer. The incidence of cancer measured in 10 separate regions of the US was found to be strongly correlated with both the local amount of sunlight falling per unit area and average maximum summer daily temperatures. The incidence of one type of skin-cancer called squamous cell carcinoma, was found to increase by 5.5% for every degree centigrade (C) rise in temperature. Similarly, basal cell carcinoma increased by 2.9%/degree C. This epidemiological data accords with previous tests on UV-irradiated mice which showed a 3 - 7% increase in the effect of the UV (e.g. in the "effective dose") per degree C rise in temperature.

Dr Jan van der Leun who conducted the research, concluded that only 80% of the variation in skin-cancer in the study could be accounted for by the local UV intensity alone. Additional factors, including genetic make-up and obviously how long people stay out in the sun for, and now it seems, temperature must be considered. The authors conclude that a 2-4% increase in mean summer temperatures could produce "substantial increases in incidence of skin-carcinomas", which among white-Caucasians have already increased dramatically during the past century.

If it is true that it is human-induced CO2 emissions that are responsible for increased global-warming, the following piece of news might appear as "good news". Namely that oil-production in Russia, second only to Saudi Arabia, has now peaked and is likely to decline during the coming years, according to Viktor Vekselberg, a co-owner of BP's TNK-BP venture company.

Russian companies are seeking tax-breaks to urge exploration and the development of new fields to prompt growth in production. Meanwhile, oil-production has fallen for the first time in the past 10 years as Soviet-era wells begin to dry-up and the likely costs of extracting oil from more challenging deposits, such as the Arctic, rally. In March, Russia produced 9.76 million barrels a day to be compared with 9.83 million barrels a day in December 2007. Such a fall in annual production would bring to an end a 58% increase in output since 1998, a point at which Russia defaulted on about $40 billion of domestic debt and devalued the Rouble. In 1998 a barrel of oil cost $12 while now it is almost $112 a barrel, in line with rising world oil prices.

As noted, cuts in oil-production and other fossil fuels might be taken as good news in terms of reducing global-warming and its effects, including more of us developing skin-cancer. The less carbon we have available to burn, the less CO2 we pump into the sky. However, by the time this offset helps reduce atmospheric CO2 levels, it is hard to see how civilization will be maintained, as these underpinning sources of energy to do so are depleted. We need a grand plan to address both and more immediately the latter.

Related Reading.
[1] "Russian oil has peaked". By Greg Walters and Maria Kolesnikova. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601013&sid=abvPbR0TjuME&refer
=emergingmarkets
[2] "Global warming cancer warning." By Jon Edwards. http://www.rsc.org/AboutUs/News/PressReleases/2008/GlobalWarmingCancer.asp
[3] Jan C. van der Leun, Photochem. Photobiol. Sci., 2008, DOI: 10.1039/b719302e

Saudi to Keep Oil for Itself.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has commanded that some recent finds of crude oil be left untapped to preserve the nation's oil-wealth for future generations. Saudi is the world's greatest producer of oil at 11.3 million barrels per day which is predicted to be increased to 12.5 million bpd next year. The king is quoted as saying: "When there were new finds, I told them, 'no, leave it in the ground, with grace from God, our children need it'." World eyes are turned to Saudi to increase production to meet an inexorable thirst for oil, but when asked about the maximum likely production, the king said: "We'll get to 12.5 million barrels a day and then we'll see."

There is no longer any talk of output rising to 15 million bpd, and more likely, if the 12.5 million bpd is achieved, holding back 1 - 2 million bpd worth of spare-capacity, for the foreseeable future Saudi output is likely to be at around 9 - 11 million bpd. The vice president of Merrill Lynch, Tom Petrie commented: "The Saudis and other exporters are placing a new emphasis on elongating the petroleum exploitation and depletion cycle [i.e. the Hubbert Peak]. This stems from a growing awareness of the challenges of conventional resource maturity, as well as rising resource nationalism. This is likely to result in an earlier occurrence of global peak oil output than many customers yet recognize." With various existing estimates of the peak in world oil production at around 2012, this implies that a gap between supply and demand for world oil might occur within just a couple of years.

It is also possible that the Saudi fields are in reality approaching their maximum production, and there are varying estimates of how much oil they do have, with some commentators holding the opinion that Saudi has less recoverable oil than has been claimed, and that production of e.g. the giant Ghawar field has already peaked. Only time will tell, as it will over output from Russia, which according to Yuri Trutnev, the Russian Minister for Natural Resources, will fall this year, for the first time in 10 years. He believes that exports from OPEC, Russia and Mexico will in fact fall by 2.5 million barrels a day between now and 2012, which sounds to me that peak oil has arrived, to all intents and purposes.

All the countries in the Gulf have increased their own domestic use of oil and by 2015 Iran is predicted to use as much oil as they sell. It seems clear that the West simply has to find other ways to keep going that do not depend on oil, although as noted in many previous articles here, this is not an easy task. The major problem is transportation and the adaptation of modern civilization to use less of it. This is not a welcoming thought, including to this writer, but what other choice is there? Hydrogen is acknowledged to be years away if it will ever become a wholesale reality given its many challenges that need to be hence overcome and the world simply can't grow enough biofuels to replace the amount of oil-based fuels it gets through, even by severely compromising food production. Other possible technologies e.g. making diesel from algae and biomass-to-liquids (BTL) conversion are not available on the grand scale, as yet, and might also take years to implement.

Meanwhile oil, food and food prices rocket. Energy costs in general are on the up, notably in the United Arab Emirates (UEA) which apparently plans to double its energy use by 2015, and treble it by 2020. However, it appears very dubious what the actual state of play will be in the world by then, for any of us.

Related Reading.
[1] "Cheap energy in UAE is over." By Gundi Royle, Special to Gulf News. http://gulfnews.com/business/money/10206645.html
[2] "Saudi King Abdullah drops quiet bombshell; U.S. media sleep through it." By Steve Andrews and Randy Udall. http://www.energybulletin.net/print.php?id=43048.

Oil Price Rises Above $117 a Barrel.

This is more a note than a comment, to the effect that oil prices in Asia have exceeded $117 a barrel. This latest increase in the relentless rise in the cost of crude is blamed on an attack on an oil-pipeline in Nigeria. There have been remarks that OPEC will not push-up production and this belief is likely to bolster an increase in the price of oil. Shell has confirmed that a bomb had caused a leak in the pipeline for which the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta is believed responsible. This group have been assaulting the Nigerian oil-infrastructure since 2006 which has led to a decrease in production by 25%, thus urging oil prices. Nigeria is a major exporter of oil to the United States.

The pipeline has been isolated so that repairs can be carried out. The weaker dollar has also contributed to the rise in the price of oil above the $100 psychological-barrier. As the dollar falls, it brings investment in hard commodities like oil and gold, in an attempt to hedge against inflation. Simply too, the fall in the dollar makes these commodities cheaper for foreign buyers. The Secretary-General of OPEC has promised that it will not hesitate to ramp-up production if it is thought the higher prices are due to oil-shortages, but he noted that simply producing more oil will not bring its price down. For comparison, Brent crude is selling at just under $114 a barrel. I dare say we will see a parallel increase in fuel prices at the pumps.

The provision of fuel in Scotland is under threat too, by a strike over pensions. It is debatable how much any of us will get as a pension, if anything at all, especially in 10 - 20 years time, smack into the oil-dearth era, especially as unstable financial markets as we see them now will most likely oscillate in perpetuity. As the swings become more extreme there is a danger of panic on the markets which could bring some organisations, financial and otherwise to the verge of bankruptcy. I hope not, but I note that the British government is borrowing £50 billion ($100 billion) to prop-up the banking sector.

The Chief Executive of Ineos, who own the oil-refinery at Grangemouth, said that the union, Unite, was well-aware that a 48 hour strike will cause fuel-chaos across Scotland and northern England at this, the only such facility in the region. Rather like blast-furnaces, used to smelt iron-ore and make steel, oil-refineries cannot be simply switched off and on again. It can take weeks to get them up and running again, and sometimes some reconstruction is necessary. Like light-bulbs they are best kept burning! The Ineos workers are opposed to proposed changes in their pension-rites, particularly the ineligibility of new workers to a final-salary scheme. I expect a long battle ahead over fuel and pensions in the next decade and beyond. If the Grangemouth refinery is closed, it might take a month to get it back and running again.

The facility refines 200,000 barrels of oil daily which yields 9 million litres of petrol (gasoline). Farms and the haulage industry are expected to be hit hardest by the fuel shortages that will result if the 1,200 workers go ahead with their strike, while prices will increase as supplies become scarce. The result could be that the entire north-country, including Scotland is brought to a virtual standstill.

Related Reading.
[1] "Oil prices spike to record above $117 a barrel." By Thomas Hogue. http://news.ino.com/headlines/?newsid=689062697300
[2] "Strike threatens UK oil supplies." http://guardian.co.uk/business/2008/apr/20/oil/print
[3] "Grangemouth strike threatens oil crisis." By Ian Robson and Sarah Robertson, Sunday Sun. http://www.sundaysun.co.uk/news/north-east-news/2008/04/20/
grangemouth-strike-threatens-oil-crisis-79310-20789958/

Does algae solve the biofuel puzzle?

The following letter was published in "The Independent" newspaper on Saturday (the 19th of April).

Sir: I endorse Richard Pike's (he is CEO of the Royal Society of Chemistry) comments (letters, 16 April) about the need to find new sources of biofuels rather than those based on growing crops. The amount of land required to produce biofuels from crops on a scale commensurate with present human activities is vast, since the useful energy-capture from sunlight represents less than 1 per cent of the sunlight absorbed by the Earth's surface.

Hence there is necessarily a conflict between growing crops for fuel and crops for food because the area of arable land available to us is limited. But growing algae to make biofuel presents potentially a different proposition, and a Texas-based company, PetroSun, has just begun production.

With their figures showing that 4.4 million gallons (US) of diesel can be produced from 1,100 acres, we may deduce that 32.6 tonnes of diesel plus 116 tonnes of (other) biomass will be produced per hectare per year. Assuming the figure of 174 W/square metre (4.18 kWh/day), this amounts to a photosynthetic efficiency of 4.7 per cent, and is better than crop-based biofuel production by a factor of 10 to 20.

It is not necessary to use arable land nor divert valuable supplies of fresh water for biofuel, since the algae grow well in saline ponds, and could be placed on any land, or on water.

Professor Chris Rhodes

Caversham, Berkshire

Biofuel from Algae: Vertical Reactors (HDVB).

I am indebted to a reader for bringing a new technology to my attention, namely the "High Density Vertical Bioreactor", or HDVB in contrast to open-pond systems, as alluded to in my recent posting, "Biofuel from Algae: Photosynthetic Efficiencies." The HDVB system is marketed by Valcent Products Inc. and consists of growing plants or algae in plastic pockets on clear vertical panels that move on a conveyor-belt arrangement. The strategy is designed to maximise the amount of sunlight and provide an ideal balance of nutrients to achieve optimum growth. It is proposed that such vertical growth systems might provide a solution to the problem of feeding urban populations so that urban living becomes sustainable.

Now, I like the sound of this, as it fits with my notion that once transportation begins to fail in consequence of cheap oil supplies waning in 5 - 10 years, humanity will relocalise into relatively small communities far less dependent on transport. The lack of urban growing space is counteracted by the very high efficiency of crop production in HDVB reactors. This form of agriculture as also soil-free, and uses perhaps 5% of the amount of water that is required to grow crops by conventional means, since the whole constitutes a closed-system with far less evaporation. Since these reactors can be placed anywhere (as can open-ponds) there is no necessity to compromise arable land which can still be used for standard agriculture.

However, the HDVB offers the potential of producing fuel as well as food, since algae can be grown in these systems too, and it is claimed in higher yield than in open-ponds. Thus in principle, food is grown locally, thus eliminating much of the fuel-costs borne in the carriage of crops from one part of the country to another or even across the world, by air or by ship, and also biodiesel can be made from oil extracted from algae grown using the technology, by transesterification with methanol or ethanol, as is done with plant-derived oils. Growing food both efficiently and locally also averts much of the spoilage that occurs on long hauls, during which as much as 50% of it is thus rendered inedible.

It is claimed that 100,000 gallons (US) of diesel can be produced per acre of HDVB area, which does seem very high. I commented in my article on photosynthetic efficiencies that the figure of 20,000 gallons/acre quoted in the wikipedia entry on "permaculture" looks to be well above the theoretical efficiency for a horizontal open-pond/algal system, but higher surface areas could be attained using vertical reactor arrangements; however, to install this paraphernalia on the very large scale is going to take a lot of plastic (derived from oil) and a lot of engineering, especially since the HDVB systems are more intricate than the basis I have indicated. Irrespective of whether the algae are grown in open-ponds or HDVB systems, there will also need to be a massive construction of transesterification plants and a source of methanol or ethanol must be found, in an amount equal to perhaps 10% of the diesel that is produced.

It sounds like a great idea and sits comfortably with most of my values and projections as to what precisely we need to achieve in order to form a stable, sustainable society. However, the scale-up will be a gargantuan task. If we can cut our fuel use to say 25% in relocalised communities, we still need to produce around 700 million tonnes of biodiesel annually (15 million tonnes just for the UK and 175 million tonnes for the US) and convert most vehicles to run on diesel-engines; but can this be done quickly enough to breach the demand/supply gap facing conventional oil production?

Related Reading.
[1] http://www.valcent.net/s/TomorrowGarden.asp
[2] http://www.globalgreensolutionsinc.com/s/VertigroFAQ.asp

Community in the Oil Dearth Era?

It's quite reasonable to grieve for the imminent loss of cheap oil, but the question remains, what are we going to do once it is gone? I am not a "peak oil doomer", and while looking into the uncomfortable realities of scale of renewables, biofuels etc. against the backdrop of current energy use, I have attempted to preserve some optimism. What I am saying is that we will have to live differently rather than not live at all. The extreme "survivalist" view is of a fellow sitting up all night with a shotgun, guarding his individual crop of vegetables, which does not strike me as being very sustainable, but I can envisage a community of male and female fellows each playing their own role in running a sustainable collective venture.

I am reminded of this basic premise by the article referenced below, entitled: "You are now entering an oil-free zone." This is, pretty much as you might think, a description of a small low-energy community - specifically, Totnes in Devon (the first such example), and then Falmouth and Stroud, as so named "transition towns" and the first transition village, Forest Row in Sussex. Significantly, Bristol and Brixton, in London, with its large Afrocaribean (initially Jamaican) community, are bringing the concept to larger urban conurbations. I say "significant" because the deconvolution of cities e.g. London with its population around 8 - 10 million (depending on where the borders are drawn) will pose the ultimate test of human adaptability and will to change in the direction of community living. The latter should be observed closely as linchpins of the entire process and measures of its likely success, or otherwise.

Life without oil is almost unimaginable or uncomfortably threatening when one does imagine it. Without oil-based plastics I would not be typing this, nor would there be the means of instant publication provided via the internet. Possibly this article and others of more local interest could be distributed via a small press in the form of a local newspaper. That said, I hope we do manage to hold-onto the net as otherwise we may simply disappear into a vacuum of small, isolated communities, which would be a thoroughly retrograde business. The notion of the "transition" town has been accredited to Rob Hoskins - not "Bob" Hoskins the actor, but the permaculture guru. The specific intention of these projects is the preparation for life post-oil.

I have commented on permaculture in previous postings both here and on scitizen.com ( a kind of on-line "New Scientist") where I write a monthly column. It's essential precept is energy efficiency, and so it should not fall victim to Jevons' paradox, where more available and hence cheaper energy (Jevons was referring particularly to coal and the steam-engine) ironically encourages the use of more energy and hence resources. In the utopia of permaculture, just sufficient energy and time are expended to fulfill the needs of a group of people in an immediate community, with the result that there is more time to devote to other activities, and one implication is that those living under such circumstances become more spiritually aware and imbued. It's a nice thought, especially as the world's financial markets take a down-turn on the roller-coaster ride they now offer and what meagre investments one has managed to squirrel-together over the years have plummeted in value during the past week.

The underpinning assumption for the transition town is that oil supplies will fall by around 3% a year beyond the peak in world-production, expected to arrive within a mere few years, which sits incongruously with such projections as an increased output from 84 million to 116 million barrels a day by 2030. It is also predicted that air-travel will have tripled by that same date, hence the necessity for a third runway at Heathrow airport and the demolition of a village that is inconveniently in the way of this development. What will they be putting in the fuel tanks by then, I wonder?

Transportation will be the major victim of peak oil, since 70% of all the 30 billion barrels currently produced in the world goes to fuel various forms of transportation, mainly its 700 million road vehicles. Fuel prices are already increasing and will continue to do so thus forcing vehicles of the roads. The net result will be a less mobile population and accordingly our focus will be increasingly on the local rather than the global, and thus we have potential transition towns brought into fruition in the light of what has been learned during the transitional period.

There is a political element too, in that as Hoskins points-out, people are getting fed-up with the government's lack of action in the face of peak-oil. Arguably there is an intention to avoid mass panic, but a gentle approach might well avert this by raising a kind of "Dunkirk Spirit", although that does impinge on matters of national identity which are now more complex that they were in 1945, partly in the pursuit of oil, as some ague. So how, as individuals, might we urge our own local communities into "transition"? I am thinking of the village of Caversham where my family lives (population around 9,000) and the larger conurbation of Reading, across the river Thames from us, a town with its population of 140,000.

As Hoskins admits, the answer is not entirely clear, but making the process attractive - the carrot not the stick - is key to making it a success. My own view is that an integration of the old with the new, rather than an overnight jump is necessary. We are not going to be instantly self-sufficient, and nor do we need to be. If we thus cut-back on our use of energy and resources by say a half, mainly through limiting transportation needs and other forms of energy efficiency, we are half way there. In this aim, we should rely increasingly on products and services from local farms and businesses, insulate our homes, grow some of our own food in back gardens and allotments, try to work locally and share our experience, the good and the bad. This by definition is "community".


Related Reading.
"You are now entering an oil-free zone". By Julie Ferry. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/apr/19/energy.ethicalliving

Price of Oil and Food Soars.

The price of crude oil has now hit above $112 a barrel, which is more than five times that of five or six years ago, while the price of rice has risen by up to 70% from last year. It is debatable what exactly is the reason for such a huge hike in oil prices, but the general costs of extracting it, including exploration, have increased markedly, as it becomes ever more difficult to secure enough oil to meet world demand of 30 billion barrels a year for it. All the major oil companies have needed to invest substantially in infrastructure and are angling in more costly regions e.g. in deep-sea locations and potentially the Arctic.

A new elephant field has not been found since the early 1980's, and it is thought that once the Middle East giants, especially Ghawar in Saudi, begin to decline, we are all in big trouble, living in a world utterly dependent on cheap oil. I doubt the price of conventional crude oil will ever come down, and unconventional sources even if fully exploited, will also become increasingly expensive to produce from, in the wake of the increasing costs of other resources of energy and water required to get oil from heavy crude and bitumen - for example in tar-sands. To exploit significant amounts of such resources, and if coal-to-liquids etc. are to be employed appreciably, will need massive new engineering, and I question just how much can be brought on-line within the crucial next decade, during which peak-oil and its consequences must be met head-on.

Some estimates of total conventional plus unconventional oil amount to 3.7 trillion barrels, but success in supplying the annual 30 billion barrels currently demanded, let alone satisfying projected requirements in a model of untrammelled economic growth, depends not on how big the resource is, but how quickly it can be extracted and processed. Providing enough platinum to fabricate hundreds of millions of fuel cells poses a similar dilemma, since while there is more than enough of the metal in the Earth per se, producing pure Pt is a very exacting process which limits its rate of production dramatically. A shortfall in oil, which I expect will prove the reality, means a deep decline in the world's transportation and a relocalisation of societies into small communities. It is indeed the issue of keeping transportation running, as conventional oil supplies fail to meet our urging for them, that is the linchpin of the human mechanism, and if this fails in an abrupt and unmanaged way, so will civilization.

Rice is the staple food for half the world's population of 6.7 billion; however, the price of rice has increased by up to 70% during the past year. In part, this is blamed on poor harvests in consequence of "extreme weather", rising populations and hence demand for food in countries that import rice from world markets, an expectation that things can only get worse leading to hoarding, and depleting stockpiles and insufficient investment in agriculture. In fact, the increasing cost of rice is but one example of an increase in world food prices overall. In an effort to protect their own internal food-provision and to curb inflation, main rice-producing nations, e.g. India, China and Vietnam, have imposed restrictions on exports. On the other side of the coin, net rice-importers such as Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the Philippines are suffering the consequences of an unstable and costly supply.

Rapid economic development in Asia has led to a more prosperous and more numerous middle class who eat more food, while land formerly used to grow rice is now used to host new housing developments, factories and in some regions, golf courses. The biofuels market has grown since 2006 providing a greater incentive for farmers to grow corn for ethanol than to produce rice, bringing global stockpiles to their lowest level for twenty years. Particular local factors have also contributed to the situation, such as the cyclone which destroyed much of Bangladesh's autumn rice crop last November, a total of almost one million tonnes. As a consequence of this, the country has