I would love to think that we will shortly discover some form of limitless energy, and thereby get around all our problems of globe warming CO2 emissions, security of fuel supply - of cheap fuel at that, to preserve our economic advantage, and the whole caboodle. I would also like to think that "Peak Oil" is at best a myth, or at least that it is a long way off, as the Oil Industry would have us believe. I neither think nor believe any of these things, but even those that do might ponder for a moment the question "what would be the alternative" if we were suddenly to find ourselves in the U.K. without (cheap) oil and gas, purely as an intellectual exercise.
"Nuclear Power", I can imagine some of you saying. Well, yes, there is some argument for it, but as I have pointed out in previous articles, nuclear could only provide 18% of our total "energy", even if it were to provide 100% of our "electricity", and there are issues of availability and supply, ignoring all the nasty nuclear waste that nobody has any idea what to do with yet, and what a horrible mess it would be if any of the uranium fuel ended up in a "dirty bomb" etc. etc. "Coal", others will argue, and it's a fair point. We do have plenty of coal. It's a bit rough on The Environment, and some viewers' quality of life would be impacted upon by the vista of dirty collieries and slag heaps - although the latter can be greened-over, mindful of the Aberfan Disaster - but you can't have it both ways. If we want more coal, the landscape will inevitably be scarred by its extraction. Indeed, we could probably dig up enough coal to supply practically all of our electricity and to heat most of our premises both commercial and domestic, if we re-tooled our systems for that purpose. However, even allowing this potentially reassuring solution, clearly coal is not generally a mobile source, and the remaining issue is transportation. Agreed, we could re-introduce steam trains and transport a goodly amount on their backs, but what about road transport - cars, vans and lorries, which carry more freight, in terms of both human and commercial cargo, than anything else does. Even trains run on diesel now.
I guess we could, in principle at least, adapt all these vehicles to run on gas, but gas supply is potentially a problem as we are running out of North Sea gas, and the U.K. is now a net energy importer, and we will need to import our gas increasingly from more politically maverick regions of the world such as Russia, which contains by far the world's greatest deposits of natural gas, mainly in the gas fields of Western Siberia. As I posed at the outset, it is both gas and oil that we are seeking to find an alternative for. "Run them all on hydrogen", others will propose. But, as I have also shown in this series of articles, hydrogen is totally impractical, since it is actually made from natural gas, and we could not realistically generate the phenomenal quantities of it required to substitute for oil if the current numbers of vehicles are to be maintained, by electrolysis - and the car industry would like even more of them.
In reality, there is no means to substitute for all the oil currently consumed. I won't say "which 'we' consume" since I deliberately don't own a car - I walk if my journey is anywhere within three miles, otherwise I use public transport, or if it's raining, say. And that seems to be the key. We can simply get around most of our problems of fuel supply by reducing or eliminating where possible the demands we place upon it. If we base those demands upon the requirements of a local economy and community, 90% of any actual"shortage" can be immediately avoided. However, any move toward such localisation beyond seductive lip-service will be deftly resisted by the oil companies and their sisters in the car industry, who will bend the ear of government to serve their will.
The Dahli Lhama thinks that all the problems of the world could be resolved through peace and understanding between people. I suspect he's right, but then he's not out to make a buck!
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
We Can't Live Without Fossil Fuels - CO2 or not!
In a utopian world, all our energy needs might be met by renewables. It is the green dream of a world in which wind/wave/solar/ hydroelectric/geothermal are the primary energy sources, and are used to turn turbines to make plentiful electricity for all, while leaving "The Environment" untainted. Even if we could find utopia in the U.K.'s pleasant land, currently the green dream would only supply 18% of the energy that the nation uses overall. Placed in context, the most favourable rallying cry, that 40% of the U.K.'s energy might be provided from renewables by 2050, appears a little limp, since it may be seen that even this most favourable scenario would only provide 40% of 18% = 7.2% of our total energy requirements, once the significance is appreciated that by the word "energy" it is "electricity" that is actually meant, but it sounds far more progressive to call it energy.
The current proportion of electricity generated from renewables is miniscule, at around 1%, i.e. perhaps 0.2% of total energy. The figure of 9% often quoted as being the proportion of electricity produced as "primary electricity" is highly misleading, since it includes electricity generated using nuclear power - rather, "uranium" should be listed separately as a primary fuel, reserving the term "primary electricity" for that produced from hydroelectric/wind/wave/solar/geothermal sources, i.e. those which are truly primary, and are renewable. Nuclear, as I have commented in previous articles in this series, is unsustainable (because it uses up uranium, of which there is only a limited supply), potentially dangerous and of limited benefit at best, neither securing security of supply nor significantly eliminating the U.K.'s own burden upon world CO2 greenhouse gas emissions.
If we "do the math" as they say across the pond, i.e. work a book keeping exercise, the figures find that 22% of total electricity is provided from nuclear sources, ignoring the Sun whose contribution to artificial energy production is negligible, standing trivially apart from the miracle of photosynthesis. As I have noted, even generating 40% of electricity from renewables by 2050 would only represent 7.2% of the energy we use in total, while oil and gas will still furnish the lion's share, together providing 78% of the total. As I stated at the outset, we are considering a perfect world where electricity is in limitless supply, and is provided from renewable sources. In such a world, why wouldn't we simply provide practically all our energy requirements by electrical means? Wind energy is more complex than at first appears. It is not simply a case of inaugurating 1 GW of wind capacity to replace 1 GW of fossil fuel or nuclear (ground based) power. The reason for this boils down to the fact that the amount of energy that may be extracted depends on the dimensions of the turbine blade and on the speed of the wind. Thus a blade that is too small might extract very little energy until the wind speed had reached, say 40 mph, and since the wind speed varies and is often significantly less than this, the turbine would not accumulate sufficient time at high power output to achieve a reasonable annual energy output.
A larger blade might begin to harvest wind energy at only a few mph, drawing a maximum power at, say 15 mph, but would need to be geared down, perhaps by the time the wind speed reached 25 mph to limit mechanical stress upon the turbine.
Experience in both Germany and Denmark - a country which produces 20% of its electricity from wind power (i.e. about the same as the U.K. does from nuclear) - is that 20% or less of full capacity is expected over a period of a year. This "capacity factor" as it is known, is simply the wind turbine's actual energy output over the year divided by the energy that would be obtained if it were run at full capacity over the same period (i.e. an upper limit of 0.2, which we now assume). A crude calculation indicates that if we were to try and replace around 62 GW of current energy demand by wind power, this would require 62/0.2 = 310 GW of full wind turbine capacity. But this large number still only refers to the 18% of total "energy" that comes from electricity. If we take the calculation to the limit of supplying all energy in the form of electricity, in order to eliminate the use of coal/oil/gas/nuclear generated energy, we would need about another 80% of the total which comes to 276 GW as derived from these greenhouse gas generating source (and building nuclear power plants, mining and milling their uranium fuel etc. also produces CO2, despite the rhetoric of the pro-nuclear lobby, the government and it's Chief Scientific Advisor), this steps up to a massive 310 + (276/0.2) = 1690 GW to be generated from wind energy.
The technology improves as turbines get bigger, but even using turbines rated at 0.5 MW full capacity, we would need to produce 3,380,000 of them, which would be a staggering endeavour. In addition, a vast network of hydrogen - an energy storage medium, which requires primary fuels to produce it, including electricity as in the present utopian scenario - storage devices, fuel cells for vehicles as we are going the whole hog of 100% reduction in carbon emissions here, would be necessary. Graham Sinden at the Oxford University Environmental Change Institute has estimated that a mix of 43% wind, 52% wave and 5 % tidal stream power could reliably produce the equivalent of 8 GW worth of coal, oil or gas power (out of about 344 GW worth of these total fuels burned), which is not a lot. If drastic reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases, in the range of 80 - 90% (still requiring 3 million or so wind turbines) of the current level is required by 2023, we really are in trouble, as there is no real means to replace the huge qauntities of fossil fuels that we currently use.
The only scenario which could succeed in making any significant impact is to focus on energy saving strategies, e.g. buildings designed perhaps along the lines of the "40% House" being researched by Dr Brenda Boardman's group in the Oxford University Environmental Change Institute, and further advances of it where heat from appliances, body heat etc. would fulfil most of its space heating requirements. The "Zed Bed" and "Passivhaus" concepts are also most interesting, and there are web pages available for them which are worth purusing for more detail. The Passivhaus is a continuously ventilated unit, which draws warm air into it via pipes that are heated geothermally by being buried in the soil, thus avoiding the veltilation problems that might arise from an "ultra"- insulated building and since the incoming air is to some extent warmed (to 5 degrees C, even in winter), along with efficient insulation, relatively modest additional heating is needed. However, the construction and engineering efforts required to substitute sufficient such buildings on time (i.e. before the climatic effect of CO2 is expected by some experts to be irreparable, 2030 perhaps) are truly daunting, and would meanwhile be producing CO2 until their final fabrications were complete. This point was reinforced by Professor James Wouduysen recently, in his statement: "It will take 1,000 years at current rates for our current housing stock to be replaced". He then suggested that houses could be constructed as part built kit homes, exported from China, which could be assembled in the U.K. and transported to their final site of location. This might require relocating some people to other parts of the country, but he argues that 280,000 computer designed, insulated units a year could be provided for the U.K. market by this means, which in many ways resembles car mass production.
However, the aspect of having more energy efficient buildings does not tackle the issues/problems of transportation, and its fuel requirements which remain enormous even allowing for improved efficiency methods - i.e. more miles per tank of fuel, using fuel cells etc. ultimately, and meanwhile using more efficient combustion engines, while the hydrogen powered utopia was being implemented. This leads to my final point, that we also need to reduce our dependence on transportation by living in "local" communities based on local economies, which supply smaller populations from local farms, and therefore cut down generally on more global transportation necessities. In our localised communities, we would also want fewer cars, and less foreign holidays too, once the general concept had been assimilated that we can't continue as we are. I'm afraid this is the best I can offer, which gives me no comfort either, but I can see no quick fix to our greenhouse gas emissions, as implementing all of this will take decades, if it happens at all. Meanwhile we will continue to pump out CO2 into the atmosphere.
The current proportion of electricity generated from renewables is miniscule, at around 1%, i.e. perhaps 0.2% of total energy. The figure of 9% often quoted as being the proportion of electricity produced as "primary electricity" is highly misleading, since it includes electricity generated using nuclear power - rather, "uranium" should be listed separately as a primary fuel, reserving the term "primary electricity" for that produced from hydroelectric/wind/wave/solar/geothermal sources, i.e. those which are truly primary, and are renewable. Nuclear, as I have commented in previous articles in this series, is unsustainable (because it uses up uranium, of which there is only a limited supply), potentially dangerous and of limited benefit at best, neither securing security of supply nor significantly eliminating the U.K.'s own burden upon world CO2 greenhouse gas emissions.
If we "do the math" as they say across the pond, i.e. work a book keeping exercise, the figures find that 22% of total electricity is provided from nuclear sources, ignoring the Sun whose contribution to artificial energy production is negligible, standing trivially apart from the miracle of photosynthesis. As I have noted, even generating 40% of electricity from renewables by 2050 would only represent 7.2% of the energy we use in total, while oil and gas will still furnish the lion's share, together providing 78% of the total. As I stated at the outset, we are considering a perfect world where electricity is in limitless supply, and is provided from renewable sources. In such a world, why wouldn't we simply provide practically all our energy requirements by electrical means? Wind energy is more complex than at first appears. It is not simply a case of inaugurating 1 GW of wind capacity to replace 1 GW of fossil fuel or nuclear (ground based) power. The reason for this boils down to the fact that the amount of energy that may be extracted depends on the dimensions of the turbine blade and on the speed of the wind. Thus a blade that is too small might extract very little energy until the wind speed had reached, say 40 mph, and since the wind speed varies and is often significantly less than this, the turbine would not accumulate sufficient time at high power output to achieve a reasonable annual energy output.
A larger blade might begin to harvest wind energy at only a few mph, drawing a maximum power at, say 15 mph, but would need to be geared down, perhaps by the time the wind speed reached 25 mph to limit mechanical stress upon the turbine.
Experience in both Germany and Denmark - a country which produces 20% of its electricity from wind power (i.e. about the same as the U.K. does from nuclear) - is that 20% or less of full capacity is expected over a period of a year. This "capacity factor" as it is known, is simply the wind turbine's actual energy output over the year divided by the energy that would be obtained if it were run at full capacity over the same period (i.e. an upper limit of 0.2, which we now assume). A crude calculation indicates that if we were to try and replace around 62 GW of current energy demand by wind power, this would require 62/0.2 = 310 GW of full wind turbine capacity. But this large number still only refers to the 18% of total "energy" that comes from electricity. If we take the calculation to the limit of supplying all energy in the form of electricity, in order to eliminate the use of coal/oil/gas/nuclear generated energy, we would need about another 80% of the total which comes to 276 GW as derived from these greenhouse gas generating source (and building nuclear power plants, mining and milling their uranium fuel etc. also produces CO2, despite the rhetoric of the pro-nuclear lobby, the government and it's Chief Scientific Advisor), this steps up to a massive 310 + (276/0.2) = 1690 GW to be generated from wind energy.
The technology improves as turbines get bigger, but even using turbines rated at 0.5 MW full capacity, we would need to produce 3,380,000 of them, which would be a staggering endeavour. In addition, a vast network of hydrogen - an energy storage medium, which requires primary fuels to produce it, including electricity as in the present utopian scenario - storage devices, fuel cells for vehicles as we are going the whole hog of 100% reduction in carbon emissions here, would be necessary. Graham Sinden at the Oxford University Environmental Change Institute has estimated that a mix of 43% wind, 52% wave and 5 % tidal stream power could reliably produce the equivalent of 8 GW worth of coal, oil or gas power (out of about 344 GW worth of these total fuels burned), which is not a lot. If drastic reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases, in the range of 80 - 90% (still requiring 3 million or so wind turbines) of the current level is required by 2023, we really are in trouble, as there is no real means to replace the huge qauntities of fossil fuels that we currently use.
The only scenario which could succeed in making any significant impact is to focus on energy saving strategies, e.g. buildings designed perhaps along the lines of the "40% House" being researched by Dr Brenda Boardman's group in the Oxford University Environmental Change Institute, and further advances of it where heat from appliances, body heat etc. would fulfil most of its space heating requirements. The "Zed Bed" and "Passivhaus" concepts are also most interesting, and there are web pages available for them which are worth purusing for more detail. The Passivhaus is a continuously ventilated unit, which draws warm air into it via pipes that are heated geothermally by being buried in the soil, thus avoiding the veltilation problems that might arise from an "ultra"- insulated building and since the incoming air is to some extent warmed (to 5 degrees C, even in winter), along with efficient insulation, relatively modest additional heating is needed. However, the construction and engineering efforts required to substitute sufficient such buildings on time (i.e. before the climatic effect of CO2 is expected by some experts to be irreparable, 2030 perhaps) are truly daunting, and would meanwhile be producing CO2 until their final fabrications were complete. This point was reinforced by Professor James Wouduysen recently, in his statement: "It will take 1,000 years at current rates for our current housing stock to be replaced". He then suggested that houses could be constructed as part built kit homes, exported from China, which could be assembled in the U.K. and transported to their final site of location. This might require relocating some people to other parts of the country, but he argues that 280,000 computer designed, insulated units a year could be provided for the U.K. market by this means, which in many ways resembles car mass production.
However, the aspect of having more energy efficient buildings does not tackle the issues/problems of transportation, and its fuel requirements which remain enormous even allowing for improved efficiency methods - i.e. more miles per tank of fuel, using fuel cells etc. ultimately, and meanwhile using more efficient combustion engines, while the hydrogen powered utopia was being implemented. This leads to my final point, that we also need to reduce our dependence on transportation by living in "local" communities based on local economies, which supply smaller populations from local farms, and therefore cut down generally on more global transportation necessities. In our localised communities, we would also want fewer cars, and less foreign holidays too, once the general concept had been assimilated that we can't continue as we are. I'm afraid this is the best I can offer, which gives me no comfort either, but I can see no quick fix to our greenhouse gas emissions, as implementing all of this will take decades, if it happens at all. Meanwhile we will continue to pump out CO2 into the atmosphere.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Die Off.
The ownership of the largest deposits of oil, notably in the former U.S.S.R., e.g. Siberia and Kazakhstan and the Caspian region generally, in addition to the fields in the Middle East, will likely determine the future balance of world power. "The New World Order" as it is sometimes referred to. It is interesting that it is scientists from the former U.S.S.R. who throng highly among the ranks of "Hubbert detractors" - those who do not believe in an imminent "peak oil" scenario. There appears to be a conflict of opinion, and probably of interest too, between Western and Soviet oil experts, which revolves around different viewpoints as to the origin of petroleum. The western belief is, as we were all taught at school, that petroleum is a result of "cooking" plant and animal remains over millennia, and proof of its origin thus is taken to be the presence of the same type of organic molecules (porphyrins etc.) as are found in living plants and animals.
Soviet thinking, which goes back at least as far as the great Russian chemist Medeleyev (who invented the Periodic Table of the chemical Elements), is that petroleum is formed in the deep earth by geochemical processes - Mendeleyev thought by the action of water on iron carbides. The explanation for the presence of porphyrins etc. is that they are simply dissolved from higher strata by petroleum moving upward from the depths, and acting as an organic solvent. The essential difference between these schools of thinking is that, if the Russians are right, oil can be considered a limitless resource, while the western view readily accords with an imminent peak oil; i.e. a finite supply of oil. The Russians, however, are sufficiently convinced after more than 50 years of intensive research that their theory is correct and they have made enormous investments in developing "deep drilling" techniques (2 km and more down) with which to reach the petroleum deposits formed deep underground.
Either the Russians will secure their position more strongly in the new world order, or affordable oil will eventually run out - for everybody. This is particularly alarming in the context of world population. In 1900, there were less than 2 billion people on the planet (up from about 1 billion in 1800); now the figure is 6.4 billion, and the exponential curve in population growth that these numbers can be plotted upon is an exact parallel with that for oil production. Without the vast quantities of chemical fertilizers, which are made from oil and gas, we could not grow enough food to feed the rising population, nor even the current number, nor far less than that. Some predict that a "die off" will follow peak oil production, and that the world population will fall from 6.4 billion to perhaps as few as 500 million (the death of almost 5 billion people, or about 92% of the number now alive).
An analogy can be drawn with the growth of bacteria, which, so long as there is sufficient food available, follows a "sigmoid curve". There is an initial growth in population which multiplies rapidly (the rising upper of the sigmoid), and then levels off abruptly when the food supply becomes restricted relative to the new, far larger population. Then they begin to eat each other instead, and the number of bacteria remaining alive plummets.
It is hardly a comforting prospect.
Soviet thinking, which goes back at least as far as the great Russian chemist Medeleyev (who invented the Periodic Table of the chemical Elements), is that petroleum is formed in the deep earth by geochemical processes - Mendeleyev thought by the action of water on iron carbides. The explanation for the presence of porphyrins etc. is that they are simply dissolved from higher strata by petroleum moving upward from the depths, and acting as an organic solvent. The essential difference between these schools of thinking is that, if the Russians are right, oil can be considered a limitless resource, while the western view readily accords with an imminent peak oil; i.e. a finite supply of oil. The Russians, however, are sufficiently convinced after more than 50 years of intensive research that their theory is correct and they have made enormous investments in developing "deep drilling" techniques (2 km and more down) with which to reach the petroleum deposits formed deep underground.
Either the Russians will secure their position more strongly in the new world order, or affordable oil will eventually run out - for everybody. This is particularly alarming in the context of world population. In 1900, there were less than 2 billion people on the planet (up from about 1 billion in 1800); now the figure is 6.4 billion, and the exponential curve in population growth that these numbers can be plotted upon is an exact parallel with that for oil production. Without the vast quantities of chemical fertilizers, which are made from oil and gas, we could not grow enough food to feed the rising population, nor even the current number, nor far less than that. Some predict that a "die off" will follow peak oil production, and that the world population will fall from 6.4 billion to perhaps as few as 500 million (the death of almost 5 billion people, or about 92% of the number now alive).
An analogy can be drawn with the growth of bacteria, which, so long as there is sufficient food available, follows a "sigmoid curve". There is an initial growth in population which multiplies rapidly (the rising upper of the sigmoid), and then levels off abruptly when the food supply becomes restricted relative to the new, far larger population. Then they begin to eat each other instead, and the number of bacteria remaining alive plummets.
It is hardly a comforting prospect.
Peak Oil.
The end of cheap oil is nigh. Although there is plenty left untapped, oil will become progressively more expensive to extract, with irrevocable consequences that impact profoundly on each and every aspect of human life. Even an increase in overall costs by 10% in transportation, imports and exports, processing and manufacture could jeopardise the world economy, and it is worse than that. There is almost no modern commodity that does not rely at some stage on oil or gas, and that includes food!, and it is thought in some quarters that a peak in oil production "peak oil" is either upon us already or at least by 2010.
If we try to save oil by using natural gas instead, "peak gas" will arrive sooner than by 2100 as is currently predicted. These dates refer to "world production" of oil and gas, and are misleading because the "peak" in production will vary from one gas or oil field to another. Precise dates are difficult to divine since no one knows for sure exactly how much of these fuels lie in reserve. Shell Oil got itself into trouble recently for somewhat overestimating the residual quantities of oil in the fields under their banner of exploration and extraction. Perhaps it was a simple mistake. I attended a conference in October on the provision of "U.K. Energy to 2050" (http://www.geolsoc.org/uk/template.cfm?name=PR60") where a spokesman for B.P. tried to convince the assembled delegation that there was plenty of oil left, and that for each additional one trillion barrels remaining, the "peak" in production would be shifted forward by about 33 years. Accordingly, if peak oil will strike in 2010, according to currently accepted reserves, another trillion barrels means the inevitable will not hit until 2043, and so on to 2076 and 2109. There is, however, no hard evidence for such additional aliquots of oil, and peak oil remains incontrovertible at some point. It is only a matter of "when?" not "if". Hence it makes sense to prepare for the eventuality by reducing demand on the resource; and yet demand increases inexorably, particularly in the developing world (notably China and India) who's citizens aspire toward a western lifestyle, which even the west can no longer afford.
The concept of "Peak Oil" originated in the mind of Dr M. King Hubbert, who published the fundaments of his ideas in a seminal paper in 1956. He arrived at the conclusion that there will be a lag of about 40 years between the peak in oil discovery and the peak in oil production: "peak oil". Hubbert's prediction was almost spot on for U.S. peak oil. The peak in oil discovery occurred in 1929 and peak oil in 1968; it's slightly premature arrival (by one year) being explained by more efficient extraction methods which were introduced during the latter part of that period. In the Middle East, peak discovery occurred in the early 1970's, so according to Hubbert, we might expect peak oil to occur there within a few years of 2010.
Such "Hubbert's Peak" analyses have not found universal favour. I mentioned that oil companies tend toward an optimistic view of how much oil actually remains in reserve to be extracted. Almost certainly, more advanced drilling methods have depleted the deposits more quickly than would have been the case using older technology. Accepting these and many other uncertainties, it is probably sensible to believe that peak oil is not so far away that we can ignore it. A Hubbert's peak is a "bell-shaped" curve: a plot of oil production versus time. There is a steady rise in production that follows discovery, which then peaks, and subsequently falls away. It is the letter portion of the curve that is dangerous, since it represents the failing of the oil jamboree, when the raw resource becomes progressively more expensive to obtain - this occurs once about half the original reserve is left. Since everything depends on oil, either as a raw manufacturing material, or as a production fuel, or both, the impact of peak oil on the world economy will be both profound and unpredictable.
If we try to save oil by using natural gas instead, "peak gas" will arrive sooner than by 2100 as is currently predicted. These dates refer to "world production" of oil and gas, and are misleading because the "peak" in production will vary from one gas or oil field to another. Precise dates are difficult to divine since no one knows for sure exactly how much of these fuels lie in reserve. Shell Oil got itself into trouble recently for somewhat overestimating the residual quantities of oil in the fields under their banner of exploration and extraction. Perhaps it was a simple mistake. I attended a conference in October on the provision of "U.K. Energy to 2050" (http://www.geolsoc.org/uk/template.cfm?name=PR60") where a spokesman for B.P. tried to convince the assembled delegation that there was plenty of oil left, and that for each additional one trillion barrels remaining, the "peak" in production would be shifted forward by about 33 years. Accordingly, if peak oil will strike in 2010, according to currently accepted reserves, another trillion barrels means the inevitable will not hit until 2043, and so on to 2076 and 2109. There is, however, no hard evidence for such additional aliquots of oil, and peak oil remains incontrovertible at some point. It is only a matter of "when?" not "if". Hence it makes sense to prepare for the eventuality by reducing demand on the resource; and yet demand increases inexorably, particularly in the developing world (notably China and India) who's citizens aspire toward a western lifestyle, which even the west can no longer afford.
The concept of "Peak Oil" originated in the mind of Dr M. King Hubbert, who published the fundaments of his ideas in a seminal paper in 1956. He arrived at the conclusion that there will be a lag of about 40 years between the peak in oil discovery and the peak in oil production: "peak oil". Hubbert's prediction was almost spot on for U.S. peak oil. The peak in oil discovery occurred in 1929 and peak oil in 1968; it's slightly premature arrival (by one year) being explained by more efficient extraction methods which were introduced during the latter part of that period. In the Middle East, peak discovery occurred in the early 1970's, so according to Hubbert, we might expect peak oil to occur there within a few years of 2010.
Such "Hubbert's Peak" analyses have not found universal favour. I mentioned that oil companies tend toward an optimistic view of how much oil actually remains in reserve to be extracted. Almost certainly, more advanced drilling methods have depleted the deposits more quickly than would have been the case using older technology. Accepting these and many other uncertainties, it is probably sensible to believe that peak oil is not so far away that we can ignore it. A Hubbert's peak is a "bell-shaped" curve: a plot of oil production versus time. There is a steady rise in production that follows discovery, which then peaks, and subsequently falls away. It is the letter portion of the curve that is dangerous, since it represents the failing of the oil jamboree, when the raw resource becomes progressively more expensive to obtain - this occurs once about half the original reserve is left. Since everything depends on oil, either as a raw manufacturing material, or as a production fuel, or both, the impact of peak oil on the world economy will be both profound and unpredictable.
Friday, December 02, 2005
"Energy" - not just "Electricity".
Implementing nuclear power on a grand scale will not secure an energy supply for the U.K., nor will it significantly reduce our CO2 greenhouse gas emissions. The reason is simple, but is seldom rendered explicitly, that only 18% of the total final energy consumption is provided by electricity. 78% (IEEE 430% more) of the U.K.'s energy is produced by burning natural gas and oil directly, and this burden would not be influenced at all by any amount of nuclear development. The maximum change that might be made - at least in principle - is the substitution of all fossil fuel (mostly coal and gas) fired power stations by nuclear. Exactly how monumental an undertaking this would be may be gauged from the fact that the current 22% of total electricity produced by nuclear is generated from 31 reactors, which are housed in 13 separate power stations. On this basis, to substitute for the 73% of electricity currently produced from coal and gas, using nuclear, would require building around 100 or so new reactors, and that is on top of the 30 new reactors that will be required in any case, to replace those existing reactors that will come to the end of their working lifetimes by the year 2025.
This clearly is a colossal undertaking which does not solve the major issues of "security of supply" or CO2 emissions in any significant degree. We will still need to import oil and gas from politically maverick regions, mainly Russia and the Middle east, and is the uranium fuel required for nuclear to be found on our doorstep? Hardly. Most of it comes over from Canada. What about renewables? It is thought that in the longer run (say, by 2050) around 40% of the U.K.'s electricity might be provided using wind/wave/hydroelectric/ solar power. A significant proportion of this would be produced by "microgeneration" devices, rather than a large scale "grid", though any excess electricity generated beyond the local demands of each "micro" community, could be fed into the central network. This still only addresses "electricity" as a final fuel, and the question of providing the greater bulk of "energy" persists.
In simple economic terms, on the level of an individual or a country, the degree of security depends on the gap between income and expenditure. More can be earned or less spent. As far as the U.K.'s energy earnings are concerned, the limit is in sight. We cannot realistically "earn" more fuel, and we may well have to endure a pay-cut. It is thus a matter of economy, and of economising. That we spend the precious resources of oil and gas only where it is essential to do so. This will involve schemes of energy efficiency, for example the "40% House" being researched by Dr Brenda Boardman's group in the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University. Such advances in building design could make huge savings in energy use for "space heating" across both the domestic and commercial sectors (each of which accounts for around 30% of the national total energy demand). Transport, which uses another 26%, mainly in the form of oil, is another area where savings could be made, both through more efficient combustion engines (or fuel cells, if the costs can ever be made realistic), and simply by eliminating all unnecessary use of cars (especially the military style "road wagons" - 4x4's, SUV's, depending on which side of the Atlantic you are - that have more to do with symbolising status than any practical transportation issue) .
To a reasonable mind it all seems straightforward, but I suspect there are too many people making too much money to allow any attention more than lip-service to be paid, until it is too late and there is no longer any choice.
This clearly is a colossal undertaking which does not solve the major issues of "security of supply" or CO2 emissions in any significant degree. We will still need to import oil and gas from politically maverick regions, mainly Russia and the Middle east, and is the uranium fuel required for nuclear to be found on our doorstep? Hardly. Most of it comes over from Canada. What about renewables? It is thought that in the longer run (say, by 2050) around 40% of the U.K.'s electricity might be provided using wind/wave/hydroelectric/ solar power. A significant proportion of this would be produced by "microgeneration" devices, rather than a large scale "grid", though any excess electricity generated beyond the local demands of each "micro" community, could be fed into the central network. This still only addresses "electricity" as a final fuel, and the question of providing the greater bulk of "energy" persists.
In simple economic terms, on the level of an individual or a country, the degree of security depends on the gap between income and expenditure. More can be earned or less spent. As far as the U.K.'s energy earnings are concerned, the limit is in sight. We cannot realistically "earn" more fuel, and we may well have to endure a pay-cut. It is thus a matter of economy, and of economising. That we spend the precious resources of oil and gas only where it is essential to do so. This will involve schemes of energy efficiency, for example the "40% House" being researched by Dr Brenda Boardman's group in the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University. Such advances in building design could make huge savings in energy use for "space heating" across both the domestic and commercial sectors (each of which accounts for around 30% of the national total energy demand). Transport, which uses another 26%, mainly in the form of oil, is another area where savings could be made, both through more efficient combustion engines (or fuel cells, if the costs can ever be made realistic), and simply by eliminating all unnecessary use of cars (especially the military style "road wagons" - 4x4's, SUV's, depending on which side of the Atlantic you are - that have more to do with symbolising status than any practical transportation issue) .
To a reasonable mind it all seems straightforward, but I suspect there are too many people making too much money to allow any attention more than lip-service to be paid, until it is too late and there is no longer any choice.
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