An array of 600 mirrors has been installed in a field outside Seville, in southern Spain, in an adaptation of the solar-furnace. I am familiar with the latter from working at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, with a power output of just 40 kW, but when the bank of mirrors is positioned almost at 90 degrees to the horizontal, the immense energy can be felt instantly by anyone walking past it. The Spanish installation generates 11 MW, and focuses the Sun's rays onto a boiler (a network of pipes) positioned on top of a concrete tower 40 storeys high. Set in the midst of the Andalusian countryside, the thermal solar-power station must be quite an impressive sight, basking in the reflected sunlight.
It is indeed the first of its kind to operate commercially in Europe - i.e. it is not merely a research installation - and its operator, Solucar, announces proudly that it produces no greenhouse gases. True, as is that frequently cited advantage of nuclear power, but there is obviously a "carbon debt" to be paid-off, incurred in crushing rock to make the concrete and in the fabrication of the mirrors; however, the plant should run for years and certainly produce a lot less CO2 than a conventional gas or coal-fired station. This comparison has a further note, in terms of the relative generating capacity of the different technologies, namely that a standard electricity-generating station has an output of around 1 GW, i.e. 1,000 MW. Hence, the thermal solar-powered plant produces just about 1% of that. Put differently, it would take one hundred such installations for each gas or coal-fuelled plant it might be desired to replace by this sustainable technology.
As I have stressed over the putative hydrogen economy, the scale of engineering required to implement thermal solar-power on a comparative level with that which we currently enjoy from fossil-fuelled plants (and nuclear, especially in France where it produces 80% of the nation's electricity) would be truly collosal. The Spanish plant is undergoing a phase of development, and more fields are being cleared into which to install further banks of mirrors with the ultimate intention of providing enough electricity to meet the requirements of 600,000 people, which coincidentally is the population of Seville. In my opinion, we will need all the renewable energy we can lay our hands on, in order for human civilization to survive in the post-oil era that is at hand, but I think this technology will contribute a fairly minor component to the final energy mix, that I wrote about in the very first of these postings back in December 2005.
Who occupies centre stage in the new world order must follow the kind and amount of resources that each country ultimately has. In saying this, normally it is gas, oil, coal and uranium that is meant, and yet it might prove that an especially valuable and unlimited resource is available to the sun-kissed lands of the Mediterranean and Africa. If sufficient of thermal or photovoltaic generating capacity could be installed in sunnier regions, the electricity thus generated could be wired-off to the cloudier European climes. However, for any serious quantity of solar-power to be inaugurated, it is necessary to begin the process now, while we still have sufficient of our existing resources of oil and gas to do the job. In 10 years it may be too late to introduce any of the alternatives that are currently being speculated upon.
Related Reading.
"Power station harnesses Sun's rays," by David Shukman.
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/
Friday, May 04, 2007
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Putin Sanctions Nuclear Industry Reforms.
I have touched on this important development before, but it appears that Russia is set to become a major player in the world nuclear power game through the creation of Atomenergoprom, which President Putin has said: "will be a vertically integrated entity and unite the entire atomic technological cycle - from the production of uranium and nuclear fuel to the construction, operation and decommissioning of nuclear power plants." Now this is highly significant, since there is no counterpart anywhere in the world to this enterprise which would control all aspects of the Russian contribution to world nuclear power, presumably including providing enriched uranium to Europe and potentially (if they accede to this option) to Iran in order to break the threat of sanctions imposed by the UN.
This holding will enable Russia to beat its competitors on the world board of nuclear "Monopoly" and the initiation of the enterprise is expected to be complete by January 2008, in the form of a joint stock company owned wholly by the government. Russia has great strength in its natural resources, and has made determined efforts to consolidate and retain its gas and oil production and infrastructure within Russian control, even to the extent of sending some who would act against this aim to prison for significant terms. This appears to be a follow-on strategy to consolidate the share of nuclear resources, and in combination of all these sources of energy, Russia will indeed be a force to be reckoned with, in the shifting politics of the new world order, which must depend ultimately on who owns what and how much in terms of primary energy resources.
Fifty-five different unitary enterprises will be made corporate and subsumed into the holding by the 1st of December 2007, collectively including the means to mine uranium, process it, fabricate it into fuel-rods, build power plants and ultimately knock then down again at the end of their working life, including the final disposal of nuclear waste and radioactive components of decommissioned nuclear power stations. It is thought that isolated nuclear energy companies may well go to the wall against the competition from the international markets, for example large trans-national companies including French-German Areva and Siemens and the alliance between the US and Japan, Westinghouse-Toshiba.
The plan apparently does not include the creation of weapons-grade nuclear materials (HEU or plutonium), but as a force in the ongoing and undeniable economic war which has been described as the real (hidden) WWIII, mostly being fought over resources, it is a mighty launch indeed.
Related Reading.
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/prnt/htm1?newsID=11482592
This holding will enable Russia to beat its competitors on the world board of nuclear "Monopoly" and the initiation of the enterprise is expected to be complete by January 2008, in the form of a joint stock company owned wholly by the government. Russia has great strength in its natural resources, and has made determined efforts to consolidate and retain its gas and oil production and infrastructure within Russian control, even to the extent of sending some who would act against this aim to prison for significant terms. This appears to be a follow-on strategy to consolidate the share of nuclear resources, and in combination of all these sources of energy, Russia will indeed be a force to be reckoned with, in the shifting politics of the new world order, which must depend ultimately on who owns what and how much in terms of primary energy resources.
Fifty-five different unitary enterprises will be made corporate and subsumed into the holding by the 1st of December 2007, collectively including the means to mine uranium, process it, fabricate it into fuel-rods, build power plants and ultimately knock then down again at the end of their working life, including the final disposal of nuclear waste and radioactive components of decommissioned nuclear power stations. It is thought that isolated nuclear energy companies may well go to the wall against the competition from the international markets, for example large trans-national companies including French-German Areva and Siemens and the alliance between the US and Japan, Westinghouse-Toshiba.
The plan apparently does not include the creation of weapons-grade nuclear materials (HEU or plutonium), but as a force in the ongoing and undeniable economic war which has been described as the real (hidden) WWIII, mostly being fought over resources, it is a mighty launch indeed.
Related Reading.
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/prnt/htm1?newsID=11482592
Monday, April 30, 2007
Coal Liquefaction.
Among the alternative means for replacing conventional oil as it begins to run-out are liquid fuels provided by the liquefaction of coal. Such coal-to-liquids processes fall essentially into two types: direct and indirect liquefaction. Both methods were exploited by Germany during WWII, with the former predominating. All direct liquefaction methods can be thought to be based around the Bergius process. Liquid transportation fuels are characterised as having a hydrogen content of between 12 and 15%, while coal typically contains around 5% hydrogen and rather more carbon. Friedrich Bergius received the Nobel Prize in 1931 for his work on high-pressure chemistry, shared jointly with Carl Bosch who worked in a similar field and whose work is most famously demonstrated by the "Haber-Bosch" process for making ammonia by combining nitrogen with hydrogen under a pressure of the order of 300 atmospheres in the presence of an iron catalyst at 500 degrees C.
Bergius also employed high pressure hydrogen in order to "add" it to coal partially dissolved in initially naphthalene at high temperatures, under pressure as a solvent, and then in the "heavy oil" fraction generated from the coal-liquefaction process itself. Bergius developed his process in 1913, at which time constructing the necessary apparatus to withstand high pressure hydrogen posed a considerable feat of engineering. The purpose of the high pressure was both to "contain" the hot solvent which would otherwise have volatilised (c.f. a pressure cooker) and to increase the concentration of hydrogen substantially, thus to accelerate the reaction to a usable rate. The remaining problem was the production of hydrogen in a state of near purity, which was solved serendipitously. Bergius discovered that at temperatures close to 400 degrees C, water would act on iron (initially from the pressure vessel itself) almost like an acid, thus liberating 99% pure hydrogen.
He adapted the chemistry employing finely divided iron (iron-filings), which reduced water to hydrogen, being itself converted to iron oxide, Fe3O4. Since it proved possible to reduce the oxide back to metallic iron using either hydrogen (which defeats the object some) or more usefully with carbon monoxide (CO), the iron could be recycled into the process. All of these things are described wonderfully and illuminatingly in his Nobel lecture, which I have referred to below.
The Germans employed, on the smaller scale, an indirect method based on the Fischer-Tropsch process. This technology goes back to 1923, and was developed by Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute fur Kohlenforschung (coal research), which Fischer later became director of. [The Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes later became the Max Planck Institutes, and so it is now: the Max Planck Institute fur Kohlenforschung]. Essentially the coal is reacted with high-pressure steam (similar to "steam-reforming" of methane) to form a mixture of CO + H2, which when reacted over a catalyst of iron, cobalt or nickel (other metals will do too) is converted to a mixture of hydrocarbons. Direct liquefaction processes typically attain an energy efficiency of 65-70%, while indirect methods run close to 55%. During WWII Germany manufactured more than 4 million tonnes of liquid fuel annually through a combination of Bergius and Fischer-Tropsch technologies, which kept their war-effort running for five years, despite initial skepticism by the Allies that the war would be a flash-in-the-pan since the Germans had no indigenous supplies of fuel and would soon run out of it. The targeted bombing of the German coal-liquefaction facilities in 1945 contributed significantly to the end of the war.
South Africa is currently the only country that operates coal liquefaction plants (Sasol process), and produces close to 60% of its transportation fuel from coal based on the indirect Fischer-Tropsch approach. Trade embargoes imposed on them during three decades drove the very large-scale application of this technology. Large amounts of synthetic "oil" could undoubtedly be created from coal liquefaction (coal to liquids) processes, especially in the United States which owns around 30% of all known coal reserves and I expect to see a substantial installation of this technology within a country that by now relies on the rest of the world to provide it with nearly 3/4 of its entire oil budget of 22 million barrels a day. This will undoubtedly prove unpopular with environmentalists because converting coal to transportation fuels releases 7 - 10 times as much CO2 as processing crude oil does. This increase in CO2 emissions at the processing stage yields the overall result that CO2 emissions from transport will be raised by 50% over that currently supplied by oil. A new infrastructure of open-cast coal-mining is unlikely to please them either, and the technology is highly demanding in terms of the amount of water it uses, as is a problem in China who seek to expand the technology seemingly as much as possible, along with all other forms of energy supply. I imagine that water might be a problem in the US too, especially in the mid-West since I am told that supplying much of agricultural water rests on pumping it up from deep aquifers. Hence wide-scale coal-liquefaction would consume yet more of this precious resource.
However, coal-liquefaction is at the moment of writing the only proven technology that can make "oil" on the large scale required to match current petroleum use and while I remain optimistic about making biodiesel from algae, this technology has yet to be proven and developed on the massive scale necessary, if it is to make the difference between a world underpinned by oil or not. Probably direct coal-to-liquids methods will prove most useful, since under favourable circumstances, a 70% recovery of liquid hydrocarbons based on the weight of coal has been demonstrated.
Related Reading.
(1) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/
1931/bergius-lecture.html
(2) "Coal Liquefaction", DTI Pub URN 99/1120.
Bergius also employed high pressure hydrogen in order to "add" it to coal partially dissolved in initially naphthalene at high temperatures, under pressure as a solvent, and then in the "heavy oil" fraction generated from the coal-liquefaction process itself. Bergius developed his process in 1913, at which time constructing the necessary apparatus to withstand high pressure hydrogen posed a considerable feat of engineering. The purpose of the high pressure was both to "contain" the hot solvent which would otherwise have volatilised (c.f. a pressure cooker) and to increase the concentration of hydrogen substantially, thus to accelerate the reaction to a usable rate. The remaining problem was the production of hydrogen in a state of near purity, which was solved serendipitously. Bergius discovered that at temperatures close to 400 degrees C, water would act on iron (initially from the pressure vessel itself) almost like an acid, thus liberating 99% pure hydrogen.
He adapted the chemistry employing finely divided iron (iron-filings), which reduced water to hydrogen, being itself converted to iron oxide, Fe3O4. Since it proved possible to reduce the oxide back to metallic iron using either hydrogen (which defeats the object some) or more usefully with carbon monoxide (CO), the iron could be recycled into the process. All of these things are described wonderfully and illuminatingly in his Nobel lecture, which I have referred to below.
The Germans employed, on the smaller scale, an indirect method based on the Fischer-Tropsch process. This technology goes back to 1923, and was developed by Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute fur Kohlenforschung (coal research), which Fischer later became director of. [The Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes later became the Max Planck Institutes, and so it is now: the Max Planck Institute fur Kohlenforschung]. Essentially the coal is reacted with high-pressure steam (similar to "steam-reforming" of methane) to form a mixture of CO + H2, which when reacted over a catalyst of iron, cobalt or nickel (other metals will do too) is converted to a mixture of hydrocarbons. Direct liquefaction processes typically attain an energy efficiency of 65-70%, while indirect methods run close to 55%. During WWII Germany manufactured more than 4 million tonnes of liquid fuel annually through a combination of Bergius and Fischer-Tropsch technologies, which kept their war-effort running for five years, despite initial skepticism by the Allies that the war would be a flash-in-the-pan since the Germans had no indigenous supplies of fuel and would soon run out of it. The targeted bombing of the German coal-liquefaction facilities in 1945 contributed significantly to the end of the war.
South Africa is currently the only country that operates coal liquefaction plants (Sasol process), and produces close to 60% of its transportation fuel from coal based on the indirect Fischer-Tropsch approach. Trade embargoes imposed on them during three decades drove the very large-scale application of this technology. Large amounts of synthetic "oil" could undoubtedly be created from coal liquefaction (coal to liquids) processes, especially in the United States which owns around 30% of all known coal reserves and I expect to see a substantial installation of this technology within a country that by now relies on the rest of the world to provide it with nearly 3/4 of its entire oil budget of 22 million barrels a day. This will undoubtedly prove unpopular with environmentalists because converting coal to transportation fuels releases 7 - 10 times as much CO2 as processing crude oil does. This increase in CO2 emissions at the processing stage yields the overall result that CO2 emissions from transport will be raised by 50% over that currently supplied by oil. A new infrastructure of open-cast coal-mining is unlikely to please them either, and the technology is highly demanding in terms of the amount of water it uses, as is a problem in China who seek to expand the technology seemingly as much as possible, along with all other forms of energy supply. I imagine that water might be a problem in the US too, especially in the mid-West since I am told that supplying much of agricultural water rests on pumping it up from deep aquifers. Hence wide-scale coal-liquefaction would consume yet more of this precious resource.
However, coal-liquefaction is at the moment of writing the only proven technology that can make "oil" on the large scale required to match current petroleum use and while I remain optimistic about making biodiesel from algae, this technology has yet to be proven and developed on the massive scale necessary, if it is to make the difference between a world underpinned by oil or not. Probably direct coal-to-liquids methods will prove most useful, since under favourable circumstances, a 70% recovery of liquid hydrocarbons based on the weight of coal has been demonstrated.
Related Reading.
(1) http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/
1931/bergius-lecture.html
(2) "Coal Liquefaction", DTI Pub URN 99/1120.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Peak Gas Worryingly Close to Peak Oil.
There is a close connection between gas and oil and it is the case that between 15% - 20% of world oil is actually based in some way on gas. Due to the imminence of peak oil, there has been a shift away from conventional oil production toward such lighter hydrocarbon fuels described as NGL (natural gas liquids) and condensates, which are liquids that are condensed out from raw natural gas, while the gas-component is most often re-injected in order to maintain adequate pressure within the reservoir, or simply vented away or "flared-off". It is a familiar sight throughout the history of the oil-industry to have burning highly smoky gas flares that are actually contaminated with large amounts of liquid hydrocarbons (oil) and various minerals and metals too, most of them highly poisonous in nature. When the gas is simply vented it is invisible to the naked eye, but potentially nonetheless a threat in terms of climate change, dumping methane into the atmosphere. Methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas, with around 100 times the "global warming" capacity of CO2. It is often quoted that methane is about 20x as bad as CO2 in this respect, but that refers only to the situation averaged over 100 years, during which course some of the methane is broken-down by being oxidised to CO2 in the troposphere. After 300 years, there will be practically none of the initial methane remaining. In reality, if equal volumes of methane and CO2 were released into the atmosphere, the heating effect, the "instantaneous radiative forcing factor" as it is known, is nearer 110 [I will supply the math(s) behind this conclusion if anybody asks me]. Worryingly, about 9% of world gas is pumped straight into the sky, in other words is wasted, without finding any use as a fuel.
Undoubtedly, peak oil comes before peak gas - and may have already done so, and there are numerous estimates for the times when either will arrive. It is not a simple stepwise advance of one over another though, due to their interrelated aspects, both physical (chemical) and economic. Increasingly, oil is made from gas as a raw material, from "hot greasy gas" as Andrew McKillop has described it, and which is formed at depths of 3 - 4 kilometers underground. In "extreme depth offshore" regions like Angola and the deep Gulf of Mexico, that "ground" may be seabed that is itself 3 - 4 km underwater. Using the classical wooden "derrick" of the oil-gusher days, for "conventional" production of oil, there would certainly have been some gas in the "oil-stream", but nothing to compare with present production of "unconventional" oil, which is reckoned at the equivalent of one oil barrel equivalent of gas produced and re-injected, vented or flared, for every 8 barrels of oil that are condensed out of "greasy gas", as a world average. As wells become "older" that ratio is much higher, and more determined strategies are employed to recover more oil from the "greasy" oil-gas stream, to the extent that in the US, "conventional" oil production amounts to just about one quarter of the total oil produced there, which is around 1.5 million barrels a day from near to 6 million barrels altogether. Since the US gets through around 22 million barrels daily in total, rough reckoning indicates that it must now import almost 3/4 of its oil. Now that figure is alarming, and we can draw our own conclusions as to what that will mean on the world stage.
It has been assumed that Russian gas is in practically unlimited supply, as was thought of the Saudi oil fields about two decades ago. We now know this is not true. Neither does it appear that the Russian Gazprom can supply Europe with sufficient of its gas requirements into the future. Despite claims of huge gas resources, it seems that in reality, falling supplies from the three critical ("biggest") west-Siberian gasfields are unlikely to be able to provide even in the short-term for Russia's own domestic, CIS and European customers. Part of the problem is the need for a massive investment programme, to extract more gas and to do it more efficiently, and in the absence of such a capital cash-injection it is only at a push that the period 2009-2015 will not witness significant gas-shortages across the whole of Europe and the former Soviet Union - a massive total region with somewhat over 1 billion people. Put bluntly, "Peak Gas" is likely to strike in 2009... in a couple of years from now.
Peak oil is grudgingly becoming acknowledged and accepted, although the apocalyptic consequences of simply sitting by and letting the consequences of it happen are not routinely broadcast. Possibly there is a plan to avert mass-panic. The price of gas and that of oil will become inextricably linked and probably economic drivers - high cost - will kick-in and act as a brake on how much of these commodities is used. There will be little comfort found in this, however, especially in the midst of a very cold winter.
Related Reading.
Andrew McKillop, "Peak Oil to Peak Gas is a short ride". http://www.energybulletin.net/print.php?id=23462
Undoubtedly, peak oil comes before peak gas - and may have already done so, and there are numerous estimates for the times when either will arrive. It is not a simple stepwise advance of one over another though, due to their interrelated aspects, both physical (chemical) and economic. Increasingly, oil is made from gas as a raw material, from "hot greasy gas" as Andrew McKillop has described it, and which is formed at depths of 3 - 4 kilometers underground. In "extreme depth offshore" regions like Angola and the deep Gulf of Mexico, that "ground" may be seabed that is itself 3 - 4 km underwater. Using the classical wooden "derrick" of the oil-gusher days, for "conventional" production of oil, there would certainly have been some gas in the "oil-stream", but nothing to compare with present production of "unconventional" oil, which is reckoned at the equivalent of one oil barrel equivalent of gas produced and re-injected, vented or flared, for every 8 barrels of oil that are condensed out of "greasy gas", as a world average. As wells become "older" that ratio is much higher, and more determined strategies are employed to recover more oil from the "greasy" oil-gas stream, to the extent that in the US, "conventional" oil production amounts to just about one quarter of the total oil produced there, which is around 1.5 million barrels a day from near to 6 million barrels altogether. Since the US gets through around 22 million barrels daily in total, rough reckoning indicates that it must now import almost 3/4 of its oil. Now that figure is alarming, and we can draw our own conclusions as to what that will mean on the world stage.
It has been assumed that Russian gas is in practically unlimited supply, as was thought of the Saudi oil fields about two decades ago. We now know this is not true. Neither does it appear that the Russian Gazprom can supply Europe with sufficient of its gas requirements into the future. Despite claims of huge gas resources, it seems that in reality, falling supplies from the three critical ("biggest") west-Siberian gasfields are unlikely to be able to provide even in the short-term for Russia's own domestic, CIS and European customers. Part of the problem is the need for a massive investment programme, to extract more gas and to do it more efficiently, and in the absence of such a capital cash-injection it is only at a push that the period 2009-2015 will not witness significant gas-shortages across the whole of Europe and the former Soviet Union - a massive total region with somewhat over 1 billion people. Put bluntly, "Peak Gas" is likely to strike in 2009... in a couple of years from now.
Peak oil is grudgingly becoming acknowledged and accepted, although the apocalyptic consequences of simply sitting by and letting the consequences of it happen are not routinely broadcast. Possibly there is a plan to avert mass-panic. The price of gas and that of oil will become inextricably linked and probably economic drivers - high cost - will kick-in and act as a brake on how much of these commodities is used. There will be little comfort found in this, however, especially in the midst of a very cold winter.
Related Reading.
Andrew McKillop, "Peak Oil to Peak Gas is a short ride". http://www.energybulletin.net/print.php?id=23462
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Earth's Resources Can't Keep Pace with Us!
Many of the planet's resources are running increasingly and alarmingly scarce, especially petroleum ("oil"). Water, land and fish will also be unable to provide enough to match our growing human appetite for them. Gas and probably coal will begin to feel the pressure of our demands for them within foreseeable decades - coal is hard to predict since its true reserves are poorly known (see the posting "Peak Coal by 2025", which is the conclusion of one recent study), but peak gas is likely within 20 years or so after peak oil, and that may well be already with us. If everybody living on the Earth (around 6.5 billion of us) consumed resources at the rate of the world's richest nations (US, Europe and Australia), we would need to provide six times the present level of them, and should that population rise to 9 billion as it is predicted to by 2050, the demand would be ten times as great as it is now.
It all makes a nonsense of the unprecedented industrial expansion currently being forged in Countries like China, India and South America, all in the pursuit of a Western lifestyle, which even the West can no longer afford. Something will give, and soon, and most likely the weakest link in the resource supply chain is oil. The per capita area of productive land needed to provide one American with food, water, accommodation and energy is about 12 hectares; for an average Australian it is around 8 ha, close to that for a typical European. However, the mean per capita area of productive land held within the boundaries of the Earth is only about 1.3 ha for each of us. Thus, if the world shared all its resources equally, we would need to survive (and thrive?) on about one sixth to one tenth of our current "needs".
It is a consensus of opinion that the world is now in the grip of global warming and climate change, and that this is caused by human-induced CO2 emissions. There remain dissenters to the notion that it is "all our fault" but that there are underlying warming mechanisms related to the variable output of the Sun or well-established changes in the Earth-Sun orbital parameters which occur over cycles within a grand cycle of 100,000 years or so. This periodicity in global temperatures over geologic time is well established. Notwithstanding, something dramatic is happening to the Earth's climate now. As I wrote in "Australia in Drought", that nation's food production is seriously under threat from an epic shortage of water, with main rivers drying-up, and leaving little for irrigation. This is blamed squarely on global warming.
If we follow this reasoning and cut our CO2 emissions by 60%, and share the remaining fossil fuels equally among everybody in the world, we would suddenly find ourselves with just about 5% of current amounts. I have written before that it might be necessary to cut transportation by up to 90%, simply it terms of how much alternative fuel might be provided from renewable resources, and re-localise society into small, locally-provided for communities: these I have called "pods". I am highly skeptical that the "hydrogen economy" on the required grand scale of the "oil economy" can be implemented, certainly not within the timescale of oil supply depletion, and so all facts appear to point in the same direction: namely that on grounds of short petroleum supplies or driven by concerns over climate change, we have no choice but to cut back seriously on burning non-renewable oil-fuel - and that means cars left by the roadside.
The "global village" is on the way out, however you look at it. This means the end of consumer capitalism. Now that does require a paradigm shift, as indeed the appearance of plentiful oil did in the first place. It is not possible to reach the holy grail of "sustainability" (nor global social justice) unless we undertake a huge economic, moral and philosophical transition to what some have referred to as "The Simpler Way". This means the inauguration of a society that is based on a high degree of self-sufficiency (at least within small communities, if not as individuals per se, since the "pod" will share-out its various needs and contributions) and localised economies (farms and local businesses that do not depend on raw materials driven or flown over massive distances). In this "new world" our motivation will have to change.
Now we are driven by profit, but in a sustainable economy of necessarily low or zero economic growth our intentions would need to be amended. That prospect is frightening in comparison with the status quo. However, it might prove ultimately a more satisfying way to live - communities working together to provide what that community needs collectively. The word "Utopia" comes into my mind too, and I suspect the real barrier and hindrance is a lack of belief it could even be possible to make the transition. But whether we like it or not there will be radical transformation of the present society which is simply unsustainable. But to avoid descending into anarchy en route, some clear plans need to be drawn up rather than an unseeing, iron-fist grabbing at the resources such as oil that remain. They will run-out, and we are driving that outcome harder and more certainly each day. When they do, what then? What way is really left to us but "The Simpler Way?". Why not begin to take that step now, while we still have some resources in hand to make the transition easier?
Related Reading.
(1) Ted Trainer, http://www.omlineopinion.com.au/print.asp?article=5754
(2) www.dieoff.com (Here it is suggested than 3 billion or around half the world's current population might perish in consequence of the looming and catastrophic fall in world petroleum supply).
It all makes a nonsense of the unprecedented industrial expansion currently being forged in Countries like China, India and South America, all in the pursuit of a Western lifestyle, which even the West can no longer afford. Something will give, and soon, and most likely the weakest link in the resource supply chain is oil. The per capita area of productive land needed to provide one American with food, water, accommodation and energy is about 12 hectares; for an average Australian it is around 8 ha, close to that for a typical European. However, the mean per capita area of productive land held within the boundaries of the Earth is only about 1.3 ha for each of us. Thus, if the world shared all its resources equally, we would need to survive (and thrive?) on about one sixth to one tenth of our current "needs".
It is a consensus of opinion that the world is now in the grip of global warming and climate change, and that this is caused by human-induced CO2 emissions. There remain dissenters to the notion that it is "all our fault" but that there are underlying warming mechanisms related to the variable output of the Sun or well-established changes in the Earth-Sun orbital parameters which occur over cycles within a grand cycle of 100,000 years or so. This periodicity in global temperatures over geologic time is well established. Notwithstanding, something dramatic is happening to the Earth's climate now. As I wrote in "Australia in Drought", that nation's food production is seriously under threat from an epic shortage of water, with main rivers drying-up, and leaving little for irrigation. This is blamed squarely on global warming.
If we follow this reasoning and cut our CO2 emissions by 60%, and share the remaining fossil fuels equally among everybody in the world, we would suddenly find ourselves with just about 5% of current amounts. I have written before that it might be necessary to cut transportation by up to 90%, simply it terms of how much alternative fuel might be provided from renewable resources, and re-localise society into small, locally-provided for communities: these I have called "pods". I am highly skeptical that the "hydrogen economy" on the required grand scale of the "oil economy" can be implemented, certainly not within the timescale of oil supply depletion, and so all facts appear to point in the same direction: namely that on grounds of short petroleum supplies or driven by concerns over climate change, we have no choice but to cut back seriously on burning non-renewable oil-fuel - and that means cars left by the roadside.
The "global village" is on the way out, however you look at it. This means the end of consumer capitalism. Now that does require a paradigm shift, as indeed the appearance of plentiful oil did in the first place. It is not possible to reach the holy grail of "sustainability" (nor global social justice) unless we undertake a huge economic, moral and philosophical transition to what some have referred to as "The Simpler Way". This means the inauguration of a society that is based on a high degree of self-sufficiency (at least within small communities, if not as individuals per se, since the "pod" will share-out its various needs and contributions) and localised economies (farms and local businesses that do not depend on raw materials driven or flown over massive distances). In this "new world" our motivation will have to change.
Now we are driven by profit, but in a sustainable economy of necessarily low or zero economic growth our intentions would need to be amended. That prospect is frightening in comparison with the status quo. However, it might prove ultimately a more satisfying way to live - communities working together to provide what that community needs collectively. The word "Utopia" comes into my mind too, and I suspect the real barrier and hindrance is a lack of belief it could even be possible to make the transition. But whether we like it or not there will be radical transformation of the present society which is simply unsustainable. But to avoid descending into anarchy en route, some clear plans need to be drawn up rather than an unseeing, iron-fist grabbing at the resources such as oil that remain. They will run-out, and we are driving that outcome harder and more certainly each day. When they do, what then? What way is really left to us but "The Simpler Way?". Why not begin to take that step now, while we still have some resources in hand to make the transition easier?
Related Reading.
(1) Ted Trainer, http://www.omlineopinion.com.au/print.asp?article=5754
(2) www.dieoff.com (Here it is suggested than 3 billion or around half the world's current population might perish in consequence of the looming and catastrophic fall in world petroleum supply).
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