Sunday September 24, 2006

(How can we already be) looking at the end of the age of oil and abundant energy

peakoil.com -> gristmill.grist.org :

All forms of energy are not equal. Cheap oil was maximum extraction for very little energy input. Those days of cheap energy are gone forever. Also, oil and gas give us more than liquid fuels and electric energy: synthetic petroleum materials are part of our daily lives and survival. The worst part of petroleum dependence is that it is how modern societies feed themselves - entirely. It is no mere coincidence that population growth has mirrored petroleum consumption's huge rise.

Solar and wind are strong contenders for serious applications for energy production, but problems remain: imbedded petroleum energy in these systems, their transport by oil, and their petroleum-plastic composition are never addressed. As electric-power technologies, they don't solve the liquid fuels crisis we have barely started to experience.

Tar sands? The oil PR machine calls them oil sands now, but they are never going to deliver more than 5%, eventually, of today's 85 million barrels per day global oil consumption. And the massive amounts of dwindling natural gas and fresh water to mine and process tar sands make the process questionable.

- Not too bad. I disagree with the anti-nuclear part at the end though. It's not all about nuclear weapons. France is 80% nuclear. They're not MAD'ing anyone. And they are aiming for 100% nuclear. Japan is 30% nuclear despite having been at the receiving end of two atomic bombs in WW2, they have no nuclear weapons themselves, and they are planning to recycle nuclear waste to extract more energy.

The "liquid fuels crisis" part sounds very "Hirsch report"-like. But we now know that the "Hirsch angle" involves mitigation via fuels like CTL and GTL because the existing infrastructure is too costly to change out all at once. Got 1 trillion dollars to spare? How about 20?

Interesting that he has also observed how the tar sands people have now been calling their stuff oil sands - which is kind of misleading since it is bitumen (tar) and not at all free-flowing oil. But tar sands does have its part to play, it makes sense as long as crude oil stays well above $50 and Canada's natural gas doesn't start to run out (which it is unfortunately).

As you can see, the Great Debate about our energy future is riddled with "if's" and "but's".

See also :

1. Meeting peak oil threat will cost $20 trillion : US
2. Oil sands: burning energy to produce it

(2006-09-24 08:31:20 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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