re: what is peak oil - part 2
What about alternatives like solar, wind, hydrogen etc?
Unfortunately, the ability of these alternatives to replace fossil fuels is based more in myth than in reality.
Fossil fuels account for more than 85% of our current global energy supply. None of the traditional alternatives to oil can supply anywhere near this much energy, let alone the amount we will need in the future as our population continues to grow and industrialize.
Let's briefly examine the various shortcomings of the more popular oil alternatives:
(The following data has been extensively researched by Bruce Thompson, moderator of the Yahoo Group, Running on Empty)
Natural Gas:
Natural Gas currently supplies 20% of global energy supply. It is not a sufficient replacement for fossil fuels for the following reasons:
1. Gas itself will start running out from 2020 on. Demand for natural gas in North America is already outstripping supply, especially as power utilities take the remaining gas to generate electricity.
2. Gas is not suited for existing jet aircraft, ships, vehicles, and equipment for agriculture and other products.
3. Conversion consumes large amounts of energy as well as money.
4. Natural gas also does not provide the huge array of chemical by-products that we depend on oil for.
Hydro-Electric:
Hydro-Electric power currently supplies 2.3% of global energy supply. It is not a sufficient replacement for fossil fuels for the following reasons:
1. It is unsuitable for aircrafts and the present 800 million existing vehicles.
2. It cannot be adapted to produce pesticides, fertilizer, or plastics.
Solar
Solar power currently supplies .006% of global energy supply. As a replacement for fossil fuels, it suffers from several deficiencies:
1. Energy from solar power varies constantly with weather or day/night.
2. Not practical for transportation needs. While a handful of small, experimental, solar powered vehicles have been built, solar power is unsuited for planes, boats, cars, tanks, etc. . .
3. Solar cannot be adapted to produce pesticides, fertilizer, or plastics.
4. Solar is susceptible to the effects of global climate change.
A typical solar water panel array can deliver 50% to 85% of a home’s hot water though. Using some of our precious remaining crude oil as fuel for manufacturing solar equipment may be wise.
Wind
Wind power accounts for .07% of global energy supply. As a replacement for fossil fuels, its problems are:
1. As with solar, energy from wind varies greatly with weather, and is not portable or storable like oil and gas.
2. Wind cannot be adapted to produce pesticides, fertilizer or plastics.
3. Like solar, wind is susceptible to the effects of global climate change.
Hydrogen
Hydrogen accounts for 0.01% of global energy. It is not a true replacement for fossil fuels for the following reasons:
1. Hydrogen is currently manufactured from methane gas. It takes more energy to create it than the hydrogen actually provides. It is therefore an energy “carrier” not a source.
2. Liquid hydrogen occupies four to eleven times the bulk of equivalent gasoline or diesel.
3. Existing vehicles and aircraft and existing distribution systems are not suited to it.
4. Hydrogen cannot be used to manufacture plastics or fertilizer.
"Hydrogen Fuel Cells" should be called "Hydrogen Fool Cells." The "Hydrogen Economy" is a complete and utter hoax. Dr. Jorg Wing, a representative of the auto giant Daimler/Chrysler made this clear at the Paris Peak Oil Conference when he explained that his company did not view hydrogen as a viable alternative to petroleum-based engines.
He stated that fuel cell vehicles would never amount to significant market share. Hydrogen was ruled out as a solution because of intensive costs of production, inherent energy inefficiencies, lack of infrastructure, and practical difficulties such as the extreme cost and difficulty of storage.
Nuclear
Nuclear is currently being abandoned globally. Its ability to soften the oil crash is very problematic due to several factors:
1. Possibility of accidents and terrorism.
2. Cost: one reactor costs about 3 billion dollars, and requires massive amounts of oil to construct.
3. Number of reactors needed: 800-1000 for the U.S. alone.
4. Not directly suited for transportation or agriculture.
5. Uranium requires energy from oil from in order to be mined.
6. All abandoned reactors are radioactive for decades or millennia.
7. Even if we were to overlook these problems, nuclear power is only a short-term solution. Uranium, too, has a Hubbert's peak, and the current known reserves can supply the earth's energy needs for only 25 years at best.
Coal
Coal accounts for 24% of current global energy supply. As a replacement for oil, it is unsuitable due to the following reasons:
1. It is 50% to 200% heavier than oil per energy unit.
2. Substituting coal for oil would require expansion of coal mining, leading to land ruin and increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
3. In contrast to oil and gas fuels, fine-tuning the rate at which coal burns is difficult. It is therefore used in power stations to make electricity, wasting half of its energy content.
4. Coal mining operations run on oil fuels as do coal-mining machinery and transportation.
5. Pollution is also a major problem. A single coal-fired station can produce a million tons of solid waste each year. Burning coal in homes pollutes air with acrid smog containing acid gases and particles. Finally, liquid fuels from coal are very inefficient, and huge amounts of water required.
Non-Conventional Sources Such as Shale, Tar Sand, & Coalbed Methane
These non-conventional sources currently account for 6% of US gas supply. Each of these alternatives would require a huge investment in research and infrastructure to exploit them, plus large amounts of now-expiring oil, before they could be brought online.
For example, in Canada about 200 thousand barrels a day are being produced in Alberta of non-conventional oil, but it takes about 2 barrels of oil in energy investment to produce 3 barrels of oil equivalent from those resources. Additionally, the environmental costs are horrendous and the process uses a tremendous amount of fresh water and also natural gas, both of which are in limited supply.
The major problem with non-conventional oil is that they cannot be exploited before the oil shocks cripple attempts to bring them on line, and the rate of extraction is far too slow to meet the huge global energy demand.
You're forgetting about biomass and ethanol. Can't we just grow our fuel?
In an article entitled The Post Petroleum Paradigm, retired Professor of Geology at the University of Oregon, Dr. Walter Youngquist addresses the severe limitations of biomass and ethanol. The following is an excerpt from that article:
Oil derived from plants is sometimes promoted as a fuel source to replace petroleum.
The facts and experience with ethanol are an example. Ethanol is a plant-derived alcohol (usually from corn) which is used today, chiefly in the form of gasohol, a mixture of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline. Because it is used to some extent,it is commonly thought that ethanol is a partially acceptable solution to the fuel problem for machines.
However, ethanol is an energy negative – it takes more energy to produce it than is obtained from ethanol.
Ethanol production is wasteful of fossil energy resources. About 71% more energy is used to produce a gallon of ethanol than the energy contained in a gallon of ethanol.
Ethanol production survives by the grace of a subsidy by the U.S. government from taxpayer dollars. Continuing the production of ethanol is purely a device for buying the Midwest U.S. farm vote, and may also be related to the fact that the company which makes 60% of U.S. ethanol is also one of the largest contributors of campaign money to the Congress – a distressing example of politics overriding logic.
Some enterprising individuals have converted their vehicles to run on vegetable oil discarded by fast food restaurants. I encourage everybody to consider doing this. However, it is not a "magic bullet" to our problem as there is simply not enough vegetable oil in the world to power more than a relatively small number of vehicles.
I just read an article about some scientists who developed a new reactor that can turn ethanol into hydrogen. What do you have to say about that?
Here's the article.
My response:
1. See the above question on why ethanol isn't a true substitute for oil.
2. See the above question on why hydrogen isn't a true substitute for oil.
3. Ask yourself: How long would it take for this prototype to being implemented on a wide scale? How much would that cost? Can it be used to fuel airplanes, tanks, cargo ships, large trucks, construction equipment, manufacturing plants? Can it be used to produce fertilizer or plastics?
I think you know the answers.
What about that new technology that can turn anything into oil?
"Thermal depolymerization" which can transform many kinds of waste into oil, could help us raise our energy efficiency as we lose power due to oil depletion. While it could help us ameliorate the crash, it is not a true solution.
Like all other forms of alternative energy, we have run out of time to implement it before the crash. Currently, only one thermal depolymerization plant is operational. Thousands of such plants would need to come online before this technology would make even a small difference in our situation.
Furthermore, whatever comes out of the process must carry less useful energy than what went into the process, as required by the laws of thermodynamics. Finally, most of the waste input (such as plastics and tires) requires high grade oil to make in the first place.
The biggest problem with thermal depolymerization is that it is being advertised as a means to maintain business as usual. Such advertising promotes further consumption, provides us with a dangerously false sense of security, and encourages us to continue thinking that we don't need to make this issue a priority.
What about "New" energy. Didn't Nikola Tesla invent some machine that produced lots of energy?
While I am about the world's biggest advocate for "New Energy" technologies such as Cold Fusion, and Zero Point, my optimism about their ability to help us cope with oil depletion is guarded.
While New Energy has some extremely exciting possibilities, the unfortunate realty is that as I write this, we get absolutely zero percent of our energy from these sources, and we have no functional prototypes.
If you would like to learn more, I encourage you to look through Infinite Energy Magazine or read Dr. Eugene Mallove's article, Universal Appeal for Support for New Energy Science.
So are these alternatives useless?
No, not at all. Whatever civilization emerges after the crash will likely derive a good deal of their energy from these technologies.
While traditional alternatives such as solar and wind are certainly worth investing in, they are in no way the magic bullets they are so often advertised as.
The following is an excerpt from Professor Richard Heinberg's book, The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Civilizations, in which he explains why the notion that "All we have to do is switch to solar, wind., etc . . ." is delusional in its' simplicity:
Clearly, we will need to find substitutes for oil. But an analysis of the current energy alternatives is not reassuring.
The hard math of energy resource analysis yields an uncomfortable but unavoidable prospect: even if efforts are intensified now to switch to alternative energy sources, after the oil peak industrial nations will have less energy available to do useful work - including the manufacturing and transporting of goods, the growing of food, and the heating of homes.
To be sure, we should be investing in alternatives and converting our industrial infrastructure to use them. If there is any solution to industrial societies' approaching energy crises, renewables plus conservation will provide it. Yet in order to achieve a smooth transition from non-renewables to renewables, decades will be needed - and we do not have decades before the peaks in the extraction rates of oil and natural gas occur.
Moreover, even in the best case, the transition will require the massive shifting of investment from other sectors of the economy (such as the military) toward energy research and conservation. And the available alternatives will likely be unable to support the kinds of transportation, food, and dwelling infrastructure we now have; thus the transition will entail an almost complete redesign of industrial societies.
