Hi. Can we talk?
I'm not sure if you've ever given it much thought but..... we are heading for a measurable and persistent decline in available global energy resources that will eventually leave us in a no-energy world. Seriously!
I assume you have heard about peak oil. Well, it's not just oil. It's natural gas, coal, hydro electricity, nuclear power, virtually all forms of energy. Oh, and of course global warming is happening at the same time. Have you ever considered what all that is going to mean to you? To your lifestyle? To the lives of your children and their children?
No? Well think about it. Please!
I don't want to rain on your parade, put a damper on your party. But things are going to change. Hell, they already are. And not for the better. Maybe you just haven't noticed.
I don't mean for you to become a (pick one; peakster, peaknik, peak-oiler, nut job), although that is certainly an option. But it takes years of study to be able to read between the lines of the utter crap politicians and the mainstream media throws at us as they struggle to avoid talking about reality. But won't you at least look at both sides of the debate? And there is a debate, and will continue to be a debate as long as so much effort is being put into keeping you from seeing the reality of the situation.
Just as denial is no way to deal with grief, it is no way to deal with energy decline and climate change. Sooner or later you have to stop trying to avoid reality and face up to it, however painful that may be.
I'm not going to go into a long song and dance here of trying to overwhelm you with the statistics. I'm not even going to try to convince you that peak oil is real. I have written over a hundred articles on this blog already aimed at doing that. And there are so many other sites doing the same. But a thousand articles aren't going to do the job unless you can be convinced to read them, unless you can be convinced to open your mind. And that is what I am trying to do here.
I know peak oil and the thought of terminal energy decline is scary. Very! I remember years ago when I first understood the implications of peak oil. I was paralyzed with fear. It took me well over a year to accept it as reality and to start looking beyond peak oil to what life is going to be like on the other side. I realized that denying it was not going to stop it from happening. There was going to be a peak and there was going to be a life on the other side of it. If I didn't think about it, allow for it, plan for it, prepare for it, then it was going to just happen to me and I would be caught up in a huge flood of unprepared people struggling trying to adjust to the massive changes it will bring. I didn't want to be part of that flood. And I don't think you do either.
Where do we look for an example of what life will be like in a post-carbon, post-oil, post-energy world? We can look to history, study what life was like before the industrial revolution. We can look to the third world, the poor countries where people live without energy and survive on $2.00 a day. We can look to various TV reality programs that place people intentionally in a non-industrial, agrarian lifestyle for a season, a year, several years. We can look to heritage villages like Toronto's Black Creek Pioneer Village, or Eastern Ontario's Upper Canada Village, or Australia's Olde Sydney Towne. In so many ways the post-carbon world will very likely look and function very much like the pre-carbon, pre-industrial world.
I am, in a sense, luckier than most around me. I can look to my own past, my own upbringing and childhood. Yes! I've been around for a few years. I was raised in a home where we heated with wood. We had a large, multi-tentacled wood furnace in the cellar and a large cookstove in the kitchen. Each year from the time I was twelve I would go with my stepfather and a neighbour out to the woodlot to cut our winter's supply of wood. We had no running water and no well, used an outhouse with old newspapers for toilet paper, bathed immodestly in a galvanized tub on the kitchen floor (in a house with five older sisters), carried pails of water from a neighbours pump a couple hundred yards up the street, got up first on cold winter mornings to restart the fire in the furnace and cookstove and break the ice on top of the water bucket. We closed off a major part of the house in winter to save on heat needs. We packed snow against the outside of the house in winter to help with insulation. The outside of my bedroom window, and other windows, was covered in plastic sheeting from fall until spring. We hard a large half-acre garden that produced much of what went into the cellar in mason jars every fall. For protein my step-father would bag a deer most years and that was supplemented with a couple of galvanized garbage cans full of sucker fish caught in the fall, and the odd stolen chicken through the winter.
You will, I am sure, see hardship in that. I see fond memories. But......... could I go back to living like that again? No. My health is deteriorating and I am getting on in age. If I were younger, yes. I could do it.
But what about you? If you've never lived like that it would be a very hard adjustment to make. I don't think most people could. Sooner or later, though, there may not be a choice. I never gave it a second thought as I was growing up. For a time I guess I never imagined that people could live any other way, at least not until a television found it's way into our home. But if you have lived your entire life in what we see as normal society today, how will you ever adopt to a lifestyle like that in which I was raised? Or even more primitive, like the lifestyle my parents and grandparents grew up with?
Think about it. Please!
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
How Much is that Energy Really Worth?
We have long-passed the point where we can continue to value energy in terms of dollars or any other currency. We lost that luxury when the total global production of energy peaked and began to decline, more specifically when the net energy per person went into decline globally.
As in the case of any commodity, when the availability of supply can no longer keep pace with demand then the availability, from that point onward, dictates the price of the commodity. It is no longer a buyer's market.
Global energy consumption per capita peaked sometime during the 1990s. Since that point the global population increase has been greater than the total global increase in energy production and energy consumption.
Although the rate of growth of per capita energy consumption in the US - which today uses roughly 25% of all energy used globally - has decreased from 2.5% in the early 1990s to less than 1.5% in 2008, it is still on the increase. Obviously, with a total global energy supply on the decline and U.S. per capita consumption still on the rise, the percent of total global energy use by the U.S. is on the increase while much of the rest of the world, particularly the third world, are being priced out of the energy market and are already having to cope with ever-decreasing energy availability.
Energy, unlike almost every other commodity, requires the consumption of some of itself - energy - in the production of itself. The more energy we produce the more energy consume in producing it. That is called EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested). It can be difficult to equate one form of energy to another, especially since the pricing of different forms of energy is not consistent when it comes to the value of the energy produced. You will often see the acronym BOE used in regards to energy. This stands for Barrels of Oil Equivalent. And that is very important when trying to understand EROEI.
Let us take that to the extreme for simplicity's sake. Let us suppose the only form of energy available on this planet is oil, rather than the more complex Barrels of Oil Equivalent. The EROEI, therefore, shows how much energy, in the form of oil, is used in order to produce that oil. Obviously you want to use as little oil as possible to produce that oil because it is only the oil produced in excess of the oil used that is available for other uses than producing the oil in the first place.
At the beginning of the oil age it is estimated that the amount of energy used to produce the readily available, high quality oil with which the oil industry began was about one barrel used for every 100 barrels produced. Ninety-nine out of every 100 barrels of oil produced was available to be used for other than producing oil.
In the time since then, of course, the energy cost per barrel of oil produced has steadily risen. On average, when considering all forms of oil like tar sands and deep water, we get a little more than ten barrels of oil for every barrel of oil invested. In fact, when it gets to tar sands and ultra-deep-water oil and bio-fuels produced from corn ethanol, the EROEI ratio gets very close to 1:1. It takes almost the energy equivalent of a barrel of oil to produce a barrel of oil. If we ever pursue producing oil from the various shale deposits like Bakken it could take more energy to produce every barrel than what we get out of it.
The peak oil theory, contrary to what certain denialists continue to claim, does not suggest we are running out of oil. In fact most knowledgeable peak oil pundits will quickly point out that we will probably never run out of oil completely. What the peak oil theory does say is that we will reach a point where the flow, the rate of production, can no longer be increased, that demand will thereafter be greater than production and that that gap will widen year by year.
Once you pass that peak, as well, the energy gas of the energy produced will increase inexorably, pushing the world ever faster toward depletion. From the peak onward the cheap, easily-accessible, high quality oil has all been consumed. There is still oil left but it is much more expensive, in terms of energy consumption, to produce it. From peak onward, therefore, the amount of oil produced in excess of the amount of oil consumed in its production declines faster than the overall decline in the rate of production.
When the energy consumed in producing a barrel of oil passes the total energy contained in a barrel of oil, it doesn't matter what form of energy is used to produce that oil or what price that energy form is set at. At that point it takes more energy to produce energy than the energy produced. There is no energy surplus, over and above production energy cost, available to do anything other than produce oil.
So how much is our energy really worth, when calculated in terms of energy used in its production? Are we prepared to continue to produce oil and other forms of energy even when it takes more energy to produce it that what we get out of it? It is a question we will soon have to answer if our approach to peak oil continues to be; use as much as we can as long as we can and then figure out what to do for an encore. We don't yet see the net reduction in global energy production, the global energy consumption per capita. That price is being paid by the third world. But reality will soon come home to roost. Soon either the whole rest of the world will have to give up all claims to energy to support North America's energy habit or we will all be in the same rapid race to the bottom, ourselves included. Or we can all fight for what is left.
As in the case of any commodity, when the availability of supply can no longer keep pace with demand then the availability, from that point onward, dictates the price of the commodity. It is no longer a buyer's market.
Global energy consumption per capita peaked sometime during the 1990s. Since that point the global population increase has been greater than the total global increase in energy production and energy consumption.
Although the rate of growth of per capita energy consumption in the US - which today uses roughly 25% of all energy used globally - has decreased from 2.5% in the early 1990s to less than 1.5% in 2008, it is still on the increase. Obviously, with a total global energy supply on the decline and U.S. per capita consumption still on the rise, the percent of total global energy use by the U.S. is on the increase while much of the rest of the world, particularly the third world, are being priced out of the energy market and are already having to cope with ever-decreasing energy availability.
Energy, unlike almost every other commodity, requires the consumption of some of itself - energy - in the production of itself. The more energy we produce the more energy consume in producing it. That is called EROEI (Energy Returned On Energy Invested). It can be difficult to equate one form of energy to another, especially since the pricing of different forms of energy is not consistent when it comes to the value of the energy produced. You will often see the acronym BOE used in regards to energy. This stands for Barrels of Oil Equivalent. And that is very important when trying to understand EROEI.
Let us take that to the extreme for simplicity's sake. Let us suppose the only form of energy available on this planet is oil, rather than the more complex Barrels of Oil Equivalent. The EROEI, therefore, shows how much energy, in the form of oil, is used in order to produce that oil. Obviously you want to use as little oil as possible to produce that oil because it is only the oil produced in excess of the oil used that is available for other uses than producing the oil in the first place.
At the beginning of the oil age it is estimated that the amount of energy used to produce the readily available, high quality oil with which the oil industry began was about one barrel used for every 100 barrels produced. Ninety-nine out of every 100 barrels of oil produced was available to be used for other than producing oil.
In the time since then, of course, the energy cost per barrel of oil produced has steadily risen. On average, when considering all forms of oil like tar sands and deep water, we get a little more than ten barrels of oil for every barrel of oil invested. In fact, when it gets to tar sands and ultra-deep-water oil and bio-fuels produced from corn ethanol, the EROEI ratio gets very close to 1:1. It takes almost the energy equivalent of a barrel of oil to produce a barrel of oil. If we ever pursue producing oil from the various shale deposits like Bakken it could take more energy to produce every barrel than what we get out of it.
The peak oil theory, contrary to what certain denialists continue to claim, does not suggest we are running out of oil. In fact most knowledgeable peak oil pundits will quickly point out that we will probably never run out of oil completely. What the peak oil theory does say is that we will reach a point where the flow, the rate of production, can no longer be increased, that demand will thereafter be greater than production and that that gap will widen year by year.
Once you pass that peak, as well, the energy gas of the energy produced will increase inexorably, pushing the world ever faster toward depletion. From the peak onward the cheap, easily-accessible, high quality oil has all been consumed. There is still oil left but it is much more expensive, in terms of energy consumption, to produce it. From peak onward, therefore, the amount of oil produced in excess of the amount of oil consumed in its production declines faster than the overall decline in the rate of production.
When the energy consumed in producing a barrel of oil passes the total energy contained in a barrel of oil, it doesn't matter what form of energy is used to produce that oil or what price that energy form is set at. At that point it takes more energy to produce energy than the energy produced. There is no energy surplus, over and above production energy cost, available to do anything other than produce oil.
So how much is our energy really worth, when calculated in terms of energy used in its production? Are we prepared to continue to produce oil and other forms of energy even when it takes more energy to produce it that what we get out of it? It is a question we will soon have to answer if our approach to peak oil continues to be; use as much as we can as long as we can and then figure out what to do for an encore. We don't yet see the net reduction in global energy production, the global energy consumption per capita. That price is being paid by the third world. But reality will soon come home to roost. Soon either the whole rest of the world will have to give up all claims to energy to support North America's energy habit or we will all be in the same rapid race to the bottom, ourselves included. Or we can all fight for what is left.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Defining the Continuum from here to Post-Carbon Sustainability
To define a continuum or path of transition from today to life in the post-carbon world it is necessary to start with a reasonably clear vision of that post carbon world. Largely this vision has to be local, or at least regional, centered on the area in which you live or will live at that time.
It is always awkward forecasting the future. There are so many variables. But it is easier, in my mind, to predict what life will be like in that post-carbon world than at any point during the transition. If you can start with a clear vision of the destination you are in a better position to define your own transition path.
What will the post-carbon world look like? Here are just fifteen examples of the changes you will see in society as we slide down the energy-decline slope.
* The focus of life will be very much local, not the global focus of today. Sustainability will mean local self-sufficiency and self-reliance, either individually or as a community.
* Consumerism will be dead, dead, dead. The keyword will have become need, not want. Gone with consumerism will be the vast advertising industry that fuels consumerism today.
* Society will clearly not be dominated by the automobile. Electric cars may hang on for a while, as might cars running on locally-produced bio-diesel. The ultimate demise of the automobile will be, however, not a lack of fuel to run them but the inability to maintain the automobile manufacturing industry, an industry today based on planned obsolescence. Yes, it would be possible to make durable, rugged cars that would last decades, perhaps a century or more. But that would entail a complete overhaul of the industry mindset.
* Globalization will have died well before we enter the post-carbon world. In fact it is very much in the process of unwinding now. The massive fuel demands of large-scale trans-oceanic transport and the tremendous raw material demands of the ship-building industry simply are not going to be feasible in a world of net declining resources.
* Communities will produce all, or almost all, of their own food. If they trade it will likely be with other nearby communities but this will likely be limited to crisis times such as after crop failures.
* Travel will not be what it is today. Airlines will be a thing of the past, unless they convert to blimps and hot air balloons. Before that the industry will likely survive for a while as a luxury for the monied elite. Trans-oceanic shipping will be extremely limited, unless it reverts to sail but even then would be limited. Possibly, and hopefully, the once expansive railway system and services will be rebuilt in time but that is going to require a government commitment which, at the moment, seems very unlikely. The concept of travelling for vacation will probably disappear over time. The current highway systems will initially fall into disrepair and ultimately be abandoned to be reclaimed by nature. Some of the routes they followed may still be used, on horseback and on foot, since many of the early highways followed routes that were already well in use before that. People in cold climates will not travel south to escape winter but will, in fact, be very travel restricted by that winter weather.
* The manufacturing industry, if it survives, will be seriously downsized and refocused on society's needs, not the competitive and advertising-stimulated wants of today.
* Manufacturing processes will likely be reverse engineered so that production can be dispersed to regional areas where they will serve a discrete regional market.
* Housing will change dramatically, downsizing from the ubiquitous McMansions of today to the small, energy-efficient, cozy cottages and bungalows that were prevalent in our parents' time.
* Classical, perpetual-growth economics will have died a painful death. It is, indeed, in the process of dying now, real growth having already died years ago with the appearance of growth being propped up by a myriad of smoke-and-mirrors financial instruments. The wheels fell off in 2008 with the $147 dollar price for oil. Economists, if money is to continue as the lifeblood of human society, will have to find ways for that society to survive within a no-growth economy.
* The face of retail will change dramatically. Malls will be dead. A tremendous shake-out of the retail sector will have major casualties. What retail survives will mostly move into residential areas, close to the customer, and be run out of the home, not separate rental or owned space.
* The village or neighbourhood open-air market will become the primary source of commerce. Much of the commercial business will be for repair, maintenance, refit, mend, fix as the throw-away society dies.
* Many people assume the very useful internet will survive the decline in oil. It won't. The internet is cheap-energy- and technology-intensive. Cheap energy is even now disappearing as costs go up and available resources decline. And to think the computer manufacturing industry will survive the end of cheap energy is wishful thinking in the extreme. So the internet will not survive the end of cheap energy. Your ability to have and use a computer in any form in a post-carbon world will depend on your personal ability to fix, maintain and program it yourself, and your ability to personally or communally produce the energy to run it.
* Large cities with their multi-million populations and their rings of suburbs will not survive the end of cheap energy in their present form. They cannot be made food self-sufficient and do not have the internal resources to become self-reliant. They are critically dependent on massive infrastructure that is now expensive to maintain and, in the future, impossible to maintain. Cities in pre-industrial times generally did not exceed a million population (and those were rare), were surrounded by rich farmland (now covered by suburbs), depended on a large slave population (currently replaced by energy slaves), and generally had good water access for moving trade and commodities by sail and barge (now replaced by energy-intensive rail, trucking, ship and air).
* Medicine will become far less ubiquitous and far less technology intensive. That technology requires a thriving manufacturing industry that exists only because of cheap energy. And both the manufacture and use of that equipment consumes a great deal of energy. Every advance in technology has, in my opinion, reduced the ability and willingness of doctors to make a patient diagnosis with medical skills alone. This has been largely necessitated by our litigation-prone society.
How will you chart your course to sustainability through that minefield? It won't be easy because it depends so much on timing. The first thing that you must do, if you are to be successful, is keep a close eye on the news. The signs will be there but you have to develop a very active and effective bullshit filter. You will have to be able to read between the lines. You have to use something other than the corporate dominated and controlled mainstream media to get at the truth behind what that mainstream media is telling you. Use sources like the internet, alternative newspapers, independent TV and radio.
If you wait for the mainstream media to present a clear and honest picture, like those who were surprised at the financial downturn, it will be too late. And, most importantly, you have to follow the news regularly, even keep notes, in order to spot the trends that are developing. The mainstream media are not going to suddenly one day run a headline that says we've run out of cheap oil - all that's left is shale and tar sands. What they will do instead is probably barrage you with stories about the marvellous new technologies that allow us to extract oil from shale and how that technology will extend the oil age by hundreds of years.
Fair warning will be available but you will have to search for it, dig for it, find sources that you trust and rely on them. Seeing, recognizing and accepting those warnings should, in most cases, give you enough chance to avoid the worst. It is, in my opinion, a terrible waste of your energy trying to convince others what is coming. Those who rely exclusively on the mainstream media will laugh at you and call you a doomer until the shit hits the fan. Then they will simply avoid you.
Good luck and enjoy the trip!
It is always awkward forecasting the future. There are so many variables. But it is easier, in my mind, to predict what life will be like in that post-carbon world than at any point during the transition. If you can start with a clear vision of the destination you are in a better position to define your own transition path.
What will the post-carbon world look like? Here are just fifteen examples of the changes you will see in society as we slide down the energy-decline slope.
* The focus of life will be very much local, not the global focus of today. Sustainability will mean local self-sufficiency and self-reliance, either individually or as a community.
* Consumerism will be dead, dead, dead. The keyword will have become need, not want. Gone with consumerism will be the vast advertising industry that fuels consumerism today.
* Society will clearly not be dominated by the automobile. Electric cars may hang on for a while, as might cars running on locally-produced bio-diesel. The ultimate demise of the automobile will be, however, not a lack of fuel to run them but the inability to maintain the automobile manufacturing industry, an industry today based on planned obsolescence. Yes, it would be possible to make durable, rugged cars that would last decades, perhaps a century or more. But that would entail a complete overhaul of the industry mindset.
* Globalization will have died well before we enter the post-carbon world. In fact it is very much in the process of unwinding now. The massive fuel demands of large-scale trans-oceanic transport and the tremendous raw material demands of the ship-building industry simply are not going to be feasible in a world of net declining resources.
* Communities will produce all, or almost all, of their own food. If they trade it will likely be with other nearby communities but this will likely be limited to crisis times such as after crop failures.
* Travel will not be what it is today. Airlines will be a thing of the past, unless they convert to blimps and hot air balloons. Before that the industry will likely survive for a while as a luxury for the monied elite. Trans-oceanic shipping will be extremely limited, unless it reverts to sail but even then would be limited. Possibly, and hopefully, the once expansive railway system and services will be rebuilt in time but that is going to require a government commitment which, at the moment, seems very unlikely. The concept of travelling for vacation will probably disappear over time. The current highway systems will initially fall into disrepair and ultimately be abandoned to be reclaimed by nature. Some of the routes they followed may still be used, on horseback and on foot, since many of the early highways followed routes that were already well in use before that. People in cold climates will not travel south to escape winter but will, in fact, be very travel restricted by that winter weather.
* The manufacturing industry, if it survives, will be seriously downsized and refocused on society's needs, not the competitive and advertising-stimulated wants of today.
* Manufacturing processes will likely be reverse engineered so that production can be dispersed to regional areas where they will serve a discrete regional market.
* Housing will change dramatically, downsizing from the ubiquitous McMansions of today to the small, energy-efficient, cozy cottages and bungalows that were prevalent in our parents' time.
* Classical, perpetual-growth economics will have died a painful death. It is, indeed, in the process of dying now, real growth having already died years ago with the appearance of growth being propped up by a myriad of smoke-and-mirrors financial instruments. The wheels fell off in 2008 with the $147 dollar price for oil. Economists, if money is to continue as the lifeblood of human society, will have to find ways for that society to survive within a no-growth economy.
* The face of retail will change dramatically. Malls will be dead. A tremendous shake-out of the retail sector will have major casualties. What retail survives will mostly move into residential areas, close to the customer, and be run out of the home, not separate rental or owned space.
* The village or neighbourhood open-air market will become the primary source of commerce. Much of the commercial business will be for repair, maintenance, refit, mend, fix as the throw-away society dies.
* Many people assume the very useful internet will survive the decline in oil. It won't. The internet is cheap-energy- and technology-intensive. Cheap energy is even now disappearing as costs go up and available resources decline. And to think the computer manufacturing industry will survive the end of cheap energy is wishful thinking in the extreme. So the internet will not survive the end of cheap energy. Your ability to have and use a computer in any form in a post-carbon world will depend on your personal ability to fix, maintain and program it yourself, and your ability to personally or communally produce the energy to run it.
* Large cities with their multi-million populations and their rings of suburbs will not survive the end of cheap energy in their present form. They cannot be made food self-sufficient and do not have the internal resources to become self-reliant. They are critically dependent on massive infrastructure that is now expensive to maintain and, in the future, impossible to maintain. Cities in pre-industrial times generally did not exceed a million population (and those were rare), were surrounded by rich farmland (now covered by suburbs), depended on a large slave population (currently replaced by energy slaves), and generally had good water access for moving trade and commodities by sail and barge (now replaced by energy-intensive rail, trucking, ship and air).
* Medicine will become far less ubiquitous and far less technology intensive. That technology requires a thriving manufacturing industry that exists only because of cheap energy. And both the manufacture and use of that equipment consumes a great deal of energy. Every advance in technology has, in my opinion, reduced the ability and willingness of doctors to make a patient diagnosis with medical skills alone. This has been largely necessitated by our litigation-prone society.
How will you chart your course to sustainability through that minefield? It won't be easy because it depends so much on timing. The first thing that you must do, if you are to be successful, is keep a close eye on the news. The signs will be there but you have to develop a very active and effective bullshit filter. You will have to be able to read between the lines. You have to use something other than the corporate dominated and controlled mainstream media to get at the truth behind what that mainstream media is telling you. Use sources like the internet, alternative newspapers, independent TV and radio.
If you wait for the mainstream media to present a clear and honest picture, like those who were surprised at the financial downturn, it will be too late. And, most importantly, you have to follow the news regularly, even keep notes, in order to spot the trends that are developing. The mainstream media are not going to suddenly one day run a headline that says we've run out of cheap oil - all that's left is shale and tar sands. What they will do instead is probably barrage you with stories about the marvellous new technologies that allow us to extract oil from shale and how that technology will extend the oil age by hundreds of years.
Fair warning will be available but you will have to search for it, dig for it, find sources that you trust and rely on them. Seeing, recognizing and accepting those warnings should, in most cases, give you enough chance to avoid the worst. It is, in my opinion, a terrible waste of your energy trying to convince others what is coming. Those who rely exclusively on the mainstream media will laugh at you and call you a doomer until the shit hits the fan. Then they will simply avoid you.
Good luck and enjoy the trip!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Finding the Continuum From Here to Sustainability
Social evolution is, in itself, a continuum. But just as species evolution is. according to many prominent biologists, marked by punctuated equilibrium (sudden mutational blips in the midst of long periods of evolutionary stasis), so too has been the development or evolution of human society. The smooth, steady continuum is a myth, just as the smooth bell-curve that depicts peak oil is a myth. The path of any evolutionary process is as uneven as an untended cobblestone road.
In the case of both species evolution and human social evolution, the punctuated equilibrium has been generally a function of available energy. When a species overshoots the energy carrying capacity of its environment (which for most means exceeding the food supply) sudden bursts in evolutionary change happen as certain existing mutations in the gene pool are suddenly favoured by the changes in environment. Mutations are common but it takes certain conditions for them to become favoured.
In the case of other species that energy is derived from food alone. Only in the case of man does external energy, in the form primarily of fossil fuels, enter the picture. Our use of external energy has for millenia interrupted the cyclical nature of evolutionary punctuated equilibrium, smoothing out the large peaks and valleys of natural evolution because we have in that time had access to and used more energy than what we are limited to in the natural food supply.
There has been little change in our man-made environment, little opportunity for mutations to achieve dominance in human species. But as our hospitals and medical journals will reveal, mutations happen all the time. That creates the potential for an uncomfortable relationship; the longer the period of stasis the more abrupt and dramatic the period of punctuated equilibrium will be when it comes.
Human society (as opposed to the human species) has, however, gone through a process of evolutionary punctuated equilibrium each time there has been a major change in our energy supply, as with the discovery of a new energy source (See my articles in this blog; Energy as the Catalyst in the Punctuated Equilibrium of Human Population Growth and Alternative Energy, Add-ons and Replacements ). This was the case with the taming of wind power, the discovery of peat, coal, oil, electricity, natural gas, the taming of water to produce hydro-electricity, uranium to produce nuclear power and even the advent of agriculture.
As with any other species taking a new food item into its diet, each of those energy sources has been exploited as an add-on to our ever-increasing energy mix. With each new energy source discovered, the proportion of total energy use satisfied by the old sources decreases (though the absolute usage may stay as high as it was) in favour of the new, usually more efficient energy source. An energy source is rarely abandoned by choice once it has been incorporated into the energy mix.
Only depletion that forces the abandonment of an energy source seems to be able to accomplish that. This could be seen, for example, in Cuba with the withdrawal of the Soviet Union and the virtual, and sudden, elimination of oil as an energy source for that country. They were suddenly forced into finding a way to live without what had been their dominant energy source. (It is interesting to note now that oil has been discovered in Cuba's territorial waters the U.S. and the oil majors want to challenge Cuba's claim to those waters so they can have access to the oil.) Similarly, wood as a source of heat energy was virtually abandoned in Britain, due to massive deforestation, as coal became the dominant heating fuel in its place.
Life on the way up the energy slope, as each new source of energy is exploited, is as herky-jerky and traumatic as the punctuated equilibrium of species evolution. A look at the the past three centuries since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is the history of dramatic and sudden changes affecting the whole of society. The Industrial Revolution itself dramatically changed the landscape of Europe and North America in just a couple of decades as coal became a primary industrial fuel as well as the preferred home-heating fuel.
As would be expected, the way down the energy slope will also he very uneven. Never in human history, however, have we had a period when the net total energy available was in decline. But that will be the case with peak oil because natural gas, coal, uranium, hydro-electric production all appear as though they will be peaking at roughly the same time. Is there another magic energy source waiting in the wings? It is possible - through various alternatives like wind, solar, methane, tidal and other alternatives - to replace the energy derived from one of those sources (except oil). But there is no other energy source that is seen as even fractionally possible to replace our total energy mix, or replacing oil alone.
If, however, you can accept that species evolution has been a continuum, and that human social evolution to this point has been a continuum, then it should be possible for you to see the changes that will happen as a result of peak oil as a continuum. That can help take the fear out of the peak oil issue. The most frightening aspect about peak oil for most people is the dramatic and abrupt changes it will make in the way we live our lives.
But change is change, whether it is perceived as good or bad. Change is what you make of it. If you approach it with fear and negativism it will be difficult and traumatic, even debilitating. If you approach it with excitement and a sense of adventure, however, it can be a life-confirming experience. Peak oil, after all, will happen whether you like it or not. The changes that it will bring will happen whether you like them or not. You may as well make the best of it.
A continuum through peak oil to a post-carbon future will be a process of transition, adapting to and adopting changes into your lifestyle that move you inexorably toward the lifestyle you will have to be living in that post-carbon world. There is a growing grass-roots transition-town movement that started in Britain but has expanded to other parts of the world, including North America. These are communities that are planning how their community will transition into a post-carbon world. Some of these are medium-sized cities, many small towns. Admittedly, many of those efforts are faltering because they fail to get the wider community involved. But the fact that the movement keeps expanding means, hopefully, that a critical mass is building.
The continuum that so many are looking for in order to find comfort in accepting the peak oil theory and/or joining the peak oil movement has to be found in understanding what the post-carbon world will look like. Knowing that it is possible to reasonably understand the evolutionary changes society will go through between now and then. One absolute, however, is that the continuum, the transition, can not be found in or based on business as usual, by clinging to the present. That is a dead-end path.
In the case of both species evolution and human social evolution, the punctuated equilibrium has been generally a function of available energy. When a species overshoots the energy carrying capacity of its environment (which for most means exceeding the food supply) sudden bursts in evolutionary change happen as certain existing mutations in the gene pool are suddenly favoured by the changes in environment. Mutations are common but it takes certain conditions for them to become favoured.
In the case of other species that energy is derived from food alone. Only in the case of man does external energy, in the form primarily of fossil fuels, enter the picture. Our use of external energy has for millenia interrupted the cyclical nature of evolutionary punctuated equilibrium, smoothing out the large peaks and valleys of natural evolution because we have in that time had access to and used more energy than what we are limited to in the natural food supply.
There has been little change in our man-made environment, little opportunity for mutations to achieve dominance in human species. But as our hospitals and medical journals will reveal, mutations happen all the time. That creates the potential for an uncomfortable relationship; the longer the period of stasis the more abrupt and dramatic the period of punctuated equilibrium will be when it comes.
Human society (as opposed to the human species) has, however, gone through a process of evolutionary punctuated equilibrium each time there has been a major change in our energy supply, as with the discovery of a new energy source (See my articles in this blog; Energy as the Catalyst in the Punctuated Equilibrium of Human Population Growth and Alternative Energy, Add-ons and Replacements ). This was the case with the taming of wind power, the discovery of peat, coal, oil, electricity, natural gas, the taming of water to produce hydro-electricity, uranium to produce nuclear power and even the advent of agriculture.
As with any other species taking a new food item into its diet, each of those energy sources has been exploited as an add-on to our ever-increasing energy mix. With each new energy source discovered, the proportion of total energy use satisfied by the old sources decreases (though the absolute usage may stay as high as it was) in favour of the new, usually more efficient energy source. An energy source is rarely abandoned by choice once it has been incorporated into the energy mix.
Only depletion that forces the abandonment of an energy source seems to be able to accomplish that. This could be seen, for example, in Cuba with the withdrawal of the Soviet Union and the virtual, and sudden, elimination of oil as an energy source for that country. They were suddenly forced into finding a way to live without what had been their dominant energy source. (It is interesting to note now that oil has been discovered in Cuba's territorial waters the U.S. and the oil majors want to challenge Cuba's claim to those waters so they can have access to the oil.) Similarly, wood as a source of heat energy was virtually abandoned in Britain, due to massive deforestation, as coal became the dominant heating fuel in its place.
Life on the way up the energy slope, as each new source of energy is exploited, is as herky-jerky and traumatic as the punctuated equilibrium of species evolution. A look at the the past three centuries since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is the history of dramatic and sudden changes affecting the whole of society. The Industrial Revolution itself dramatically changed the landscape of Europe and North America in just a couple of decades as coal became a primary industrial fuel as well as the preferred home-heating fuel.
As would be expected, the way down the energy slope will also he very uneven. Never in human history, however, have we had a period when the net total energy available was in decline. But that will be the case with peak oil because natural gas, coal, uranium, hydro-electric production all appear as though they will be peaking at roughly the same time. Is there another magic energy source waiting in the wings? It is possible - through various alternatives like wind, solar, methane, tidal and other alternatives - to replace the energy derived from one of those sources (except oil). But there is no other energy source that is seen as even fractionally possible to replace our total energy mix, or replacing oil alone.
If, however, you can accept that species evolution has been a continuum, and that human social evolution to this point has been a continuum, then it should be possible for you to see the changes that will happen as a result of peak oil as a continuum. That can help take the fear out of the peak oil issue. The most frightening aspect about peak oil for most people is the dramatic and abrupt changes it will make in the way we live our lives.
But change is change, whether it is perceived as good or bad. Change is what you make of it. If you approach it with fear and negativism it will be difficult and traumatic, even debilitating. If you approach it with excitement and a sense of adventure, however, it can be a life-confirming experience. Peak oil, after all, will happen whether you like it or not. The changes that it will bring will happen whether you like them or not. You may as well make the best of it.
A continuum through peak oil to a post-carbon future will be a process of transition, adapting to and adopting changes into your lifestyle that move you inexorably toward the lifestyle you will have to be living in that post-carbon world. There is a growing grass-roots transition-town movement that started in Britain but has expanded to other parts of the world, including North America. These are communities that are planning how their community will transition into a post-carbon world. Some of these are medium-sized cities, many small towns. Admittedly, many of those efforts are faltering because they fail to get the wider community involved. But the fact that the movement keeps expanding means, hopefully, that a critical mass is building.
The continuum that so many are looking for in order to find comfort in accepting the peak oil theory and/or joining the peak oil movement has to be found in understanding what the post-carbon world will look like. Knowing that it is possible to reasonably understand the evolutionary changes society will go through between now and then. One absolute, however, is that the continuum, the transition, can not be found in or based on business as usual, by clinging to the present. That is a dead-end path.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Keys to Sustainability
Sustainability has recently become an issue that more and more people are taking seriously. It should have always been a no-brainer but wasn't; but better late than never. Sustainability means, by clear implication, self-sufficiency and self-reliance over the long term.
The current increase in awareness and interest is, of course, partly due to the most serious global economic crisis since the great depression, through which even the uninitiated are finally seeing that our global, perpetual-growth-oriented economic system is no longer sustainable, if it ever was.
Yet, however, when most people think at all about sustainability they are still thinking in terms of economic sustainability, about sustainability of the materialistic lifestyle to which we have become accustomed this past half century, sustainability of sprawling suburbia and the family car, about sustainable development and growth, some way to sustain business as usual. But it's the thought that counts. Right?
The ability to get a significant number of people to think about real sustainability, long-term societal, environmental and species sustainability, is going to require a deep and fundamental change in mindset. The core of sustainability planning can not be that which is itself unsustainable. A problem cannot be its own solution.
I see it all the time, even in the peak oil groups in which I participate. People assume that a certain aspect of civilization or technology which they are particularly dependant upon will survive. So many people assume, for example, that if/when society collapses the internet will survive. It is so useful, after all. But most people are surprised to learn that it takes a tremendous amount of energy and technology to run the internet, especially in its global incarnation with which we have become so accustomed. I have friends in England, Germany, Brazil, South Africa, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand with whom I communicate all the time. It may be by e-mail. It may be live chat, either by text or even, frequently, by video and audio using our webcams. Sure, it's great. But I definitely do not assume that facility will still exist if society and the global economy seriously and terminally collapse.
The basic problem is that people think about changes relative to what currently is. They get fixated on what they are going to lose. They view the whole journey into the future negatively, as a journey away from the present with which they are knowledgeable and comfortable, like somebody moving out of their well-loved old house after the bank forecloses, rather than an exciting journey toward the future, like someone happily choosing to move into a new or different house.
The simple reality that seems to elude most people in the discussion about peak oil is that peak oil means peak food! There are far more people (6.6 billion) on this planet than the planet can sustain naturally, without the use of fossil fuels (many serious and credible researchers estimate the natural carrying capacity to be between 500 million and 1.5 billion). When those fossil fuels go into serious and irreversible decline, which they will, we are going to have to try to feed our massive population without them. Sustainability means, simply, the ability to feed the population, whether that consideration be local or global.
So, forget about the present! Our current society as it is can not survive peak oil. It is the business as usual of our human society that has turned peak oil into a crisis, if not an outright disaster/catastrophe. The loss of oil, after all, is not a crisis by itself. The crisis is created by our deep dependence on oil, especially for the production, processing and distribution of food.
Don't bemoan what we are leaving behind. Think about where we are going forward to. What will that future look like? If you are focused on the past the future will make itself and you will have to live with the results, whatever they are. Only by focusing on that future do you have any potential of controlling what that future will be. One way or another, a post-fossil-fuel future is coming. You can prepare for it but you can't prevent it. The best way not to be negatively affected by oil depletion is to not be dependent on oil. Set yourself free now, and many people are proving that is possible, while it is in your control to do so rather than have it forced on you.
I don't know what the future will be like. There are far too many variables. But I am reasonably convinced that whatever society emerges will not be based on cities as we have come to know them this past century (in recent decades we have reached the point where over half the world's population live in cities). Cities do not, and generally cannot, produce all of the resources they consume nor manage the refuse they generate (Toronto recently went through a 5-week garbage strike during which 25,000 tons of garbage piled up temporary dump sites in parks and rinks).
Modern cities, with their ever-expanding suburban sprawl and centralized concentration of business, industry and labour, are unsustainable, a product of the high energy age that will follow the energy downslope into the abyss. They draw their resources from ever larger externalities, starting with regions criss-crossed with canals and railways at the onset of the Industrial Revolution and now expanded to sucking in resources from all over the globe, those resources moved about the globe by energy-intensive ships and aircraft.
Long term sustainability as we approach and pass the end of the high-energy age is going to have to see a reversal of that trend. The focus will be forced into ever-decreasing spheres, from the global resource base down to the regional and community resource base. Sustainability for a community will mean resource self-sufficiency and community self-reliance. That which a community needs will have to be available within the community or its immediately surrounding area, only rarely by trade with neighbouring communities.
Let's look at some of the key components of that future community self-reliance and self sufficiency.
Seeds
The first key to community self-sufficiency will be food self-sufficiency, the ability of a community to produce all of the food needed to sustain its population. Almost all agriculture today is dependent on centralized seed companies. The crop varieties available are limited, having shrunken steadily since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Access to seeds is dependent on those central seed companies and an energy-intensive global distribution system. There are several companies, like Monsanto, Archer-Daniels-Midland and Cargill, whose corporate objective is to control the means of global food production. Increasingly seeds are both hybridized and genetically engineered, many with terminator genes so they will not produce seed, negating the age-old practice of seed-saving, saving the seed from this year's crop to produce next year's crop.
As global industry falters and the global distribution system grinds to a halt for lack of energy that seed system will, at first, become increasingly unreliable with the energy expense of distributing anything to rural areas. Eventually it will simply disappear.
For any community to be self-sufficient beyond the end of the oil and high-energy age it is going to have to become both willing and able to produce next year's seed from this year's crop. It is going to have to develop and maintain local crop variations suited to the local climate and soil conditions. This requires critical farming skills that have been lost over this past century that are going to have to be relearned before a community can develop this type of self-sufficiency. This will, of course, require some head start time (reliable estimate is two decades) so that the skills are built up before the industrial seed industry collapses.
There are, however, other aspects of this that require a head start as well. Few farmers today keep on hand seed for two years of crops. Why should they? They get their seed fresh each year from the seed company. If we wait until the seed companies collapse, however, where are the seeds going to come from with which to get started without them? If your crops are already in the ground, assuming they aren't genetically modified with terminator genes, you are going to have to let a significant portion of your crop go to seed at the end of the season in order to have enough seed for next year's crop. But suppose the seed industry collapses in winter or spring, after you have harvested your crops and before new seeds would normally be ordered. You will be absolutely dead in the water.
If you start saving seed now, or soon, you will not only develop skills in seed-saving but you will have your own seed on hand in the event of the collapse of the seed industry. You will also develop the knowledge of what crops are genetically modified and learned to avoid them in favour of natural crops that will produce seed which you can save.
This is not that easy, however. The seed industry is extremely aggressive in protecting its turf. Saving seed from crops produced using seeds purchased from a major seed company will probably be prohibited by law. You need to learn what heritage seeds are available to you, generally from small local seed companies, and use those as your starting point. Even then, however, as was the case with Percy Schmeiser and others, if your crop gets cross-contaminated from a nearby crop from patent-protected or genetically modified seed, you may be prohibited by law from saving seed produced by that entire crop. And the courts thus far have come down very much in favour of the seed companies in these cases. So there are many roadblocks in the way of your early preparation for this and almost all aspects of future sustainability. But persevere.
Water
In order to be self-sufficient and self-reliant on the other side of the energy collapse a community is going to be critically dependent on a safe, reliable, clean water supply. That's a no-brainer, right? There are the municipal water supply, the heavy duty industrial pumps to supply water for crop irrigation, water purification systems, running water in all the houses. All of these, of course, require a heavy investment of funds both to acquire but also to maintain. Once we are seriously into energy decline and the global distribution system begins to collapse and global industry runs into supply and distribution and cost problems all of these systems will begin to break down. Not too long afterward they will simply cease to function. The community is going to need in place a water supply system that is not dependent on fossil fuels, big expensive industrial machinery and equipment, heavy and expensive maintenance, and capable of supplying sustainably all of the community's water needs.
Unless you are starting a new community from the ground up, and I am definitely not recommending this, that is going to have to be done through an established, and probably very conservative, community council. Getting them to replace the current water systems with a new one designed for a post-fossil-fuel age that they do not understand is fast approaching is not going to be an easy task but, as with seeds above, waiting until it becomes a necessity is not going to work. The groundwork is going to have to be laid well in advance.
The safety issue concerns the presence of water management infrastructure upstream from the community. Dams, causeways, canals and canal locks, and other similar infrastructure has a limited lifespan and requires extensive and expensive maintenance. If any of these are upstream from the community the potential for catastrophic inundation of the community is elevated and the potential for interruption of the water supply gets greater over time. Global warming also has a significant potential to impact the future viability of your water supply, both in terms of seasonal flow and contamination. In addition, any industrial infrastructure upstream, such as mining operations with their toxic tailing ponds, has the high potential of contaminating your water source once maintenance of that infrastructure ceases with the collapse of the company or the industry.
Soil Fertility
Soil, like water, is critically important to all life on earth. The foundation for all higher life-forms is the plants that grow in the soil. Over millions of years nature has perfected techniques for creating, building and maintaining soil fertility for crops, fields, woodlands and wetlands.
Unfortunately nature's systems were not built around man. Our use of pesticides kills the important micro-organisms in the soil that are critical to fertility. Our use of artificial fertilizers seriously upsets the natural complex balance of minerals in the soil, those fertilizer focusing on primarily just three elements; nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. Herbicides destroy the other plants (we call them weeds) that are critical to support for the broad spectrum of soil micro-organisms that create complex soil fertility. Our monocropping encourages the overpopulation of specific groups of micro-organisms at the expense of others. Our plowing of fields upsets and even destroys the soil environment particular micro-organisms need, exposing deep soil organisms to the deadly (for them) air and the sun, suffocating shallow sub-surface micro-organism by burying them deep in the soil. Constant use of heavy farm equipment and plowing have built up a hardpan 6-8 inches below the surface that prevents the movement of critical micro-organisms up and down through the soil, prevents many plants from sinking roots deep enough to get sub-surface water, and builds up a layer of toxins just above the hardpan. Our constant irrigation of crops leaches critical nutrients out of the top soil, causes those crops to develop shallow root systems negating the ability of roots to bring minerals up from the deep sub-soil to the topsoil to nourish plants and micro-organisms and to bring up water from deep within the soil. The combination of over-irrigation and constant application of agro-chemicals has dramatically increased the salt content in the soil, so much so that long-used commercial agricultural soil and even whole farms have had to be abandoned because of the salt burden.
Almost all commercial agricultural soil is sterile, with all the nutrients for plants supplied by fertilizers and other agrochemical additives, soil and plant immune system functions dependent on pesticides and herbicides, water supplied by mechanical irrigation. When the advancing energy crisis forces us to farm without those the fertility needed to grow crops on that soil will simply not exist. It will have to be carefully rebuilt, either by nature or by us, before those soils can produce healthy, abundant crops. With the current levels of global population producing sufficient food on chemically sterilized soils will be impossible, another reality that will force the focus away from global and down to regional and community.
The basic components that must be restored to sterile soils are a full spectrum mineral complex, carbon, organic matter, nitrogen and, most importantly, a broad spectrum of soil micro-organisms. There are many soil improvement techniques that are beneficial, such as creating terra preta soil, but over time the full complexity of living soil must be restored if sustainability is to be achieved.
Farming skills
There is an unfortunate tendency today to think that those who own and run and work on farms are farmers, that they know how to farm. A fairer characterization would be mechano-chemical food producers. Take away their chemicals and their big equipment and and their mechanical irrigation and they wouldn't know where to begin.
There are, in the industrialized world in which we live, very few traditional farmers left and even fewer of their children are choosing to follow in their parents' footsteps. There are far too few to serve as a base for a new, post-fossil-fuel farming industry when the fossil fuels run out and the high-tech farm equipment stops running. That is not to suggest that traditional farming is the only method by which to produce sufficient volumes of food to feed a significant community. Permaculture, for example, is proving to be an excellent technique. But this too requires the long-term development of an extensive, in-the-field skill set, only the rudiments of which can be learned in a classroom.
The farming skills necessary to eke the optimum amount of food out of a piece of land are not easily come by. Even our agricultural schools today tend to focus on chemical/industrial farming techniques. Those fortunate enough to be learning traditional farming skills are doing so at the hand of one of those few traditional farmers still practicing their craft, by apprenticing at their shoulder.
And, of course, today's industrial farms are far too large to be farmed using traditional farming skills. They are designed for and dependent on fossil fuels and large equipment, designed for technological efficiency. They use specialized varieties of seeds to produce crops that can be efficiently harvested with massive mechanization. A return to traditional farming will also necessitate a return to traditional-sized farms, small, labour-intensive farms. The transition from industrial farming to traditional is going to require major land redistribution. The good news is that crop yields using traditional techniques (once the fertility of the soil has been re-established) are 20-50% higher or better.
Sustainable forest management
In any climate, particularly northern climates like Canada and Northern Europe, forests are going to be critical for sustainability in a post-fossil-fuel age. Unfortunately, in the climates in which they will be most needed the forests have long-since been decimated by clear cutting for agricultural land, building materials and urban development and expansion.
Most of the major forests that remain today are not near the population centers that are going to need them in a post-oil world. In a post-oil world forests are going to be needed still for building materials, for fuel, for soil retention and as a habitat for wild animals which will probably increasingly be turned to as a food source. As animal habitat what forests remain are sadly lacking, those forests hacked up into disconnected stands that offer little in the way of contiguous habitat.
In order to not further decimate the forests as fossil fuels run down and then run out a great deal of forest regrowth is going to be needed. It takes, if one includes hardwoods like maple and oak, a hundred years or more to grow a forest from seedlings. Even with the most optimistic peak oil forecasts we do not have that long. There is a lot of reforestation taking place today but most of that is for fast growing softwoods like pine, the objective of which is to quickly produce trees that can again be cut commercially. Sustainable forest management is only being practiced in a few places.
We need a massive, broad-based reforestation effort now to ensure that those forests are going to be there when the fossil fuels can no longer satisfy our needs. We need to stop the clearing and degredation of what forests still remain and give them an opportunity to develop old growth.
Draft Animals
Before fossil fuels farming was conducted using a combination of human and animal power. Before the advent of the automobile the population of horses in North America exceeded the number of humans. Today it is a small fraction of the human population and the vast majority of what stock does exist is for pleasure riding and racing. There are very few draft horses around and even fewer oxen, mules and donkeys.
The amount of labour that is going to be required to produce the food needed for a global human population of 6.6 billion plus when the fossil fuels have gone into irreversible decline is going to be massive. To enter that era without a massively increased stock of draft animals will mean that all of that work is going to have to accomplished with human labour. That will require well over half the human population (experienced) just producing food. It will take a minimum of two decades to build up the stock of draft animals to a level that we can effectively manage food production for that level of population without fossil fuels and mechanized farm equipment.
Non-mechanized farm equipment
Most of the non-mechanized farm equipment still in existence is being used for planters on suburban lawns or as decoration in front of country stores or rusting away behind dilapidated barns. There are few, if any, manufacturers of this equipment left in the industrialized world. An industry to produce such equipment is unlikely to build up before the demand is there for the product.
That presents an interesting Catch-22. The demand is not likely to be there before the fossil fuels needed for mechanized farming have gone into serious decline. It is unlikely that a whole new industry with heavy fossil fuel needs is going to be able to get off the ground when those very fossil fuels have gone into heavy decline. And government subsidies to facilitate development of such an industry are unlikely with a rapidly eroding tax base due to a shrinking labour market with the inevitable demise of industry as we know it.
Additionally that non-mechanized farm equipment manufactured and used in under-developed and developing countries, though it could in theory fill the need in the industrialized world, will not likely become available in the industrialized world due to the lack of raw materials and fuels in the countries of origin and the lack of shipping and fuel for it to be transported to the industrialized world.
Unless the political leadership in the industrialized world accept the imminence of peak oil, understand the implications that that event will encompass, and take it very seriously while there is still time to prepare, the transition to a post-carbon society in the industrialized world is going to be a very painful one.
Of course, another piece of non-mechanized equipment (not necessarily for the farm) that is manufactured and available in abundance in underdeveloped and developing countries is the bicycle. Utilitarian, rugged and, relative to the recreation and sport cycles available in the industrialized world, inexpensive. The bicycle is the perfect personal transport for a post-carbon world.
Trades, Arts and Crafts
Probably the greatest change on the community landscape over the past century is the loss of local community trades, arts and crafts. The former personal and community self-reliance has been traded for the convenience of the global market place driven by the availability of cheap, reliable fuel. Gone is the village blacksmith, the village cobbler, the village tailor, the village dressmaker, the village butcher. Gone are the local handmade furniture, clothings, the owner-built home, the locally-milled grain. Gone are the jacks-of-all-trades, which would describe half the population a century ago. Those trades that still exist within most communities are practiced in specialization to the exclusion of all others.
The village of a century ago could have survived the loss of oil. Hell the people might not even realize it had happened until well after the event when they noticed no trucks had come through town in the past six months. That same community today may have trouble surviving that six months. They would have long since run out of not just fuel but food and probably most durable goods, and be in no position to replace them locally. If that were the dead of winter in most Canadian communities teams of people would have to clean out the bodies in the spring.
Self-reliance.......... Without a global manufacturing and distribution system, or even a national one, self-reliance for the individual and the community, especially rural communities, is critical one we get well into the post-peak era. If the global and national manufacturing and distribution systems to not crash suddenly they will disintegrate gradually, becoming increasingly unreliable until they finally break down. The impact of this will be hardest in rural communities away from the manufacturing centers.
Conclusion
Peak oil is going to mean much more than the loss of oil and derivative fuels and other products. It is going to mean peak food, in an overpopulated world of over 6.6 billion people. The ability to produce food for that level of population with petro-chemical inputs will be severely hampered because of the impact that chemically-based farming has had on the commercial agriculture soils in the industrialized, food exporting countries of the world. It is going to take decades of highly focussed effort to ready ourselves for food self-sufficiency in a post-peak world, decades that should have started long ago.
With billions of lives at stake, including those of people in the industrialized world, we cannot afford to enter the peak oil era naively optimistic that technology will see us through, that we will find and develop alternative energy sources in time. And we certainly can't afford to enter this era blissfully ignorant of the severe ramifications of getting there unprepared.
The current increase in awareness and interest is, of course, partly due to the most serious global economic crisis since the great depression, through which even the uninitiated are finally seeing that our global, perpetual-growth-oriented economic system is no longer sustainable, if it ever was.
Yet, however, when most people think at all about sustainability they are still thinking in terms of economic sustainability, about sustainability of the materialistic lifestyle to which we have become accustomed this past half century, sustainability of sprawling suburbia and the family car, about sustainable development and growth, some way to sustain business as usual. But it's the thought that counts. Right?
The ability to get a significant number of people to think about real sustainability, long-term societal, environmental and species sustainability, is going to require a deep and fundamental change in mindset. The core of sustainability planning can not be that which is itself unsustainable. A problem cannot be its own solution.
I see it all the time, even in the peak oil groups in which I participate. People assume that a certain aspect of civilization or technology which they are particularly dependant upon will survive. So many people assume, for example, that if/when society collapses the internet will survive. It is so useful, after all. But most people are surprised to learn that it takes a tremendous amount of energy and technology to run the internet, especially in its global incarnation with which we have become so accustomed. I have friends in England, Germany, Brazil, South Africa, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand with whom I communicate all the time. It may be by e-mail. It may be live chat, either by text or even, frequently, by video and audio using our webcams. Sure, it's great. But I definitely do not assume that facility will still exist if society and the global economy seriously and terminally collapse.
The basic problem is that people think about changes relative to what currently is. They get fixated on what they are going to lose. They view the whole journey into the future negatively, as a journey away from the present with which they are knowledgeable and comfortable, like somebody moving out of their well-loved old house after the bank forecloses, rather than an exciting journey toward the future, like someone happily choosing to move into a new or different house.
The simple reality that seems to elude most people in the discussion about peak oil is that peak oil means peak food! There are far more people (6.6 billion) on this planet than the planet can sustain naturally, without the use of fossil fuels (many serious and credible researchers estimate the natural carrying capacity to be between 500 million and 1.5 billion). When those fossil fuels go into serious and irreversible decline, which they will, we are going to have to try to feed our massive population without them. Sustainability means, simply, the ability to feed the population, whether that consideration be local or global.
So, forget about the present! Our current society as it is can not survive peak oil. It is the business as usual of our human society that has turned peak oil into a crisis, if not an outright disaster/catastrophe. The loss of oil, after all, is not a crisis by itself. The crisis is created by our deep dependence on oil, especially for the production, processing and distribution of food.
Don't bemoan what we are leaving behind. Think about where we are going forward to. What will that future look like? If you are focused on the past the future will make itself and you will have to live with the results, whatever they are. Only by focusing on that future do you have any potential of controlling what that future will be. One way or another, a post-fossil-fuel future is coming. You can prepare for it but you can't prevent it. The best way not to be negatively affected by oil depletion is to not be dependent on oil. Set yourself free now, and many people are proving that is possible, while it is in your control to do so rather than have it forced on you.
I don't know what the future will be like. There are far too many variables. But I am reasonably convinced that whatever society emerges will not be based on cities as we have come to know them this past century (in recent decades we have reached the point where over half the world's population live in cities). Cities do not, and generally cannot, produce all of the resources they consume nor manage the refuse they generate (Toronto recently went through a 5-week garbage strike during which 25,000 tons of garbage piled up temporary dump sites in parks and rinks).
Modern cities, with their ever-expanding suburban sprawl and centralized concentration of business, industry and labour, are unsustainable, a product of the high energy age that will follow the energy downslope into the abyss. They draw their resources from ever larger externalities, starting with regions criss-crossed with canals and railways at the onset of the Industrial Revolution and now expanded to sucking in resources from all over the globe, those resources moved about the globe by energy-intensive ships and aircraft.
Long term sustainability as we approach and pass the end of the high-energy age is going to have to see a reversal of that trend. The focus will be forced into ever-decreasing spheres, from the global resource base down to the regional and community resource base. Sustainability for a community will mean resource self-sufficiency and community self-reliance. That which a community needs will have to be available within the community or its immediately surrounding area, only rarely by trade with neighbouring communities.
Let's look at some of the key components of that future community self-reliance and self sufficiency.
Seeds
The first key to community self-sufficiency will be food self-sufficiency, the ability of a community to produce all of the food needed to sustain its population. Almost all agriculture today is dependent on centralized seed companies. The crop varieties available are limited, having shrunken steadily since the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Access to seeds is dependent on those central seed companies and an energy-intensive global distribution system. There are several companies, like Monsanto, Archer-Daniels-Midland and Cargill, whose corporate objective is to control the means of global food production. Increasingly seeds are both hybridized and genetically engineered, many with terminator genes so they will not produce seed, negating the age-old practice of seed-saving, saving the seed from this year's crop to produce next year's crop.
As global industry falters and the global distribution system grinds to a halt for lack of energy that seed system will, at first, become increasingly unreliable with the energy expense of distributing anything to rural areas. Eventually it will simply disappear.
For any community to be self-sufficient beyond the end of the oil and high-energy age it is going to have to become both willing and able to produce next year's seed from this year's crop. It is going to have to develop and maintain local crop variations suited to the local climate and soil conditions. This requires critical farming skills that have been lost over this past century that are going to have to be relearned before a community can develop this type of self-sufficiency. This will, of course, require some head start time (reliable estimate is two decades) so that the skills are built up before the industrial seed industry collapses.
There are, however, other aspects of this that require a head start as well. Few farmers today keep on hand seed for two years of crops. Why should they? They get their seed fresh each year from the seed company. If we wait until the seed companies collapse, however, where are the seeds going to come from with which to get started without them? If your crops are already in the ground, assuming they aren't genetically modified with terminator genes, you are going to have to let a significant portion of your crop go to seed at the end of the season in order to have enough seed for next year's crop. But suppose the seed industry collapses in winter or spring, after you have harvested your crops and before new seeds would normally be ordered. You will be absolutely dead in the water.
If you start saving seed now, or soon, you will not only develop skills in seed-saving but you will have your own seed on hand in the event of the collapse of the seed industry. You will also develop the knowledge of what crops are genetically modified and learned to avoid them in favour of natural crops that will produce seed which you can save.
This is not that easy, however. The seed industry is extremely aggressive in protecting its turf. Saving seed from crops produced using seeds purchased from a major seed company will probably be prohibited by law. You need to learn what heritage seeds are available to you, generally from small local seed companies, and use those as your starting point. Even then, however, as was the case with Percy Schmeiser and others, if your crop gets cross-contaminated from a nearby crop from patent-protected or genetically modified seed, you may be prohibited by law from saving seed produced by that entire crop. And the courts thus far have come down very much in favour of the seed companies in these cases. So there are many roadblocks in the way of your early preparation for this and almost all aspects of future sustainability. But persevere.
Water
In order to be self-sufficient and self-reliant on the other side of the energy collapse a community is going to be critically dependent on a safe, reliable, clean water supply. That's a no-brainer, right? There are the municipal water supply, the heavy duty industrial pumps to supply water for crop irrigation, water purification systems, running water in all the houses. All of these, of course, require a heavy investment of funds both to acquire but also to maintain. Once we are seriously into energy decline and the global distribution system begins to collapse and global industry runs into supply and distribution and cost problems all of these systems will begin to break down. Not too long afterward they will simply cease to function. The community is going to need in place a water supply system that is not dependent on fossil fuels, big expensive industrial machinery and equipment, heavy and expensive maintenance, and capable of supplying sustainably all of the community's water needs.
Unless you are starting a new community from the ground up, and I am definitely not recommending this, that is going to have to be done through an established, and probably very conservative, community council. Getting them to replace the current water systems with a new one designed for a post-fossil-fuel age that they do not understand is fast approaching is not going to be an easy task but, as with seeds above, waiting until it becomes a necessity is not going to work. The groundwork is going to have to be laid well in advance.
The safety issue concerns the presence of water management infrastructure upstream from the community. Dams, causeways, canals and canal locks, and other similar infrastructure has a limited lifespan and requires extensive and expensive maintenance. If any of these are upstream from the community the potential for catastrophic inundation of the community is elevated and the potential for interruption of the water supply gets greater over time. Global warming also has a significant potential to impact the future viability of your water supply, both in terms of seasonal flow and contamination. In addition, any industrial infrastructure upstream, such as mining operations with their toxic tailing ponds, has the high potential of contaminating your water source once maintenance of that infrastructure ceases with the collapse of the company or the industry.
Soil Fertility
Soil, like water, is critically important to all life on earth. The foundation for all higher life-forms is the plants that grow in the soil. Over millions of years nature has perfected techniques for creating, building and maintaining soil fertility for crops, fields, woodlands and wetlands.
Unfortunately nature's systems were not built around man. Our use of pesticides kills the important micro-organisms in the soil that are critical to fertility. Our use of artificial fertilizers seriously upsets the natural complex balance of minerals in the soil, those fertilizer focusing on primarily just three elements; nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. Herbicides destroy the other plants (we call them weeds) that are critical to support for the broad spectrum of soil micro-organisms that create complex soil fertility. Our monocropping encourages the overpopulation of specific groups of micro-organisms at the expense of others. Our plowing of fields upsets and even destroys the soil environment particular micro-organisms need, exposing deep soil organisms to the deadly (for them) air and the sun, suffocating shallow sub-surface micro-organism by burying them deep in the soil. Constant use of heavy farm equipment and plowing have built up a hardpan 6-8 inches below the surface that prevents the movement of critical micro-organisms up and down through the soil, prevents many plants from sinking roots deep enough to get sub-surface water, and builds up a layer of toxins just above the hardpan. Our constant irrigation of crops leaches critical nutrients out of the top soil, causes those crops to develop shallow root systems negating the ability of roots to bring minerals up from the deep sub-soil to the topsoil to nourish plants and micro-organisms and to bring up water from deep within the soil. The combination of over-irrigation and constant application of agro-chemicals has dramatically increased the salt content in the soil, so much so that long-used commercial agricultural soil and even whole farms have had to be abandoned because of the salt burden.
Almost all commercial agricultural soil is sterile, with all the nutrients for plants supplied by fertilizers and other agrochemical additives, soil and plant immune system functions dependent on pesticides and herbicides, water supplied by mechanical irrigation. When the advancing energy crisis forces us to farm without those the fertility needed to grow crops on that soil will simply not exist. It will have to be carefully rebuilt, either by nature or by us, before those soils can produce healthy, abundant crops. With the current levels of global population producing sufficient food on chemically sterilized soils will be impossible, another reality that will force the focus away from global and down to regional and community.
The basic components that must be restored to sterile soils are a full spectrum mineral complex, carbon, organic matter, nitrogen and, most importantly, a broad spectrum of soil micro-organisms. There are many soil improvement techniques that are beneficial, such as creating terra preta soil, but over time the full complexity of living soil must be restored if sustainability is to be achieved.
Farming skills
There is an unfortunate tendency today to think that those who own and run and work on farms are farmers, that they know how to farm. A fairer characterization would be mechano-chemical food producers. Take away their chemicals and their big equipment and and their mechanical irrigation and they wouldn't know where to begin.
There are, in the industrialized world in which we live, very few traditional farmers left and even fewer of their children are choosing to follow in their parents' footsteps. There are far too few to serve as a base for a new, post-fossil-fuel farming industry when the fossil fuels run out and the high-tech farm equipment stops running. That is not to suggest that traditional farming is the only method by which to produce sufficient volumes of food to feed a significant community. Permaculture, for example, is proving to be an excellent technique. But this too requires the long-term development of an extensive, in-the-field skill set, only the rudiments of which can be learned in a classroom.
The farming skills necessary to eke the optimum amount of food out of a piece of land are not easily come by. Even our agricultural schools today tend to focus on chemical/industrial farming techniques. Those fortunate enough to be learning traditional farming skills are doing so at the hand of one of those few traditional farmers still practicing their craft, by apprenticing at their shoulder.
And, of course, today's industrial farms are far too large to be farmed using traditional farming skills. They are designed for and dependent on fossil fuels and large equipment, designed for technological efficiency. They use specialized varieties of seeds to produce crops that can be efficiently harvested with massive mechanization. A return to traditional farming will also necessitate a return to traditional-sized farms, small, labour-intensive farms. The transition from industrial farming to traditional is going to require major land redistribution. The good news is that crop yields using traditional techniques (once the fertility of the soil has been re-established) are 20-50% higher or better.
Sustainable forest management
In any climate, particularly northern climates like Canada and Northern Europe, forests are going to be critical for sustainability in a post-fossil-fuel age. Unfortunately, in the climates in which they will be most needed the forests have long-since been decimated by clear cutting for agricultural land, building materials and urban development and expansion.
Most of the major forests that remain today are not near the population centers that are going to need them in a post-oil world. In a post-oil world forests are going to be needed still for building materials, for fuel, for soil retention and as a habitat for wild animals which will probably increasingly be turned to as a food source. As animal habitat what forests remain are sadly lacking, those forests hacked up into disconnected stands that offer little in the way of contiguous habitat.
In order to not further decimate the forests as fossil fuels run down and then run out a great deal of forest regrowth is going to be needed. It takes, if one includes hardwoods like maple and oak, a hundred years or more to grow a forest from seedlings. Even with the most optimistic peak oil forecasts we do not have that long. There is a lot of reforestation taking place today but most of that is for fast growing softwoods like pine, the objective of which is to quickly produce trees that can again be cut commercially. Sustainable forest management is only being practiced in a few places.
We need a massive, broad-based reforestation effort now to ensure that those forests are going to be there when the fossil fuels can no longer satisfy our needs. We need to stop the clearing and degredation of what forests still remain and give them an opportunity to develop old growth.
Draft Animals
Before fossil fuels farming was conducted using a combination of human and animal power. Before the advent of the automobile the population of horses in North America exceeded the number of humans. Today it is a small fraction of the human population and the vast majority of what stock does exist is for pleasure riding and racing. There are very few draft horses around and even fewer oxen, mules and donkeys.
The amount of labour that is going to be required to produce the food needed for a global human population of 6.6 billion plus when the fossil fuels have gone into irreversible decline is going to be massive. To enter that era without a massively increased stock of draft animals will mean that all of that work is going to have to accomplished with human labour. That will require well over half the human population (experienced) just producing food. It will take a minimum of two decades to build up the stock of draft animals to a level that we can effectively manage food production for that level of population without fossil fuels and mechanized farm equipment.
Non-mechanized farm equipment
Most of the non-mechanized farm equipment still in existence is being used for planters on suburban lawns or as decoration in front of country stores or rusting away behind dilapidated barns. There are few, if any, manufacturers of this equipment left in the industrialized world. An industry to produce such equipment is unlikely to build up before the demand is there for the product.
That presents an interesting Catch-22. The demand is not likely to be there before the fossil fuels needed for mechanized farming have gone into serious decline. It is unlikely that a whole new industry with heavy fossil fuel needs is going to be able to get off the ground when those very fossil fuels have gone into heavy decline. And government subsidies to facilitate development of such an industry are unlikely with a rapidly eroding tax base due to a shrinking labour market with the inevitable demise of industry as we know it.
Additionally that non-mechanized farm equipment manufactured and used in under-developed and developing countries, though it could in theory fill the need in the industrialized world, will not likely become available in the industrialized world due to the lack of raw materials and fuels in the countries of origin and the lack of shipping and fuel for it to be transported to the industrialized world.
Unless the political leadership in the industrialized world accept the imminence of peak oil, understand the implications that that event will encompass, and take it very seriously while there is still time to prepare, the transition to a post-carbon society in the industrialized world is going to be a very painful one.
Of course, another piece of non-mechanized equipment (not necessarily for the farm) that is manufactured and available in abundance in underdeveloped and developing countries is the bicycle. Utilitarian, rugged and, relative to the recreation and sport cycles available in the industrialized world, inexpensive. The bicycle is the perfect personal transport for a post-carbon world.
Trades, Arts and Crafts
Probably the greatest change on the community landscape over the past century is the loss of local community trades, arts and crafts. The former personal and community self-reliance has been traded for the convenience of the global market place driven by the availability of cheap, reliable fuel. Gone is the village blacksmith, the village cobbler, the village tailor, the village dressmaker, the village butcher. Gone are the local handmade furniture, clothings, the owner-built home, the locally-milled grain. Gone are the jacks-of-all-trades, which would describe half the population a century ago. Those trades that still exist within most communities are practiced in specialization to the exclusion of all others.
The village of a century ago could have survived the loss of oil. Hell the people might not even realize it had happened until well after the event when they noticed no trucks had come through town in the past six months. That same community today may have trouble surviving that six months. They would have long since run out of not just fuel but food and probably most durable goods, and be in no position to replace them locally. If that were the dead of winter in most Canadian communities teams of people would have to clean out the bodies in the spring.
Self-reliance.......... Without a global manufacturing and distribution system, or even a national one, self-reliance for the individual and the community, especially rural communities, is critical one we get well into the post-peak era. If the global and national manufacturing and distribution systems to not crash suddenly they will disintegrate gradually, becoming increasingly unreliable until they finally break down. The impact of this will be hardest in rural communities away from the manufacturing centers.
Conclusion
Peak oil is going to mean much more than the loss of oil and derivative fuels and other products. It is going to mean peak food, in an overpopulated world of over 6.6 billion people. The ability to produce food for that level of population with petro-chemical inputs will be severely hampered because of the impact that chemically-based farming has had on the commercial agriculture soils in the industrialized, food exporting countries of the world. It is going to take decades of highly focussed effort to ready ourselves for food self-sufficiency in a post-peak world, decades that should have started long ago.
With billions of lives at stake, including those of people in the industrialized world, we cannot afford to enter the peak oil era naively optimistic that technology will see us through, that we will find and develop alternative energy sources in time. And we certainly can't afford to enter this era blissfully ignorant of the severe ramifications of getting there unprepared.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Massive Marine Methane Hydrate Destabilization/Release a Potential Major Positive Feedback Mechanism in Accelerating Global Warming
First, a few words about the denial industry
Perhaps the favorite argument of those anxious to take society down a dangerous path - such as that of exploiting a new energy resource like methane hydrates - when there is opposition to that intent out of concern of the risk and danger involved, is to demand that those opposed to their actions prove the alleged danger.
It is an argument that has been increasingly supported by politicians hoping to keep the wheels on the growth-dependent global economy and others who stand to gain from the actions being debated. The growth on which their power depends derives from energy, lots of it.
It seems that invariably the approach favoured by those in power is to let the debated actions continue until that proof of danger is produced, hoping that such proof will not materialize. But almost invariably the satisfactory proof demanded is extremely illusive and in the time it takes to produce that proof an extraordinary amount of damage has already been achieved. All too often the society is already far too advanced down the path to dependence on that resource that the ultimate decision is to carry on, that the risk is deemed manageable, minor and acceptable relative to the perceived benefits being achieved.
While that proof is being developed, and even after it has been presented and supported by countless experts, the tactics of denial, misinformation and disinformation not only continue but accelerate. Whenever any minor point of contention can be created, when any minute error of detail in the proof can be found, it is vigorously put forward as proof that the entire proof is invalid. For every thousand experts endorsing the proof a small number of often highly-paid industry shills are put forward to claim that the debate is not over, that the research is not conclusive, that the proof is incomplete and full of holes, and that the proof should not be allowed to stand in the way of progress.
The concept of using risk, doubt and uncertainty as a need for caution seems to be lost in favor of recklessly proceeding. The logic of demanding proof of safety rather than proof of danger is ignored.
This is the tactic that has been used in industry opposition to the climate change argument. The amount of time and money having to be expended/wasted on the inevitable proof because of this industry opposition and campaign of disinformation is almost enough, and is intended, to dissuade those working on that proof from even bothering. Fortunately, for society, they are not dissuaded.
Any potential crisis that could possibly block or slow economic progress is deemed less a problem than the economic crisis that a more cautious approach could bring about. There is no long term view and no environmental or societal conscience when it comes to economics. There is only the short term profit motive which trumps all other considerations.
Now back to our scheduled programming
There is growing debate today, as the reality of diminishing global oil reserves sinks in, about methane hydrates as a potential energy source and the potential global risks and dangers in their exploitation. The optimism is rapidly waning that economical carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology will be developed to allow the use of coal to be cleaned up to a level that will alleviate global warming. Governments and energy industries throughout the world are increasingly looking at methane as the next great energy source. After all, there is estimated to be more carbon locked up in methane hydrates than in all of the other fossil fuels combined, enough to power human society, according to the optimists, through to the end of this millennium.
But the risks inherent in the exploitation of methane from hydrates are very, very real and every effort must be made to push awareness of those risks out into the public arena to help prevent us from blindly following self-appointed, self-interested leaders down a path rife with dangers that have been vigorously and intentionally kept from public view with a campaign of denial, misinformation and disinformation.
Again I digress
Before I go any further it is, I believe, important to clarify something. I am not suggesting for a moment that those in government or the individuals in corporations like energy companies are setting out to intentionally destroy the world or even to do damage to society. Most of those individuals are probably basically good people who believe that they are doing the best that they can for their companies, their countries, for humanity. I believe strongly that the basic problem is the nature of the corporation and other institutions like government.
Both are created by people but once created the people within those institutions must follow the tunnel-visioned objectives of the institution regardless of their personal beliefs or sense of ethics and morality.
Corporations are, legally at least, artificial people, like computers in a sense. But neither corporations nor computers by their nature have the essential elements that define humanness. They have no soul, no ethics, no morality. They have specified objectives laid out for them by their people and do not allow human fallibility to get in the way of pursuing and, if possible, achieving those single-minded objectives. Failure to do so will see a person removed and replaced by someone who will get with the program.
Institutions and corporations differ from real people in another important respect. They potentially have an existence, a life, well in excess of the lifespan of their human components. The parts are easily replaced without significantly altering the whole.
Back on Track
What are Methane Hydrates? Most methane in the world is a gas - like natural gas and similarly usable as an energy source - formed from organic matter broken down by bacteria. Methane hydrates are molecules of methane gas trapped in a water-ice cage. The hydrate reserves occur, primarily in the oceans along continental shelf margins, and in Arctic permafrost. Methane is also released, in gaseous form, from swamps, peat bogs, shallow lakes and by various animals like ruminants (e.g. cattle, buffalo, water buffalo). There is some small-scale commercial production of methane gas, in Denmark for example, using animal manure in huge methane digesters that use natural bacteria to break down the organic matter and produce the gas which is drawn off and used like natural gas.
Methane hydrates were little studied and only poorly understood before the last three decades. Even now full understanding is still potentially decades away. Although debated, many experts and scientists believe there may be more carbon energy locked up in marine and permafrost methane hydrates than in all of the oil, natural gas and coal in the world combined. That makes them a very attractive potential energy source as world reserves of those three fossil fuels decline. That potential as an energy source is, in fact, the primary financial driver to the study of methane hydrates.
But there are a few important points about methane hydrates that raise red flags and strongly suggest that we proceed with caution in any intent to exploit them for energy.
Perhaps the favorite argument of those anxious to take society down a dangerous path - such as that of exploiting a new energy resource like methane hydrates - when there is opposition to that intent out of concern of the risk and danger involved, is to demand that those opposed to their actions prove the alleged danger.
It is an argument that has been increasingly supported by politicians hoping to keep the wheels on the growth-dependent global economy and others who stand to gain from the actions being debated. The growth on which their power depends derives from energy, lots of it.
It seems that invariably the approach favoured by those in power is to let the debated actions continue until that proof of danger is produced, hoping that such proof will not materialize. But almost invariably the satisfactory proof demanded is extremely illusive and in the time it takes to produce that proof an extraordinary amount of damage has already been achieved. All too often the society is already far too advanced down the path to dependence on that resource that the ultimate decision is to carry on, that the risk is deemed manageable, minor and acceptable relative to the perceived benefits being achieved.
While that proof is being developed, and even after it has been presented and supported by countless experts, the tactics of denial, misinformation and disinformation not only continue but accelerate. Whenever any minor point of contention can be created, when any minute error of detail in the proof can be found, it is vigorously put forward as proof that the entire proof is invalid. For every thousand experts endorsing the proof a small number of often highly-paid industry shills are put forward to claim that the debate is not over, that the research is not conclusive, that the proof is incomplete and full of holes, and that the proof should not be allowed to stand in the way of progress.
The concept of using risk, doubt and uncertainty as a need for caution seems to be lost in favor of recklessly proceeding. The logic of demanding proof of safety rather than proof of danger is ignored.
This is the tactic that has been used in industry opposition to the climate change argument. The amount of time and money having to be expended/wasted on the inevitable proof because of this industry opposition and campaign of disinformation is almost enough, and is intended, to dissuade those working on that proof from even bothering. Fortunately, for society, they are not dissuaded.
Any potential crisis that could possibly block or slow economic progress is deemed less a problem than the economic crisis that a more cautious approach could bring about. There is no long term view and no environmental or societal conscience when it comes to economics. There is only the short term profit motive which trumps all other considerations.
Now back to our scheduled programming
There is growing debate today, as the reality of diminishing global oil reserves sinks in, about methane hydrates as a potential energy source and the potential global risks and dangers in their exploitation. The optimism is rapidly waning that economical carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology will be developed to allow the use of coal to be cleaned up to a level that will alleviate global warming. Governments and energy industries throughout the world are increasingly looking at methane as the next great energy source. After all, there is estimated to be more carbon locked up in methane hydrates than in all of the other fossil fuels combined, enough to power human society, according to the optimists, through to the end of this millennium.
But the risks inherent in the exploitation of methane from hydrates are very, very real and every effort must be made to push awareness of those risks out into the public arena to help prevent us from blindly following self-appointed, self-interested leaders down a path rife with dangers that have been vigorously and intentionally kept from public view with a campaign of denial, misinformation and disinformation.
Again I digress
Before I go any further it is, I believe, important to clarify something. I am not suggesting for a moment that those in government or the individuals in corporations like energy companies are setting out to intentionally destroy the world or even to do damage to society. Most of those individuals are probably basically good people who believe that they are doing the best that they can for their companies, their countries, for humanity. I believe strongly that the basic problem is the nature of the corporation and other institutions like government.
Both are created by people but once created the people within those institutions must follow the tunnel-visioned objectives of the institution regardless of their personal beliefs or sense of ethics and morality.
Corporations are, legally at least, artificial people, like computers in a sense. But neither corporations nor computers by their nature have the essential elements that define humanness. They have no soul, no ethics, no morality. They have specified objectives laid out for them by their people and do not allow human fallibility to get in the way of pursuing and, if possible, achieving those single-minded objectives. Failure to do so will see a person removed and replaced by someone who will get with the program.
Institutions and corporations differ from real people in another important respect. They potentially have an existence, a life, well in excess of the lifespan of their human components. The parts are easily replaced without significantly altering the whole.
Back on Track
What are Methane Hydrates? Most methane in the world is a gas - like natural gas and similarly usable as an energy source - formed from organic matter broken down by bacteria. Methane hydrates are molecules of methane gas trapped in a water-ice cage. The hydrate reserves occur, primarily in the oceans along continental shelf margins, and in Arctic permafrost. Methane is also released, in gaseous form, from swamps, peat bogs, shallow lakes and by various animals like ruminants (e.g. cattle, buffalo, water buffalo). There is some small-scale commercial production of methane gas, in Denmark for example, using animal manure in huge methane digesters that use natural bacteria to break down the organic matter and produce the gas which is drawn off and used like natural gas.
Methane hydrates were little studied and only poorly understood before the last three decades. Even now full understanding is still potentially decades away. Although debated, many experts and scientists believe there may be more carbon energy locked up in marine and permafrost methane hydrates than in all of the oil, natural gas and coal in the world combined. That makes them a very attractive potential energy source as world reserves of those three fossil fuels decline. That potential as an energy source is, in fact, the primary financial driver to the study of methane hydrates.
But there are a few important points about methane hydrates that raise red flags and strongly suggest that we proceed with caution in any intent to exploit them for energy.
- Methane hydrates are pockets of methane trapped in a cage of water ice. They occur where they do because they require very specific conditions of temperature and pressure to be stable. Raise the temperature and/or lower the pressure and the molecules break down and release the methane gas.
- The methane in the hydrates is held at a density 160 times that of methane in the atmosphere, meaning as it escapes from the hydrate it expands 160 times.
- Methane in the atmosphere is more than 60 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2). It is, however, much shorter lived. It oxidizes fairly quickly in the atmosphere. But it oxidizes to CO2 which is much more stable and much longer lived than the methane itself.
- The temperature at which methane hydrates are stable is not the densest form of water ice. That means that methane hydrate molecules are always subject to two opposing pressures as they warm; the ice forming the cage wants to contract and the methane inside the cage wants to expand. That makes the stability zone in which methane hydrates can exist very narrow and unstable with the slightest changes in temperature and pressure.
- Below the bottom of the hydrate stability zone (HSZ) there is generally more methane but without the hydrates, in gaseous form trapped in the pores of sediment and capped or held in place by the methane hydrates above. Disrupting the cap of methane hydrates, therefore, runs the risk of massive releases of methane not just from the hydrates but of the gaseous methane below the hydrates.
- There have been numerous accidental releases of methane hydrates in the past fifty years in connection with deep sea oil and gas drilling operations (methane hydrates often occur in conjunction with oil and natural gas deposits), extraction platform seabed anchoring, dredging operations, undersea landslides triggered by volcanoes and earthquakes, shifts in undersea temperatures with changes in ocean currents, in the Arctic as sea temperatures rise, and more.
- The risk of accidental releases of the methane gas increases dramatically when we begin to work directly on methane hydrate reserves. Certain suggested methods of methane hydrate exploitation represent very great risks. One of these is sonic destabilization of the methane hydrates which has the potential of destabilizing large sections of the reserves, not just the segment being focused on.
- Most methane hydrates in both undersea reserves and in Arctic permafrost are loosely dispersed and not sufficiently concentrated to allow economical recovery for use as energy.
Most sub sea methane hydrate deposits occur on the downslope edge of continental shelves. - The risk of massive landslides occurring - potentially resulting in tsunamis - from a large release of methane gas is, therefore, quite high. There is considerable and growing geological evidence that this has occurred several times in earth's past, often in the warming periods at the end of ice ages.
And that is potentially the greatest concern with methane hydrates, whether or not we attempt to exploit them as an energy resource. Scientific studies in the Arctic have already shown that methane venting from the ocean floor is increasing as the temperature of Arctic waters climbs. And Arctic temperature rise is much more rapid, and will continue to be so, than in the tropics as global warming proceeds.
That release of methane as global warming proceeds sets up a powerful positive feedback mechanism that accelerates the warming. Geological science has shown that methane did not initiate the end of ice ages but accelerated the process. We are in a period of overall global warming. I will leave aside the question of whether that is caused by man or by a change in the sunspot cycle. It is irrelevant. A two degree Celsius rise in average global temperature is more than enough to trigger massive methane hydrate releases. That same two degree rise anywhere, such as in the Arctic, threatens release of the hydrate reserves in that area. The temperature rise in Arctic waters is already heralding the beginning of the acceleration of Arctic methane hydrate releases. Potential changes in the course or temperature of the Atlantic thermal currents could also threaten major methane hydrate reserves along the east coast continental shelf of North America from the Caribbean to the Arctic.
I'm certain that those in favor of progress at any price, those in the energy industry, the denial lobby surrounding governments everywhere, will be able to find small errors in my argument to declare them null and void. That, after all, is their job. Don't let them fool you. The risks to our planet and our global human society are high enough to demand that they prove their case.
=============================================================
The following can offer some additional reading and were used as source material for some of the newer components of my argument.
1) Could changing ocean circulation have destabilized methane hydrate at the Paleocene/Eocene boundary?
2) Methane Hydrate and Abrupt Climate Change
3) METHANE HYDRATE DESTABILIZATION, DEGLACIATION AND OCEANIC ANOXIA, AND BIOLOGICAL INNOVATION IN THE LATE NEOPROTEROZOIC
4) Methane hydrate destabilization as a result of anthropogenic warming
5) Global Climate Destabilization is Major Security & Economic Threat
6) Methane Hydrates Research
7) Methane seeps,methane hydrate destabilization,and the late Neoproterozoic postglacial cap carbonates
8) Methane Hydrates Issues and Opportunities
9) Methane hydrates in the sea floor
10) Could Methane Trigger a Climate Doomsday Within a Human Lifespan?
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Methane Hydrates Turning Into Alternative Energy Solution of Choice
The news on intended methane hydrate exploitation continues to get increasingly scary. Here is just a recent survey of article and news headlines and titles.
- Methane Timebomb Ticking - Boilingspot.blogspot.com
- The USGS assessment of abrupt climate change - Energy and Environment Viewpoint
- Bush urges US to stake claim to Arctic territory in last-gasp energy grab - C-Questor group newsletter
- Scientific deep ocean drilling: Revealing the Earth's secrets - Doxtop
- Japan digs ocean deep to find natural resources - Methane Hydrates - Greenpacks
- USGS: Alaskan gas could heat millions of homes - Top Gold News
- Study: Lots of recoverable frozen gas in Alaska - blog Rubens
- Methane hydrate extraction - Mercury Rising
- "Ice That Burns" May Yield Clean, Sustainable Bridge to Global Energy Future - Newswise
- Japan to drill offshore for methane hydrate - EnergyCurrent
- Japan aiming to commercialize new ocean resources in 10 years - iStock Analyst
- Govt to Study: Exploit ocean resources - Asian news feed
- Ice That Burns Could Be a Green Fossil Fuel - Newscientist.com
- Flammable ice is the future of the human idea alternative energy - Anrosoft
- Flammable ice could be carbon-neutral fuel - pound360
- Scientists have found ecological way to burn methane. - The Science
- Boosting energy production from 'ice that burns' - Science centric
The volume of material being released on the subject of exploiting methane hydrates as an energy source is dwarfed by the plethora of articles detailing the activity in the area of Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS). The combination of these two bode very badly for global warming. The potential for accidental release of large volumes of methane from hydrates and the inability to develop an economically viable technology and methodology for CCS very much weakens the potential for decreasing anthropogenic greenhouse gasses to a level that global warming can be arrested.
Our hunger and lust for new energy sources, as oil and natural gas resources begin to decline after peak oil, continues to put pressure on governments everywhere to weaken the regulations for carbon emissions. CCS is, through carbon trading, showing all the hallmarks of turning into another taxpayer-subsidized ponzi scheme with every other corporation, whether or not they are involved in the energy industry, lining up at the taxpayer trough looking for their share of the research money and stockpiling carbon credits waiting for legislation that will drive up the price as carbon emitters are forced by implemented legislation into buying credits.
As you will see in the archives of this blog, I have written several articles on both CCS and methane hydrates. With the lack of material in mainstream media, however, the potential for any public pressure in these areas continues to be weak. If it stays weak and public pressure never develops the desire of those in power to keep the train speeding toward the precipice rather than putting on the brakes will rule the day. Sooner or later some sanity must seep into the circles of power or we are going to pay a tremendous price to support their lust for power.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
This Financial Crisis ain't the big one, just a strong foreshock
I generally try to avoid wading into the discussion/debate on finances and economics. There are so many others in the debate that you can't hear yourself think. And besides, it's a rigged game and as soon as anyone thinks they have a viable solution the rules of the game change.
But....... I see so much of what I consider misreading of the current economic crisis that I thought; What the hell? Can't possibly be any more wrong than a lot of that hog swill I've been reading. So here goes.
The vast majority of economists, politicians and business leaders seem to believe - at least for public consumption - that the current economic crisis, like all past economic crises, is a temporary problem that will soon be corrected and we will get back on the growth gravy train. Politicians and pundits spend a good part of every day in front of TV cameras and media microphones trying to convince you that recovery is just around the corner and that you should take the padlock off your wallet and get out there and spend. What else are they going to tell you? The truth? God forbid!
There are probably just as many unlistened-to people at the opposite extreme, who believe that this crisis is unlike any other and that the end of our high-tech, virtual society is at an end. Though, in my opinion, neither group is right, the latter is more right than the economic optimists.
This is not the end. It is, again in my opinion, a strong foreshock of the final, devastating economic crisis to come. I do not believe we are that far away, for reasons I will detail below. I believe the Big One will be upon us within three years. Actually, I'll qualify that a little tighter; within three years of the beginning of the economic recovery. Why?
But....... I see so much of what I consider misreading of the current economic crisis that I thought; What the hell? Can't possibly be any more wrong than a lot of that hog swill I've been reading. So here goes.
The vast majority of economists, politicians and business leaders seem to believe - at least for public consumption - that the current economic crisis, like all past economic crises, is a temporary problem that will soon be corrected and we will get back on the growth gravy train. Politicians and pundits spend a good part of every day in front of TV cameras and media microphones trying to convince you that recovery is just around the corner and that you should take the padlock off your wallet and get out there and spend. What else are they going to tell you? The truth? God forbid!
There are probably just as many unlistened-to people at the opposite extreme, who believe that this crisis is unlike any other and that the end of our high-tech, virtual society is at an end. Though, in my opinion, neither group is right, the latter is more right than the economic optimists.
This is not the end. It is, again in my opinion, a strong foreshock of the final, devastating economic crisis to come. I do not believe we are that far away, for reasons I will detail below. I believe the Big One will be upon us within three years. Actually, I'll qualify that a little tighter; within three years of the beginning of the economic recovery. Why?
If we do not find some way of loosening the grip of finance and economics on the running of human society I can't see, given so many resource constraints and the rapid devaluation of money in the current financial crisis, how we can possibly have or even think we have a full economic recovery and long-term future for human society as it is currently constituted.
- Almost all proposed political, financial and economic solutions to the current economic crisis assume that the resources to restart and maintain the growth economy to achieve recovery are there. The harsh reality is they are not. We have already passed peak oil and the peak in countless other resources. Continuous growth simply is not possible when available resources are in decline. The continuing denial of this reality gets in the way of designing effective solutions.
- Even in a global recession we are still using up around 30 billion barrels of oil a year. We hit peak oil in spring 2005 (The Oil Drum suggests it was in 2008). That has been disguised by bringing alternative fuels (like biofuels, CTL, GTL and tar sands) on line, by switching from reporting crude oil to reporting all liquids, and by the current economic crisis reducing demand and distracting attention from energy concerns.
- If demand rises from present levels by 2% per year, and supply continues to fall from those peak oil levels by 2% per year, by 2020 demand will exceed supply by over 17-billion barrels/year and rising. The negative economic impact, even if nations agree to stabilize oil prices, will be in excess of $20-trillion/year globally and rising (each barrel of oil is the foundation of well over $1000 of economic activity).
- Energy projects throughout the world, particularly oil, are being cancelled or put on hold every day - waiting for oil prices to recover to and stabilize at levels the world could not cope with a year ago - since the beginning of this financial crisis. Such projects will not be restarted quickly, even when the credit tap is turned back on.
- Even if the global economy begins to recover this year (which looks increasingly unlikely), there will not be enough oil (or other energy resources or many other resources) next year to satisfy demand. Recovery/growth plans will fall short by nearly $5-trillion. By 2015 they will fall short by over $10-trillion annually. There simply are not enough energy resources left in the world to power enough economic growth to recover from the current economic crisis where tens of trillions of dollars (some say hundreds of trillions) of wealth have been lost. If product demand returns and continues to track the promises of economic growth, rather than the reality of diminishing supply, then hyper-inflation should set in within the next three years as product demand will, by that time, exceed product supply by over $10-trillion/year.
- In the U.S., and probably other newer western nations like Canada and Australia, as suggested in joeplanner.blogspot.com "at least as much land has been developed .... in the last 15 years as in the previous 400 years of our history." And all of that land development has been for the expansion of auto-dependant residential and retail suburbia through the use of ever-escalating debt. The infrastructure development and maintenance costs for all that new developed land are threatening to bankrupt governments at all levels.
- In the past several decades in North America retail space per person, mostly in malls, has risen from four to nearly 40 square feet. That is 10-30 times greater retail space per person than in any of the nations of Europe. Even with the current economic crisis, as much as a quarter of that retail space now sits empty and suburban malls are dying at an alarming rate. And this is just the beginning.
- The Baker-Hughes Rig Count survey suggests that operational drill-rig counts in North America are down 10-15% since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2008, with further declines in rig count continuing every week. The oil industry is not gearing up for an economic recovery. They are betting on continuing declines. And are not likely to be on the leading edge of the recovery, like they were in the 1990s when they got burned badly. The cost of oil projects is magnitudes greater than it was then and they need a much higher oil price to justify development.
- The Baltic Dry Index, which tracks global trans-oceanic shipping, reports massive declines in shipping contracts throughout the world. The downside of that is that many ship owners, already running at the margins due to increased fuel and docking costs, are decommissioning their ships. The fleet available to support a rebuild of global trade to the levels needed for an economic recovery will not be there in the short run. With continued failures in the ship building industry, not to mention shortage of energy and raw materials, the ability to ramp up global shipping will be seriously constrained.
I am often accused of talking doom and gloom. Guilty as charged. Unrealistic optimism and unbridled greed have brought us to the point of a global financial crisis that will, by the time this is over, make the Great Depression look like a picnic. A pessimist, as the saying goes, is an informed optimist. I strongly believe its time for a little of what the majority insist on calling pessimism but is, in reality, REALISM. Perpetual growth is not sustainable, is not possible. It is a myth, a ponzi scheme.
As politicians, industry leaders and the media succeed in breaking down your resistance and convince you that the economy is headed into recovery and you return, even if slowly, to your old debt-based spending habits the reality of the barriers to that recovery will begin to be very apparent. Not enough oil. Not enough coal. Not enough natural gas. Not enough uranium. Not enough progress in wind energy. Not enough iron. Not enough copper. Not enough lithium. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough.............
The public reaction to this economic crisis has been, considering the depth and magnitude of it, surprisingly muted and passive. The demonstrations and riots have been very limited. It is as if we are all in a state of shock. And our leaders would like to keep us there, thank you very much, until recovery is under way. But every day more and more people are waking up. More and more people are opening their eyes and ears and reading between the lines. It is very unlikely that that passivity will characterize public response to the next and more major crisis just around the corner. Enough is enough already. No more bailouts. No more golden parachutes. No more unsustainable growth. It's time to face reality and redesign the system for the resource depleted world that is quickly becoming reality. It is time for true leadership, for leaders in touch with reality. End the greed. End the pork barrel spending. End the pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams. Give us that hard dose of reality and tell us how to deal with it. I think our leaders will be surprised at how ready and able people are to deal with. But that's just my opinion.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
They're Tar Sands, not Oil Sands!
It's a common practice. Euphemisms. When the mere name of something takes on negative connotations then change the name. When Allegheny Airlines gets dubbed Agony Airlines, change the name. Why would anyone want to buy death insurance? Let's call it life insurance.
And when the perception of the tar sands turns negative, no problem. We'll just call it the oil sands. Everybody loves oil. Hell, the world runs on oil. The only problem is, they're not oil sands.
What comes out of the tar sands is not oil. It is, in fact, tar, bitumen, the same sticky, smelly stuff they build roads with. With a lot of processing, using up a lot of energy and other precious resources like clean water, it can be turned into a synthetic oil which, with further processing using up a lot more energy and other resources, can be turned into gasoline. But it takes almost as much energy to produce a gallon of gasoline from tar sands as the energy you get out of the gallon of gasoline.
Oil, on the other hand (at least the easy to recover oil with which the oil age began) can return as much as a hundred times more energy than what it costs to process it. Even the more expensive, difficult to find, extract and process oil which we are dealing with today returns far more energy than what it costs to process it.
Euphemisms like oil sands are a form of whitewash having but one purpose. They cover up the less attractive, seamy side of the issue. Tar sands is, hands down, the dirtiest, most polluting source of energy on the planet. The once pristine environment of northern Alberta and the Yukon and Northwest Territories are being absolutely destroyed by the tar sands operations. People living in the region are developing cancers and other deadly diseases at an alarming rate far exceeding that in any other region of the country. Communities downstream on the Athabasca River can no longer use the water from that river.
The tar sands are not an energy boom. They are an energy boondoggle.
All the press of late focuses on the massive amounts of carbon dioxide and other air pollutants the tar sands operations generate. The pipedream of CCS (carbon capture and sequestration) is touted as the answer to that problem, if it ever proves out and becomes economically viable.
But CCS will do nothing for cleaning up the massive containment ponds full of liquid toxins. It will do nothing to clean up the Athabasca River and the Arctic Ocean that are receiving all of the uncontained toxins. It will do nothing for restoring the environment that is being raped by the tar sands operations. Nature laid down a benign overburden of rock and soil above the tar-soaked sands over millions of years and built a bountiful natural environment despite the toxic swamp lying beneath it. That overburden is being progressively stripped away by tar sands operators, exposing the tar sands below. What is left when they shut down their operations and walk away is a toxic landscape incapable of supporting life even at a minimal level.
So let's stop with the euphemism. Even the label of tar sands does not adequately portray the horrific nature of what is being unleashed in the Athabasca region. But these recent attempts to further con the nation and the world into thinking the tar sands are harmless are bordering on the criminal. Let's call them what they are. Let's shut them down. And let's focus our efforts on figuring out how to undo the massive amount of damage that has already been done rather than trying to figure out how to continue that damage more efficiently and faster.
What the hell is the point of making a mistake as big as the tar sands without learning from it?
And when the perception of the tar sands turns negative, no problem. We'll just call it the oil sands. Everybody loves oil. Hell, the world runs on oil. The only problem is, they're not oil sands.
What comes out of the tar sands is not oil. It is, in fact, tar, bitumen, the same sticky, smelly stuff they build roads with. With a lot of processing, using up a lot of energy and other precious resources like clean water, it can be turned into a synthetic oil which, with further processing using up a lot more energy and other resources, can be turned into gasoline. But it takes almost as much energy to produce a gallon of gasoline from tar sands as the energy you get out of the gallon of gasoline.
Oil, on the other hand (at least the easy to recover oil with which the oil age began) can return as much as a hundred times more energy than what it costs to process it. Even the more expensive, difficult to find, extract and process oil which we are dealing with today returns far more energy than what it costs to process it.
Euphemisms like oil sands are a form of whitewash having but one purpose. They cover up the less attractive, seamy side of the issue. Tar sands is, hands down, the dirtiest, most polluting source of energy on the planet. The once pristine environment of northern Alberta and the Yukon and Northwest Territories are being absolutely destroyed by the tar sands operations. People living in the region are developing cancers and other deadly diseases at an alarming rate far exceeding that in any other region of the country. Communities downstream on the Athabasca River can no longer use the water from that river.
The tar sands are not an energy boom. They are an energy boondoggle.
All the press of late focuses on the massive amounts of carbon dioxide and other air pollutants the tar sands operations generate. The pipedream of CCS (carbon capture and sequestration) is touted as the answer to that problem, if it ever proves out and becomes economically viable.
But CCS will do nothing for cleaning up the massive containment ponds full of liquid toxins. It will do nothing to clean up the Athabasca River and the Arctic Ocean that are receiving all of the uncontained toxins. It will do nothing for restoring the environment that is being raped by the tar sands operations. Nature laid down a benign overburden of rock and soil above the tar-soaked sands over millions of years and built a bountiful natural environment despite the toxic swamp lying beneath it. That overburden is being progressively stripped away by tar sands operators, exposing the tar sands below. What is left when they shut down their operations and walk away is a toxic landscape incapable of supporting life even at a minimal level.
So let's stop with the euphemism. Even the label of tar sands does not adequately portray the horrific nature of what is being unleashed in the Athabasca region. But these recent attempts to further con the nation and the world into thinking the tar sands are harmless are bordering on the criminal. Let's call them what they are. Let's shut them down. And let's focus our efforts on figuring out how to undo the massive amount of damage that has already been done rather than trying to figure out how to continue that damage more efficiently and faster.
What the hell is the point of making a mistake as big as the tar sands without learning from it?
Sunday, January 04, 2009
2009 - Trying to Rebuild the House of Cards
What a year 2008 was. So much greed got bitch-slapped in the wallet. Fat-cat fights broke out on Wall Street as they all scrambled for the new Federal Reserve kitty litter. Bubbles were bursting everywhere like over-inflated bubble-wrap turf at the Super Bowl.
The big question is how far is this unravelling going to go? And what will happen when Wiley Coyote finally succumbs to gravity and hits bottom, wherever bottom is? The other important thing, for me, controversial as it may be, is to put 2008 in a peak oil perspective. I tend to do that. Based on the statistics, it appears that we hit peak oil in the spring of 2005. That, of course, is hotly debated. Those in power and those honest and unbiased mouthpieces for the energy industry and oil companies still claim that peak oil is decades away. And proponents of the abiotic oil theory claim that oil is self-regenerating and infinite (queue Bobby McFarren singing Don't worry, be happy!).
I don't like to engage in the statistical debate. There is a general lack of reliability in all of those statistics. There is always a major political component behind what gets reported. OPEC nations, for example, who doubled their reported reserves when they formed OPEC and established reserve-dependent production quotas, have never changed the numbers they report despite decades of drawdown on those reserves. Oil statistics, as with most statistics, are as meaningless as a sumo wrestlers new year's resolution to lose weight and can be interpreted many ways to support a variety of agenda.
There is little question that energy costs (the cost of all forms of energy rose in tandem with the price of oil) were a significant contributor to the economic collapse that began in 2008. Whether they were a cause or a coincidence is unclear. One of the debates that will probably persist through 2009 is whether peak oil or commodity speculators drove the price of oil up to $147.67. The statistics suggesting that we hit peak in the spring of 2005 do exist. But it is a question of interpretation.
From the time that M. King Hubbert first correctly forecast, in the early 1950s, that the U. S. lower-48 oil production would peak in 1970 (he further forecast that global production would peak in or about 2000, a date that was delayed by the oil crises of the 1970s and '80s) the basis of the peak oil argument has been a simple one. It was and still is based on production of conventional crude. The reason is simple. When global conventional crude passes the peak and goes into decline the combination of other sources will not be able to offset the declines in conventional crude. What has changed over the years, rather, in an attempt to disguise that inevitability, is the official definition of oil that is included in government and industry statistics.
Oil reserve reporting, for example, has been loosened from its original proven to provable. Those within the oil industry would like it loosened further still, perhaps all the way to ultimately recoverable. Such distinctions may be lost on all but industry insiders but it makes a tremendous difference in defining something like peak oil.
More importantly, the industrial and political definition of oil itself has changed significantly over the past few decades, as well as the definition of the liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and marine fuel normally derived from oil. The definition of oil has expanded far beyond conventional crude as well. It now encompasses synthetic crude produced from tar sands and oil shale, synthetic biofuels, extra heavy oil, vegetable and plant inputs to biofuels, deep water oil. It has also expanded to encompass, as barrels of oil equivalents (BOE), substances like natural gas, methane, and coal used as raw material for producing liquid fuels through processes like GTL (Gas to Liquid) and CTL (Coal to Liquid). Essentially anything that can be converted into liquid fuels, such as recycled motor oils and used cooking oil, either is or eventually will be included in the definition of oil. Whether or not this is an intentional misdirection to disguise the rapid decline in oil reserves, the effect on public awareness is the same.
However, even incorporating deepwater crude and extra heavy oil (which the majority of the world's refineries are not designed to process), global oil discoveries peaked way back in the 1960s and have been declining ever since. We are now producing or extracting every year over four barrels of oil for every new barrel of oil discovered, and have been consuming more oil per year than that discovered for nearly three decades. Taken on a field by field basis, peak generally follows discovery by about thirty years, but this can vary significantly from one field to another. Some will peak and go into decline in as short a time as ten years. Some large fields like Gawhar, Cantarell and Burgan may not reach peak production for forty or fifty years.
There is an ever-accelerating effort to find or identify alternatives from which liquid fuels can be produced. For a variety of reasons that effort is meeting ever-growing opposition. The push for bio-fuels resulting in rapidly rising food grain prices is largely seen as a major contributor to increasing world hunger. There is rapidly accelerated destruction of old growth rainforests to bring more land into bio-fuel production. Financing has been diverted into bio-fuel subsidies from research and development funding for other viable energy alternatives like solar and wind. There has been increased land consolidation for efficient fuel crop production pushing more indigenous, self-sufficient farmers off their land in poor third world countries.
Massive investments continue in tar-sands and oil-shale operations, possibly the most environmentally destructive energy projects on the planet. Coal production (coal is the dirtiest, least energy-dense of the fossil fuels) is again on the rise, using ever-poorer grades of coal for the production of liquid fuels. Massive volumes of natural gas are being diverted to liquid fuels or used as the energy source for tar-sands and oil-shale processing. And all of these efforts are running into increased public opposition as the damage they do becomes clearer.
So how will all of this play out in 2009? In 2008 oil prices rocketed up to over $147.00 per barrel only to collapse, right along with the stock markets and the global economy, to under $40.00 per barrel by year end. There was a serious amount of demand destruction, in rich and poor nations alike, in the second half of the year. Repeated production cuts by OPEC have not succeeded in halting the plummeting price of oil. Where oil, according to the experts, was way above what the fundamentals would support at $147.00, it is now as far below the fundamentals at $40.00 and lower.
No one seems to be quite sure what the fundamentally supportable price of oil should be anymore. It is likely that this confusion and uncertainty of oil prices will continue through 2009. Prices may, if there are signs of some measurable economic recovery, be driven by speculators back above the $100.00 per barrel mark, perhaps even surpassing the $147.00 level of mid 2008. If there are no signs of economic recovery, however, the downward momentum will likely see the global economy contract even further. Moving from recession to depression is clearly a possibility. The fundamentals will not again form the basis of oil prices until the economic turmoil settles. Just as there was a fear (of war) premium built into the price on the way up, there is a fear (of recession/depression) penalty built into it on the way down.
There is one unavoidable truth underlying all of this, however. Whatever the price of oil, somewhere around 30-billion barrels of it will be consumed globally in 2009. When we are talking about total, remaining, recoverable oil of less than a trillion barrels that is still a lot of drawdown. It appears that we are on a global production plateau with minor new discoveries and alternatives thus far effectively offsetting (hiding?) the production decline in existing fields. This will likely delay the recognition and admission of peak oil in official circles until we fall off the plateau and have clearly and unarguably begun our slide down the depletion slope. The demand destruction during the current global economic uncertainty will lengthen the plateau slightly and delay a little longer that recognition and admission. On the other hand, major developed nations may decide to take advantage of the temporarilly low oil prices to top up their Strategic Petroleum Reserves, which China has already begun to do.
The other reality is, however, that more and more effective voices are beginning to talk about peak oil in government, in the mainstream media and in books. A momentum is beginning to build, a momentum that has been a long time coming. The Exxons and CERAs and EIAs can no longer cavalierly dismiss peak oil and sweep it under their tired old threadbare carpet. The experts are beginning to have to justify the credibility they have been granted and increasingly it is clear the emperor has no clothes. Their reassurances and promises are increasingly being recognized for what they are: sleights of hand, parlour tricks, smoke and mirrors. The house of cards is built on shifting sand.
Increasingly the deniers and naysayers are now resorting to claiming that peak oil is a manufactured hoax meant to drive up the price of oil. Up until now they had comfortably clung to the accusation that peak oilers are a wacko fringe using fudged statistics. As more and more of those peak oilers are previous respected members of their own profession and industry (people like Fatih Birol, Matt Simmons, Ali Samsan Baktiari and Colin Campbell) armed with the same statistics as the so-called experts, that old accusation has finally lost the credibility it should never have had. Once those brave people leave the oil industry they no longer have a professional obligation to push the industry or corporate agenda. They are free to tell the truth and deal with the harsh reality of peak oil.
I believe that in 2009, partly because of the global financial crisis and partly in spite of it, peak oil will move its way toward the top of the agenda for the governments of developed and developing nations throughout the world. With the tremendous amount of debt incurred with the global financial crisis, the large amount of wealth lost, the major devaluation and revaluation of currencies through the printing of trillions of dollars of new money to bail out the economy, the on-going captivity of the world's governments by the perpetual growth economic paradigm, those governments will try to direct a great deal of energy into the recovery of their national economies. As they do so the reality of declining global energy reserves is going to smack them in the face. The hole we have dug with this collapse of the virtual economy is deep enough that there are not enough of those reserves left to push energy production to the levels that such a major recovery can be achieved.
By the end of 2009, I believe, we will either invent and implement a new economic paradigm that is not based on perpetual growth, or we will, in trying to recover, turn the current global recession into a global depression, not the second Great Depression but the Last Great Depression. We may finally come to the full realization that it is not money that makes the world go round. It is energy. You can always print more money but it has no value, like the Emperor's new clothes, if there is no energy. Money has no value unless it is working and it can't work without energy.
Oh, and one last truth or reality for 2009...... These are certainly interesting times in which to live. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.
The big question is how far is this unravelling going to go? And what will happen when Wiley Coyote finally succumbs to gravity and hits bottom, wherever bottom is? The other important thing, for me, controversial as it may be, is to put 2008 in a peak oil perspective. I tend to do that. Based on the statistics, it appears that we hit peak oil in the spring of 2005. That, of course, is hotly debated. Those in power and those honest and unbiased mouthpieces for the energy industry and oil companies still claim that peak oil is decades away. And proponents of the abiotic oil theory claim that oil is self-regenerating and infinite (queue Bobby McFarren singing Don't worry, be happy!).
I don't like to engage in the statistical debate. There is a general lack of reliability in all of those statistics. There is always a major political component behind what gets reported. OPEC nations, for example, who doubled their reported reserves when they formed OPEC and established reserve-dependent production quotas, have never changed the numbers they report despite decades of drawdown on those reserves. Oil statistics, as with most statistics, are as meaningless as a sumo wrestlers new year's resolution to lose weight and can be interpreted many ways to support a variety of agenda.
There is little question that energy costs (the cost of all forms of energy rose in tandem with the price of oil) were a significant contributor to the economic collapse that began in 2008. Whether they were a cause or a coincidence is unclear. One of the debates that will probably persist through 2009 is whether peak oil or commodity speculators drove the price of oil up to $147.67. The statistics suggesting that we hit peak in the spring of 2005 do exist. But it is a question of interpretation.
From the time that M. King Hubbert first correctly forecast, in the early 1950s, that the U. S. lower-48 oil production would peak in 1970 (he further forecast that global production would peak in or about 2000, a date that was delayed by the oil crises of the 1970s and '80s) the basis of the peak oil argument has been a simple one. It was and still is based on production of conventional crude. The reason is simple. When global conventional crude passes the peak and goes into decline the combination of other sources will not be able to offset the declines in conventional crude. What has changed over the years, rather, in an attempt to disguise that inevitability, is the official definition of oil that is included in government and industry statistics.
Oil reserve reporting, for example, has been loosened from its original proven to provable. Those within the oil industry would like it loosened further still, perhaps all the way to ultimately recoverable. Such distinctions may be lost on all but industry insiders but it makes a tremendous difference in defining something like peak oil.
More importantly, the industrial and political definition of oil itself has changed significantly over the past few decades, as well as the definition of the liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and marine fuel normally derived from oil. The definition of oil has expanded far beyond conventional crude as well. It now encompasses synthetic crude produced from tar sands and oil shale, synthetic biofuels, extra heavy oil, vegetable and plant inputs to biofuels, deep water oil. It has also expanded to encompass, as barrels of oil equivalents (BOE), substances like natural gas, methane, and coal used as raw material for producing liquid fuels through processes like GTL (Gas to Liquid) and CTL (Coal to Liquid). Essentially anything that can be converted into liquid fuels, such as recycled motor oils and used cooking oil, either is or eventually will be included in the definition of oil. Whether or not this is an intentional misdirection to disguise the rapid decline in oil reserves, the effect on public awareness is the same.
However, even incorporating deepwater crude and extra heavy oil (which the majority of the world's refineries are not designed to process), global oil discoveries peaked way back in the 1960s and have been declining ever since. We are now producing or extracting every year over four barrels of oil for every new barrel of oil discovered, and have been consuming more oil per year than that discovered for nearly three decades. Taken on a field by field basis, peak generally follows discovery by about thirty years, but this can vary significantly from one field to another. Some will peak and go into decline in as short a time as ten years. Some large fields like Gawhar, Cantarell and Burgan may not reach peak production for forty or fifty years.
There is an ever-accelerating effort to find or identify alternatives from which liquid fuels can be produced. For a variety of reasons that effort is meeting ever-growing opposition. The push for bio-fuels resulting in rapidly rising food grain prices is largely seen as a major contributor to increasing world hunger. There is rapidly accelerated destruction of old growth rainforests to bring more land into bio-fuel production. Financing has been diverted into bio-fuel subsidies from research and development funding for other viable energy alternatives like solar and wind. There has been increased land consolidation for efficient fuel crop production pushing more indigenous, self-sufficient farmers off their land in poor third world countries.
Massive investments continue in tar-sands and oil-shale operations, possibly the most environmentally destructive energy projects on the planet. Coal production (coal is the dirtiest, least energy-dense of the fossil fuels) is again on the rise, using ever-poorer grades of coal for the production of liquid fuels. Massive volumes of natural gas are being diverted to liquid fuels or used as the energy source for tar-sands and oil-shale processing. And all of these efforts are running into increased public opposition as the damage they do becomes clearer.
So how will all of this play out in 2009? In 2008 oil prices rocketed up to over $147.00 per barrel only to collapse, right along with the stock markets and the global economy, to under $40.00 per barrel by year end. There was a serious amount of demand destruction, in rich and poor nations alike, in the second half of the year. Repeated production cuts by OPEC have not succeeded in halting the plummeting price of oil. Where oil, according to the experts, was way above what the fundamentals would support at $147.00, it is now as far below the fundamentals at $40.00 and lower.
No one seems to be quite sure what the fundamentally supportable price of oil should be anymore. It is likely that this confusion and uncertainty of oil prices will continue through 2009. Prices may, if there are signs of some measurable economic recovery, be driven by speculators back above the $100.00 per barrel mark, perhaps even surpassing the $147.00 level of mid 2008. If there are no signs of economic recovery, however, the downward momentum will likely see the global economy contract even further. Moving from recession to depression is clearly a possibility. The fundamentals will not again form the basis of oil prices until the economic turmoil settles. Just as there was a fear (of war) premium built into the price on the way up, there is a fear (of recession/depression) penalty built into it on the way down.
There is one unavoidable truth underlying all of this, however. Whatever the price of oil, somewhere around 30-billion barrels of it will be consumed globally in 2009. When we are talking about total, remaining, recoverable oil of less than a trillion barrels that is still a lot of drawdown. It appears that we are on a global production plateau with minor new discoveries and alternatives thus far effectively offsetting (hiding?) the production decline in existing fields. This will likely delay the recognition and admission of peak oil in official circles until we fall off the plateau and have clearly and unarguably begun our slide down the depletion slope. The demand destruction during the current global economic uncertainty will lengthen the plateau slightly and delay a little longer that recognition and admission. On the other hand, major developed nations may decide to take advantage of the temporarilly low oil prices to top up their Strategic Petroleum Reserves, which China has already begun to do.
The other reality is, however, that more and more effective voices are beginning to talk about peak oil in government, in the mainstream media and in books. A momentum is beginning to build, a momentum that has been a long time coming. The Exxons and CERAs and EIAs can no longer cavalierly dismiss peak oil and sweep it under their tired old threadbare carpet. The experts are beginning to have to justify the credibility they have been granted and increasingly it is clear the emperor has no clothes. Their reassurances and promises are increasingly being recognized for what they are: sleights of hand, parlour tricks, smoke and mirrors. The house of cards is built on shifting sand.
Increasingly the deniers and naysayers are now resorting to claiming that peak oil is a manufactured hoax meant to drive up the price of oil. Up until now they had comfortably clung to the accusation that peak oilers are a wacko fringe using fudged statistics. As more and more of those peak oilers are previous respected members of their own profession and industry (people like Fatih Birol, Matt Simmons, Ali Samsan Baktiari and Colin Campbell) armed with the same statistics as the so-called experts, that old accusation has finally lost the credibility it should never have had. Once those brave people leave the oil industry they no longer have a professional obligation to push the industry or corporate agenda. They are free to tell the truth and deal with the harsh reality of peak oil.
I believe that in 2009, partly because of the global financial crisis and partly in spite of it, peak oil will move its way toward the top of the agenda for the governments of developed and developing nations throughout the world. With the tremendous amount of debt incurred with the global financial crisis, the large amount of wealth lost, the major devaluation and revaluation of currencies through the printing of trillions of dollars of new money to bail out the economy, the on-going captivity of the world's governments by the perpetual growth economic paradigm, those governments will try to direct a great deal of energy into the recovery of their national economies. As they do so the reality of declining global energy reserves is going to smack them in the face. The hole we have dug with this collapse of the virtual economy is deep enough that there are not enough of those reserves left to push energy production to the levels that such a major recovery can be achieved.
By the end of 2009, I believe, we will either invent and implement a new economic paradigm that is not based on perpetual growth, or we will, in trying to recover, turn the current global recession into a global depression, not the second Great Depression but the Last Great Depression. We may finally come to the full realization that it is not money that makes the world go round. It is energy. You can always print more money but it has no value, like the Emperor's new clothes, if there is no energy. Money has no value unless it is working and it can't work without energy.
Oh, and one last truth or reality for 2009...... These are certainly interesting times in which to live. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The real problem with Methane Hydrates is Sliding under the Radar
There has certainly been a lot of discussion lately about methane hydrates. You may have missed it unless you, like most concerned about global peak oil and peak energy, specifically search and listen for it. Most of that discussion, quite understandably in our energy-addicted world, has centered on the potential of using these vast reserves of methane as a fuel source. Methane hydrates, after all, contain more carbon energy than all of the world's oil, natural gas and coal combined.
Those estimates, like hot air, are, in fact, expanding all the time. Some estimates suggest methane hydrates may contain 3-4 times the carbon energy of all global fossil fuels combined.
For those not familiar, methane hydrates are molecules of methane gas (the basic constituent of natural gas) locked in a cage of water ice.
They exist in two places throughout the world. Marine methane hydrates exist on most of the world's continental margins, particularly along the subduction zone of tectonic plates such as along the west coast of North America. Methane hydrates also occur in land-based and sub-sea frozen permafrost in Alaska, Northern Canada, Russian Siberia, far northern Europe, and in small deposits in Antarctica.
The sheer volume of methane hydrates and their occurrence on shore in permafrost and near offshore on continental margins do make them an attractive prospect as a future, accessible, post-oil energy source. There has been far more research into the potential exploitation of methane hydrates than was ever the case for oil, natural gas or coal. The requisite geology and, now, the location of these deposits are well known. All that stands in the way of exploiting this vast energy resource - from the point of view of energy executives, economists and politicians - is the extraction technology, the global distribution technology and network, the economic evaluation and the financing to build the massive infrastructure that would be needed to effectively and efficiently exploit it fully. No problem! It may, in fact, still be several decades - in a business as usual climate - before all of these factors can be dealt with and methane from hydrates can be exploited commercially.
There are, of course, other points of view. Paleoclimatologists are increasingly convinced that massive and surprisingly sudden releases of submarine methane hydrates have been responsible for periodic and disastrous rapid rises of global temperature, largely resulting in the quick - in geologic terms - end of past ice ages. The study of deep ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, the study of areas of ocean floor zones of extensive pock marks and growing evidence of current increasing methane releases from melting permafrost and the Arctic Ocean floor all strongly lend credence to this hypothesis.
All of that, of course, makes methane hydrates and their possible release as a gas into the atmosphere a serious concern, in this period of increasing concern about global warming, from an environmental point of view. Methane in the short term, you see, is 62 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Over ten to twenty years time as it oxidizes in the atmosphere it weakens to just 20 times the potency as a GHG compared to carbon dioxide. After about ten years atmospheric methane completely oxidizes. But that isn't the end. It oxidizes into carbon dioxide and remains a greenhouse for another century.
Another, and perhaps the least understood and certainly the least discussed, point of view about methane hydrates involves physics. The physical nature of methane hydrates and the quite distinct physical properties of water - specifically H2O - and of methane (CH4) independently function both as a barrier to exploitation and as a serious environmental risk in conjunction with global warming.
Submarine methane hydrates primarily occur in what has been called the Hydrate Stability Zone. This is a relatively narrow zone where the combination of water temperature and water pressure are suitable for the formation and, more important, the stability of methane hydrates. In general, at present, this is 300 to 500 meters below the ocean surface but varies and is very specific in different locations depending on water temperature. The geology of the area is also a very important factor; whether the bottom is sandstone, other stone, coarse silt or fine silt. All of these variables affect the ability to form methane hydrates and the way those hydrates will be distributed in that medium.
All methane hydrates, you may have guessed from the above, are not created equal. The water ice that forms the hydrate cage and the methane gas in that cage are both essentially consistent but the manner in which they combine to form the hydrate varies considerably. And so does the volatility and stability of those deposits.
I will not go into a great detailed discussion of those differences. I will limit it to a couple of key factors.
Water - more specifically H2O which is only water above 0C and becomes vapour at higher temperatures - reaches its maximum density of 999.9720 kilograms per cubic meter at a temperature of 3.98C. At the freezing temperature of 0C its density has reduced to 998.8395 kilograms per cubic meter, 988.1170 at -10C. The critical part of that range, with regard to methane hydrates, is that from 0C to 3.98C. That is where we will focus.
The lower density of H2O as ice (998.8395) at 0C (even lower if the ice is super cooled) is what allows ice to float on the surface of water. Average global ocean temperatures today (this has varied over geological time, especially during different eras of ice age and global warming) is 2C. At 2C H2O has a density 999.9400 between that of ice at 0C of 998.8395 and the maximum density at 3.98C of 999.9720. It still supports, therefore, the lighter ice even in the Arctic.
Anyone in a northern climate is familiar with spring thaw. As the water below ice warms in the spring it first expands, pushing up and cracking the ice, until it reaches its maximum density at 3.98C of 999.9720. Above that temperature the water begins to shrink (will reach a density of 999.7026 at 10C) as the temperature rises, leaving a gap of air between the ice and the water below. The ice can, as most young boys in northern rural areas can attest, be left high and dry and collapse under the weight of a person walking on it.
Because of the lower density (greater buoyancy) of ice relative to sea water, submarine methane hydrates are always under pressure, physically wanting to rise to the surface. The deposits only become "relatively" stable when anchored by sufficient sediment on the ocean bottom. When and if that "anchorage" breaks down or is swept away, for example, by a sub-surface landslide, the hydrates can suddenly be released into the water and rise toward the surface.
Now the other side of the problem. At 1 atmosphere, methane is a liquid below a temperature of -182.5C. There is no known naturally occurring liquid methane on earth. Above that temperature methane is a gas. Its density constantly diminishes as the temperature/pressure gradient rises. To my knowledge, which is incomplete, scientists have not really answered the question of why the methane trapped in hydrates is stable in that form. The density of the gaseous methane in hydrates is 162 times greater than methane gas in the atmosphere. At the temperature and pressure of the sea water around and above the hydrate deposits, the methane gas contained in the hydrates should have much lower density (occupy much more space) than it does. This physical anomaly means that the pressure on the methane gas to expand is constantly at odds with and pushing against the ice cage enclosing it. This is a key component of the essential instability of methane hydrates.
Gas density generally decreases far more rapidly for gases than liquids or solids as temperature rises or pressure decreases. That means two factors can affect the stability of methane hydrates currently in the hydrate stability zone. Changes in sea level can affect the water pressure in the zone: a drop in sea level can decrease the pressure. Changes in temperature of the water can have the same effect. Increase of the temperature above the current average 2C can also dramatically affect that stability.
Global warming, ironically, fortunately means we are in an era of rising sea levels, not lowering sea levels. The pressure that pushes down on and stabilizes methane hydrate deposits in the oceans is, therefore, increasing, not decreasing. Global warming, however, also means that water temperatures, as well as atmosphere temperatures, are on the rise.
Much of the debate around global warming centers on whether we are heading for a global temperature increase of 2C, 4C or higher. On the surface these seem like such small numbers to be the center of such passionate debate. But the critical temperature spread we are dealing with is between 2C (the current average global ocean temperature) and 3.98C (the temperature at which H2O reaches its maximum density (it will shrink, lowering sea level and decreasing oceanic water pressure between those two temperatures) and begins to decrease in density: begins to expand again). That is a temperature differential of just 1.98C.
As the ocean temperature rises it doesn't matter what the specific temperature in the local hydrate stability zone currently is because that zone is a product of both temperature and pressure. In the Barkley Canyon off the coast of Vancouver Island, for example, the hydrate stability zone is at a depth of 850 meters, much deeper than the normal hydrate stability zone of 300m to 500m depth in other locations. As the temperature in the hydrate stability zone rises at whatever depth it occurs, however, the stability of the hydrates will diminish.
The individual physical characters of the water ice that makes up the hydrate cage and the methane gas trapped inside accelerate this instability. As the temperature rises (generally from 2C to 3.98C) the ice forming the hydrate cage shrinks as it is influence by the temperature of the surrounding water and begins to soften as the physical bonds holding the ice in a stable structure weaken. This shrinking puts further pressure on the methane gas inside, increasing its density. But the methane gas inside that cage is already 162 times the density it is at 1 atmosphere and is under considerable pressure to expand. As the temperature rises in the hydrate stability zone and the ice cage weakens and the methane gas's pressure to expand increases, the stability of the hydrate diminishes rapidly. The upward pressure on the hydrate ice, which wants to float up to the surface (the methane gas trapped inside is also more buoyant than the ice or the surrounding water), also increases as the temperature rises.
To my knowledge no scientific studies have yet been conducted that pinpoint exactly where on the temperature/pressure gradient the water ice cage of the hydrate ruptures and releases the methane gas into the surrounding environment. There is mounting evidence that the number of subsea methane vents in the Arctic, which is generally warming faster than other oceans, is increasing, as is the volume of methane gas issuing from those vents. This suggests that, in the Arctic at least (which holds the highest concentrations of methane hydrates of all the oceans), the temperature rise is already compromising methane hydrate stability.
In areas of fine sea bottom sediment, which is the case in the majority of methane hydrate deposits, the methane hydrates form stratified seams. Proceeding downward, each seam acts as a "cementing" cap, holding hydrate seams and free methane below in place. The disassociation or breakdown of hydrates as the ocean temperature increases will proceed from the top of the hydrate deposit downward. In these seamed, soft-sediment deposits that means that the top seam, which functions as a cap on all the methane and hydrates below, will break down first. It's ability to function as a cap disappears and the risk of a rapid, potentially massive release of methane increases dramatically.
The same sort of results that can occur naturally through warming of the waters around the methane hydrate deposit can also occur if the submarine methane hydrate deposits are destabilized by human activity. Any attempts to drill into methane hydrate deposits, whether exploratory or commercially for energy production, can break down the stability of the hydrates, particularly in association with rising temperatures, either in the surrounding sea water or from the drilling itself (the favourite intended method of extraction is to inject hot water into the hydrate deposits).
The current discussion and debate surrounding the intended exploitation of methane hydrate deposits involves energy experts, various types of scientific experts, and anxious, eager governments. If that is where it stays I am not very confident that scientific reason and caution will win out. The general public, including you, must put methane hydrates on their radar and be prepared to hold accountable those pushing for methane hydrate exploitation. Public pressure must become a key element of making sure that we do not rush into over-exuberant and overly-optimistic exploitation of this resource, to the detriment of mankind, other living species and the planet itself.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Hundreds of articles, papers and web sites were researched as part of writing this article. I have not listed them here as the list would be far too long. If anyone is interested in those references and links, however, they can contact me by e-mail and I will gladly supply them. My e-mail address is; richard.embleton@sympatico.ca
Hundreds of articles, papers and web sites were researched as part of writing this article. I have not listed them here as the list would be far too long. If anyone is interested in those references and links, however, they can contact me by e-mail and I will gladly supply them. My e-mail address is; richard.embleton@sympatico.ca
Also see my other Methane Hydrate articles in this blog;
Methane Hydrates: What are they thinking?
http://oilbeseeingyou.blogspot.com/2008/12/methane-hydrates-what-are-they-thinking.html
Methane hydrates: the next great energy source?
http://oilbeseeingyou.blogspot.com/2006/12/methane-hydrates-next-great-energy.html
http://oilbeseeingyou.blogspot.com/2006/12/methane-hydrates-next-great-energy.html
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Invest, invest, invest! Consume, consume, consume! No! No! No!
The first time it got really blatant for me was in September, 2001. That was when George Bush stood atop a demolished fire truck at ground zero and implored New Yorkers to go shopping and spend their money to restart the New York economy.
In our world maniacally driven by economics and money, the generally perceived solution to any problem has become spend, spend, spend. You can solve any problem by throwing money at it. The necessary assumption that is always demanded is that the future for which we are investing is limitless. Limitless growth. Limitless population. Limitless resources. Limitless oil.
If the economy softens it's because people aren't going to the mall and wasting their money on plastic trinkets from Shanghai. When they go to the supermarket they aren't picking up that cut of spring lamb flown in from New Zealand or those oranges flown in from South Africa. They aren't buying a new car every model year, for heaven's sake.
And when it comes to tightening in the oil market, we don't have a supply problem. We have an investment problem. The oil companies - especially those dastardly national oil companies that now control the bulk of the world's oil resources like Saudi Aramco, Pemex, Petrolios di Venezuela and Petrobras - are not investing enough in bringing new oil to market. The oil exploration companies are not invest enough in new exploration for increasingly illusive deposits of oil. Oil companies are not investing enough in new refineries. Not enough is being invested in new bulk oil carriers to move that oil from increasingly remote sources to increasingly thirsty markets.
Politicians dream of - and expect oil company execs to do the same - vast resources of untapped oil out there someplace if only the oil companies and exploration companies and shipping lines and pipeline builders would all get off their wallets and invest, invest, invest.
But those to whom those governments and politicians turn for the fuzzy statistics that support their limitless belief in limitless growth and limitless resources are increasingly injecting sanity, not money, into their efforts. Fatih Birol, chief economist to the International Energy Agency (IEA), is the latest to opt for rational sanity rather than unquestioning faith. Perhaps he is tiring of being mistakenly identified as Faith Birol.
In a stunning departure from the IEA norm he has conceded, in an interview with George Monbiot of the Guardian, that we are headed for global peak oil by 2020, just eleven years away. Personally, I believe that is still a little far out. But that happens to most people as they come to grips with peak oil. They cling to the most optimistic estimates, the ones furthest out in the future. Over time, as they re-examine the foundations of the limitless faith without the benefit of their rose-coloured glasses, they gradually accept that the peak will be - for geologic, geopolitical and economic reasons - much sooner rather than later. I have become comfortable with the appearance that we passed peak in the spring of 2005 and have been bumping along on the gradual down-trend of the peak oil plateau.
Geology is the ultimate constraint that defines peak oil. Eventually it becomes abundantly clear that we simply cannot find enough new oil to offset the escalating declines in existing oil fields. But peak availability will, and even now is, ultimately negatively impacted by other above ground factors.
Back to where we began, investment. As an industry matures the stewards of that industry increasingly and more obsessively look ahead. They are trying to determine at what point it is unwise to continue investing because the life expectancy of their enterprise has shortened to the point that further investment cannot be recouped. Quite simply, you get no return from your investment when growth stops. That is what the stewards are trying to identify as they look ahead, the point at which growth will stop and their enterprise will go into decline.
Banks are no longer willing to invest in sub-prime mortgages because they can no longer see increasing real estate prices in the future. They see a future in which housing prices - read equity - will decline faster than the "homeowner" can pay down their mortgage. No growth, no equity. Real estate ceases being an asset and becomes a liability.
Oil companies and exploration companies have for years been experiencing lower and lower returns on their investment. Exploration investment continued to increase for years while the discoveries of new oil deposits - the return on their investment - continued to decline. In fact global oil discoveries actually peaked in the sixties, over four decades ago.
That was acceptable for a long time, if you continued to have faith that the big discoveries were still out there and all you had to do was find them. But what happens when reality bites? When you lose the faith? When you realize that the big discoveries you keep throwing money into finding simply are not there to be found?
Oil companies, whether independent or nationalized, seem to have come to that point. Unused oil rigs are rusting in junk yards. Exploration rigs are abandoned if they are not being taken up for exploration for those middle east nations still willing to pour money into looking for new oil deposits. Reluctance grows to invest in pipelines to bring oil from increasingly remote and smaller fields to ocean oil terminals.
As long as credit is available people as individuals seem to be willing to spend money they do not have and may not have in the future. That willingness has built America as the world's greatest consumer nation. It has also made America the world's most indebted nation, and a nation increasingly unlikely to ever be able to discharge its massive global debt. Only now that credit is no longer available are they beginning to trim back. They are suddenly, one at a time, sitting at kitchen table looking at the pile of bills and asking themselves, "How the hell am I ever going to pay all of this?"
Corporations cannot afford themselves the freedom to wantonly spend themselves into unmanageable debt. That does not mean that their debt cannot become unmanageable. It can and definitely does as the economic environment in which they operate changes abruptly, outside of their control. That is the point at which corporations hail a cab, trundle on over to Pennsylvania Avenue and hang about on the steps of congress, cap in hand.
But the money that is magnanimously place in their proffered cap by congress is not going into new business development, not going to discharge debt. It is going into the coffers in a vain attempt to stay afloat, to survive. It is a lifeline.
As oil company executives pour over their charts and graphs detailing the company's projected future, they are increasingly willing to see the truth in those charts. The days of growth in oil deposits, in development, in profits, is rapidly coming to an end. The reality is that most of their growth in recent decades has been a result of merger and acquisition, in purchased reserves, not in newly discovered fields. It is the illusion of growth in a reality of decline.
Governments continue to chant: "Invest! Invest! Invest!" So far they have not heard, or have chosen to ignore the response: "No! No! No! There is nothing to invest in!" The oil companies are increasingly investing in buying back shares, artificially inflating dividends, as they prepare for their foreseeable demise. They are increasingly investing their money in wind, solar, geothermal and other alternatives as they prepare for the end of economically recoverable oil. They have been sucked into heavily investing in new exploration before, in the seventies and eighties after the peak in global discovery, only to see the price of crude fall through the floor.
Oil companies have access to far better data than we in the peak oil community have. We can see what is coming, and how quickly. That fuzzy view that we have is crystal clear to them. We can see the cloud of dust coming down the road. With their magnified clarity of vision they can see, in the midst of the dust, the four horsemen of the apocalypse confidently and arrogantly galloping toward them.
In our world maniacally driven by economics and money, the generally perceived solution to any problem has become spend, spend, spend. You can solve any problem by throwing money at it. The necessary assumption that is always demanded is that the future for which we are investing is limitless. Limitless growth. Limitless population. Limitless resources. Limitless oil.
If the economy softens it's because people aren't going to the mall and wasting their money on plastic trinkets from Shanghai. When they go to the supermarket they aren't picking up that cut of spring lamb flown in from New Zealand or those oranges flown in from South Africa. They aren't buying a new car every model year, for heaven's sake.
And when it comes to tightening in the oil market, we don't have a supply problem. We have an investment problem. The oil companies - especially those dastardly national oil companies that now control the bulk of the world's oil resources like Saudi Aramco, Pemex, Petrolios di Venezuela and Petrobras - are not investing enough in bringing new oil to market. The oil exploration companies are not invest enough in new exploration for increasingly illusive deposits of oil. Oil companies are not investing enough in new refineries. Not enough is being invested in new bulk oil carriers to move that oil from increasingly remote sources to increasingly thirsty markets.
Politicians dream of - and expect oil company execs to do the same - vast resources of untapped oil out there someplace if only the oil companies and exploration companies and shipping lines and pipeline builders would all get off their wallets and invest, invest, invest.
But those to whom those governments and politicians turn for the fuzzy statistics that support their limitless belief in limitless growth and limitless resources are increasingly injecting sanity, not money, into their efforts. Fatih Birol, chief economist to the International Energy Agency (IEA), is the latest to opt for rational sanity rather than unquestioning faith. Perhaps he is tiring of being mistakenly identified as Faith Birol.
In a stunning departure from the IEA norm he has conceded, in an interview with George Monbiot of the Guardian, that we are headed for global peak oil by 2020, just eleven years away. Personally, I believe that is still a little far out. But that happens to most people as they come to grips with peak oil. They cling to the most optimistic estimates, the ones furthest out in the future. Over time, as they re-examine the foundations of the limitless faith without the benefit of their rose-coloured glasses, they gradually accept that the peak will be - for geologic, geopolitical and economic reasons - much sooner rather than later. I have become comfortable with the appearance that we passed peak in the spring of 2005 and have been bumping along on the gradual down-trend of the peak oil plateau.
Geology is the ultimate constraint that defines peak oil. Eventually it becomes abundantly clear that we simply cannot find enough new oil to offset the escalating declines in existing oil fields. But peak availability will, and even now is, ultimately negatively impacted by other above ground factors.
Back to where we began, investment. As an industry matures the stewards of that industry increasingly and more obsessively look ahead. They are trying to determine at what point it is unwise to continue investing because the life expectancy of their enterprise has shortened to the point that further investment cannot be recouped. Quite simply, you get no return from your investment when growth stops. That is what the stewards are trying to identify as they look ahead, the point at which growth will stop and their enterprise will go into decline.
Banks are no longer willing to invest in sub-prime mortgages because they can no longer see increasing real estate prices in the future. They see a future in which housing prices - read equity - will decline faster than the "homeowner" can pay down their mortgage. No growth, no equity. Real estate ceases being an asset and becomes a liability.
Oil companies and exploration companies have for years been experiencing lower and lower returns on their investment. Exploration investment continued to increase for years while the discoveries of new oil deposits - the return on their investment - continued to decline. In fact global oil discoveries actually peaked in the sixties, over four decades ago.
That was acceptable for a long time, if you continued to have faith that the big discoveries were still out there and all you had to do was find them. But what happens when reality bites? When you lose the faith? When you realize that the big discoveries you keep throwing money into finding simply are not there to be found?
Oil companies, whether independent or nationalized, seem to have come to that point. Unused oil rigs are rusting in junk yards. Exploration rigs are abandoned if they are not being taken up for exploration for those middle east nations still willing to pour money into looking for new oil deposits. Reluctance grows to invest in pipelines to bring oil from increasingly remote and smaller fields to ocean oil terminals.
As long as credit is available people as individuals seem to be willing to spend money they do not have and may not have in the future. That willingness has built America as the world's greatest consumer nation. It has also made America the world's most indebted nation, and a nation increasingly unlikely to ever be able to discharge its massive global debt. Only now that credit is no longer available are they beginning to trim back. They are suddenly, one at a time, sitting at kitchen table looking at the pile of bills and asking themselves, "How the hell am I ever going to pay all of this?"
Corporations cannot afford themselves the freedom to wantonly spend themselves into unmanageable debt. That does not mean that their debt cannot become unmanageable. It can and definitely does as the economic environment in which they operate changes abruptly, outside of their control. That is the point at which corporations hail a cab, trundle on over to Pennsylvania Avenue and hang about on the steps of congress, cap in hand.
But the money that is magnanimously place in their proffered cap by congress is not going into new business development, not going to discharge debt. It is going into the coffers in a vain attempt to stay afloat, to survive. It is a lifeline.
As oil company executives pour over their charts and graphs detailing the company's projected future, they are increasingly willing to see the truth in those charts. The days of growth in oil deposits, in development, in profits, is rapidly coming to an end. The reality is that most of their growth in recent decades has been a result of merger and acquisition, in purchased reserves, not in newly discovered fields. It is the illusion of growth in a reality of decline.
Governments continue to chant: "Invest! Invest! Invest!" So far they have not heard, or have chosen to ignore the response: "No! No! No! There is nothing to invest in!" The oil companies are increasingly investing in buying back shares, artificially inflating dividends, as they prepare for their foreseeable demise. They are increasingly investing their money in wind, solar, geothermal and other alternatives as they prepare for the end of economically recoverable oil. They have been sucked into heavily investing in new exploration before, in the seventies and eighties after the peak in global discovery, only to see the price of crude fall through the floor.
Oil companies have access to far better data than we in the peak oil community have. We can see what is coming, and how quickly. That fuzzy view that we have is crystal clear to them. We can see the cloud of dust coming down the road. With their magnified clarity of vision they can see, in the midst of the dust, the four horsemen of the apocalypse confidently and arrogantly galloping toward them.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Methane Hydrates: What are they thinking?
The world's governments are beginning to come to grips with the reality that crude oil is a finite resource. That forces them to face another reality. The amount of that resource available for running global human society is about to go into terminal decline. We are at or soon to arrive at peak oil. Many analysts believe, based on the data, that we hit that peak in the spring of 2005. Other more optimistic analysts believe that peak may still be as much as thirty years in the future. Even that (I am not conceding that projection. I am in the spring 2005 camp.) is close enough that the majority of people alive today will have to begin to adjust to declining global oil production in their lifetime.
Optimists point to the fact that we have moved beyond various energy sources, on which the entire society depends, many times in the past. We have always found a new, better energy source to replace them. Even since the beginning of the industrial revolution we have moved through water power, steam power, coal, natural gas, electricity, oil and nuclear. Oil, however, has been the most important and workable energy source that we have ever discovered and exploited.
Where do we go from oil? What will be the next, better energy source that can power human society. There are many who see electricity playing an increasingly important role, including driving transportation. To many that electric future will be increasingly centered on a nuclear energy renaissance. On the fringes they see electricity generation from wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, hydro, wave and a variety of other options.
But oil is used for much more than powering the family car. I have trouble visualizing electric planes and electric ships. Hell, most electric cars have a battery range of under 100 kilometers. And I don't think you can make plastics from electricity. Last I noticed it required hydrocarbons.
In one form or another, in fact, hydrocarbons have been the world's primary energy source since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago. It answers one extremely important need; portability. Hydrocarbon fuels, especially oil and its derivatives, can be easily move from one place to another. They can also be used on board to generate the power used to move it.
What is the next energy source that will give us what oil, coal and natural gas give us today? You may be surprised to hear that it may be the other hydrocarbon fuel. A Great many scientists, industry leaders and governments throughout the developed world believe that will be methane. More specifically they believe it will be methane hydrates.
Methane hydrates (also called clathrates) are bubbles of methane gas trapped in a cage of ice crystals. Methane hydrate deposits occur in locations all over the world. The most concentrated deposits occur under the Arctic Ocean, under the ocean floor on most continental shelves, in locations like the Gulf of Mexico, the Bermuda Triangle, the Dragon's Triangle south of Japan, and in permafrost surrounding the Arctic ocean. It is reliably estimated that the amount of methane trapped as hydrates globally exceeds by many times the total combined oil, coal and natural gas reserves that have ever existed on earth.
A chunk of methane ice exposed to the air and ignited will burn until all of the methane in that ice has been consumed. Methane hydrates, however, require specific conditions of temperature and pressure to keep them contained within their ice cage. Reduce the pressure - for example, by reducing the sea level and the pressure of water above the deposit - or increased the temperature and the methane hydrate deposit becomes unstable and begins to release the trapped methane into the atmosphere.
That is a problem. Methane is a greenhouse gas. In fact, it is 21-23 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. When the methane trapped in the hydrate is released it expands by about 170 times.[1] Methane is lighter than CO2, lighter than air. As a result it rises rapidly through the atmosphere up to the lower-density stratosphere. On the positive side methane remains in the atmosphere for only about 10-20 years. CO2 remains in the atmosphere for over 100 years.
Scientists studying global warming have long been seriously concerned about the possibility of large scale methane hydrate destabilization and methane release into the atmosphere. The greatest concern is about the large volumes of methane hydrates under the Arctic sea floor and that trapped in the vast permafrost zone surrounding the Arctic Ocean. That concern has now been heightened by recent discoveries of hundreds of methane plumes on the floor of the Arctic Ocean north of Norway and Siberia. [2] There is also evidence in pock-marked sea floors of large releases of methane plumes in the geological past. [3]
Paleoclimatologists now believe that large scale, natural methane hydrate releases have been partly but significantly responsible for short-cycle global warming and global cooling cycles in the past. The recent discoveries in the Arctic, in fact, are thought to suggest that methane releases have contributed to the global warming that has occurred since the last ice age 15,000 years ago. [2]
The problem is that these methane releases have a strong positive feedback loop. As they increase the warming of the atmosphere that warming in turn increases methane release which in turn increases warming which in turn releases more...... You get the picture. Acceleration of global warming through this positive feedback loop, by increased methane concentration in the atmosphere, far more than CO2 concentrations, represents, to paleoclimatologists, a far greater risk of pushing us into the Venus effect, runaway global warming.
When it comes to satisfying the world's energy lust, however, caution may be thrown to the wind. Powering down human society is never an option put on the table when politicians and other leaders discuss energy policies and strategies. We have proven over and over again that business as usual is the only model that will be considered. How else can we explain the tar sands, oil shale development, deepwater oil extraction, coal mines extending out under the sea floor, and more?
There are various technologies under consideration for extracting methane from hydrate deposits. Most involve some form of heating the hydrate deposits - one, probably the dumbest and most dangerous, even goes so far as to suggest using nuclear explosions beneath the deposit to heat it, also suggested by some as a means of releasing oil from tar sands and oil shale - causing them to release the methane which is then collected and piped to a processing facility of holding tank. Proponents of methane hydrate exploitation, conscious of environmental concerns, are quick to offer reassurances like ".....tapping into the gas hydrates assessed in the study is not expected to affect global warming, said Brenda Pierce, coordinator for the USGS Energy Resources Program." [4] The louder and more frequent such reassurances are, of course, the more it suggests they are trying to cover up the probability that the result will be the opposite.
There are many projects underway, funded by governments throughout the world (Japan, India, China, South Korea, Russia, Norway, Canada, the U.S.), aimed at developing commercially viable technologies for exploiting the planet's vast methane hydrate deposits. The selection of sites for these projects are, themselves, a clear indication of one of the primary roadblocks to using methane hydrates as a societal-supporting energy source. They have sought out test sites with high methane hydrate concentrations.
Most hydrate deposits are too small or too dispersed to be commercially exploited. Also, unlike oil and natural gas, those deposits are generally not capped in such a way that the geology can be used to contain releases. Most of those deposits on the sea floor, in fact, exist in unconsolidated, sandy or silt sediment. The geology surrounding them is inherently unstable, difficult to contain. Once the deposit, or any large portion of it, is destabilized it is very difficult to prevent unintended, uncontrolled methane releases into the atmosphere.
Okay. I very begrudgingly accept that our leaders are not going to consider powering down as a potential tactic in the face of our impending energy crisis. Sooner or later the human race is going to have to accept that reality but clearly society is not prepared to accept it now. But methane hydrates are not like the other fossil fuels. And our approach to exploiting them is going to have to be very different. The risk to the climate and the environment is so much greater than has ever been the case with other fossil fuels. Most importantly, methane hydrates are globally affected by exactly the same constrains; temperature and pressure.
Global warming itself - it doesn't matter whether it is naturally occurring or caused by human combustion of fossil fuels - is the greatest threat of tipping methane releases into a runaway warming mechanism. Scientists do not know with any certainty yet how much of a global temperature rise is necessary to reach the tipping point where methane hydrate release into the atmosphere accelerates out of control. They do know that once that happens the acceleration will be self-sustaining and self-accelerating.
If our leaders take the same cavalier approach with scientific warnings about runaway methane release that they have taken with warnings about CO2 buildup in the atmosphere, and the long-term, safe storage of spent nuclear fuel, we are headed toward a much more serious atmospheric and climatic disaster than global warming experts have thus far suggested. Methane releases from the ocean floors and from Arctic permafrost have not been built into any of the current global warming models as a factor, including those models supporting the IPCC reports. Considering that methane hydrate deposits exceed the total of all other fossil fuels by magnitudes and that methane is more than 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2, that should be extremely worrying to anyone who accepts the validity of the global warming theory.
Other material;
1) Starting A Runaway Global Warming Process
2) Hundreds of methane 'plumes' discovered
3) A large methane plume east of Bear Island (Barents Sea): implications for the marine methane cycle
4) Study: Tap natural gas from Alaska's frozen areas
Optimists point to the fact that we have moved beyond various energy sources, on which the entire society depends, many times in the past. We have always found a new, better energy source to replace them. Even since the beginning of the industrial revolution we have moved through water power, steam power, coal, natural gas, electricity, oil and nuclear. Oil, however, has been the most important and workable energy source that we have ever discovered and exploited.
Where do we go from oil? What will be the next, better energy source that can power human society. There are many who see electricity playing an increasingly important role, including driving transportation. To many that electric future will be increasingly centered on a nuclear energy renaissance. On the fringes they see electricity generation from wind, solar, geothermal, tidal, hydro, wave and a variety of other options.
But oil is used for much more than powering the family car. I have trouble visualizing electric planes and electric ships. Hell, most electric cars have a battery range of under 100 kilometers. And I don't think you can make plastics from electricity. Last I noticed it required hydrocarbons.
In one form or another, in fact, hydrocarbons have been the world's primary energy source since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution over 200 years ago. It answers one extremely important need; portability. Hydrocarbon fuels, especially oil and its derivatives, can be easily move from one place to another. They can also be used on board to generate the power used to move it.
What is the next energy source that will give us what oil, coal and natural gas give us today? You may be surprised to hear that it may be the other hydrocarbon fuel. A Great many scientists, industry leaders and governments throughout the developed world believe that will be methane. More specifically they believe it will be methane hydrates.
Methane hydrates (also called clathrates) are bubbles of methane gas trapped in a cage of ice crystals. Methane hydrate deposits occur in locations all over the world. The most concentrated deposits occur under the Arctic Ocean, under the ocean floor on most continental shelves, in locations like the Gulf of Mexico, the Bermuda Triangle, the Dragon's Triangle south of Japan, and in permafrost surrounding the Arctic ocean. It is reliably estimated that the amount of methane trapped as hydrates globally exceeds by many times the total combined oil, coal and natural gas reserves that have ever existed on earth.
A chunk of methane ice exposed to the air and ignited will burn until all of the methane in that ice has been consumed. Methane hydrates, however, require specific conditions of temperature and pressure to keep them contained within their ice cage. Reduce the pressure - for example, by reducing the sea level and the pressure of water above the deposit - or increased the temperature and the methane hydrate deposit becomes unstable and begins to release the trapped methane into the atmosphere.
That is a problem. Methane is a greenhouse gas. In fact, it is 21-23 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. When the methane trapped in the hydrate is released it expands by about 170 times.[1] Methane is lighter than CO2, lighter than air. As a result it rises rapidly through the atmosphere up to the lower-density stratosphere. On the positive side methane remains in the atmosphere for only about 10-20 years. CO2 remains in the atmosphere for over 100 years.
Scientists studying global warming have long been seriously concerned about the possibility of large scale methane hydrate destabilization and methane release into the atmosphere. The greatest concern is about the large volumes of methane hydrates under the Arctic sea floor and that trapped in the vast permafrost zone surrounding the Arctic Ocean. That concern has now been heightened by recent discoveries of hundreds of methane plumes on the floor of the Arctic Ocean north of Norway and Siberia. [2] There is also evidence in pock-marked sea floors of large releases of methane plumes in the geological past. [3]
Paleoclimatologists now believe that large scale, natural methane hydrate releases have been partly but significantly responsible for short-cycle global warming and global cooling cycles in the past. The recent discoveries in the Arctic, in fact, are thought to suggest that methane releases have contributed to the global warming that has occurred since the last ice age 15,000 years ago. [2]
The problem is that these methane releases have a strong positive feedback loop. As they increase the warming of the atmosphere that warming in turn increases methane release which in turn increases warming which in turn releases more...... You get the picture. Acceleration of global warming through this positive feedback loop, by increased methane concentration in the atmosphere, far more than CO2 concentrations, represents, to paleoclimatologists, a far greater risk of pushing us into the Venus effect, runaway global warming.
When it comes to satisfying the world's energy lust, however, caution may be thrown to the wind. Powering down human society is never an option put on the table when politicians and other leaders discuss energy policies and strategies. We have proven over and over again that business as usual is the only model that will be considered. How else can we explain the tar sands, oil shale development, deepwater oil extraction, coal mines extending out under the sea floor, and more?
There are various technologies under consideration for extracting methane from hydrate deposits. Most involve some form of heating the hydrate deposits - one, probably the dumbest and most dangerous, even goes so far as to suggest using nuclear explosions beneath the deposit to heat it, also suggested by some as a means of releasing oil from tar sands and oil shale - causing them to release the methane which is then collected and piped to a processing facility of holding tank. Proponents of methane hydrate exploitation, conscious of environmental concerns, are quick to offer reassurances like ".....tapping into the gas hydrates assessed in the study is not expected to affect global warming, said Brenda Pierce, coordinator for the USGS Energy Resources Program." [4] The louder and more frequent such reassurances are, of course, the more it suggests they are trying to cover up the probability that the result will be the opposite.
There are many projects underway, funded by governments throughout the world (Japan, India, China, South Korea, Russia, Norway, Canada, the U.S.), aimed at developing commercially viable technologies for exploiting the planet's vast methane hydrate deposits. The selection of sites for these projects are, themselves, a clear indication of one of the primary roadblocks to using methane hydrates as a societal-supporting energy source. They have sought out test sites with high methane hydrate concentrations.
Most hydrate deposits are too small or too dispersed to be commercially exploited. Also, unlike oil and natural gas, those deposits are generally not capped in such a way that the geology can be used to contain releases. Most of those deposits on the sea floor, in fact, exist in unconsolidated, sandy or silt sediment. The geology surrounding them is inherently unstable, difficult to contain. Once the deposit, or any large portion of it, is destabilized it is very difficult to prevent unintended, uncontrolled methane releases into the atmosphere.
Okay. I very begrudgingly accept that our leaders are not going to consider powering down as a potential tactic in the face of our impending energy crisis. Sooner or later the human race is going to have to accept that reality but clearly society is not prepared to accept it now. But methane hydrates are not like the other fossil fuels. And our approach to exploiting them is going to have to be very different. The risk to the climate and the environment is so much greater than has ever been the case with other fossil fuels. Most importantly, methane hydrates are globally affected by exactly the same constrains; temperature and pressure.
Global warming itself - it doesn't matter whether it is naturally occurring or caused by human combustion of fossil fuels - is the greatest threat of tipping methane releases into a runaway warming mechanism. Scientists do not know with any certainty yet how much of a global temperature rise is necessary to reach the tipping point where methane hydrate release into the atmosphere accelerates out of control. They do know that once that happens the acceleration will be self-sustaining and self-accelerating.
If our leaders take the same cavalier approach with scientific warnings about runaway methane release that they have taken with warnings about CO2 buildup in the atmosphere, and the long-term, safe storage of spent nuclear fuel, we are headed toward a much more serious atmospheric and climatic disaster than global warming experts have thus far suggested. Methane releases from the ocean floors and from Arctic permafrost have not been built into any of the current global warming models as a factor, including those models supporting the IPCC reports. Considering that methane hydrate deposits exceed the total of all other fossil fuels by magnitudes and that methane is more than 20 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2, that should be extremely worrying to anyone who accepts the validity of the global warming theory.
Other material;
1) Starting A Runaway Global Warming Process
2) Hundreds of methane 'plumes' discovered
3) A large methane plume east of Bear Island (Barents Sea): implications for the marine methane cycle
4) Study: Tap natural gas from Alaska's frozen areas
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The Unintended Consequences of Critical Advocacy
Criticism or opposition increases the credibility of, and support for, that opposed.
That attack tells others that what you are opposing is important enough, enough of a threat, at least to you, to warrant attention. If it were not so you would simply ignore it. Then it would, perhaps, just sit there like a dead fish garnering nobody's attention. But that would, of course, simply give free reign to that opposition.
The fact that you criticize, attack or openly oppose something attracts people's attention to it. In so doing you may find that others agree with your criticism but you may also find that they disagree with you and decide that they must, perhaps because of your opposition, support that which you are criticizing. In other words, in your opposition you run a fifty-fifty risk, or higher, of garnering new supporters for that which you are attacking. This would, in turn, make it more threatening to you and make it more worthy of your opposition. It has the potential for a never-ending confrontation.
Most often that opposition elicits a response from the person(s) at the core of that which you are attacking. If it is important enough for you to criticize, after all, it is even more important to defend for those who have a part of themselves vested in it. If it's worth attacking it is worth defending. With the additional supporters to their cause that your opposition garners for them your continued attacks simply makes an ever-stronger, ever-more-threatening adversary.
When two opposing camps are in a position of constantly criticizing and attacking each other, the formula changes only slightly. The stronger of the two camps, generally, (or the one with the more appealing, people-friendly message) will generally maintain it's advantage for a considerable length of time, partly thanks to your opposition. When the weaker camp gains some momentum eventually, if maintained, that momentum may allow the growth in support to exceed the growth in support for the stronger side. Over time, as long as both sides are able to maintain their confrontation, that weaker camp may eventually gain the upper hand. But the battle to get to that point will, generally, be long and difficult.
This is the current reality for the peak oil movement. Our constant criticism of the business-as-usual oil industry mentality, our incessant demands that our politicians and leaders address the peak oil issue, are the modern day equivalent of Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Our message about peak oil and the ensuing disintegration of life as we know it frightens people. It is not somewhere they want to go. It is not somewhere they can go, in their minds. What is there to support?
Our opponents in this, of course, offer a much more appealing vision of a future, however unrealistic it may be in our minds. And their job is simple. They, if you accept the gospel, offer a future of unlimited potential, wealth, growth, development, a lifestyle of your choosing. The peak oil movement offers despair, hard work, starvation, a struggle for clean water, elimination of travel, a world without cars, without electric can openers for God's sake.
Even today the majority of people in the world remain blissfully unaware of the peak oil issue and the crises facing us in the near future. Of every ten people that our constant campaigning makes aware of the issue more than half are going to reject our message and, instead, get religion and embrace the gospel according to Exxon. If they have to put their effort into something, after all - and for most their awareness and awakening all but compels them to action - then they are going to put that effort into something that promises them a benefit, a bright future, a continuation of the good life.
Our increasing membership in the peak oil movement is, for the moment, coming at a terrible price. It is growing our opposition at an even faster rate. They have the full power of the political machine, mass media, and gobs of money to use in the battle. We, on the other hand, are all too easily dismissed as crackpots, conspiracy theorists, doomsayers, as wanting the societal destruction and massive die-off that we warn about. There isn't a serious peak oil advocate who hasn't lost friends, built walls between themselves and members of their family over their advocacy. Most have simply eventually withdrawn into their own shell and, for the sake of harmony, ceased talking about peak oil among friends and family.
The more you can put your opponent in the role of criticizing you, or even defending themselves in such a way that it highlights your opposition, the more they in turn run the risk, however, of garnering additional support for you. This is often what happens at the turning point in the confrontation, at the point where the weaker opponent begins to get the upper hand.
This is a trend we are definitely starting to see in the peak oil movement. The cornucopians, the oil company executives, the paid shills, the pork-barrel politicians, the "I'll tell you whatever you want to hear" economists are increasingly in the position, while trying to defend their own stance, of having to criticize the peak oil movement, its statistics, its forecasts, its warnings of dire circumstances. In so doing, however, they are themselves increasing the visibility of the peak oil movement. They are, themselves, increasing the army of supporters for the peak oil theory/message. They are actively sowing the seeds of their own eventual defeat. And the harder they hit, the louder they yell, the more they are pushing people to the other side, into supporting the peak oil movement.
This change in conditions, however, imposes upon we in the peak oil movement a responsibility, if we are to capitalize on the changes taking place and reach enough people to form a critical mass sufficient to cause some move toward the development of a sustainable, post-peak future. It is time for us to take the high road. The cornucopians are feeling the heat. The reality of the situation is starting to bite them and everyone else in the ass. It is becoming an increasingly difficult reality to ignore or argue against. We don't need to yell anymore.
The more quietly we carry the message forward, and the louder the opposition rails against it, the more credibility it gives our message in the minds of those who have not yet joined one camp or the other. We will, with an air of quiet confidence and calmness, garner increasingly more support than the loud, critical, unrealistic opposition. It will become increasingly apparent to more and more people as the global economy implodes that the good life the other side is offering them is unachievable. With that recognition should also come the realization that preparation for a very different future is now needed. That is where the critical mass comes from.
In order to help people achieve a full understanding of the implications of peak oil, however, it is important that we continue connecting the dots, continue linking peak oil with the global oil wars, the collapsing world economy, the renewed push for nuclear energy, rising unemployment, the global freshwater crisis, the global hunger crisis, global topsoil loss, and, yes, global warming and climate change. They must be helped to see that the good life they have been pursuing and which has been promised to them has come at a price which threatens the survival of themselves and their children and grandchildren. They must finally be convinced that it is time to take the red pill.
That attack tells others that what you are opposing is important enough, enough of a threat, at least to you, to warrant attention. If it were not so you would simply ignore it. Then it would, perhaps, just sit there like a dead fish garnering nobody's attention. But that would, of course, simply give free reign to that opposition.
The fact that you criticize, attack or openly oppose something attracts people's attention to it. In so doing you may find that others agree with your criticism but you may also find that they disagree with you and decide that they must, perhaps because of your opposition, support that which you are criticizing. In other words, in your opposition you run a fifty-fifty risk, or higher, of garnering new supporters for that which you are attacking. This would, in turn, make it more threatening to you and make it more worthy of your opposition. It has the potential for a never-ending confrontation.
Most often that opposition elicits a response from the person(s) at the core of that which you are attacking. If it is important enough for you to criticize, after all, it is even more important to defend for those who have a part of themselves vested in it. If it's worth attacking it is worth defending. With the additional supporters to their cause that your opposition garners for them your continued attacks simply makes an ever-stronger, ever-more-threatening adversary.
When two opposing camps are in a position of constantly criticizing and attacking each other, the formula changes only slightly. The stronger of the two camps, generally, (or the one with the more appealing, people-friendly message) will generally maintain it's advantage for a considerable length of time, partly thanks to your opposition. When the weaker camp gains some momentum eventually, if maintained, that momentum may allow the growth in support to exceed the growth in support for the stronger side. Over time, as long as both sides are able to maintain their confrontation, that weaker camp may eventually gain the upper hand. But the battle to get to that point will, generally, be long and difficult.
This is the current reality for the peak oil movement. Our constant criticism of the business-as-usual oil industry mentality, our incessant demands that our politicians and leaders address the peak oil issue, are the modern day equivalent of Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Our message about peak oil and the ensuing disintegration of life as we know it frightens people. It is not somewhere they want to go. It is not somewhere they can go, in their minds. What is there to support?
Our opponents in this, of course, offer a much more appealing vision of a future, however unrealistic it may be in our minds. And their job is simple. They, if you accept the gospel, offer a future of unlimited potential, wealth, growth, development, a lifestyle of your choosing. The peak oil movement offers despair, hard work, starvation, a struggle for clean water, elimination of travel, a world without cars, without electric can openers for God's sake.
Even today the majority of people in the world remain blissfully unaware of the peak oil issue and the crises facing us in the near future. Of every ten people that our constant campaigning makes aware of the issue more than half are going to reject our message and, instead, get religion and embrace the gospel according to Exxon. If they have to put their effort into something, after all - and for most their awareness and awakening all but compels them to action - then they are going to put that effort into something that promises them a benefit, a bright future, a continuation of the good life.
Our increasing membership in the peak oil movement is, for the moment, coming at a terrible price. It is growing our opposition at an even faster rate. They have the full power of the political machine, mass media, and gobs of money to use in the battle. We, on the other hand, are all too easily dismissed as crackpots, conspiracy theorists, doomsayers, as wanting the societal destruction and massive die-off that we warn about. There isn't a serious peak oil advocate who hasn't lost friends, built walls between themselves and members of their family over their advocacy. Most have simply eventually withdrawn into their own shell and, for the sake of harmony, ceased talking about peak oil among friends and family.
The more you can put your opponent in the role of criticizing you, or even defending themselves in such a way that it highlights your opposition, the more they in turn run the risk, however, of garnering additional support for you. This is often what happens at the turning point in the confrontation, at the point where the weaker opponent begins to get the upper hand.
This is a trend we are definitely starting to see in the peak oil movement. The cornucopians, the oil company executives, the paid shills, the pork-barrel politicians, the "I'll tell you whatever you want to hear" economists are increasingly in the position, while trying to defend their own stance, of having to criticize the peak oil movement, its statistics, its forecasts, its warnings of dire circumstances. In so doing, however, they are themselves increasing the visibility of the peak oil movement. They are, themselves, increasing the army of supporters for the peak oil theory/message. They are actively sowing the seeds of their own eventual defeat. And the harder they hit, the louder they yell, the more they are pushing people to the other side, into supporting the peak oil movement.
This change in conditions, however, imposes upon we in the peak oil movement a responsibility, if we are to capitalize on the changes taking place and reach enough people to form a critical mass sufficient to cause some move toward the development of a sustainable, post-peak future. It is time for us to take the high road. The cornucopians are feeling the heat. The reality of the situation is starting to bite them and everyone else in the ass. It is becoming an increasingly difficult reality to ignore or argue against. We don't need to yell anymore.
The more quietly we carry the message forward, and the louder the opposition rails against it, the more credibility it gives our message in the minds of those who have not yet joined one camp or the other. We will, with an air of quiet confidence and calmness, garner increasingly more support than the loud, critical, unrealistic opposition. It will become increasingly apparent to more and more people as the global economy implodes that the good life the other side is offering them is unachievable. With that recognition should also come the realization that preparation for a very different future is now needed. That is where the critical mass comes from.
In order to help people achieve a full understanding of the implications of peak oil, however, it is important that we continue connecting the dots, continue linking peak oil with the global oil wars, the collapsing world economy, the renewed push for nuclear energy, rising unemployment, the global freshwater crisis, the global hunger crisis, global topsoil loss, and, yes, global warming and climate change. They must be helped to see that the good life they have been pursuing and which has been promised to them has come at a price which threatens the survival of themselves and their children and grandchildren. They must finally be convinced that it is time to take the red pill.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Peak Oil and the Global Financial Crisis
I am not an economist, nor do I play one on television. Nor would I want to be one. How limiting and depressing it must be to constrain oneself to constantly viewing the beauty and wonders of this magnificent living planet through the lens of cold, hard, lifeless money, seeking nothing more from it than profit.
Economist preach the faith that money makes the world go round. And they have the charts and graphs to prove it. And therein lies the problem. We can not solve our problems, including the serious global financial crisis, by looking at the world through a dollar sign, through the same economic lens that has contributed so largely to creating that crisis.
The environment is not a part of the economy to be bought and sold for a profit. It does not conform neatly to human economic rules and laws. The economy, conversely, is just one subset of the environment. We need to look at economics through a worldview that is broad and all-encompassing, need to put it in a more realistic perspective in tune with the realities of the planet itself.
We have pushed this planet and its environment to the brink and must now place human economy in the service of protecting and preserving what is left while there is still something of it left to protect and preserve. Because sooner or later that chance will be lost. We will at some point pass the tipping point, all for the sake of profit. In fact, if we continue with the same economic mindset we will probably try to make even more profit out of the terminal scarcity that our pursuit of profit has created.
Climbing back out of any recession means increasing energy consumption. Period. Recession recovery means increasing manufacturing production, transportation, increasing mobility, increased credit, increased shipping and trade. All of this involves increases in the use of energy.
In the five years from 1930-35 U.S. energy consumption dropped by nearly 14%. In the next five years, with the onset of war manufacturing and increased trans-Atlantic trade with the western European nations who would soon be pitted against Germany in WWII, it rose by 23.3% and another 29.5% during the war years to 1945. In fact, as Michael T. Klare points out in his excellent video, Blood and Oil, "The U.S. consumed more than one third of its total oil reserves during WWII." Other periods of recovery following recessions have also been accompanied by similar measurable peaks in increased energy consumption.
But how do we know if/when we are in a recession/depression? As they unfold there is invariably a serious and increasing disconnect between the Rosy and optimistic pronouncements - as if trying to wish it away - of leading politicians and industry leaders measured against the increasingly painful realities seen and felt by people on the street, whether that be Main Street or the workers and stock-hawkers in the pits on Wall Street. This is not unlike John McCain's confident campaign-trail assertion that "The fundamentals of the economy are strong," just hours before Treasury Secretary Paulson started the ball rolling on the $700-billion financial system bailout package.
In November, 1930 Alfred P. Sloan Jr. of General Motors confidently proclaimed, "I see no reason why 1931 should not be an extremely good year." Compare that to similar "public" optimism of today's GM leaders as the company implodes and seeks merger with Chrysler, itself currently struggling and a phoenix recently arisen from the ashes of near bankruptcy. On June 9, 1931, eight years before the depression was finally ended by WWII, Dr. Julius Klein, then U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce, announced "The depression has ended."
We, of course, have a very different reality to deal with today than what existed in 1929. If lack of energy or the high cost of energy in any way contributes to a recession, as it very clearly has in the 2008 global recession (depression?), then climbing back out of the recession will now be very much constrained by the same factors that caused it. That energy scarcity or high energy cost will increase right along with the increase in activity in the attempted economic recovery.
In the few weeks following the first admission of a global financial crisis, spotlighted by the U.S. Treasury's request for its first $700-billion bailout package, oil prices on the world's commodity exchanges began to move uncharacteristically in lockstep with the wild swings on global stock markets. Over the previous couple of years the stock markets and oil prices had more often gone in opposite directions as investors moved their money back and forth between equities and commodities in search of the highest profits. This new tandem pattern was the clearest signal that investors were simply removing their money from the investment arena, both equities and commodities, as profit opportunities dwindled and moving it into cash or gold.
If it's not this recession it will be the next one. There isn't time (historically 10-20 years to fully recover from a deep recession) to climb back out of this recession before the next one hits (bull periods tend to be 8-15 years duration). Peak oil is either already upon us or about to hit within the next 5-10 years, depending on who you listen to.
Suddenly real people, and economists, will come to realize that it is a serious liability, not an asset, that we have a credit/debt driven economy. The proposed solutions to this crisis thus far have been to throw more credit/debt at it. Our current global economy is critically dependent on growth. That growth is critical to support the U.S. Federal Reserve's policy (now essentially practiced globally by all national reserve banks) of growing the money supply through Fractional Reserve Banking. Through fractional reserve banking each dollar on loan (debt) is treated as an asset which the bank uses as the asset base to issue up to ten more dollars of loans out of money that does not exist, and can never, in a shrinking economy, be paid back.
Growth is also critically dependent on never-ending expansion of the energy supply tp support the social activity to generate the money to repay the debts incurred under the fractional reserve banking system. If you can't increase the energy supply growth stops. If growth stops the credit/debt economy dies. A debt-based economic system ultimately incorporates the assumption of its own eventual bankruptcy.
This recession, as has become painfully clear, is global. The recovery, likewise, must be global. For one nation to try to pull itself out of the recession at the cost of other nations cannot work, or at least will not be tolerated by other nations. There is considerable fear, however, that that is exactly what will happen. There is even greater fear in the U.S. that not one but many nations will decide to take advantage of the situation and use it to destroy U.S. hegemony by taking the U.S. dollar down the toilet.
There are many side effects to the growing global financial crisis. One of the most dangerous for the industrial nations is that the JIT (Just In Time) theology is breaking down. There is no credit available to finance shipping costs, to finance an inventory buildup, especially the large retail build-up for the Christmas season. Shelves will become bare so much more quickly than in the Great Depression because nobody holds an inventory. The inventory is in the pipeline. If the pipeline is shutdown the only inventory to draw on is what is on the shelves, generally a few days or weeks of product. The financial system will not free up massive amounts of money to allow for the building up of inventory, something manufacturers and producers would clearly love. What better solution to the woes of the manufacturing sector than to suddenly have retailers abandon JIT and suddenly start stocking their shelves and backrooms with inventory.
Since oil and other energy forms are such a crucial and costly input to the exploitation of all energy sources those other forms of energy have risen in cost in tandem with the price of oil (and do not, as we constantly observe, do not drop as quickly as oil when it drops). This has, however, had an odd and now clearly unfortunate side effect.
The higher selling price of energy has encouraged the development of many higher cost alternatives necessitated by the declining availability of the preferred and less costly primary sources such as crude oil, natural gas and black coal. The Canadian tar sands, deepwater offshore oil extraction and oil extraction in landlocked countries like Azerbaijan are prime examples. If and when the price of oil declines due to demand destruction, and other forms of energy with it, financially over-extended energy projects like those mentioned, which were viable only because of the high selling price of the energy those projects produced, begin to fall on serious financial difficulties. The energy they produce no longer brings the selling price that their much higher production costs require to remain viable.
The global oil production and demand figures show very clearly that we hit a peak in global oil production in May, 2005. We may still have times over the next few years where that peak is surpassed as we bounce along on the peak oil plateau. The trend, however, shows that growth in global oil production has ceased though the terminal decline has not yet begun.
Growth in liquid fuels since that peak has come not from conventional crude but from alternatives such as tar sands, oil sands, oil shale, coal-to-liquid, natural gas to liquid, synthetics and biofuels, primarily from sugar cane, corn and wheat. This latter, in fact, is contributing to a serious rise in world food prices that is raising the specter of a new round of mass starvation such as we have not seen since the beginning of the green revolution.
If this recession is prolonged, which there is every indication it will be, it is unlikely, considering the global energy production statistics, that we will have the energy required to support the growth in industrial and economic activity it will take to bring it to an end. If it does end it will not be for long. We will quickly run up against the limits in the energy supply and slip yet again into a global recession, that one terminal.
Governments of the major economic nations, and their economists, are beginning to make noises about redesigning the global financial system. If that redesign does not properly take into the account the current energy limitations and future energy declines it will be very short-lived.
Economist preach the faith that money makes the world go round. And they have the charts and graphs to prove it. And therein lies the problem. We can not solve our problems, including the serious global financial crisis, by looking at the world through a dollar sign, through the same economic lens that has contributed so largely to creating that crisis.
The environment is not a part of the economy to be bought and sold for a profit. It does not conform neatly to human economic rules and laws. The economy, conversely, is just one subset of the environment. We need to look at economics through a worldview that is broad and all-encompassing, need to put it in a more realistic perspective in tune with the realities of the planet itself.
We have pushed this planet and its environment to the brink and must now place human economy in the service of protecting and preserving what is left while there is still something of it left to protect and preserve. Because sooner or later that chance will be lost. We will at some point pass the tipping point, all for the sake of profit. In fact, if we continue with the same economic mindset we will probably try to make even more profit out of the terminal scarcity that our pursuit of profit has created.
Climbing back out of any recession means increasing energy consumption. Period. Recession recovery means increasing manufacturing production, transportation, increasing mobility, increased credit, increased shipping and trade. All of this involves increases in the use of energy.
In the five years from 1930-35 U.S. energy consumption dropped by nearly 14%. In the next five years, with the onset of war manufacturing and increased trans-Atlantic trade with the western European nations who would soon be pitted against Germany in WWII, it rose by 23.3% and another 29.5% during the war years to 1945. In fact, as Michael T. Klare points out in his excellent video, Blood and Oil, "The U.S. consumed more than one third of its total oil reserves during WWII." Other periods of recovery following recessions have also been accompanied by similar measurable peaks in increased energy consumption.
But how do we know if/when we are in a recession/depression? As they unfold there is invariably a serious and increasing disconnect between the Rosy and optimistic pronouncements - as if trying to wish it away - of leading politicians and industry leaders measured against the increasingly painful realities seen and felt by people on the street, whether that be Main Street or the workers and stock-hawkers in the pits on Wall Street. This is not unlike John McCain's confident campaign-trail assertion that "The fundamentals of the economy are strong," just hours before Treasury Secretary Paulson started the ball rolling on the $700-billion financial system bailout package.
In November, 1930 Alfred P. Sloan Jr. of General Motors confidently proclaimed, "I see no reason why 1931 should not be an extremely good year." Compare that to similar "public" optimism of today's GM leaders as the company implodes and seeks merger with Chrysler, itself currently struggling and a phoenix recently arisen from the ashes of near bankruptcy. On June 9, 1931, eight years before the depression was finally ended by WWII, Dr. Julius Klein, then U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce, announced "The depression has ended."
We, of course, have a very different reality to deal with today than what existed in 1929. If lack of energy or the high cost of energy in any way contributes to a recession, as it very clearly has in the 2008 global recession (depression?), then climbing back out of the recession will now be very much constrained by the same factors that caused it. That energy scarcity or high energy cost will increase right along with the increase in activity in the attempted economic recovery.
In the few weeks following the first admission of a global financial crisis, spotlighted by the U.S. Treasury's request for its first $700-billion bailout package, oil prices on the world's commodity exchanges began to move uncharacteristically in lockstep with the wild swings on global stock markets. Over the previous couple of years the stock markets and oil prices had more often gone in opposite directions as investors moved their money back and forth between equities and commodities in search of the highest profits. This new tandem pattern was the clearest signal that investors were simply removing their money from the investment arena, both equities and commodities, as profit opportunities dwindled and moving it into cash or gold.
If it's not this recession it will be the next one. There isn't time (historically 10-20 years to fully recover from a deep recession) to climb back out of this recession before the next one hits (bull periods tend to be 8-15 years duration). Peak oil is either already upon us or about to hit within the next 5-10 years, depending on who you listen to.
Suddenly real people, and economists, will come to realize that it is a serious liability, not an asset, that we have a credit/debt driven economy. The proposed solutions to this crisis thus far have been to throw more credit/debt at it. Our current global economy is critically dependent on growth. That growth is critical to support the U.S. Federal Reserve's policy (now essentially practiced globally by all national reserve banks) of growing the money supply through Fractional Reserve Banking. Through fractional reserve banking each dollar on loan (debt) is treated as an asset which the bank uses as the asset base to issue up to ten more dollars of loans out of money that does not exist, and can never, in a shrinking economy, be paid back.
Growth is also critically dependent on never-ending expansion of the energy supply tp support the social activity to generate the money to repay the debts incurred under the fractional reserve banking system. If you can't increase the energy supply growth stops. If growth stops the credit/debt economy dies. A debt-based economic system ultimately incorporates the assumption of its own eventual bankruptcy.
This recession, as has become painfully clear, is global. The recovery, likewise, must be global. For one nation to try to pull itself out of the recession at the cost of other nations cannot work, or at least will not be tolerated by other nations. There is considerable fear, however, that that is exactly what will happen. There is even greater fear in the U.S. that not one but many nations will decide to take advantage of the situation and use it to destroy U.S. hegemony by taking the U.S. dollar down the toilet.
There are many side effects to the growing global financial crisis. One of the most dangerous for the industrial nations is that the JIT (Just In Time) theology is breaking down. There is no credit available to finance shipping costs, to finance an inventory buildup, especially the large retail build-up for the Christmas season. Shelves will become bare so much more quickly than in the Great Depression because nobody holds an inventory. The inventory is in the pipeline. If the pipeline is shutdown the only inventory to draw on is what is on the shelves, generally a few days or weeks of product. The financial system will not free up massive amounts of money to allow for the building up of inventory, something manufacturers and producers would clearly love. What better solution to the woes of the manufacturing sector than to suddenly have retailers abandon JIT and suddenly start stocking their shelves and backrooms with inventory.
Since oil and other energy forms are such a crucial and costly input to the exploitation of all energy sources those other forms of energy have risen in cost in tandem with the price of oil (and do not, as we constantly observe, do not drop as quickly as oil when it drops). This has, however, had an odd and now clearly unfortunate side effect.
The higher selling price of energy has encouraged the development of many higher cost alternatives necessitated by the declining availability of the preferred and less costly primary sources such as crude oil, natural gas and black coal. The Canadian tar sands, deepwater offshore oil extraction and oil extraction in landlocked countries like Azerbaijan are prime examples. If and when the price of oil declines due to demand destruction, and other forms of energy with it, financially over-extended energy projects like those mentioned, which were viable only because of the high selling price of the energy those projects produced, begin to fall on serious financial difficulties. The energy they produce no longer brings the selling price that their much higher production costs require to remain viable.
The global oil production and demand figures show very clearly that we hit a peak in global oil production in May, 2005. We may still have times over the next few years where that peak is surpassed as we bounce along on the peak oil plateau. The trend, however, shows that growth in global oil production has ceased though the terminal decline has not yet begun.
Growth in liquid fuels since that peak has come not from conventional crude but from alternatives such as tar sands, oil sands, oil shale, coal-to-liquid, natural gas to liquid, synthetics and biofuels, primarily from sugar cane, corn and wheat. This latter, in fact, is contributing to a serious rise in world food prices that is raising the specter of a new round of mass starvation such as we have not seen since the beginning of the green revolution.
If this recession is prolonged, which there is every indication it will be, it is unlikely, considering the global energy production statistics, that we will have the energy required to support the growth in industrial and economic activity it will take to bring it to an end. If it does end it will not be for long. We will quickly run up against the limits in the energy supply and slip yet again into a global recession, that one terminal.
Governments of the major economic nations, and their economists, are beginning to make noises about redesigning the global financial system. If that redesign does not properly take into the account the current energy limitations and future energy declines it will be very short-lived.
Friday, October 03, 2008
"The Shock Doctrine" and Political Peak Oil Denial
For several decades now, dating back to at least the Reagan-Thatcher era, the primary underpinning of U.S. foreign policy has been The Shock Doctrine. First used successfully by Augusto Pinochet in Chile and keenly observed by the U.S., this doctrine has been enthusiastically embraced by U.S. administrations ever since it was first introduced to them by Milton Friedman. The late Milton Friedman was a now well-known but generally-viewed-as-radical economist from Chicago whose teachings were responsible for turning out the soldiers at least partly responsible for Pinochet's victory and enduring success. Friedman's philosophy that became the Shock Doctrine is best and most succinctly summed up in his own words; "Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs [my words: whether by design or happenstance], the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around." Successive U.S. administrations have, with varying levels of success, put that doctrine into practice in Iraq, Afghanistan, and across the world stage. Those decades of practice, and the lessons learned in foreign arenas, have served well to equip Washington for now unleashing The Shock Doctrine in the arena for which it was ultimately intended by them, at home against America's own citizens. Naomi Klein's new book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, does an excellent job tracing the history of this doctrine and it's use both in the U.S. and other nations such as Russia, Chile, Argentina and elsewhere.
No previous U.S. administration has so successfully employed the Shock Doctrine, both abroad and at home, than that of president George W. Bush and his dangerous VP, Dick Cheney. It has been used, perhaps not yet successfully, in the attempts to turn Iraq into an oil-rich puppet state from which the U.S. hopes and plans to ultimately control the vast oil reserves of the middle east. It has been used with great effect at home following the events of September 11, 2001, following hurricane Katrina, and is now being used in an attempt to change the economic landscape with the so-called $700-billion bailout resulting from the collapse of the housing market and the resultant sub-prime mortgage fiasco.
The beauty and effectiveness of using the Shock Doctrine is that you do not have to initiate or even execute the crisis event that you use for the springboard to implement your plans. You just have to be ready with those plans to capitalize on any crisis event that fits your needs. It was pretty clear that with the speed with which the Patriot Act was brought forward and passed that it had been created and was sitting in the wings just waiting for an event like 9/11. Whether or not there was foreknowledge by the members of congress is uncertain and, frankly, irrelevant because they too, like the voters they represent, have been turned into victims of the Shock Doctrine. It does not mean - and I am not passing judgement either way - that the administration was in any way complicit in the events of 9/11, despite the suspicion of guilt rising because of the whitewash job that became the 9/11 Commission Report. It does mean that the Patriot Act was planned and was sitting in abeyance, waiting for an event like 9/11. The ratcheting up of the fear factor since 9/11, the constant warnings from the administration and the compliant media, have garnered the administration an endless series of successes in implementing new legislation increasingly eroding America's civil liberties and freedoms.
In autumn 2005 I wrote an article entitled Paying the Executioner which appeared in the Online Journal Blue-Green Earth in November 2005 (http://www.bluegreenearth.us/archive/polemic/2005/embleton-1-2005.html). This article explained how our current rendition of capitalism with the willing complicity of government was not only picking our pockets but destroying the overall prospect of survivability for our children and grandchildren. The new erosion of American freedoms initiated since 9/11 will exact their ultimate toll not from you but from your children and grandchildren. Government and industry, hand in hand, are feeling increasingly emboldened by their successes in the use of the Shock Doctrine, in particular over this past decade. The erosion of rights and freedoms will not stop at what they have so far accomplished. Indeed the $700-billion+ bailout bill currently passed by the senate and before the house for a probable vote today has dramatically increased the price that Americans, and indeed the world, are paying for the escalation of this Shock Doctrine.
I am sure you were waiting for it so here it comes. What does this have to do with peak oil? Well, let me tell you.
One of the most frightening events that could happen to Americans in general is to have their energy taken away from them, to lose the ability to use their cars, to have to -ugh - use public transit to do their shopping, to have to car pool, to have to submit to fuel rationing, to have to pay a toll to enter the city to go to work, to have to hop on the bus or train to see America or to go to Grandma's for Thanksgiving dinner. As George Bush so admitted, "America is addicted to oil." In fact, America and the hegemonic power it enjoys on the world stage was built on oil. And America likewise is critically dependent on oil and other forms of energy in every way. Not only does the country run on oil but much of its infrastructure is built on materials derived from oil, its industrial agriculture and food production/delivery system is totally dependent on oil and other fossil fuels, the medicines the increasingly-medically-dependent population relies on are largely derived from oil and dependent on oil for their manufacture, the homes in which Americans live and the "things" with which they fill their homes are derived from oil. There are over 300,000 products in everyday use that are made from oil and its derivatives. Most importantly, however, the suburb-centric lifestyle developed in America since WWII is a totally oil dependent lifestyle. The simple fact of earning a living is dependent on being able to get from that home in the suburbs to the job somewhere else.
Do the administration and the congress and state legislatures know about peak oil? This is a subject of endless speculation and discussion on the online peak oil groups in which I participate. Of course they are aware. Bush and Cheney are ex oil men. Roscoe Bartlett has made endless - though largely ignored - presentations in the house about peak oil. One of Dick Cheney's first acts as VP was to form an Energy Task Force to brainstorm future responses to peak oil. Cheney was, while he was still with Halliburton, talking up peak oil in speeches as early as 1999. There is a growing concensus that W's invasion of Iraq was undertaken because of a growing awareness of the approach of peak oil.
Why, then, is there still a pervasive atmosphere of political denial of peak oil? Why is the phrase "Peak Oil" the words that must not be spoken in public?
The Shock Doctrine!!! But the timing is not yet right.
Peak oil is not yet the crisis they need in order to use it as the catalytic event to turn it against the populace. You couldn't sell fuel rationing yet. You couldn't yet sell compulsory car pooling, street tolls and all of the other measures that the government will undoubtedly implement as a result of peak oil. There is, admittedly, a growing sense of discomfort and pain from rising fuel prices and the downstream impact on food and goods prices. But it is not yet a sense of crisis and not close enough to one for any attempt to portray it as one to be credible. Appearances are that we have bumping along on the peak oil plateau since May 2005 but the irreversible decline in global crude oil production that will start to put pressure on the global growth society has not yet begun. When will that be? No one knows for certain but I would put my money on sooner rather than later, more likely over the next few years than 2030+ as CERA continues to suggest.
There have been lineups at gas stations in the southeast over the past few weeks but this is not a result of peak oil. This is a result of the refineries shut down by hurricanes Gustav and Ike. This is a shortage of refined fuels, not of oil. But when those lineups become general and widespread, when your gas station has only a fifty-fifty chance of having any gasoline tomorrow morning when you need it, when the store shelves start to be increasingly bare because the store can't get delivery from an increasingly undependable transportation system, when you can't get fuel oil in the middle of a cold winter, when natural gas pipelines start collapsing because they are empty, then and only then does it start to become the generally-recognized-and-understood crisis that is needed to use it to push forward the increasingly restrictive legislation that will allow government (and industry) to the control the population on the way down the downslope.
It is a mistake to interpret the lack of public discourse on peak oil as a lack of awareness. That silence, especially in the face of growing signs that peak oil is indeed upon us, should be viewed with alarm. You should be afraid of what is to come when the silence is finally broken because that is the signal that government and industry believe things have reached crisis level and they have you by the throat, or whatever other part of your anatomy you most fear being in the hands of someone wanting to destroy it.
See the following excellent videos featuring Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine:
Naomi Klein: Disaster Capitalism
Naomi Klein "The Shock Doctrine" & "No Logo" interview
The Take - Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis
No previous U.S. administration has so successfully employed the Shock Doctrine, both abroad and at home, than that of president George W. Bush and his dangerous VP, Dick Cheney. It has been used, perhaps not yet successfully, in the attempts to turn Iraq into an oil-rich puppet state from which the U.S. hopes and plans to ultimately control the vast oil reserves of the middle east. It has been used with great effect at home following the events of September 11, 2001, following hurricane Katrina, and is now being used in an attempt to change the economic landscape with the so-called $700-billion bailout resulting from the collapse of the housing market and the resultant sub-prime mortgage fiasco.
The beauty and effectiveness of using the Shock Doctrine is that you do not have to initiate or even execute the crisis event that you use for the springboard to implement your plans. You just have to be ready with those plans to capitalize on any crisis event that fits your needs. It was pretty clear that with the speed with which the Patriot Act was brought forward and passed that it had been created and was sitting in the wings just waiting for an event like 9/11. Whether or not there was foreknowledge by the members of congress is uncertain and, frankly, irrelevant because they too, like the voters they represent, have been turned into victims of the Shock Doctrine. It does not mean - and I am not passing judgement either way - that the administration was in any way complicit in the events of 9/11, despite the suspicion of guilt rising because of the whitewash job that became the 9/11 Commission Report. It does mean that the Patriot Act was planned and was sitting in abeyance, waiting for an event like 9/11. The ratcheting up of the fear factor since 9/11, the constant warnings from the administration and the compliant media, have garnered the administration an endless series of successes in implementing new legislation increasingly eroding America's civil liberties and freedoms.
In autumn 2005 I wrote an article entitled Paying the Executioner which appeared in the Online Journal Blue-Green Earth in November 2005 (http://www.bluegreenearth.us/archive/polemic/2005/embleton-1-2005.html). This article explained how our current rendition of capitalism with the willing complicity of government was not only picking our pockets but destroying the overall prospect of survivability for our children and grandchildren. The new erosion of American freedoms initiated since 9/11 will exact their ultimate toll not from you but from your children and grandchildren. Government and industry, hand in hand, are feeling increasingly emboldened by their successes in the use of the Shock Doctrine, in particular over this past decade. The erosion of rights and freedoms will not stop at what they have so far accomplished. Indeed the $700-billion+ bailout bill currently passed by the senate and before the house for a probable vote today has dramatically increased the price that Americans, and indeed the world, are paying for the escalation of this Shock Doctrine.
I am sure you were waiting for it so here it comes. What does this have to do with peak oil? Well, let me tell you.
One of the most frightening events that could happen to Americans in general is to have their energy taken away from them, to lose the ability to use their cars, to have to -ugh - use public transit to do their shopping, to have to car pool, to have to submit to fuel rationing, to have to pay a toll to enter the city to go to work, to have to hop on the bus or train to see America or to go to Grandma's for Thanksgiving dinner. As George Bush so admitted, "America is addicted to oil." In fact, America and the hegemonic power it enjoys on the world stage was built on oil. And America likewise is critically dependent on oil and other forms of energy in every way. Not only does the country run on oil but much of its infrastructure is built on materials derived from oil, its industrial agriculture and food production/delivery system is totally dependent on oil and other fossil fuels, the medicines the increasingly-medically-dependent population relies on are largely derived from oil and dependent on oil for their manufacture, the homes in which Americans live and the "things" with which they fill their homes are derived from oil. There are over 300,000 products in everyday use that are made from oil and its derivatives. Most importantly, however, the suburb-centric lifestyle developed in America since WWII is a totally oil dependent lifestyle. The simple fact of earning a living is dependent on being able to get from that home in the suburbs to the job somewhere else.
Do the administration and the congress and state legislatures know about peak oil? This is a subject of endless speculation and discussion on the online peak oil groups in which I participate. Of course they are aware. Bush and Cheney are ex oil men. Roscoe Bartlett has made endless - though largely ignored - presentations in the house about peak oil. One of Dick Cheney's first acts as VP was to form an Energy Task Force to brainstorm future responses to peak oil. Cheney was, while he was still with Halliburton, talking up peak oil in speeches as early as 1999. There is a growing concensus that W's invasion of Iraq was undertaken because of a growing awareness of the approach of peak oil.
Why, then, is there still a pervasive atmosphere of political denial of peak oil? Why is the phrase "Peak Oil" the words that must not be spoken in public?
The Shock Doctrine!!! But the timing is not yet right.
Peak oil is not yet the crisis they need in order to use it as the catalytic event to turn it against the populace. You couldn't sell fuel rationing yet. You couldn't yet sell compulsory car pooling, street tolls and all of the other measures that the government will undoubtedly implement as a result of peak oil. There is, admittedly, a growing sense of discomfort and pain from rising fuel prices and the downstream impact on food and goods prices. But it is not yet a sense of crisis and not close enough to one for any attempt to portray it as one to be credible. Appearances are that we have bumping along on the peak oil plateau since May 2005 but the irreversible decline in global crude oil production that will start to put pressure on the global growth society has not yet begun. When will that be? No one knows for certain but I would put my money on sooner rather than later, more likely over the next few years than 2030+ as CERA continues to suggest.
There have been lineups at gas stations in the southeast over the past few weeks but this is not a result of peak oil. This is a result of the refineries shut down by hurricanes Gustav and Ike. This is a shortage of refined fuels, not of oil. But when those lineups become general and widespread, when your gas station has only a fifty-fifty chance of having any gasoline tomorrow morning when you need it, when the store shelves start to be increasingly bare because the store can't get delivery from an increasingly undependable transportation system, when you can't get fuel oil in the middle of a cold winter, when natural gas pipelines start collapsing because they are empty, then and only then does it start to become the generally-recognized-and-understood crisis that is needed to use it to push forward the increasingly restrictive legislation that will allow government (and industry) to the control the population on the way down the downslope.
It is a mistake to interpret the lack of public discourse on peak oil as a lack of awareness. That silence, especially in the face of growing signs that peak oil is indeed upon us, should be viewed with alarm. You should be afraid of what is to come when the silence is finally broken because that is the signal that government and industry believe things have reached crisis level and they have you by the throat, or whatever other part of your anatomy you most fear being in the hands of someone wanting to destroy it.
See the following excellent videos featuring Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine:
Naomi Klein: Disaster Capitalism
Naomi Klein "The Shock Doctrine" & "No Logo" interview
The Take - Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Space Colonies, Flying Cars and Clean Coal
Great Technological Myths for the 21st Century
All of the above are promised technological marvels that never have and probably never will materialize, feel-good mental distractions pumped out by myopic techno-centric minds. But this article is only about one; clean coal or, more accurately, CCS (carbon capture and sequestration).
Carbon capture, unlike space colonies and flying cars, is a pipe-dream born out of necessity. We are so adversely impacting the life-support system of this planet that we have now forced ourselves into a position of having to correct some of our more critical damage. The article, Carbon tax no cure for climate change, claims, "Ultimately, the answer to greenhouse gas emissions in this energy-hungry world is going to come from a breakthrough on the technology side, and it won't come cheap."[12] Whether or not one accepts that technology holds the solution, it is the driving force behind industry and government in most developed and developing nations and will, therefore, dictate the direction in the corridors of power over the coming decades.
In case it appears otherwise, let me be very clear. I am not against the concept of carbon capture and sequestration. Quite the contrary. Only a small clutch of pollyannas and cornucopians any longer believes that peak oil (and peak natural gas) are not fast approaching. Ethanol and biofuels, tar sands, oil shale, methane hydrates and any other alternatives do not negate that reality. The fact that we are forced to pursue these costly and difficult alternatives, in fact, are confirmation that the reality of peak oil is sinking into the consciousness of those in the energy industry. There is unfortunately little doubt, therefore, that we will pursue coal as a primary energy option as the reality of declining oil and natural gas reserves dictates. Increasing our reliance on dirty coal - the dirtiest of all fossil fuels - without pursuing every means of preventing further destruction of the earth's environment through elevated CO2 emissions would seriously hasten the demise of the life-support capability of this planet.
My issue with carbon capture and sequestration is complex but starts with a reasonable doubt that we can develop a technology to do it soon enough. I fear that we will continue to build dirty, coal-fired power plants on the basis of an assumption that such technology will materialize and can be retrofitted to those plants. It appears that the energy drain on those facilities for CCS (up to 40% or more) will dramatically increase our global energy consumption with no net increase in energy produced. It also appears that the full energy cost of CCS, from mining of the coal through eventual sequestration, could more than double the energy consumption with no net increase in energy produced and hasten our race toward an energy cliff. I fear that we will force ourselves into a near-term reliance on nuclear energy, complete with its radioactive waste disposal problem, by creating a new energy crisis by rapidly depleting the planet's coal resources. I also fear that we will soon pursue the very dangerous alternative of mining the world's methane hydrate deposits, running the very serious risk of pushing the earth into a runaway greenhouse effect (methane is 20 times more powerful as a GHG than CO2).
Breaking CCS down, carbon capture refers to isolating and collecting the carbon dioxide created by the burning of fossil fuels. This would usually be at the point of combustion, such as in coal-fired power plants, thus preventing it entering the atmosphere. Another possibility is extracting previously emitted carbon dioxide (from, for example, automobile and aircraft emissions, factory emissions and home heating fuel emissions) from the atmosphere itself. There is current gas separation technology that can accomplish this on a limited scale.
Carbon sequestration involves the long-term storing or sequestering of that CO2 in either gaseous or liquid form underground, usually in formations such as depleted oil or natural gas wells (there are some efforts to use injected CO2 to increase the well-head pressure and flow rate of operating oil wells[3]) or abandoned mines, or in liquid form at the bottom of the deeper parts of the ocean where it is hoped the massive pressure of water above the CO2 deposit would hold it in place. There is also research ongoing into chemically reacting the carbon dioxide with substances like sandstone or certain chemicals like carbon hydroxide and transforming it permanently into other substances like rock (see Carbon sequestration rocks! Literally[9]) or sodium bicarbonate, better known as baking soda (see Baking Soda: Removes stains, odors, and combats Global Warming[22]).
In between carbon capture and carbon sequestration will have to be some means of transport, such as tanker trucks, trains, ships or, most likely, pipelines, to get the carbon dioxide from point of extraction or capture to the site of sequestration. The CO2 transport aspect has, thus far, received very little attention or funding. In a presentation to the US senate of a proposed new bill, Senator Coleman pointed out (see Sen. Coleman testifies before Senate Committee about carbon dioxide capture and transport) "While considerable progress has been made on the first [capture] and third [sequestration] steps, [this] bill begins the process of determining how best to get the CO2 from the point of creation to the point of storage."[28]
Simple, right? Not!
It's definitely not as easy as the constant headlines announcing new projects (globally 20 in 2007) would have us believe. Despite those constant announcements nothing gets done, except a lot of your tax money going into the coffers of organizations mounting government-funded research programs. Coming up with a workable, scalable, cost effective CCS technology will not be simple and will not be fast. “People don’t understand the magnitude of the problem,” said Howard Herzog, principal research engineer for M.I.T.’s Carbon Capture and Sequestration Program. “How can we do hundreds of these plants by 2050 - and that’s what we’ll need - if we can’t even do one?”[32]
Everything about carbon capture and sequestration is future, theoretical, of unknown cost but of great promise. Wise supervisors vote unanimous support for power plant, a typical article announcing a new coal-fired power plant, says, "Robbins said the resolution makes note of support for the “best available, advanced and futuristic technology for carbon capture” Dominion is urged to incorporate as that technology becomes available. ..... Adkins said he believes Dominion’s Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center will become a “world model” for the development of carbon capture and sequestration technology in the future.[emphasis mine]"[15]
Carbon capture and sequestration, if it ever ultimately materializes which is by no means certain, will be very energetically expensive. There is much debate about both the technical parameters and potential future viability of carbon capture and sequestration. The article, New coal fired power station gets go ahead points out, "The notion of cleaned coal is an oxymoron, with environmentalists and scientists disagreeing over the viability of any capture / cleaning / sequestration technology. It will take years and seems a high gamble to rely on a technology in the future."[5] This sentiment is echoed in the article, Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future, which states, "But scientists and environmentalists say "clean coal" does not exist; it is a misnomer and an oxymoron. "[16]
As to the energy requirement, according to the article, Carbon capture faces cost challenge, "Carbon capture costs represent up to 80 per cent of the total costs of carbon capture and storage, between $66 to $110 a tonne, according to preliminary research by the CO2 network."[26] Estimates are, in fact, that carbon capture in coal-fired power plants could consume from 20-40% as much energy as is being generated, and that the total energy costs from capture to sequestration, including the energy for mining and transporting the coal, could require 60% as much energy or more as the energy being generated in the power plant. Quite simply this means that power generation incorporating carbon capture and sequestration will require up to 60% more fuel to generate the same amount of energy as that being produced without CCS. With peak oil, peak natural gas and peak coal all set to materialize over the next few decades that is a disheartening statistic. And that 60% more fuel will also generate and emit carbon dioxide which, in turn, has to be captured and sequestered.
In a global economy addicted to perpetual growth and massive profits no industry is going to voluntarily adopt, at their own expense, a new technology that is going to add 60 percent to their fuel bill, especially an industry like power generation where fuel cost is their largest single operating expense. The article Energy at the crossroads: Carbon sequestration is a GM solution; we need a Honda solution suggests, "There are simply too many unknowns to commit enormous investments to an undertaking whose results could be obtained in many more preferable ways."[3] The article suggests, for example, that, ".....we could cut our energy use by more than 60 percent without diminishing our lifestyle in any way -- and arguably it would be enhanced,". The article claims, ".....the U.S. requires 7 tons of oil equivalent (toe) per person per year to maintain our present lifestyle. But ..... a top-notch lifestyle [such as that in Europe] requires no more than 2.6 toe and arguably even a bit less."[3] Despite the highly political assurances of the current White House administration to the contrary, sooner or later the American way of life has to become negotiable, and the sooner the better.
In order to soften the economic blow the largest industrial CO2 polluters/emitters would face implementing CCS, various forms of cap-and-trade systems have been proposed by different industrial governments. Most of these programs are broken into multiple phases where phase 1 involves giving the first allocation of carbon certificates to the major CO2 emitters. Subsequent phases would require emitters to purchase additional certificates at auction. The intent of the phasing is to encourage CO2 emitters to, over time, reduce their emissions (and their costs) to acceptable levels, either through adoption of CCS technology or other means.
Many of these schemes, however, do not have the teeth, possibly by intent (".....industry officials continue to talk up the greatness of carbon capture and sequestration "potential" yet refuse to implement a carbon tax or some equivalent that, from a market perspective, is the only sure way of getting the ball rolling beyond mere discussion and promises."[27]), to generate the needed CO2 reductions. The article, The European emission trading scheme: lessons for Ontario, points out, "The more allocations granted[in the EU], the cheaper carbon permits became, and the less incentive coal-fired power companies had to deviate from business-as-usual and actually reduce emissions."[4] If the cap-and-trade system does not encourage/(force?) the needed CO2 reductions there is reason to question the societal value of the system. The article, Carbon Trading: The carbon offset market is set to take off. But could U.S. businesses end up buying a lot of hot air?, spells out the most prevalent criticism. ".....critics say buying carbon offsets does little to change how carbon-addicted companies operate. "It's like the medieval practice of buying papal indulgences," complains Frank O'Donnell, president of the not-for-profit Clean Air Watch. "If sinners throw a few bucks into the pot, they can go back to sinning.""[8]
But companies and industries do what they do. Whenever possible they will find a way to turn a profit, even in cleaning up their own mess. Carbon offsets are already being tackled as a good new profit-making venture. The above report indicates, "In 2006, trading volume of carbon offsets, such as Carbon Financial Instruments and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), jumped 200 percent in the voluntary markets (primarily the United States). Observers believe that market is now worth at least $100 million. Privately, those same observers talk about a $4 billion carbon-trading market once federal caps are approved."[8]
If tackling carbon dioxide emissions and atmospheric CO2 levels is limited to the capture of CO2 at large, single-point generation facilities such as power plants which are responsible for less than half our CO2 emissions, it is unlikely that sufficient levels of atmospheric CO2 reductions will result to have the needed impact on mitigating global warming. As the report, Carbon Capture Strategy Could Lead To Emission-free Cars, points out, "Technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions from large-scale sources such as power plants have recently gained some impressive scientific ground, but nearly two-thirds of global carbon emissions are created by much smaller polluters - automobiles, transportation vehicles and distributed industrial power generation applications (e.g., diesel power generators)."[36] But governments like to throw your tax money at the big, visible projects like power plants, especially at election time. Research into other methods is primarily being left to private, non-funded projects like this. ".....The Georgia Tech team outlines an economically feasible strategy for processing fossil or synthetic, carbon-containing liquid fuels that allows for the capture and recycling of carbon at the point of emission. .....onboard fuel processor designed to separate the hydrogen in the fuel from the carbon. Hydrogen is then used to power the vehicle, while the carbon is stored on board the vehicle in a liquid form until it is disposed [of] at a refueling station."[36]
Environmentalist largely argue that no new fossil-fuel-fired power plants should be built without functioning carbon capture built in. Industry and most western governments argue against that position. Banks are caught in the middle, uncertain about the wisdom of the financial risk of granting investment funds for construction of a plant dependent on a technology that might never materialize in a political climate that is daily giving birth to new legislation demanding ever-tighter environmental controls. In the article, Banks won't slow plans for coal plant, the dilemma is spelled out, "But waiting until sequestration technology is perfected before building a plant would leave the state and ..... customers without reliable and low-cost sources of electricity....."[35] Anne Woiwode, state director for the Michigan Sierra Club, disagrees. Woiwode says "it doesn't make sense for utilities to build coal plants knowing federal regulations are coming, and that someday they might have to retrofit existing plants with carbon sequestration technology. She is worried utilities will pass along those costs to rate payers."[35] If they do not, either directly in customer power rates or indirectly through government subsidies, free carbon certificates or exemptions, I am not sure who she expects will pick up that cost. Certainly not the utility.
But the question is a fair one. Shouldn't the corporations, governments and nations that have financially benefited from the burning of cheap fossil fuels be responsible for the cost of cleaning up the present and their future environmental damages inflicted by those practices? This argument is put in sharp relief in the article, Carbon capture Canada's best hope to meet Kyoto targets. "But an excellent case can be made that Alberta should pick up the lion's share of the tab to create this tidbit of technology. After all, Wild Rose Country is in danger of growing out of sync economically with other provinces, developing a fatcat reputation as it continues to be the prime beneficiary of Canada's oil industry as well as the largest contributor among provinces to the greenhouse gas emissions problem."[34] And the article, Carbon capture faces cost challenge, adds this. ""Just for pure sequestration, the value is derived from not having CO2 in the atmosphere," Charles Szmulo, with Enbridge Inc. says. "That doesn't pay revenue, it's more of an avoided societal cost. The question is who's going to pay for that societal cost."[26] The inference in that statement is that it certainly will not be the polluter. Some take their skepticism a little further, as suggested in Banks Get Smarter On Cleaner Coal. "And given that the technology to capture and store carbon from coal plants isn’t expected to be viable for at least a decade, anything built between now and then will likely only come with the promise of carbon capture technologies, not the real thing. If you’re a skeptic, like climate scientist James Hansen, then you doubt that utilities are planning on implementing carbon capture technology, even when it becomes available."[33]
Our present giddy enthusiasm for carbon capture as a means of mitigating greenhouse gas build-up in the atmosphere runs, unfortunately, the distinct risk of achieving quite the opposite. Carbon dioxide is not the only atmospheric toxin and greenhouse gas going up the smokestack of our factories and power plants. There is sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, lead, and a host of other toxins, as well as the particulate matter in the smoke itself. With the increased parasitic energy demand on emission sources equipped with carbon capture technology (and this without even allowing for the reduced energy intensity of the poorer grades of brown coal that will have to be used when the higher grade coals are gone in the next few years) we may reduce the CO2 being released into the earth's atmosphere but will significantly increase the emissions of these other toxins and greenhouse gases.
We may reduce CO2 levels but increase the incidence of particulate matter (e.g. smoke, dust and ash) in the atmosphere that is responsible for the global dimming that has arguably neutralized the global warming impact being brought on by the increased greenhouse gases. Rather than balance the earth's temperature by reducing our human-generated greenhouse gases we may end up causing a precipitous drop in the average global temperature with the serious potential of pushing us into another ice age.
We have an unfortunate tendency of developing tunnel-vision when we are looking for solutions to problems, even those of our own making. We like to put all our eggs in one basket, our faith in that one grand solution. This is based on an ardent belief that what "small" problems are generated by the solution can, in turn, be solved by the application of yet more technology. But what is the solution when the technology itself is the problem?
=============================================
1) Climate change and the purpose of growth
2) Earlier start for clean coal power
3) Energy at the crossroads: Carbon sequestration is a GM solution; we need a Honda solution
4) The European emission trading scheme: lessons for Ontario
5) New coal fired power station gets go ahead
6) Earth2Tech Maps: Coal Power Plant Deathwatch
7) FAQ: Carbon Capture & Sequestration
8) Carbon Trading: The carbon offset market is set to take off. But could U.S. businesses end up buying a lot of hot air?
9) Carbon sequestration rocks! Literally. We try to capture the debate on putting carbon where it won't hurt anything
10) The wind, the sun-and the atom
11) Climate scientist criticizes coal-fired power plant plans
12) Carbon tax no cure for climate change
13) Where Do The Candidates Stand On Energy Sources?
14) Scientists Protest Geoengineering to Capture CO2
15) Wise supervisors vote unanimous support for power plant
16) Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future
17) There is a silver-bullet solution to global warming
18) Europe's CO2 Capture Conundrum
19) Discover The Future Of Carbon Capture And Storage
20) Climate fraud, carbon profits
21) Masdar and Hydrogen Energy plan clean energy plant in Abu Dhabi
22) Baking Soda: Removes stains, odors, and combats Global Warming
23) Aker to invest in pioneering carbon capture facility
24) Greenpeace condemns Alberta climate change plan
25) Brussels' CO2 permits expected to cost Drax its independence
26) Carbon capture faces cost challenge
27) Climate Neros fiddle while Rome burns
28) Sen. Coleman testifies before Senate Committee about carbon dioxide capture and transport
29) Will Canada Save Clean Coal?
30) Clean Coal?
31) Natural Systems Solutions to Global Warming
32) Clean coal: FutureGen goes on the rocks
33) Banks Get Smarter On Cleaner Coal
34) Carbon capture Canada's best hope to meet Kyoto targets
35) Banks won't slow plans for coal plant
36) Carbon Capture Strategy Could Lead To Emission-free Cars
All of the above are promised technological marvels that never have and probably never will materialize, feel-good mental distractions pumped out by myopic techno-centric minds. But this article is only about one; clean coal or, more accurately, CCS (carbon capture and sequestration).
Carbon capture, unlike space colonies and flying cars, is a pipe-dream born out of necessity. We are so adversely impacting the life-support system of this planet that we have now forced ourselves into a position of having to correct some of our more critical damage. The article, Carbon tax no cure for climate change, claims, "Ultimately, the answer to greenhouse gas emissions in this energy-hungry world is going to come from a breakthrough on the technology side, and it won't come cheap."[12] Whether or not one accepts that technology holds the solution, it is the driving force behind industry and government in most developed and developing nations and will, therefore, dictate the direction in the corridors of power over the coming decades.
In case it appears otherwise, let me be very clear. I am not against the concept of carbon capture and sequestration. Quite the contrary. Only a small clutch of pollyannas and cornucopians any longer believes that peak oil (and peak natural gas) are not fast approaching. Ethanol and biofuels, tar sands, oil shale, methane hydrates and any other alternatives do not negate that reality. The fact that we are forced to pursue these costly and difficult alternatives, in fact, are confirmation that the reality of peak oil is sinking into the consciousness of those in the energy industry. There is unfortunately little doubt, therefore, that we will pursue coal as a primary energy option as the reality of declining oil and natural gas reserves dictates. Increasing our reliance on dirty coal - the dirtiest of all fossil fuels - without pursuing every means of preventing further destruction of the earth's environment through elevated CO2 emissions would seriously hasten the demise of the life-support capability of this planet.
My issue with carbon capture and sequestration is complex but starts with a reasonable doubt that we can develop a technology to do it soon enough. I fear that we will continue to build dirty, coal-fired power plants on the basis of an assumption that such technology will materialize and can be retrofitted to those plants. It appears that the energy drain on those facilities for CCS (up to 40% or more) will dramatically increase our global energy consumption with no net increase in energy produced. It also appears that the full energy cost of CCS, from mining of the coal through eventual sequestration, could more than double the energy consumption with no net increase in energy produced and hasten our race toward an energy cliff. I fear that we will force ourselves into a near-term reliance on nuclear energy, complete with its radioactive waste disposal problem, by creating a new energy crisis by rapidly depleting the planet's coal resources. I also fear that we will soon pursue the very dangerous alternative of mining the world's methane hydrate deposits, running the very serious risk of pushing the earth into a runaway greenhouse effect (methane is 20 times more powerful as a GHG than CO2).
Breaking CCS down, carbon capture refers to isolating and collecting the carbon dioxide created by the burning of fossil fuels. This would usually be at the point of combustion, such as in coal-fired power plants, thus preventing it entering the atmosphere. Another possibility is extracting previously emitted carbon dioxide (from, for example, automobile and aircraft emissions, factory emissions and home heating fuel emissions) from the atmosphere itself. There is current gas separation technology that can accomplish this on a limited scale.
Carbon sequestration involves the long-term storing or sequestering of that CO2 in either gaseous or liquid form underground, usually in formations such as depleted oil or natural gas wells (there are some efforts to use injected CO2 to increase the well-head pressure and flow rate of operating oil wells[3]) or abandoned mines, or in liquid form at the bottom of the deeper parts of the ocean where it is hoped the massive pressure of water above the CO2 deposit would hold it in place. There is also research ongoing into chemically reacting the carbon dioxide with substances like sandstone or certain chemicals like carbon hydroxide and transforming it permanently into other substances like rock (see Carbon sequestration rocks! Literally[9]) or sodium bicarbonate, better known as baking soda (see Baking Soda: Removes stains, odors, and combats Global Warming[22]).
In between carbon capture and carbon sequestration will have to be some means of transport, such as tanker trucks, trains, ships or, most likely, pipelines, to get the carbon dioxide from point of extraction or capture to the site of sequestration. The CO2 transport aspect has, thus far, received very little attention or funding. In a presentation to the US senate of a proposed new bill, Senator Coleman pointed out (see Sen. Coleman testifies before Senate Committee about carbon dioxide capture and transport) "While considerable progress has been made on the first [capture] and third [sequestration] steps, [this] bill begins the process of determining how best to get the CO2 from the point of creation to the point of storage."[28]
Simple, right? Not!
It's definitely not as easy as the constant headlines announcing new projects (globally 20 in 2007) would have us believe. Despite those constant announcements nothing gets done, except a lot of your tax money going into the coffers of organizations mounting government-funded research programs. Coming up with a workable, scalable, cost effective CCS technology will not be simple and will not be fast. “People don’t understand the magnitude of the problem,” said Howard Herzog, principal research engineer for M.I.T.’s Carbon Capture and Sequestration Program. “How can we do hundreds of these plants by 2050 - and that’s what we’ll need - if we can’t even do one?”[32]
Everything about carbon capture and sequestration is future, theoretical, of unknown cost but of great promise. Wise supervisors vote unanimous support for power plant, a typical article announcing a new coal-fired power plant, says, "Robbins said the resolution makes note of support for the “best available, advanced and futuristic technology for carbon capture” Dominion is urged to incorporate as that technology becomes available. ..... Adkins said he believes Dominion’s Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center will become a “world model” for the development of carbon capture and sequestration technology in the future.[emphasis mine]"[15]
Carbon capture and sequestration, if it ever ultimately materializes which is by no means certain, will be very energetically expensive. There is much debate about both the technical parameters and potential future viability of carbon capture and sequestration. The article, New coal fired power station gets go ahead points out, "The notion of cleaned coal is an oxymoron, with environmentalists and scientists disagreeing over the viability of any capture / cleaning / sequestration technology. It will take years and seems a high gamble to rely on a technology in the future."[5] This sentiment is echoed in the article, Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future, which states, "But scientists and environmentalists say "clean coal" does not exist; it is a misnomer and an oxymoron. "[16]
As to the energy requirement, according to the article, Carbon capture faces cost challenge, "Carbon capture costs represent up to 80 per cent of the total costs of carbon capture and storage, between $66 to $110 a tonne, according to preliminary research by the CO2 network."[26] Estimates are, in fact, that carbon capture in coal-fired power plants could consume from 20-40% as much energy as is being generated, and that the total energy costs from capture to sequestration, including the energy for mining and transporting the coal, could require 60% as much energy or more as the energy being generated in the power plant. Quite simply this means that power generation incorporating carbon capture and sequestration will require up to 60% more fuel to generate the same amount of energy as that being produced without CCS. With peak oil, peak natural gas and peak coal all set to materialize over the next few decades that is a disheartening statistic. And that 60% more fuel will also generate and emit carbon dioxide which, in turn, has to be captured and sequestered.
In a global economy addicted to perpetual growth and massive profits no industry is going to voluntarily adopt, at their own expense, a new technology that is going to add 60 percent to their fuel bill, especially an industry like power generation where fuel cost is their largest single operating expense. The article Energy at the crossroads: Carbon sequestration is a GM solution; we need a Honda solution suggests, "There are simply too many unknowns to commit enormous investments to an undertaking whose results could be obtained in many more preferable ways."[3] The article suggests, for example, that, ".....we could cut our energy use by more than 60 percent without diminishing our lifestyle in any way -- and arguably it would be enhanced,". The article claims, ".....the U.S. requires 7 tons of oil equivalent (toe) per person per year to maintain our present lifestyle. But ..... a top-notch lifestyle [such as that in Europe] requires no more than 2.6 toe and arguably even a bit less."[3] Despite the highly political assurances of the current White House administration to the contrary, sooner or later the American way of life has to become negotiable, and the sooner the better.
In order to soften the economic blow the largest industrial CO2 polluters/emitters would face implementing CCS, various forms of cap-and-trade systems have been proposed by different industrial governments. Most of these programs are broken into multiple phases where phase 1 involves giving the first allocation of carbon certificates to the major CO2 emitters. Subsequent phases would require emitters to purchase additional certificates at auction. The intent of the phasing is to encourage CO2 emitters to, over time, reduce their emissions (and their costs) to acceptable levels, either through adoption of CCS technology or other means.
Many of these schemes, however, do not have the teeth, possibly by intent (".....industry officials continue to talk up the greatness of carbon capture and sequestration "potential" yet refuse to implement a carbon tax or some equivalent that, from a market perspective, is the only sure way of getting the ball rolling beyond mere discussion and promises."[27]), to generate the needed CO2 reductions. The article, The European emission trading scheme: lessons for Ontario, points out, "The more allocations granted[in the EU], the cheaper carbon permits became, and the less incentive coal-fired power companies had to deviate from business-as-usual and actually reduce emissions."[4] If the cap-and-trade system does not encourage/(force?) the needed CO2 reductions there is reason to question the societal value of the system. The article, Carbon Trading: The carbon offset market is set to take off. But could U.S. businesses end up buying a lot of hot air?, spells out the most prevalent criticism. ".....critics say buying carbon offsets does little to change how carbon-addicted companies operate. "It's like the medieval practice of buying papal indulgences," complains Frank O'Donnell, president of the not-for-profit Clean Air Watch. "If sinners throw a few bucks into the pot, they can go back to sinning.""[8]
But companies and industries do what they do. Whenever possible they will find a way to turn a profit, even in cleaning up their own mess. Carbon offsets are already being tackled as a good new profit-making venture. The above report indicates, "In 2006, trading volume of carbon offsets, such as Carbon Financial Instruments and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), jumped 200 percent in the voluntary markets (primarily the United States). Observers believe that market is now worth at least $100 million. Privately, those same observers talk about a $4 billion carbon-trading market once federal caps are approved."[8]
If tackling carbon dioxide emissions and atmospheric CO2 levels is limited to the capture of CO2 at large, single-point generation facilities such as power plants which are responsible for less than half our CO2 emissions, it is unlikely that sufficient levels of atmospheric CO2 reductions will result to have the needed impact on mitigating global warming. As the report, Carbon Capture Strategy Could Lead To Emission-free Cars, points out, "Technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions from large-scale sources such as power plants have recently gained some impressive scientific ground, but nearly two-thirds of global carbon emissions are created by much smaller polluters - automobiles, transportation vehicles and distributed industrial power generation applications (e.g., diesel power generators)."[36] But governments like to throw your tax money at the big, visible projects like power plants, especially at election time. Research into other methods is primarily being left to private, non-funded projects like this. ".....The Georgia Tech team outlines an economically feasible strategy for processing fossil or synthetic, carbon-containing liquid fuels that allows for the capture and recycling of carbon at the point of emission. .....onboard fuel processor designed to separate the hydrogen in the fuel from the carbon. Hydrogen is then used to power the vehicle, while the carbon is stored on board the vehicle in a liquid form until it is disposed [of] at a refueling station."[36]
Environmentalist largely argue that no new fossil-fuel-fired power plants should be built without functioning carbon capture built in. Industry and most western governments argue against that position. Banks are caught in the middle, uncertain about the wisdom of the financial risk of granting investment funds for construction of a plant dependent on a technology that might never materialize in a political climate that is daily giving birth to new legislation demanding ever-tighter environmental controls. In the article, Banks won't slow plans for coal plant, the dilemma is spelled out, "But waiting until sequestration technology is perfected before building a plant would leave the state and ..... customers without reliable and low-cost sources of electricity....."[35] Anne Woiwode, state director for the Michigan Sierra Club, disagrees. Woiwode says "it doesn't make sense for utilities to build coal plants knowing federal regulations are coming, and that someday they might have to retrofit existing plants with carbon sequestration technology. She is worried utilities will pass along those costs to rate payers."[35] If they do not, either directly in customer power rates or indirectly through government subsidies, free carbon certificates or exemptions, I am not sure who she expects will pick up that cost. Certainly not the utility.
But the question is a fair one. Shouldn't the corporations, governments and nations that have financially benefited from the burning of cheap fossil fuels be responsible for the cost of cleaning up the present and their future environmental damages inflicted by those practices? This argument is put in sharp relief in the article, Carbon capture Canada's best hope to meet Kyoto targets. "But an excellent case can be made that Alberta should pick up the lion's share of the tab to create this tidbit of technology. After all, Wild Rose Country is in danger of growing out of sync economically with other provinces, developing a fatcat reputation as it continues to be the prime beneficiary of Canada's oil industry as well as the largest contributor among provinces to the greenhouse gas emissions problem."[34] And the article, Carbon capture faces cost challenge, adds this. ""Just for pure sequestration, the value is derived from not having CO2 in the atmosphere," Charles Szmulo, with Enbridge Inc. says. "That doesn't pay revenue, it's more of an avoided societal cost. The question is who's going to pay for that societal cost."[26] The inference in that statement is that it certainly will not be the polluter. Some take their skepticism a little further, as suggested in Banks Get Smarter On Cleaner Coal. "And given that the technology to capture and store carbon from coal plants isn’t expected to be viable for at least a decade, anything built between now and then will likely only come with the promise of carbon capture technologies, not the real thing. If you’re a skeptic, like climate scientist James Hansen, then you doubt that utilities are planning on implementing carbon capture technology, even when it becomes available."[33]
Our present giddy enthusiasm for carbon capture as a means of mitigating greenhouse gas build-up in the atmosphere runs, unfortunately, the distinct risk of achieving quite the opposite. Carbon dioxide is not the only atmospheric toxin and greenhouse gas going up the smokestack of our factories and power plants. There is sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, lead, and a host of other toxins, as well as the particulate matter in the smoke itself. With the increased parasitic energy demand on emission sources equipped with carbon capture technology (and this without even allowing for the reduced energy intensity of the poorer grades of brown coal that will have to be used when the higher grade coals are gone in the next few years) we may reduce the CO2 being released into the earth's atmosphere but will significantly increase the emissions of these other toxins and greenhouse gases.
We may reduce CO2 levels but increase the incidence of particulate matter (e.g. smoke, dust and ash) in the atmosphere that is responsible for the global dimming that has arguably neutralized the global warming impact being brought on by the increased greenhouse gases. Rather than balance the earth's temperature by reducing our human-generated greenhouse gases we may end up causing a precipitous drop in the average global temperature with the serious potential of pushing us into another ice age.
We have an unfortunate tendency of developing tunnel-vision when we are looking for solutions to problems, even those of our own making. We like to put all our eggs in one basket, our faith in that one grand solution. This is based on an ardent belief that what "small" problems are generated by the solution can, in turn, be solved by the application of yet more technology. But what is the solution when the technology itself is the problem?
=============================================
1) Climate change and the purpose of growth
2) Earlier start for clean coal power
3) Energy at the crossroads: Carbon sequestration is a GM solution; we need a Honda solution
4) The European emission trading scheme: lessons for Ontario
5) New coal fired power station gets go ahead
6) Earth2Tech Maps: Coal Power Plant Deathwatch
7) FAQ: Carbon Capture & Sequestration
8) Carbon Trading: The carbon offset market is set to take off. But could U.S. businesses end up buying a lot of hot air?
9) Carbon sequestration rocks! Literally. We try to capture the debate on putting carbon where it won't hurt anything
10) The wind, the sun-and the atom
11) Climate scientist criticizes coal-fired power plant plans
12) Carbon tax no cure for climate change
13) Where Do The Candidates Stand On Energy Sources?
14) Scientists Protest Geoengineering to Capture CO2
15) Wise supervisors vote unanimous support for power plant
16) Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future
17) There is a silver-bullet solution to global warming
18) Europe's CO2 Capture Conundrum
19) Discover The Future Of Carbon Capture And Storage
20) Climate fraud, carbon profits
21) Masdar and Hydrogen Energy plan clean energy plant in Abu Dhabi
22) Baking Soda: Removes stains, odors, and combats Global Warming
23) Aker to invest in pioneering carbon capture facility
24) Greenpeace condemns Alberta climate change plan
25) Brussels' CO2 permits expected to cost Drax its independence
26) Carbon capture faces cost challenge
27) Climate Neros fiddle while Rome burns
28) Sen. Coleman testifies before Senate Committee about carbon dioxide capture and transport
29) Will Canada Save Clean Coal?
30) Clean Coal?
31) Natural Systems Solutions to Global Warming
32) Clean coal: FutureGen goes on the rocks
33) Banks Get Smarter On Cleaner Coal
34) Carbon capture Canada's best hope to meet Kyoto targets
35) Banks won't slow plans for coal plant
36) Carbon Capture Strategy Could Lead To Emission-free Cars
Monday, August 25, 2008
CCS: Cure or CurSe?
Three factors are converging to put Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) at the forefront of the global energy picture and discussion.
* Pollution from our ongoing dependence on fossil fuels to power global industrial society has pushed the planet's environment beyond it's ability to absorb our abuses and maintain temperature equilibrium. Global warming/climate change is on the march as the build-up of GHGs (both carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane but also others such as sulfur dioxide) in the atmosphere continues.
* The two fossil fuels that largely powered the 20th century's industrial and technological growth, oil and natural gas, are both at or nearing their peak and other alternatives are already being leaned on to fill the gap. The only two possible alternatives that can possibly carry much of the burden of energy-hungry human population are coal and nuclear (though China, India, Japan and others are already investigating the possible foolhardy exploitation of methane hydrates (methane is a GHG twenty times more powerful than CO2), a carbohydrate fuel source potentially more abundant than all the other fossil fuels combined) and there is still a large mistrust of nuclear as the foundation of the global energy strategy.
* It is increasingly clear that industry-driven governments throughout the world are intent on pursuing business as usual until nature and geology absolutely refuse to cooperate and force us to face the reality of a planet in overall energy decline. To a large extent they have little choice. We have a global economy and global society built on debt and an ever-increasing money supply. That increasing money supply is based on a very shaky assumption of continued population, resource and GDP growth, all of which are threatened even in the short term by the approaching disasters.
With those three factors coming together, and despite strong and growing environmental opposition, we have left ourselves little alternative in the short term but to turn to coal. Other than the much dreaded and avoided nuclear it is the only fuel source that can be scaled up in the near term to the level to satisfy an appreciable portion of a business-as-usual energy demand. The total potential and technology-dependent wind, solar, tidal and geothermal energy could not make a serious attempt to replace the loss of energy coming with the decline of global oil and natural gas supplies. Even if technologically, environmentally and economically feasible, broad-based methane hydrate exploitation is still potentially decades away. It is unlikely, also, that the problem of disposal or long-term storage of radioactive nuclear waste will be solved satisfactorily. Without that the widespread discomfort with the nuclear option is unlikely to dissipate unless nuclear is the absolute last option open to us in which case that opposition will be ignored out of "necessity". Which may be the case soon enough at any rate as, according to some knowledgeable observers like Chris Skrebowski, tar sands may peak as early as 2015 and, according to the Energy Watch group in Germany, coal should peak as early as 2025 but before 2015 the predominant source of coal will be dirty, brown coal, not the "cleaner" black coals that have dominated to date.
An increased dependence on coal, especially as an increasingly dominant source of energy, means big-time problems on the global warming/climate change issue. The only possible way to lessen that impact would be with broad-based carbon capture and sequestration, not just of the emissions from coal-fired power plants but atmospheric CO2 from, for example, automobile and aircraft emissions and natural gas-fired power plants.
Will Carbon Capture and Sequestration be implemented early enough and on a sufficient scale to prevent the environmental disaster that looms before us as we pass peak oil? It will, by most estimates, take at least a decade to develop workable and scalable CCS technology and infrastructure. Most CCS plans and projects, however, involve the building of new coal-fired power plants with CCS built into the design. There is very little viable research ongoing for technology that can be retrofitted across a broad spectrum of existing power plants, not only coal fired but natural gas and oil fired as well.
Whether the technology is developed and implemented early enough to have any impact on the growing environmental crisis depends largely on how quickly we increase the burning of coal on a global scale without carbon capture built in. As oil and natural gas supplies decline, if CCS technology is not available or not efficient enough will we wait until it is available or proceed with opening new coal-fired power plants while hoping the technology will still be developed and can be retrofitted? If history is any measure we will proceed and hope for the best.
China and India (and other nations) continue opening new coal-fired power plants today on a massive scale (China's power demands are increasing by as much as 20% per year), all without CCS technology built in, most without design considerations for later retrofitting. China and India particularly (but also other 3rd world countries) have habitually disdained design safety and necessary routine maintenance in their attempt to produce "cheap" power, despite the fact that design technology exists to satisfy both, but at a cost. If CCS adds significant cost, either built in or retrofitted, it is likely that all manner of excuses will be found for not implementing it. Third world countries are not alone. The "cheap" energy demands of industry have always trumped public and even government environmental concerns. We must keep the wheels of industry rolling. If the need for energy is there but CCS is not ready or not economically acceptable to industry, it is likely those "cheap" energy needs will be met, whatever the cost or consequences.
If there is, alternatively, any "doubt" about the CCS technology that doubt will be used as a convenient excuse (can you spell "red herring"?) not to implement it. As we have seen repeatedly in western nations, particularly in the US, where there is no doubt industry lobbies will work very hard to manufacture doubt in order to create an excuse for not pursuing a policy contrary to their dominant profit motive. When it comes to something as serious as the potential destruction of the planet's environment doubt should be a cause for extreme caution, but industry does not see it that way, nor do the governments they have bought and paid for. Doubt is consistently used as the basis for not addressing environmental issues and similar "costly" measures. When it comes to doing the right thing and being good corporate citizens, it seems that an absolutely certainty of, of course, profitability is required.
Carbon capture and sequestration comes at a cost, not just economically but also in terms of energy consumption and collateral environmental damage. Carbon capture reduces fuel efficiency by 20-40% meaning 20-40% more coal (of lower grade) or other energy must be burned to get the same energy output, meaning 20-40% more CO2 must be captured and sequestered because of the carbon capture. But CO2 is not the only "toxin" and greenhouse gas produced in burning coal and other fossil fuels. Sulfur Dioxide, lead and other emissions are also part of the mix. 20-40% more of these emissions will also result from the implementation of CCS. The potential increase in damage from soil toxification and acidification of freshwater supplies may be greater than the environmental benefits from the reduction of CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere. The carbon capture aspect will also employ a large volume of various chemicals to scrub the CO2 from the smokestack emissions, more chemicals that the environment has to cope with.
The sequestration of the captured carbon is also not without problems. The two primary plans for carbon sequestration are 1) to inject it into deep mines and exhausted oil fields or 2) injection deep into the oceans for sequestration at the ocean bottom. The long-term feasibility of land based sequestration in old mines and exhausted oil fields is by no means certain. The geological structure required to "contain" the injected CO2 (probably liquid rather than gaseous) is reasonably understood. But the actual geological structure of the sites into which sequestration is planned is not. Geology changes over time and the serious potential risk of a catastrophic re-release of the sequestered CO2 in time is very high. Fractures and stresses in the "cap" that holds the CO2 in place can readily develop allowing long-term slow re-release of the sequestered CO2. There is also a serious potential that sequestered CO2 can seep into stressed groundwater aquifers contaminating and acidifying those increasingly critical sources of water.
Deep ocean CO2 sequestration is almost certain to increase, over time, the acidification of the seawater above the sequestered CO2. The more acidic water becomes the less capable it is of supporting life. Additionally, the more the water absorbs CO2 from that sequestered on the ocean bottom the less capable that water becomes of absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. The risk becomes very great that the planet's greatest CO2 sink, the oceans, would completely lose their ability to absorb atmospheric CO2, pushing the atmosphere into a runaway greenhouse effect.
There are far greater questions to consider in the carbon capture and sequestration debate than simply our ability to develop the technology to achieve it. The health and life-support capability of the planetary environment is at stake, as is the future survivability of life on earth, man included. We have an unfortunate tendency of creating more problems with our solutions than the problems the solutions answer. We are far too close to the edge to be creating more problems with our solutions. Maybe it is time for governments and industry to consider whether business-as-usual is a viable strategy any longer. Maybe it is time for them finally to consider that we have to drastically cut back our global energy consumption and seriously change the way in which our species interacts with the environment, while there is still a livable environment to interact with.
==========================================
1) United Nations Climate Change Conference: Bali: An Initial Balance Sheet
2) The Climate Crisis is a political crisis
3) Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future
4) Ten things you need to know about carbon capture
5) Net carbon dioxide losses of northern ecosystems in response to autumn warming
6) The Chemistry of Carbon Capture and Storage
7) Spongelike Air-Capture Gadget Scrubs Away Carbon Emissions
8) Carbon, Capture and Storage: Technology, Capacity and Limitations
9) Carbon capture gets crystal powered
10) "All We Need is Water and Pollution."
11) Carbon credit generates nearly $500,000 for Nebraska's farmers
12) Experts say candidates miss the boat on energy crunch
13) Ethical Issues Raised by Waiting for Geological Carbon Storage
14) Carbon sequestration frustration
* Pollution from our ongoing dependence on fossil fuels to power global industrial society has pushed the planet's environment beyond it's ability to absorb our abuses and maintain temperature equilibrium. Global warming/climate change is on the march as the build-up of GHGs (both carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane but also others such as sulfur dioxide) in the atmosphere continues.
* The two fossil fuels that largely powered the 20th century's industrial and technological growth, oil and natural gas, are both at or nearing their peak and other alternatives are already being leaned on to fill the gap. The only two possible alternatives that can possibly carry much of the burden of energy-hungry human population are coal and nuclear (though China, India, Japan and others are already investigating the possible foolhardy exploitation of methane hydrates (methane is a GHG twenty times more powerful than CO2), a carbohydrate fuel source potentially more abundant than all the other fossil fuels combined) and there is still a large mistrust of nuclear as the foundation of the global energy strategy.
* It is increasingly clear that industry-driven governments throughout the world are intent on pursuing business as usual until nature and geology absolutely refuse to cooperate and force us to face the reality of a planet in overall energy decline. To a large extent they have little choice. We have a global economy and global society built on debt and an ever-increasing money supply. That increasing money supply is based on a very shaky assumption of continued population, resource and GDP growth, all of which are threatened even in the short term by the approaching disasters.
With those three factors coming together, and despite strong and growing environmental opposition, we have left ourselves little alternative in the short term but to turn to coal. Other than the much dreaded and avoided nuclear it is the only fuel source that can be scaled up in the near term to the level to satisfy an appreciable portion of a business-as-usual energy demand. The total potential and technology-dependent wind, solar, tidal and geothermal energy could not make a serious attempt to replace the loss of energy coming with the decline of global oil and natural gas supplies. Even if technologically, environmentally and economically feasible, broad-based methane hydrate exploitation is still potentially decades away. It is unlikely, also, that the problem of disposal or long-term storage of radioactive nuclear waste will be solved satisfactorily. Without that the widespread discomfort with the nuclear option is unlikely to dissipate unless nuclear is the absolute last option open to us in which case that opposition will be ignored out of "necessity". Which may be the case soon enough at any rate as, according to some knowledgeable observers like Chris Skrebowski, tar sands may peak as early as 2015 and, according to the Energy Watch group in Germany, coal should peak as early as 2025 but before 2015 the predominant source of coal will be dirty, brown coal, not the "cleaner" black coals that have dominated to date.
An increased dependence on coal, especially as an increasingly dominant source of energy, means big-time problems on the global warming/climate change issue. The only possible way to lessen that impact would be with broad-based carbon capture and sequestration, not just of the emissions from coal-fired power plants but atmospheric CO2 from, for example, automobile and aircraft emissions and natural gas-fired power plants.
Will Carbon Capture and Sequestration be implemented early enough and on a sufficient scale to prevent the environmental disaster that looms before us as we pass peak oil? It will, by most estimates, take at least a decade to develop workable and scalable CCS technology and infrastructure. Most CCS plans and projects, however, involve the building of new coal-fired power plants with CCS built into the design. There is very little viable research ongoing for technology that can be retrofitted across a broad spectrum of existing power plants, not only coal fired but natural gas and oil fired as well.
Whether the technology is developed and implemented early enough to have any impact on the growing environmental crisis depends largely on how quickly we increase the burning of coal on a global scale without carbon capture built in. As oil and natural gas supplies decline, if CCS technology is not available or not efficient enough will we wait until it is available or proceed with opening new coal-fired power plants while hoping the technology will still be developed and can be retrofitted? If history is any measure we will proceed and hope for the best.
China and India (and other nations) continue opening new coal-fired power plants today on a massive scale (China's power demands are increasing by as much as 20% per year), all without CCS technology built in, most without design considerations for later retrofitting. China and India particularly (but also other 3rd world countries) have habitually disdained design safety and necessary routine maintenance in their attempt to produce "cheap" power, despite the fact that design technology exists to satisfy both, but at a cost. If CCS adds significant cost, either built in or retrofitted, it is likely that all manner of excuses will be found for not implementing it. Third world countries are not alone. The "cheap" energy demands of industry have always trumped public and even government environmental concerns. We must keep the wheels of industry rolling. If the need for energy is there but CCS is not ready or not economically acceptable to industry, it is likely those "cheap" energy needs will be met, whatever the cost or consequences.
If there is, alternatively, any "doubt" about the CCS technology that doubt will be used as a convenient excuse (can you spell "red herring"?) not to implement it. As we have seen repeatedly in western nations, particularly in the US, where there is no doubt industry lobbies will work very hard to manufacture doubt in order to create an excuse for not pursuing a policy contrary to their dominant profit motive. When it comes to something as serious as the potential destruction of the planet's environment doubt should be a cause for extreme caution, but industry does not see it that way, nor do the governments they have bought and paid for. Doubt is consistently used as the basis for not addressing environmental issues and similar "costly" measures. When it comes to doing the right thing and being good corporate citizens, it seems that an absolutely certainty of, of course, profitability is required.
Carbon capture and sequestration comes at a cost, not just economically but also in terms of energy consumption and collateral environmental damage. Carbon capture reduces fuel efficiency by 20-40% meaning 20-40% more coal (of lower grade) or other energy must be burned to get the same energy output, meaning 20-40% more CO2 must be captured and sequestered because of the carbon capture. But CO2 is not the only "toxin" and greenhouse gas produced in burning coal and other fossil fuels. Sulfur Dioxide, lead and other emissions are also part of the mix. 20-40% more of these emissions will also result from the implementation of CCS. The potential increase in damage from soil toxification and acidification of freshwater supplies may be greater than the environmental benefits from the reduction of CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere. The carbon capture aspect will also employ a large volume of various chemicals to scrub the CO2 from the smokestack emissions, more chemicals that the environment has to cope with.
The sequestration of the captured carbon is also not without problems. The two primary plans for carbon sequestration are 1) to inject it into deep mines and exhausted oil fields or 2) injection deep into the oceans for sequestration at the ocean bottom. The long-term feasibility of land based sequestration in old mines and exhausted oil fields is by no means certain. The geological structure required to "contain" the injected CO2 (probably liquid rather than gaseous) is reasonably understood. But the actual geological structure of the sites into which sequestration is planned is not. Geology changes over time and the serious potential risk of a catastrophic re-release of the sequestered CO2 in time is very high. Fractures and stresses in the "cap" that holds the CO2 in place can readily develop allowing long-term slow re-release of the sequestered CO2. There is also a serious potential that sequestered CO2 can seep into stressed groundwater aquifers contaminating and acidifying those increasingly critical sources of water.
Deep ocean CO2 sequestration is almost certain to increase, over time, the acidification of the seawater above the sequestered CO2. The more acidic water becomes the less capable it is of supporting life. Additionally, the more the water absorbs CO2 from that sequestered on the ocean bottom the less capable that water becomes of absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. The risk becomes very great that the planet's greatest CO2 sink, the oceans, would completely lose their ability to absorb atmospheric CO2, pushing the atmosphere into a runaway greenhouse effect.
There are far greater questions to consider in the carbon capture and sequestration debate than simply our ability to develop the technology to achieve it. The health and life-support capability of the planetary environment is at stake, as is the future survivability of life on earth, man included. We have an unfortunate tendency of creating more problems with our solutions than the problems the solutions answer. We are far too close to the edge to be creating more problems with our solutions. Maybe it is time for governments and industry to consider whether business-as-usual is a viable strategy any longer. Maybe it is time for them finally to consider that we have to drastically cut back our global energy consumption and seriously change the way in which our species interacts with the environment, while there is still a livable environment to interact with.
==========================================
1) United Nations Climate Change Conference: Bali: An Initial Balance Sheet
2) The Climate Crisis is a political crisis
3) Big Coal's Dirty Plans for Our Energy Future
4) Ten things you need to know about carbon capture
5) Net carbon dioxide losses of northern ecosystems in response to autumn warming
6) The Chemistry of Carbon Capture and Storage
7) Spongelike Air-Capture Gadget Scrubs Away Carbon Emissions
8) Carbon, Capture and Storage: Technology, Capacity and Limitations
9) Carbon capture gets crystal powered
10) "All We Need is Water and Pollution."
11) Carbon credit generates nearly $500,000 for Nebraska's farmers
12) Experts say candidates miss the boat on energy crunch
13) Ethical Issues Raised by Waiting for Geological Carbon Storage
14) Carbon sequestration frustration
Monday, August 11, 2008
Bubble Babble
Oh, they're having so much fuuuuuun! You'd think it was Times Square on VE-Day.
Four months to the day after oil passed $120.00 per barrel on an unstoppable climb it hit the latest - but certainly not the last - peak price of $147.27. Now, after a couple weeks of sliding it is back trading just under $120.00, a temporary respite before returning to its upward movement.
When oil first crossed the $120.00 barrier the press was full of articles about how devestating that price would be to the world economy. The world economy seemingly shrugged it off and adjusted to continuing rises in the price. The articles and headlines about the serious economic impact continued however.
When the price of oil dipped back under $120.00 a little over four months after it rose above that level for the first time the headlines were declaring that the good times had returned, that the bubble had burst, the stock markets climbed, the US dollar rebounded, we were on our way back down to oil prices of double digits, all was right with the world.... at a price that was considered the deathblow to the world economy just four short months ago.
Some writers were even so bold as to claim that peak oil was history, that peak oil had peaked, that the peak oil wing-nuts should crawl back into their caves. Clearly the market is in control of oil, not geology. I guess if you don't understand geology, don't bother to learn even the basics of geology, take all of your cues and information from economists and financiasl analysts you would have that point of view.
Those who understand oil geology, those who have studied the oil supply demand picture, those who have bothered to educate themselves in the underlying foundations of peak oil theory, those who know that M. King Hubbert and Mother Hubbard are not related, know that this is just a dip in the ongoing oscilation in price on the ever-upward trend in price that will accompany and follow the peak in global oil production. The prospect of $200.00 oil before year's end is still on the table. The likelihood if sub $100.00 oil is slim.
So to all of those who believe that $120.00 oil signals a return to the good old days, go out and check the tire pressure on your SUV, check the oil, check the battery, fill up the gas tank and get out there on the highway and have a rip-roaring good time. Enjoy the good times...... while they last.
Four months to the day after oil passed $120.00 per barrel on an unstoppable climb it hit the latest - but certainly not the last - peak price of $147.27. Now, after a couple weeks of sliding it is back trading just under $120.00, a temporary respite before returning to its upward movement.
When oil first crossed the $120.00 barrier the press was full of articles about how devestating that price would be to the world economy. The world economy seemingly shrugged it off and adjusted to continuing rises in the price. The articles and headlines about the serious economic impact continued however.
When the price of oil dipped back under $120.00 a little over four months after it rose above that level for the first time the headlines were declaring that the good times had returned, that the bubble had burst, the stock markets climbed, the US dollar rebounded, we were on our way back down to oil prices of double digits, all was right with the world.... at a price that was considered the deathblow to the world economy just four short months ago.
Some writers were even so bold as to claim that peak oil was history, that peak oil had peaked, that the peak oil wing-nuts should crawl back into their caves. Clearly the market is in control of oil, not geology. I guess if you don't understand geology, don't bother to learn even the basics of geology, take all of your cues and information from economists and financiasl analysts you would have that point of view.
Those who understand oil geology, those who have studied the oil supply demand picture, those who have bothered to educate themselves in the underlying foundations of peak oil theory, those who know that M. King Hubbert and Mother Hubbard are not related, know that this is just a dip in the ongoing oscilation in price on the ever-upward trend in price that will accompany and follow the peak in global oil production. The prospect of $200.00 oil before year's end is still on the table. The likelihood if sub $100.00 oil is slim.
So to all of those who believe that $120.00 oil signals a return to the good old days, go out and check the tire pressure on your SUV, check the oil, check the battery, fill up the gas tank and get out there on the highway and have a rip-roaring good time. Enjoy the good times...... while they last.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Waiting for those Benevolent Aliens............
One of the prevalent and pernicious variations on the belief that technology will save us is the belief that we will soon make contact with an intelligent extraterrestrial species that will teach us magical secrets and technological wonders that we will use to avert the disasters looming ahead of us. And like all variations on the belief in salvation through technology this simply is not likely to happen. If we bank on that, like mid-lifers planning our retirement around winning the lottery, we are planning on having to live through the worst case scenario of all these future crises.
I am by no means challenging the assumption of other intelligent life in the universe. In fact I fervently adhere to that belief. For some it takes a fundamental refocusing of their belief system to step away from the belief that man is the center of the universe, that man has some special dominion over all the other living species on this planet, that man can do with this planet, and any other part of the universe we manage to reach, whatever we wish. Our species has no special place in the overall scheme of things. Our sun is a minor star in a remote corner of an unspectacular galaxy, one of billions in the vast universe. A growing array of mathematical models suggest that life is probably ubiquitous throughout that universe, possibly existing on billions of planets. We still have not disproven the existence of life elsewhere in our own solar system. It is the ultimate in species chauvinism to believe that, with all of that life, we should be the only intelligent species that exists. The fact we haven't made contact with other intelligent life does not mean that it is not out there.
We are just now developing and enhancing the technology that allows us to determine from earth the chemical constituencies of distant bodies, stars, planets and moons. We are doing so in the hope that we can identify distant planets with the chemical makeup capable of supporting life. The chemical markers we will be looking for have been present on earth for billions of years for any intelligent species out there to have detected. Our sun is a relatively young star. Any intelligent life around a much older star, which is most other stars, could have reached our level of progress millions, even billions of years ago. Assuming that there must be other life and other intelligent species elsewhere in the universe our life-capable planet has in all probability already been detected long, long ago.
In just a century we have progressed from the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk to sending a Voyager spacecraft out of our home solar system to venture slowly across the galaxy. Growth in knowledge is exponential. Imagine what progress we may have made in another thousand years. Now imagine the progress an intelligent extraterrestrial species could already have accomplished if they are millions of years ahead of us in intellectual development.
If we were to receive from outer space a signal that we could clearly identify as being of intelligent origin, whether or not we could understand that signal, it is critical to remember that that signal could have left its planet of origin as much as millions of years ago (the distance in light years from earth to the point of origin of that signal). The species that sent it, whether intentional or accidental, were already at the stage of technological development we achieved in the early 20th century, a short century ago, as long ago as that signal was transmitted.
Radio signals have been leaving earth now for a century. That means that any potential intelligent species on any planet within 100 lightyears distance is able to receive those signals, just as we are constantly monitoring the sky with SETI. They know that we are here, even if they do not understand those signals.
Soon after the development of radio the ability was developed to jam radio signals. The use of this technology has helped dictatorial governments prevent their citizens from receiving radio and television signals from outside the country in order to control the information their populace receives. Once it was understood that radio signals were leaving our planet and emanating out into space an interest developed in using jamming-type technology to block or mask those radio signals leaving earth in order to control what messages extraterrestrial intelligent life might intercept.
It is probable that any intelligent species elsewhere in the universe that develops radio technology will sooner or later want to and eventually succeed in blocking radio signals escaping from their planet's surface. This probably means a period of a century or less when accidental, uncontrolled radio signals would be released into space from any species going through a process of technological development. Once the ability to jam or control outbound radio signals is developed that species may or may not decide to allow any signals to exit their home planet and those allowed are probably going to be designed to be heard by prying ears.
A century of unblocked radio signals may seem like a very long time, significantly longer than the average human lifespan. But it is the blink of an eye in astronomical terms. The potential for us to receive uncontrolled or accidental radio signals from an extraterrestrial intelligent species will depend heavily on a number of lucky factors. The most important of these is that such a species must be in that period of social evolution and technological development where radio transmission has recently been developed. But they must have been at that stage of development at a point in our past equivalent to the distance in lightyears their planet is from earth. For us to receive such a signal today from a planet 1 million light years away that species must have been at a level of technological development equivalent to 20th century earth 1 million years ago.
Any extraterrestrial intelligent species that went through the development of radio longer ago than that will have likely already developed the technological ability to block and control those radio signals before we ever began listening for extraterrestrial radio signals. That does not mean that we will not receive a radio signal from them. What it does mean is that any signal received will be controlled and intentional.
It should not be difficult, relatively speaking, to determine if any extraterrestrial signal received is accidental or intentional. The accidental will clearly stand out as a radio signal but may prove impossible to interpret and understand, like an early broadcast of Amos and Andy or an evening news broadcast. The intentional signal, on the other hand, just like the plaque attached to Voyager, will be meant to be understood by alien species outside the planet of origin. It is likely to be pictorial and/or scientific in nature. If it is not directed at an alien species known to exist but rather meant for any intelligent species that might receive it, it will probably contain information that is believed by its senders to be universal, information like the periodic table, universal physical laws, astronomical data, etc.
If, on the other hand, it is directed at a know alien species, a species from which the originating species has already detected radio signals, any message directed at them will probably be designed to be understood by that species alone. It may echo back information they have gleaned from previous radio signals from that species, very possibly in the language and context of that species to whom their message is directed. In other words, if there is an intelligent species out there that has picked up radio signals originating from here on earth, any directed response they would transmit toward us may very well come back to us in English, or French or Russian or any of the other earth languages that have left this planet as radio signals. They may transmit back to us, as Carl Sagan suggested in Contact, the first television image that left this planet, that being Adolf Hitler opening the Olympic games in 1936 Berlin.
There is another important factor for consideration, however. Trust! When we are aware or suspicious that someone is monitoring our communications and we are uncertain of their motives and intentions - such as in the case of spying whether industrial, political or military - one consistent tactic is the leaking of misinformation or disinformation. This has been done most effectively by we humans during wars, hot and cold. It should not be assumed, therefore, that any radio communication picked up from an alien species has been sent with good intentions. If they are aware we are aware of them they will want to determine our intentions and motives and decide whether we can be trusted or should be feared. They are not going to begin intentional communication with the formula for a new energy source or the blueprints for a fantastic new machine using a previously unrecognized or untapped energy source.
Any extraterrestrial species that has been monitoring radio signals (which includes television) emanating from earth will not have been seeing a very flattering picture of our species. Our news and TV programming tends to largely focus on our darker side; wars, murders, violence, crime. Should an advanced extraterrestrial species volunteer any technology or knowledge to us, and I am at a loss to understand why they would, it is not likely to be of the type that would enhance our ability to make war nor help us further destroy the environment of our planet.
It is far more likely that any intelligent species out there that has become aware of us and has been intercepting our radio signals will now be in an observe-only status, continuing to monitor our radio signals without making themselves known to us. And they are likely to stay in that mode until they determine that we have in some way resolved or lived through the current tumultuous period of human development. They will likely want to see if we can advance beyond our warlike tendencies and whether we can learn to live within the limits of our environment. It may take a very long time, centuries perhaps, before they see a satisfactory outcome of either of those.
One of the incredible ironies is that what signals any alien species may pick up from earth represent the lowest, basest picture of our species. Through that they get to see us at our worst. They are receiving what passes as entertainment and mass media, sensationalized journalism. They have no access to print media, to books that represent the highest expression of human wisdom, or to the internet with its constant search for truth and representation of and support for alternatives. They would have no way of knowing, through what communication they can intercept, that there is wisdom in our species. What a shame.
I am by no means challenging the assumption of other intelligent life in the universe. In fact I fervently adhere to that belief. For some it takes a fundamental refocusing of their belief system to step away from the belief that man is the center of the universe, that man has some special dominion over all the other living species on this planet, that man can do with this planet, and any other part of the universe we manage to reach, whatever we wish. Our species has no special place in the overall scheme of things. Our sun is a minor star in a remote corner of an unspectacular galaxy, one of billions in the vast universe. A growing array of mathematical models suggest that life is probably ubiquitous throughout that universe, possibly existing on billions of planets. We still have not disproven the existence of life elsewhere in our own solar system. It is the ultimate in species chauvinism to believe that, with all of that life, we should be the only intelligent species that exists. The fact we haven't made contact with other intelligent life does not mean that it is not out there.
We are just now developing and enhancing the technology that allows us to determine from earth the chemical constituencies of distant bodies, stars, planets and moons. We are doing so in the hope that we can identify distant planets with the chemical makeup capable of supporting life. The chemical markers we will be looking for have been present on earth for billions of years for any intelligent species out there to have detected. Our sun is a relatively young star. Any intelligent life around a much older star, which is most other stars, could have reached our level of progress millions, even billions of years ago. Assuming that there must be other life and other intelligent species elsewhere in the universe our life-capable planet has in all probability already been detected long, long ago.
In just a century we have progressed from the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk to sending a Voyager spacecraft out of our home solar system to venture slowly across the galaxy. Growth in knowledge is exponential. Imagine what progress we may have made in another thousand years. Now imagine the progress an intelligent extraterrestrial species could already have accomplished if they are millions of years ahead of us in intellectual development.
If we were to receive from outer space a signal that we could clearly identify as being of intelligent origin, whether or not we could understand that signal, it is critical to remember that that signal could have left its planet of origin as much as millions of years ago (the distance in light years from earth to the point of origin of that signal). The species that sent it, whether intentional or accidental, were already at the stage of technological development we achieved in the early 20th century, a short century ago, as long ago as that signal was transmitted.
Radio signals have been leaving earth now for a century. That means that any potential intelligent species on any planet within 100 lightyears distance is able to receive those signals, just as we are constantly monitoring the sky with SETI. They know that we are here, even if they do not understand those signals.
Soon after the development of radio the ability was developed to jam radio signals. The use of this technology has helped dictatorial governments prevent their citizens from receiving radio and television signals from outside the country in order to control the information their populace receives. Once it was understood that radio signals were leaving our planet and emanating out into space an interest developed in using jamming-type technology to block or mask those radio signals leaving earth in order to control what messages extraterrestrial intelligent life might intercept.
It is probable that any intelligent species elsewhere in the universe that develops radio technology will sooner or later want to and eventually succeed in blocking radio signals escaping from their planet's surface. This probably means a period of a century or less when accidental, uncontrolled radio signals would be released into space from any species going through a process of technological development. Once the ability to jam or control outbound radio signals is developed that species may or may not decide to allow any signals to exit their home planet and those allowed are probably going to be designed to be heard by prying ears.
A century of unblocked radio signals may seem like a very long time, significantly longer than the average human lifespan. But it is the blink of an eye in astronomical terms. The potential for us to receive uncontrolled or accidental radio signals from an extraterrestrial intelligent species will depend heavily on a number of lucky factors. The most important of these is that such a species must be in that period of social evolution and technological development where radio transmission has recently been developed. But they must have been at that stage of development at a point in our past equivalent to the distance in lightyears their planet is from earth. For us to receive such a signal today from a planet 1 million light years away that species must have been at a level of technological development equivalent to 20th century earth 1 million years ago.
Any extraterrestrial intelligent species that went through the development of radio longer ago than that will have likely already developed the technological ability to block and control those radio signals before we ever began listening for extraterrestrial radio signals. That does not mean that we will not receive a radio signal from them. What it does mean is that any signal received will be controlled and intentional.
It should not be difficult, relatively speaking, to determine if any extraterrestrial signal received is accidental or intentional. The accidental will clearly stand out as a radio signal but may prove impossible to interpret and understand, like an early broadcast of Amos and Andy or an evening news broadcast. The intentional signal, on the other hand, just like the plaque attached to Voyager, will be meant to be understood by alien species outside the planet of origin. It is likely to be pictorial and/or scientific in nature. If it is not directed at an alien species known to exist but rather meant for any intelligent species that might receive it, it will probably contain information that is believed by its senders to be universal, information like the periodic table, universal physical laws, astronomical data, etc.
If, on the other hand, it is directed at a know alien species, a species from which the originating species has already detected radio signals, any message directed at them will probably be designed to be understood by that species alone. It may echo back information they have gleaned from previous radio signals from that species, very possibly in the language and context of that species to whom their message is directed. In other words, if there is an intelligent species out there that has picked up radio signals originating from here on earth, any directed response they would transmit toward us may very well come back to us in English, or French or Russian or any of the other earth languages that have left this planet as radio signals. They may transmit back to us, as Carl Sagan suggested in Contact, the first television image that left this planet, that being Adolf Hitler opening the Olympic games in 1936 Berlin.
There is another important factor for consideration, however. Trust! When we are aware or suspicious that someone is monitoring our communications and we are uncertain of their motives and intentions - such as in the case of spying whether industrial, political or military - one consistent tactic is the leaking of misinformation or disinformation. This has been done most effectively by we humans during wars, hot and cold. It should not be assumed, therefore, that any radio communication picked up from an alien species has been sent with good intentions. If they are aware we are aware of them they will want to determine our intentions and motives and decide whether we can be trusted or should be feared. They are not going to begin intentional communication with the formula for a new energy source or the blueprints for a fantastic new machine using a previously unrecognized or untapped energy source.
Any extraterrestrial species that has been monitoring radio signals (which includes television) emanating from earth will not have been seeing a very flattering picture of our species. Our news and TV programming tends to largely focus on our darker side; wars, murders, violence, crime. Should an advanced extraterrestrial species volunteer any technology or knowledge to us, and I am at a loss to understand why they would, it is not likely to be of the type that would enhance our ability to make war nor help us further destroy the environment of our planet.
It is far more likely that any intelligent species out there that has become aware of us and has been intercepting our radio signals will now be in an observe-only status, continuing to monitor our radio signals without making themselves known to us. And they are likely to stay in that mode until they determine that we have in some way resolved or lived through the current tumultuous period of human development. They will likely want to see if we can advance beyond our warlike tendencies and whether we can learn to live within the limits of our environment. It may take a very long time, centuries perhaps, before they see a satisfactory outcome of either of those.
One of the incredible ironies is that what signals any alien species may pick up from earth represent the lowest, basest picture of our species. Through that they get to see us at our worst. They are receiving what passes as entertainment and mass media, sensationalized journalism. They have no access to print media, to books that represent the highest expression of human wisdom, or to the internet with its constant search for truth and representation of and support for alternatives. They would have no way of knowing, through what communication they can intercept, that there is wisdom in our species. What a shame.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
GMOs are N O T the Solution to the Current Global Food Crisis
In the current game of political football, as the world's leaders meet to discuss the means by which the current global food crisis might be solved, there seems to be a growing momentum building around support for a solution based on genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The suggestion is that the world's industrial seed companies (e.g. Monsanto, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland) should develop new genetically modified strains of food crops able to produce higher yields in the face of shifting global climates brought about by global warming.
Haven't we been here before? Aren't GMOs a major part of the reason we have gotten to this point?
The Green Revolution of this past half century came about as a response to the last global food crisis. It was centered on the use of high-yield GMO seeds, the liberal use of soil and water polluting artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, large-tract, mechanized, industrial agriculture, high density irrigation using mechanical pumps and water drawn from both increasingly polluted surface water and and dangerously over extracted groundwater sources, an energy-intensive global food distribution system. It was based on the industrial production of food and the building of a global industrial dependence through the supplying of food to the world's poor, rather than supplying to them the ability to produce their own food. And ultimately it created the current global food crisis through allowing, even encouraging, a tripling of the world's population from a little more than two billion to the current 6.6 billion with a new U.S. (300 million people) added to the population every year.
So what's the problem? The problem is that the Green Revolution was and continues to be dependent on the constant availability of cheap energy, especially cheap oil. GMOs are a high-tech solution to a natural problem. And high-tech means high energy consumption.
A problem cannot be its own solution. We cannot solve the current global crisis caused by the Green Revolution by doing more of the same. Those high yields on which the Green Revolution was based come at the expense of tremendous loss of life-supporting topsoil through erosion and overcropping, and the irreversible destruction and drawdown of both surface water and groundwater (aquifers) sources. It has led to the unsustainable destruction of forests critical to the planet's ability to balance the climate, and critical to the planet's water cycle, atmospheric cycle and carbon cycle. To seek to solve those problems with even more industrial agriculture and even higher yields, which will undoubtedly require higher uses of petrochemicals and water and the higher loss of critical topsoil, is no solution at all.
Most importantly, the Green Revolution was, as mentioned above, dependent on abundant cheap energy. A key part of the reason the current crisis has developed as that the world's oil supplies are declining at a rate that has pushed us toward various alternative fuel sources. The most critical of those, of course, is biofuels which have directly contributed to the current, escalating global food crisis. To move forward into a future that will be even more deprived of the cheap abundant energy on which the Green Revolution depends with a strategy that will perpetuate that agricultural need of cheap, abundant energy is taking the crisis of today, pushing it out a couple of decades and transforming it from a crisis into a catastrophe.
The Green Revolution has already allowed - almost demanded - the global human population to push into serious overshoot. There is not enough global agricultural capacity to support the present global human population, let alone the additional human population that would result from a second Green Revolution. To attack the current global food crisis without also addressing the very sensitive and complex problem of human overpopulation and the need for global population control is to offer no solution at all.
Haven't we been here before? Aren't GMOs a major part of the reason we have gotten to this point?
The Green Revolution of this past half century came about as a response to the last global food crisis. It was centered on the use of high-yield GMO seeds, the liberal use of soil and water polluting artificial fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, large-tract, mechanized, industrial agriculture, high density irrigation using mechanical pumps and water drawn from both increasingly polluted surface water and and dangerously over extracted groundwater sources, an energy-intensive global food distribution system. It was based on the industrial production of food and the building of a global industrial dependence through the supplying of food to the world's poor, rather than supplying to them the ability to produce their own food. And ultimately it created the current global food crisis through allowing, even encouraging, a tripling of the world's population from a little more than two billion to the current 6.6 billion with a new U.S. (300 million people) added to the population every year.
So what's the problem? The problem is that the Green Revolution was and continues to be dependent on the constant availability of cheap energy, especially cheap oil. GMOs are a high-tech solution to a natural problem. And high-tech means high energy consumption.
A problem cannot be its own solution. We cannot solve the current global crisis caused by the Green Revolution by doing more of the same. Those high yields on which the Green Revolution was based come at the expense of tremendous loss of life-supporting topsoil through erosion and overcropping, and the irreversible destruction and drawdown of both surface water and groundwater (aquifers) sources. It has led to the unsustainable destruction of forests critical to the planet's ability to balance the climate, and critical to the planet's water cycle, atmospheric cycle and carbon cycle. To seek to solve those problems with even more industrial agriculture and even higher yields, which will undoubtedly require higher uses of petrochemicals and water and the higher loss of critical topsoil, is no solution at all.
Most importantly, the Green Revolution was, as mentioned above, dependent on abundant cheap energy. A key part of the reason the current crisis has developed as that the world's oil supplies are declining at a rate that has pushed us toward various alternative fuel sources. The most critical of those, of course, is biofuels which have directly contributed to the current, escalating global food crisis. To move forward into a future that will be even more deprived of the cheap abundant energy on which the Green Revolution depends with a strategy that will perpetuate that agricultural need of cheap, abundant energy is taking the crisis of today, pushing it out a couple of decades and transforming it from a crisis into a catastrophe.
The Green Revolution has already allowed - almost demanded - the global human population to push into serious overshoot. There is not enough global agricultural capacity to support the present global human population, let alone the additional human population that would result from a second Green Revolution. To attack the current global food crisis without also addressing the very sensitive and complex problem of human overpopulation and the need for global population control is to offer no solution at all.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Peak Oil Choices
Life is choices. Choices must be made. Those we do not make, those we choose not to make, those we opt to ignore, those of which we unaware, often for reasons of chosen ignorance, are often made for us, by default. Those choices we choose not to make we have no control over. The outcome is decided by someone or something else. It's like an election. The old saying is - and I am not trying to quote but to paraphrase - if you choose not to vote don't complain about the results. Your vote is your entry fee for the right to complain. You get the government you don't bother voting for.
The approach of peak oil has brought with it a wide array of choices that had to and have to be made. Most of us in the peak oil movement are well aware of many of these choices, are making them at the personal level, are involving ourselves with the process of making them at the local community level. Through key web sites and organizations like ASPO we are attempting to get those national and international choices made. But it is a tremendously difficult task, like changing the course of a runaway ocean liner or stopping a runaway train. The end result of the inaction is that many of those choices are being made by default, by nature.
The biggest problem is getting decision makers - those who have to make the right choices - to understand what peak oil really is and what the implications of peak oil are on our global society. Peak oil is many things but it is not about running out of oil. The mainstream media seem to, for some reason, be very slow (unwilling?) to understand this. They continue to define peak oil as running out of oil and, as a result, characterize peak oil pundits as fringe wackos. If, indeed, peak oilers were defining peak oil as running out of oil that would be a fair criticism. Lew Rockwell, for another example, defines peak oil as the point where all of the oil has been found and irreversible decline starts. That's a little closer but still not a clear understanding of peak oil. All in the peak oil movement understand that discoveries will continue well after peak oil but that those discoveries will be fewer, smaller and far more difficult and expensive to process. The reality is we will probably never run out of oil.
Peak oil is not about your cost of gasoline as such. We will reach a point where whatever oil is left is so energy-expensive to extract and process that it will take more energy to turn it into fuel than the energy we get from the fuel produced. At that point it will simply be left in the ground.
Peak oil is about the rate at which what oil, in its various forms, does remain can be extracted and processed. The global human population currently uses somewhat more than 86m barrels of oil or other liquid hydrocarbon fuel every day. We do not extract that amount of oil and have not done so for over three years. The difference between what oil is being extracted and what liquid hydrocarbons are being used is being made up from alternative sources such as; tar sands, oil sands, coal to liquid, gas to liquid, methane to liquid, bio-fuels and from drawing down strategic petroleum reserves.
At the moment there is still a small buffer in all liquids, being liquid crude and the alternatives listed above. But that buffer is paper thin and global consumption has, for these past three years, been growing faster than the alternatives can fill the gap. That problem has been masked so far by a small amount of demand destruction as more and more "users" are priced out of using petroleum products by the rapid run-up in prices over these past three years. This demand destruction has been most apparent and most damaging in poor third world countries, many of which can no longer afford the importation of any gasoline. A thriving black market has developed in many of these situations where fuel is smuggled into the country and sold at ridiculously high prices to those few customers who are still prepared or need to buy fuel at whatever price.
But spot shortages are starting to occur in the rich, developed countries as well, including U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Australia and more. Gasoline shortages in developing nations such as China and India are also common occurrences as growth in demand far outstrips the development of the infrastructure needed to satisfy this demand. The frequency of shortages will undoubtedly increase. The global liquid fuels supply, because of the paper thin buffer, is susceptible to significant disruption from previously insignificant events. Every hiccup in Nigeria, Qatar, Venezuela or any other producing and exporting nation, the falling off the exporter list by countries like Indonesia, Mexico, possibly Venezuela, Russia and others throws a major monkey wrench into the global oil market and sees a major up-tick in spot market prices which may, over the course of a week, climb by more than what the average global price of oil oil was ten years ago or less.
One of the most economically disruptive impacts of the choices not made in the face of peak oil - more often exactly the wrong choices made - will be the death of globalization. Globalization has been the driver behind economic growth and expansion throughout the developed and developing world over these past several decades. China, India and other Tiger economies have been, much to the chagrin of a large portion of the population in the older economies of the "developed" world, the greatest beneficiaries of globalization. While the older economies have remained relatively static - these economies have seen a shift from a production to a service economy rather than real growth - with "real" growth (when there is growth at all) of only a couple of percentage points, the economies of China, India and other developing economies have grown at double digit rates, often exceeding twenty percent in good years.
But the mechanics of globalization are driven by cheap oil and its derivative fuels. It depends on the massive and rapid movement of goods over thousands of miles by ships, airlines, trains and trucks, all of which run on liquid fuels derived from oil. All of these forms of transport are under serious threat from rapidly rising oil prices. Airline companies are having to take a number for the line-up at bankruptcy court. Trans-oceanic shipping is teetering on the brink with shipping costs doubling or more because of fuel costs, especially for the long list of products where energy and shipping cost are a major cost component (in many cases more than 25% of the overall product cost before the price run-ups began). Rail lines and carriers, particularly in North America, have been shrinking and consolidating for years and no longer have the financial vitality to absorb these rapidly rising fuel prices. Independent truckers, which now represents the bulk of overland transport in North America, has absorbed so much of the cost of rising fuel costs that they can no longer stay on the road (as they slide ever closer and ever quicker toward bankruptcy), even if they could charge surcharges for fuel costs.
As I detailed in Peak Oil, Deglobalization and Ecolomics many outsourced industries that are being hit hardest by rising fuel prices are beginning to repatriate their operations closer to their markets. U.S. steel imports from China have, over the past year, declined by 20% while U.S. domestic steel production is ramping back up and has increased by 10% during the same period. Much of the production and assembly of goods that had been outsourced to China and other Tiger economies is being repatriated and ramped up in Mexico, the closest source of cheap labour for the manufacture of goods for the American consumer.
But these simplified repatriation decisions that may seem to make good economic sense in a business-as-usual scenario are not, as I detailed in the above article, are not good decision or choices in the face of peak oil. They simply move the energy consumption of the manufacturing processes from one location to another but are still built around an unchanged model of centralized production of goods moved by a hopefully-viable distribution system to the markets and consumers. Moving production to Mexico is definitely not wise in the long term. Mexico's domestic oil production is plummeting, by as much as 20% or more each year, and that poor country will soon find itself a net importer of oil if there is much effort to move outsourced American industry from China to Mexico.
Repatriating outsourced industries from the developing world to the developed world and doing so without redesigning the processes to be less energy-intensive and converted to decentralized processes that produce right in the consuming market, wherever it may be, simply defers the eventual and necessary industrial response to peak oil. Very soon there will not be enough liquid fuels being produced globally, from whatever source, to satisfy total global demand. Very soon the industrial model is going to have to be changed, choices - correct choices - are going to have to be made, to cope with the reality that there is not enough fuel being produced globally to support the present model that relies on centralized, mechanized production and long distance distribution by liquid-fuel-dependant transport infrastructure.
The choices we have neglected to make, for whatever wrong-headed reason, have been made for us. We are no longer in control of the rules of the game. that's the price of choices not made.
The approach of peak oil has brought with it a wide array of choices that had to and have to be made. Most of us in the peak oil movement are well aware of many of these choices, are making them at the personal level, are involving ourselves with the process of making them at the local community level. Through key web sites and organizations like ASPO we are attempting to get those national and international choices made. But it is a tremendously difficult task, like changing the course of a runaway ocean liner or stopping a runaway train. The end result of the inaction is that many of those choices are being made by default, by nature.
The biggest problem is getting decision makers - those who have to make the right choices - to understand what peak oil really is and what the implications of peak oil are on our global society. Peak oil is many things but it is not about running out of oil. The mainstream media seem to, for some reason, be very slow (unwilling?) to understand this. They continue to define peak oil as running out of oil and, as a result, characterize peak oil pundits as fringe wackos. If, indeed, peak oilers were defining peak oil as running out of oil that would be a fair criticism. Lew Rockwell, for another example, defines peak oil as the point where all of the oil has been found and irreversible decline starts. That's a little closer but still not a clear understanding of peak oil. All in the peak oil movement understand that discoveries will continue well after peak oil but that those discoveries will be fewer, smaller and far more difficult and expensive to process. The reality is we will probably never run out of oil.
Peak oil is not about your cost of gasoline as such. We will reach a point where whatever oil is left is so energy-expensive to extract and process that it will take more energy to turn it into fuel than the energy we get from the fuel produced. At that point it will simply be left in the ground.
Peak oil is about the rate at which what oil, in its various forms, does remain can be extracted and processed. The global human population currently uses somewhat more than 86m barrels of oil or other liquid hydrocarbon fuel every day. We do not extract that amount of oil and have not done so for over three years. The difference between what oil is being extracted and what liquid hydrocarbons are being used is being made up from alternative sources such as; tar sands, oil sands, coal to liquid, gas to liquid, methane to liquid, bio-fuels and from drawing down strategic petroleum reserves.
At the moment there is still a small buffer in all liquids, being liquid crude and the alternatives listed above. But that buffer is paper thin and global consumption has, for these past three years, been growing faster than the alternatives can fill the gap. That problem has been masked so far by a small amount of demand destruction as more and more "users" are priced out of using petroleum products by the rapid run-up in prices over these past three years. This demand destruction has been most apparent and most damaging in poor third world countries, many of which can no longer afford the importation of any gasoline. A thriving black market has developed in many of these situations where fuel is smuggled into the country and sold at ridiculously high prices to those few customers who are still prepared or need to buy fuel at whatever price.
But spot shortages are starting to occur in the rich, developed countries as well, including U.S., Britain, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Australia and more. Gasoline shortages in developing nations such as China and India are also common occurrences as growth in demand far outstrips the development of the infrastructure needed to satisfy this demand. The frequency of shortages will undoubtedly increase. The global liquid fuels supply, because of the paper thin buffer, is susceptible to significant disruption from previously insignificant events. Every hiccup in Nigeria, Qatar, Venezuela or any other producing and exporting nation, the falling off the exporter list by countries like Indonesia, Mexico, possibly Venezuela, Russia and others throws a major monkey wrench into the global oil market and sees a major up-tick in spot market prices which may, over the course of a week, climb by more than what the average global price of oil oil was ten years ago or less.
One of the most economically disruptive impacts of the choices not made in the face of peak oil - more often exactly the wrong choices made - will be the death of globalization. Globalization has been the driver behind economic growth and expansion throughout the developed and developing world over these past several decades. China, India and other Tiger economies have been, much to the chagrin of a large portion of the population in the older economies of the "developed" world, the greatest beneficiaries of globalization. While the older economies have remained relatively static - these economies have seen a shift from a production to a service economy rather than real growth - with "real" growth (when there is growth at all) of only a couple of percentage points, the economies of China, India and other developing economies have grown at double digit rates, often exceeding twenty percent in good years.
But the mechanics of globalization are driven by cheap oil and its derivative fuels. It depends on the massive and rapid movement of goods over thousands of miles by ships, airlines, trains and trucks, all of which run on liquid fuels derived from oil. All of these forms of transport are under serious threat from rapidly rising oil prices. Airline companies are having to take a number for the line-up at bankruptcy court. Trans-oceanic shipping is teetering on the brink with shipping costs doubling or more because of fuel costs, especially for the long list of products where energy and shipping cost are a major cost component (in many cases more than 25% of the overall product cost before the price run-ups began). Rail lines and carriers, particularly in North America, have been shrinking and consolidating for years and no longer have the financial vitality to absorb these rapidly rising fuel prices. Independent truckers, which now represents the bulk of overland transport in North America, has absorbed so much of the cost of rising fuel costs that they can no longer stay on the road (as they slide ever closer and ever quicker toward bankruptcy), even if they could charge surcharges for fuel costs.
As I detailed in Peak Oil, Deglobalization and Ecolomics many outsourced industries that are being hit hardest by rising fuel prices are beginning to repatriate their operations closer to their markets. U.S. steel imports from China have, over the past year, declined by 20% while U.S. domestic steel production is ramping back up and has increased by 10% during the same period. Much of the production and assembly of goods that had been outsourced to China and other Tiger economies is being repatriated and ramped up in Mexico, the closest source of cheap labour for the manufacture of goods for the American consumer.
But these simplified repatriation decisions that may seem to make good economic sense in a business-as-usual scenario are not, as I detailed in the above article, are not good decision or choices in the face of peak oil. They simply move the energy consumption of the manufacturing processes from one location to another but are still built around an unchanged model of centralized production of goods moved by a hopefully-viable distribution system to the markets and consumers. Moving production to Mexico is definitely not wise in the long term. Mexico's domestic oil production is plummeting, by as much as 20% or more each year, and that poor country will soon find itself a net importer of oil if there is much effort to move outsourced American industry from China to Mexico.
Repatriating outsourced industries from the developing world to the developed world and doing so without redesigning the processes to be less energy-intensive and converted to decentralized processes that produce right in the consuming market, wherever it may be, simply defers the eventual and necessary industrial response to peak oil. Very soon there will not be enough liquid fuels being produced globally, from whatever source, to satisfy total global demand. Very soon the industrial model is going to have to be changed, choices - correct choices - are going to have to be made, to cope with the reality that there is not enough fuel being produced globally to support the present model that relies on centralized, mechanized production and long distance distribution by liquid-fuel-dependant transport infrastructure.
The choices we have neglected to make, for whatever wrong-headed reason, have been made for us. We are no longer in control of the rules of the game. that's the price of choices not made.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Peak Oil, Deglobalization and Ecolomics
According to the Ecolomics website ecolomics is ".....an improved balance between inter-generational ecological objectives and more short-term economic priorities. The relationship between these two often disparate spheres is perceived as being dominated too much by the latter. .....ecolomics at the same time can facilitate more broadly the discussion, negotiation and analysis of the interaction between ecological and economical concerns. " It goes on to explain, "This is not a new subdiscipline but a political concept, somewhat similar but considerably narrower than the concepts of sustainable development and of ecopolitics."[23]
The field of ecology for the first time brought to the environmental movement, at exactly the time it was important to begin making serious inroads into reducing the degradation we were inflicting on the environment, the benefits of a disciplined scientific study of the complex interrelationships and interdependence of all living and environmental systems. This new science may have been, in large measure, responsible for the general public understanding and acceptance of environmentalism.
As we approach a serious confluence of peak oil, other resource peaks, global warming, a global freshwater crisis, a global food crisis, a global soil crisis, all exacerbated by massive human overpopulation, can ecolomics serve as the catalyst to achieve a general understanding of the catastrophes that lay ahead of us? Can it help build a momentum of public support for the programs that will be needed to mitigate the impact of these crises on human society? Will ecolomics succeed in getting people to finally realize, especially those in power, that the environment is not a servant of human economics nor can economics function independent of the environment but must be, in fact, a subset of it?
We cannot continue to treat the global environment as a human cesspool in the name of economic convenience. We cannot continue to allow travesties that threaten the future of environmental survivability such as the Canadian legislation that allows lakes to be reclassified as "tailings impoundment areas" to allow mining companies to dump their toxic effluents there which would otherwise be in clear contravention of the government's own fisheries act.[24]
The more scarce the resources become that our industrial society are built on, it seems, the further industry and government are willing to push environmental degradation to get at those resources. Much of that environmental degradation has been pushed on to poor, desperate nations under globalization, nations prepared to destroy their local environment for the sake of an influx of western capital. Under deglobalization brought on by energy scarcity, however, as we increase the push to exploit our own dwindling resources to make up for exhausted, cheap offshore supplies, all of that degradation could be brought home to roost.
For the past several decades the incessant debates over the issue of trade globalization have largely centered on the cost benefits of production efficiency through the industrial concentration of zone specialization versus the adverse downstream economic impact on the industrialized economies brought about by offshoring of manufacturing and industrial processes and the skilled jobs that go with them. This has generated an endless barrage of hand wringing such as, "Over the past half-century, the United States has seen its global dominance in dozens of industries slip away, mostly to Asia, and particularly to China and Japan, not to mention a continuing procession of tiger economies." and "Once upon a time America owned the automobile industry ..... the US no longer dominates an industry that it practically invented. "[1] and "We're talking about 4 million jobs that will be outsourced to India probably over the next ten years."[2]
Job losses and loss of the industrial base in the OECD nations, therefore, have been the core concerns. Until now that is.
The biggest issue in trade globalization over these past couple of years, and an issue that is going to grow in importance as oil demand begins to seriously outstrip oil supplies, is the rising cost of those offshored products due to the serious and incessant rises in the cost of shipping brought about by rising fuel costs, most particularly rising oil prices. Trans-oceanic shipping remains essentially fully dependant on oil as a fuel source. A recent report issued by CIBC World states, "Higher energy prices are impacting transport costs at an unprecedented rate. So much so, that the cost of moving goods, not the cost of tariffs, is the largest barrier to global trade today."[14]
Finally we are getting close to the debate being recentered on what will be the defining issue as oil scarcity following peak oil pushes us into a new era of deglobalization.
The OECD offshoring of so many industries over the past few decades has not only outsourced the jobs from those industries. It has also outsourced the demand for energy, particularly oil, that the outsourced industry and jobs would have consumed at home. In short it has had an odd effect of redistributing a significant chunk of the oil and energy usage away from the industrialized OECD countries toward the emerging industrializing countries like China, India, other Asian countries and Latin America.
UK statistics show, for example, between 1990 and 2006, a major energy use reduction in a number of key industries that is only partially, and only in some instances, accounted for by improved efficiency. Iron and steel production, for example, saw a net reduction in energy use over this period of 36,763,200 boe (barrels of oil equivalent) per year - US steel production was reduced by more than half in the same period, despite there being a marginal domestic increase in steel use during the same period. British non ferrous metals production energy use declined by 2,023,200 boe, mineral products by 9,820,800 boe, industrial engineering and related products by 6,026,400 boe, vehicle production by 2,239,200 boe and construction by 4,147,200 boe (an overall demand reduction in those industries of over 61,000,000 boe/year). This is contrasted against general increases in energy consumption and production in other industries such as textiles, food, furniture, etc. and an overall relatively flat industrial energy usage as industrial growth was offset in most industries through achievement of significant energy efficiencies during this period.
Most in western societies seem to believe - this belief largely fostered by self-serving politicians and nation-centric media - that the massive increase in oil demand in China, India and other emerging economies, is because everyone in those nations is suddenly buying and driving automobiles. You cannot view the exploding Chinese auto sales market through a North American or even European perspective. Perhaps the more appropriate is a Cuban perspective. A very large proportion of automobile purchases in China (as much as half in many cities) are made with the express intent of using the vehicle as a taxi, either one officially licensed as such or as a black market taxi - you know, the one owned by the shadowy character standing in the corner at the airport going pssst. The vast preponderance of travel in Chinese cities is by bus and other public transit, taxi, or bicycle (China has far more bicycles than any other country, including India). In recent years, however, new legislation in China's largest cities like Shanghai and Beijing is pushing rickshaws and bicycles off city streets in favour of car traffic. This is pushing more and more people into taxis. The upsurge in car sales is not necessarily an increase in private car ownership but rather car passengership. This heavy usage of automobiles as taxis, by the way, significantly distorts the Chinese national vehicle miles travelled (VMT) statistics. The VMT per vehicle is higher than in the U.S. because the ratio of taxis to personal autos is so high.
The reality is that much of the growing oil demand in China and India originates from the massive volume of construction in those countries (China and India over the past several years are using more concrete and construction steel than the rest of the world combined) and from the high energy needs of rapidly increasing industrialization. Most of that industrialization is for products for export as OECD countries offshoring the industries they once dominated continue to turn these emerging economies into their manufacturing plants, refashioning themselves as service economies in the process.
With the dramatic increases in the price of oil over these past five years, however, this trend is already beginning to be reversed. Industries are slowly being repatriated, or the last hold-outs against offshoring are finding their business volume exploding. U.S. steel imports from China have, for example, declined by 20% over the past two years while at the same time domestic steel production has increased by 10%. And the momentum is picking up as OECD nations are forced by rising energy costs to re-examine the benefits of globalization. As the paper Reinventing Globalization puts it, "The heralded increases in oil costs due to the exhaustion of reserves and global warming linked to CO2 emissions are going to force us, experts believe, to take a new look at the global flow of merchandise...."[18] That paper goes on to make this point; "Eight hair dryers, toasters or coffee-makers out of ten sold in the world are made in China. Is the logic of specialization by production zones tenable when the cost of energy is going to explode?"[18]
The issue, however, gets much more complicated than most seem to be thus far allowing for.
If oil prices continue to rise because of increasing supply-side issues is the repatriation of industries to the OECD countries a reasonable or even workable response? The daily barrage of financial news coverage of steadily rising oil prices assaults us with an endless litany of excuses, none of them touching on the reality that the underlying reason is declining global oil supplies. We may have already seen the global peak in oil production, as long ago as spring 2005. Increases in all liquids since that time have largely been the result of non-conventional oil like tar sands and deep water, alternatives like ethanol, coal to liquid, gas to liquid and coal bed methane. For much of this year, and in some cases earlier, countries like the U.S. have been dipping into their strategic petroleum reserves. And globally oil production and consumption have surpassed new oil discoveries since the early 1980s, global production and usage now four to five times greater than new discoveries.
There is no question that rising oil prices are starting to hurt globalization. As the report Will Soaring Transport Costs Reverse Globalization? puts it, "In global shipping, the increase in ship speed over the last fifteen years has doubled fuel consumption per unit of freight. With oil prices now accounting for almost half of total freight costs, it should come as no surprise that soaring oil prices have translated directly into soaring transport costs. ..... Currently, transport costs are equivalent to an average tariff rate of more than 9%. At $150 per barrel, the tariff-equivalent rate is 11%, going back to the average tariff rates of the 1970s. And at $200 per barrel, we are back at “tariff” rates not seen since prior to the Kennedy Round GATT negotiations of the mid-1960s."[14] In the report Globalization death watch, Part I: Airlines, cargo ships increasingly desperate due to rising fuel costs they state "The cost of shipping a 40 foot container from Shanghai to the east coast of North America has gone from $3,000 in 2000 to $8,000 because of the cost of fuel, and for many products, the Asian cost advantage has virtually disappeared. ..... But at $200 per barrel, it will soon cost $15,000 in transport costs to ship from China to the US eastern seaboard."[13]
Repatriating the industries that are generating products abroad and shipping them to countries like the U.S. does not, however, eliminate the problem. If fuel costs are rising because supply can no longer keep pace with demand, repatriating those industries and the production energy they consume is simply going to change the geographic location of that energy consumption. If there is insufficient oil to meet demand, where is the extra oil going to come from to power the industries that are being repatriated? To build the industrial infrastructure that those industries will need? To supply the transport energy for the importation of the raw materials needed by those repatriated industries? All of the industrial energy consumption that was exported through offshoring under globalization will again have to be met at home. The nations repatriating industries are going to be facing increased domestic oil and other energy demand at the same time that global oil supplies, the reason for the repatriation, are diminishing.
Yes, declining global oil production is "going to force us, experts believe, to take a new look at the global flow of merchandise...."[18] When we do, however, we cannot do so with a narrow point of view focused on the final product assembly, finished product shipping, and final market distribution of those products. We must examine the whole supply chain, from extraction of raw materials and their transport to a manufacturing site to the final delivery of products to retail outlets. If we do not review the whole system we will be perpetually having to readjust as we go through the transition from the globalization that has characterized the last several decades to the progressive localization and regionalization that will follow peak oil.
I have included far more references and links below than I have quoted in this article. They are included for those who wish to achieve a deeper understanding of the issues involved in the coming deglobalization.
============================
1) America Loses Another Industry
2) TOM'S JOURNAL
3) OUTSOURCING: India readies to state its case
4) Costly Trade With China: Millions of U.S. jobs displaced with net job loss in every state
5) UAW Kills Thousands More American Jobs
6) American Worry-Mongering About China
7) New Awakening About Free Trade
8) The Great American Jobs Scam
9) Job Repatriation?
10) Forward Slash?
11) Senate Passes Smith Repatriation Provision with JOBS Act
12) De-Globalization? Musing about Oil Prices and Trade Costs
13) Globalization death watch, Part I: Airlines, cargo ships increasingly desperate due to rising fuel costs
14) Will Soaring Transport Costs Reverse Globalization?
15) Fuel Prices Putting Globalization in Reverse?
16) The Establishment Rethinks Globalization
17) The End of Globalization - Can you Smell it Yet?
18) Reinventing Globalization
19) DEFEATING GLOBALIZATION
20) Energy Use and Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Steel Production in China
21) Energy-Efficiency Improvements for the U.S. Steel Industry
22) Saving One Barrel of Oil per Ton - A New Roadmap for Transformation of Steelmaking Process
23) Ecolomics website
24) Lakes across Canada face being turned into mine dump sites
The field of ecology for the first time brought to the environmental movement, at exactly the time it was important to begin making serious inroads into reducing the degradation we were inflicting on the environment, the benefits of a disciplined scientific study of the complex interrelationships and interdependence of all living and environmental systems. This new science may have been, in large measure, responsible for the general public understanding and acceptance of environmentalism.
As we approach a serious confluence of peak oil, other resource peaks, global warming, a global freshwater crisis, a global food crisis, a global soil crisis, all exacerbated by massive human overpopulation, can ecolomics serve as the catalyst to achieve a general understanding of the catastrophes that lay ahead of us? Can it help build a momentum of public support for the programs that will be needed to mitigate the impact of these crises on human society? Will ecolomics succeed in getting people to finally realize, especially those in power, that the environment is not a servant of human economics nor can economics function independent of the environment but must be, in fact, a subset of it?
We cannot continue to treat the global environment as a human cesspool in the name of economic convenience. We cannot continue to allow travesties that threaten the future of environmental survivability such as the Canadian legislation that allows lakes to be reclassified as "tailings impoundment areas" to allow mining companies to dump their toxic effluents there which would otherwise be in clear contravention of the government's own fisheries act.[24]
The more scarce the resources become that our industrial society are built on, it seems, the further industry and government are willing to push environmental degradation to get at those resources. Much of that environmental degradation has been pushed on to poor, desperate nations under globalization, nations prepared to destroy their local environment for the sake of an influx of western capital. Under deglobalization brought on by energy scarcity, however, as we increase the push to exploit our own dwindling resources to make up for exhausted, cheap offshore supplies, all of that degradation could be brought home to roost.
For the past several decades the incessant debates over the issue of trade globalization have largely centered on the cost benefits of production efficiency through the industrial concentration of zone specialization versus the adverse downstream economic impact on the industrialized economies brought about by offshoring of manufacturing and industrial processes and the skilled jobs that go with them. This has generated an endless barrage of hand wringing such as, "Over the past half-century, the United States has seen its global dominance in dozens of industries slip away, mostly to Asia, and particularly to China and Japan, not to mention a continuing procession of tiger economies." and "Once upon a time America owned the automobile industry ..... the US no longer dominates an industry that it practically invented. "[1] and "We're talking about 4 million jobs that will be outsourced to India probably over the next ten years."[2]
Job losses and loss of the industrial base in the OECD nations, therefore, have been the core concerns. Until now that is.
The biggest issue in trade globalization over these past couple of years, and an issue that is going to grow in importance as oil demand begins to seriously outstrip oil supplies, is the rising cost of those offshored products due to the serious and incessant rises in the cost of shipping brought about by rising fuel costs, most particularly rising oil prices. Trans-oceanic shipping remains essentially fully dependant on oil as a fuel source. A recent report issued by CIBC World states, "Higher energy prices are impacting transport costs at an unprecedented rate. So much so, that the cost of moving goods, not the cost of tariffs, is the largest barrier to global trade today."[14]
Finally we are getting close to the debate being recentered on what will be the defining issue as oil scarcity following peak oil pushes us into a new era of deglobalization.
The OECD offshoring of so many industries over the past few decades has not only outsourced the jobs from those industries. It has also outsourced the demand for energy, particularly oil, that the outsourced industry and jobs would have consumed at home. In short it has had an odd effect of redistributing a significant chunk of the oil and energy usage away from the industrialized OECD countries toward the emerging industrializing countries like China, India, other Asian countries and Latin America.
UK statistics show, for example, between 1990 and 2006, a major energy use reduction in a number of key industries that is only partially, and only in some instances, accounted for by improved efficiency. Iron and steel production, for example, saw a net reduction in energy use over this period of 36,763,200 boe (barrels of oil equivalent) per year - US steel production was reduced by more than half in the same period, despite there being a marginal domestic increase in steel use during the same period. British non ferrous metals production energy use declined by 2,023,200 boe, mineral products by 9,820,800 boe, industrial engineering and related products by 6,026,400 boe, vehicle production by 2,239,200 boe and construction by 4,147,200 boe (an overall demand reduction in those industries of over 61,000,000 boe/year). This is contrasted against general increases in energy consumption and production in other industries such as textiles, food, furniture, etc. and an overall relatively flat industrial energy usage as industrial growth was offset in most industries through achievement of significant energy efficiencies during this period.
Most in western societies seem to believe - this belief largely fostered by self-serving politicians and nation-centric media - that the massive increase in oil demand in China, India and other emerging economies, is because everyone in those nations is suddenly buying and driving automobiles. You cannot view the exploding Chinese auto sales market through a North American or even European perspective. Perhaps the more appropriate is a Cuban perspective. A very large proportion of automobile purchases in China (as much as half in many cities) are made with the express intent of using the vehicle as a taxi, either one officially licensed as such or as a black market taxi - you know, the one owned by the shadowy character standing in the corner at the airport going pssst. The vast preponderance of travel in Chinese cities is by bus and other public transit, taxi, or bicycle (China has far more bicycles than any other country, including India). In recent years, however, new legislation in China's largest cities like Shanghai and Beijing is pushing rickshaws and bicycles off city streets in favour of car traffic. This is pushing more and more people into taxis. The upsurge in car sales is not necessarily an increase in private car ownership but rather car passengership. This heavy usage of automobiles as taxis, by the way, significantly distorts the Chinese national vehicle miles travelled (VMT) statistics. The VMT per vehicle is higher than in the U.S. because the ratio of taxis to personal autos is so high.
The reality is that much of the growing oil demand in China and India originates from the massive volume of construction in those countries (China and India over the past several years are using more concrete and construction steel than the rest of the world combined) and from the high energy needs of rapidly increasing industrialization. Most of that industrialization is for products for export as OECD countries offshoring the industries they once dominated continue to turn these emerging economies into their manufacturing plants, refashioning themselves as service economies in the process.
With the dramatic increases in the price of oil over these past five years, however, this trend is already beginning to be reversed. Industries are slowly being repatriated, or the last hold-outs against offshoring are finding their business volume exploding. U.S. steel imports from China have, for example, declined by 20% over the past two years while at the same time domestic steel production has increased by 10%. And the momentum is picking up as OECD nations are forced by rising energy costs to re-examine the benefits of globalization. As the paper Reinventing Globalization puts it, "The heralded increases in oil costs due to the exhaustion of reserves and global warming linked to CO2 emissions are going to force us, experts believe, to take a new look at the global flow of merchandise...."[18] That paper goes on to make this point; "Eight hair dryers, toasters or coffee-makers out of ten sold in the world are made in China. Is the logic of specialization by production zones tenable when the cost of energy is going to explode?"[18]
The issue, however, gets much more complicated than most seem to be thus far allowing for.
If oil prices continue to rise because of increasing supply-side issues is the repatriation of industries to the OECD countries a reasonable or even workable response? The daily barrage of financial news coverage of steadily rising oil prices assaults us with an endless litany of excuses, none of them touching on the reality that the underlying reason is declining global oil supplies. We may have already seen the global peak in oil production, as long ago as spring 2005. Increases in all liquids since that time have largely been the result of non-conventional oil like tar sands and deep water, alternatives like ethanol, coal to liquid, gas to liquid and coal bed methane. For much of this year, and in some cases earlier, countries like the U.S. have been dipping into their strategic petroleum reserves. And globally oil production and consumption have surpassed new oil discoveries since the early 1980s, global production and usage now four to five times greater than new discoveries.
There is no question that rising oil prices are starting to hurt globalization. As the report Will Soaring Transport Costs Reverse Globalization? puts it, "In global shipping, the increase in ship speed over the last fifteen years has doubled fuel consumption per unit of freight. With oil prices now accounting for almost half of total freight costs, it should come as no surprise that soaring oil prices have translated directly into soaring transport costs. ..... Currently, transport costs are equivalent to an average tariff rate of more than 9%. At $150 per barrel, the tariff-equivalent rate is 11%, going back to the average tariff rates of the 1970s. And at $200 per barrel, we are back at “tariff” rates not seen since prior to the Kennedy Round GATT negotiations of the mid-1960s."[14] In the report Globalization death watch, Part I: Airlines, cargo ships increasingly desperate due to rising fuel costs they state "The cost of shipping a 40 foot container from Shanghai to the east coast of North America has gone from $3,000 in 2000 to $8,000 because of the cost of fuel, and for many products, the Asian cost advantage has virtually disappeared. ..... But at $200 per barrel, it will soon cost $15,000 in transport costs to ship from China to the US eastern seaboard."[13]
Repatriating the industries that are generating products abroad and shipping them to countries like the U.S. does not, however, eliminate the problem. If fuel costs are rising because supply can no longer keep pace with demand, repatriating those industries and the production energy they consume is simply going to change the geographic location of that energy consumption. If there is insufficient oil to meet demand, where is the extra oil going to come from to power the industries that are being repatriated? To build the industrial infrastructure that those industries will need? To supply the transport energy for the importation of the raw materials needed by those repatriated industries? All of the industrial energy consumption that was exported through offshoring under globalization will again have to be met at home. The nations repatriating industries are going to be facing increased domestic oil and other energy demand at the same time that global oil supplies, the reason for the repatriation, are diminishing.
Yes, declining global oil production is "going to force us, experts believe, to take a new look at the global flow of merchandise...."[18] When we do, however, we cannot do so with a narrow point of view focused on the final product assembly, finished product shipping, and final market distribution of those products. We must examine the whole supply chain, from extraction of raw materials and their transport to a manufacturing site to the final delivery of products to retail outlets. If we do not review the whole system we will be perpetually having to readjust as we go through the transition from the globalization that has characterized the last several decades to the progressive localization and regionalization that will follow peak oil.
I have included far more references and links below than I have quoted in this article. They are included for those who wish to achieve a deeper understanding of the issues involved in the coming deglobalization.
============================
1) America Loses Another Industry
2) TOM'S JOURNAL
3) OUTSOURCING: India readies to state its case
4) Costly Trade With China: Millions of U.S. jobs displaced with net job loss in every state
5) UAW Kills Thousands More American Jobs
6) American Worry-Mongering About China
7) New Awakening About Free Trade
8) The Great American Jobs Scam
9) Job Repatriation?
10) Forward Slash?
11) Senate Passes Smith Repatriation Provision with JOBS Act
12) De-Globalization? Musing about Oil Prices and Trade Costs
13) Globalization death watch, Part I: Airlines, cargo ships increasingly desperate due to rising fuel costs
14) Will Soaring Transport Costs Reverse Globalization?
15) Fuel Prices Putting Globalization in Reverse?
16) The Establishment Rethinks Globalization
17) The End of Globalization - Can you Smell it Yet?
18) Reinventing Globalization
19) DEFEATING GLOBALIZATION
20) Energy Use and Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Steel Production in China
21) Energy-Efficiency Improvements for the U.S. Steel Industry
22) Saving One Barrel of Oil per Ton - A New Roadmap for Transformation of Steelmaking Process
23) Ecolomics website
24) Lakes across Canada face being turned into mine dump sites
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Pushing the Automobile as an Environmental Savior
One of Canada's largest daily national newspapers, The Toronto Globe and Mail, seems to be on a campaign, for whatever reason, intended to convince it's readers that the automobile, not public transit, is a solution to the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. Over recent weeks that newspaper's Report on Business has been deriding public transit and praising the automobile for everything from lowering traffic congestion to saving the planet from the evils of climate change. One of the high priests of this insidious campaign seems to be columnist Neil Reynolds. His latest column (Statscan public transit spin is out of control) is a thinly veiled critique of the new report called Commuting Patterns, from Statistics Canada.
This report reviews the statistical changes in the use of public transit in a cross section of major Canadian cities. Those changes have, unfortunately, been minor by any measure and continue to reflect the poor usage and support of public transit in this country. Reynolds seems to be suggesting that the low ridership on public transit systems is, in fact, a reason that they should be dropped and the financing that is wasted on them should be diverted instead to even more development of highways and automobile infrastructure.
The consistency of these types of attacks by The Toronto Globe and Mail in general and Neil Reynolds in particular makes one wonder what automobile company or auto industry association is paying the tab or pressuring for this spurious and patently ridiculous series of columns. If they were being put out by the small newspaper in my hometown with its circulation of under 1,000 I would be inclined to laugh it off and maybe write a scathing letter to the editor. But this is a large national newspaper with a circulation of a million and an online readership that probably rivals that. That is a little too large to ignore and, as a result, a little too dangerous to leave unchallenged.
The Globe and Mail and any other newspaper that engages in such a campaign as is obviously underway in these columns and articles is in large measure, unfortunately, making a major contribution to the car culture that is itself at the heart of so many of our environmental problems, not to mention its contribution to our national health problems, and its major and central contribution to our global diminishing supplies of not just oil but a wide variety of finite resources. It is a major contributor to the ongoing campaign to lead us blindly over the cliff that awaits with peak oil. The careful and wilful manipulation of data and statistics to feed the public love for their automobiles, to push the automotive agenda is unconscionable.
This report reviews the statistical changes in the use of public transit in a cross section of major Canadian cities. Those changes have, unfortunately, been minor by any measure and continue to reflect the poor usage and support of public transit in this country. Reynolds seems to be suggesting that the low ridership on public transit systems is, in fact, a reason that they should be dropped and the financing that is wasted on them should be diverted instead to even more development of highways and automobile infrastructure.
The consistency of these types of attacks by The Toronto Globe and Mail in general and Neil Reynolds in particular makes one wonder what automobile company or auto industry association is paying the tab or pressuring for this spurious and patently ridiculous series of columns. If they were being put out by the small newspaper in my hometown with its circulation of under 1,000 I would be inclined to laugh it off and maybe write a scathing letter to the editor. But this is a large national newspaper with a circulation of a million and an online readership that probably rivals that. That is a little too large to ignore and, as a result, a little too dangerous to leave unchallenged.
The Globe and Mail and any other newspaper that engages in such a campaign as is obviously underway in these columns and articles is in large measure, unfortunately, making a major contribution to the car culture that is itself at the heart of so many of our environmental problems, not to mention its contribution to our national health problems, and its major and central contribution to our global diminishing supplies of not just oil but a wide variety of finite resources. It is a major contributor to the ongoing campaign to lead us blindly over the cliff that awaits with peak oil. The careful and wilful manipulation of data and statistics to feed the public love for their automobiles, to push the automotive agenda is unconscionable.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Why is There a Shortage of People and Equipment in the Oil Industry?
The common lament of oil executives today, and the increasingly tedious explanation for the drop in oil production, is that there is a shortage of trained people and the equipment needed to increase exploration, development and production to offset declines from older fields. Both shortages, I would very strongly suggest, are born out of the same realities.
What attracts people to most professions is not the mundane. It is the potential for the exceptional, the potential to be part of the big find, the big discovery, the big breakthrough. The simple reality is that the peak in oil discovery was a full half century in the past, production now at 4-5 times the level of new discovery. The last major oil discoveries were nearly thirty years ago. Production of the premium, light-sweet crudes have now been in decline for several years. Overall crude production has already decline with increases in production in recent years coming from alternatives, not from increased crude production. The long decades of major technological development in the oil industry since then, in terms of both exploration and production, have not altered those realities. That is hardly a situation that is going to attract the best and brightest to the profession. It is more likely to attract those who walk in with their eyes closed, who have not bothered to check the landscape before they commit themselves. When you add into the mix the disdain that most people today now feel for the oil industry, the fact that new exploration and development is taking place in some of the most inhospitable regions on the planet, the reality that oil is soon to become a dying industry to which it would be very unwise to hitch your wagon, there should be very little surprise that the industry is having trouble finding qualified people.
And the equipment that is declared to be needed and in short supply is in the same boat. The geography and geology involved in the new oil environment take a tremendous toll on equipment, or require totally new equipment because existing equipment simply can't do the job now required. As with qualified people, why would the companies that build the equipment be investing large amounts in the research, development and production of equipment for an industry which looks increasingly like it will not remain viable long enough for them to recoup their costs? It may be culturally suicidal to use the words peak oil inside the oil industry but it would likewise be suicidal to not be aware of that reality. Corporate culture demands an awareness of the risks to investment and peak oil is unquestionably the greatest risk for new investment in the oil industry.
What the executives of the large oil majors are doing is trying to convince others, like equipment developers, national oil companies, exploration companies and today's students to take the risks that they are fully aware are foolhardy. Those oil executives know what the future of their industry holds. That is clear in their rush to diversify into other forms of energy. They are not going to commit their own profits to further investment they know will have no pay back. The only strategy left open to them was to convince others to make that investment. Failing to convince them to do so, after all, gives them a point of blame to focus on while they run out their term in office and crank up their golden parachutes.
What attracts people to most professions is not the mundane. It is the potential for the exceptional, the potential to be part of the big find, the big discovery, the big breakthrough. The simple reality is that the peak in oil discovery was a full half century in the past, production now at 4-5 times the level of new discovery. The last major oil discoveries were nearly thirty years ago. Production of the premium, light-sweet crudes have now been in decline for several years. Overall crude production has already decline with increases in production in recent years coming from alternatives, not from increased crude production. The long decades of major technological development in the oil industry since then, in terms of both exploration and production, have not altered those realities. That is hardly a situation that is going to attract the best and brightest to the profession. It is more likely to attract those who walk in with their eyes closed, who have not bothered to check the landscape before they commit themselves. When you add into the mix the disdain that most people today now feel for the oil industry, the fact that new exploration and development is taking place in some of the most inhospitable regions on the planet, the reality that oil is soon to become a dying industry to which it would be very unwise to hitch your wagon, there should be very little surprise that the industry is having trouble finding qualified people.
And the equipment that is declared to be needed and in short supply is in the same boat. The geography and geology involved in the new oil environment take a tremendous toll on equipment, or require totally new equipment because existing equipment simply can't do the job now required. As with qualified people, why would the companies that build the equipment be investing large amounts in the research, development and production of equipment for an industry which looks increasingly like it will not remain viable long enough for them to recoup their costs? It may be culturally suicidal to use the words peak oil inside the oil industry but it would likewise be suicidal to not be aware of that reality. Corporate culture demands an awareness of the risks to investment and peak oil is unquestionably the greatest risk for new investment in the oil industry.
What the executives of the large oil majors are doing is trying to convince others, like equipment developers, national oil companies, exploration companies and today's students to take the risks that they are fully aware are foolhardy. Those oil executives know what the future of their industry holds. That is clear in their rush to diversify into other forms of energy. They are not going to commit their own profits to further investment they know will have no pay back. The only strategy left open to them was to convince others to make that investment. Failing to convince them to do so, after all, gives them a point of blame to focus on while they run out their term in office and crank up their golden parachutes.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Peak Oil: City Survivability
It is probable that one's view of what type of community will be survivable on the other side of peak oil is heavily influenced by that in which they were raised. It is important for you to know, therefore, that I was raised in a small town with a population of about 1,300 with the nearest "significant" community of over 30,000 about thirty miles away and the nearest large city over 100 miles away. I freely admit that my views are biased toward that as the most survivable of post-peak community arrangements but I do not concede that it is rooted solely in my upbringing. It is a bias based on considerable thought, research and in-depth reasoning.
An obvious key to post-peak community survivability is that the further we go beyond peak oil the greater the compromises that have to be made in the usage, allocation and marketing of what oil remains and is available on the world market. It is a reasonable question, in fact, as to whether an "oil market" will or even can persist beyond peak oil. The primary role of marketing, after all, is to create and maintain demand for a product, to ensure that the marketplace absorbs the surpluses that the producers turn out. But the Texas Railroad Commission which controlled world oil prices while the U.S. was the world's primary producer and exporter of oil lost control of the market pricing for oil when the U.S. passed peak. Similarly it looks as though OPEC is losing control of the market price as they seem to have collectively arrived at Peak Oil as well. At the moment, in fact, there seems to be a multilateral tug-of-war to see who is going to control oil prices in the future. In a world of no oil surpluses, however, the greatest need will be to stifle demand, not encourage it. If the massive machinery of the marketing industry can be turned toward stifling demand and developing new, rational consumer expectations it may still have a vital role to play. The likelihood is slim, however, that the oil marketing juggernaut can or will go through such a major turnaround.
You will have to forgive me if the following is repetitious to you but it is a point I am passionate about making. Peak oil is not just about the oil, not about liquid fuels! There are over 300,000 products in everyday usage around the world that are wholly or partially made from or derived from oil and natural gas. Not only does our society run on oil - including, very importantly, our production of food - but it is largely built from oil and built and maintained by the energy derived from oil. Whether we are yet approaching, at, or already past peak oil is irrelevant and the ongoing discussion of "when" is a needless and dangerous diversion. The uncertainty as to when does not in any way mean there is uncertainty about "if". Peak Oil will happen! What is important is that knowing we are approaching the limits of our oil production capacity we should be working to reduce our dependence as quickly as possible while we still have the oil-energy to fuel the required transition away from that dependence. Instead we continue to increase our dependence. As many as 14,000 new products per year are brought on the market which are wholly or partially made from oil or its derivatives. The result is that the closer we get to peak oil the more critical becomes our dependence on that oil and the greater the price we will pay after that peak. There are two lines in a poem of mine that keep haunting me as I see this unfold;
When you've come to the end of the line
And the living hurts more the shorter the time..........
Those lines were written about the physical trials of aging but the deeper I have explored the full implications of peak oil the more applicable they have seemed to me to that issue.
It should be obvious, but seems not to be to many including our political leaders, that cities are not now, have never been nor are they capable of becoming self-sufficient in a fossil fuel deprived world. The heavy concentration of population in cities relies critically on resources from outside the city for its survival. There is generally insufficient arable land within a city to grow the food that the city's population needs. The hard goods required by the city are made of metals and other resources that must come from outside of that city. The goods that the city produces are invariably greater than the citizens of the city can absorb and require markets outside of that city to absorb them. The physical distances within a city, especially modern cities, require some energy-dependent system to move the population about from place to place. And the other factor within a city that keeps cities energy dependent is the vertical development. Cities, especially modern cities where over half the people live in apartments, are built up as well as out. That vertical development requires energy to overcome gravity, a simple reality that is too easy to gloss over in an energy-rich world.
Regardless of the size of the city, thousands of tons of materials flow into and out of the city every day. Even with a drastically downscaled lifestyle hundreds of tons of materials, most importantly food, are going to have to flow into and out of the city everyday if the inhabitants of that city are to survive. Without fossil-energy transportation reliance is going to have to be on other forms of transportation, e.g. rail, water, animal-drawn transport, human-drawn transport, etc. As we are starting to see with oil-producing countries holding back reserves to use in their own futures, however, when there is a future conflict in rural areas surrounding cities of degrading their own resources of soil and water to produce food for the city or preserving those resources for their own future needs the obvious human decision is to hold back supply in order to preserve resources for future use.
The vertical infrastructure of cities will become a serious post-peak liability rather than an asset. A twenty-five storey apartment building without benefit of water raised by pumps, electricity for heating and lighting, and without elevators to move people and goods up and down will not be functional when the energy to do all of those things runs out. Anything higher than three or four floors up simply will not be workable over the long term except for the extremely fit. The most consistent argument in favour of the city as a post-peak community model are based on the efficiencies achieved by concentrating population in a smaller area. But when that density is based on vertical development and that population relies on resources from outside of that city the energy required to achieve those efficiencies of density negate the benefits in an increasingly energy-deprived world.
The increasingly common sealed apartment buildings dependent on mechanized air filtration and conditioning, for example, will be particularly ill-suited for the post peak era, regardless of vertical size. In these buildings windows cannot be opened in order to manage air flow, especially for cooling in the heat of summer. The concurrence of peak oil and global warming do not bode well in this regard.
The other major component of the city's vertical infrastructure, of course, is the office building. In the city center office towers of fifty stories and more are increasingly common. These are almost always sealed buildings and totally dependent on elevators for movement of people and goods.
The average city of one million occupies an area of 500-1,000 square miles. That is an equivalent of 320,000-640,000 acres (640 acres per square mile). Assuming that all of that city space were turned to the production of food (no buildings, roads or other infrastructure) that would mean .32-.64 of an acre per person for food production. The estimates of how much arable land per person is necessary for survival vary from a low of .5 in warm climates where multiple crops per year can be taken from the land to 5 acres or higher in cooler climates limited to one crop per year because of the short growing season. The reality is that over half the space in a city is taken up with buildings and other infrastructure which would mean less than .16-.32 acres per person for food production within the city. Clearly, therefore, even with the most efficient food production techniques possible without fossil fuels means that only a small fraction of the food needed by the inhabitants of a modern city could be produced within the confines of that city.
When any species or group exceeds its carrying capacity within the territory it occupies a number of things may happen to bring population and carrying capacity back in balance. I say its carrying capacity because multiple species may share a common territory when those multiple species do not compete with each other for food or other resources. As long as they do not compete for common resources they can continue to share the territory in relative harmony and balance.
But when the carrying capacity of a region is exceeded by one or more species or groups within that region various scenarios unfold. The members of the group may fight amongst themselves for ever-dwindling resources until they achieve some sort of equilibrium with carrying capacity, a battle that will recur regularly as the population continually rises above carrying capacity. If there is unoccupied territory on the periphery of the region the group may expand into this territory thus temporarily increasing their carrying capacity until an increasing population again exceeds that expanded carrying capacity. The group can go to war or battle with groups in adjacent territories and, if successful, increase their carrying capacity by acquisition of their neighbour's land. The group may recognize the limits and develop a new relationship with the environment of their region such that they can live sustainably within the region's carrying capacity. The group may try to simply carry on business as usual and pay the price as nature reduces their numbers down to the carrying capacity. Regardless of which scenario plays out there will have to be a rebalancing of population and carrying capacity. If the region in question is a city it is not difficult to imagine the various scenarios.
When the region in question is a city, of course, the possible scenarios are the same Cities do not exist in a vacuum. They are invariably surrounded by territories that are occupied by other groups, or are pushed up against natural boundaries such as a coast line, mountains, lakes or similar limits. There is no unoccupied territory on the periphery of the modern city into which it can expand. In fact there is essentially no unoccupied hospitable land left anywhere on earth in which a human population could establish themselves sustainably. Under the present system expansion of a city is accomplished through economic development, surrounding farm land bought up and developed with new suburbs of the city. In time, however, these cities begin to run into each other, the rural land between them all gobbled up. But that form of city expansion is a function of the current, growth-oriented economic system which is unlikely to survive, at least in its present form, much beyond peak oil.
It is difficult to live in our modern, highly-advanced society with our advanced technology, high employment, widespread social safety nets and our unprecedented size and power of the middle class, and comprehend a not too distant future where the most important key to our individual survivability will be, simply, food. But that is the future we are racing toward and the gate-keeper is peak oil. Whether you have money or not or whether that money does or does not have any value will matter very little if you cannot get food. I remember many years ago reading a newspaper story about a man found starved to death in his apartment. There were tens of thousands of dollars stashed in the man's apartment. As food becomes increasingly scarce on the other side of peak oil that may be a scenario played out over and over again with people who have done nothing to prepare because they believed that money would always get them what they needed. Ain't necessarily so.
Just as there is insufficient land within most cities to produce the food needed by the city's population, there is considerable debate whether the planet has sufficient carrying capacity to support the massive global human population that now exceeds 6.6 billion. The global push for biofuels as global crude oil reserves are pushed to the limit to try to keep up with global demand has brought the issue of food and carrying capacity into sharp relief. While energy companies are running ads with messages like "I want to grow my fuel, not pump it" critics the world over, including the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF, are warning that biofuels are creating a dangerous situation that might quickly lead to a massive humanitarian disaster where tens of millions could die of starvation either because their is insufficient food globally or because the poorest of the poor can no longer afford what food is available. The idealist in me believes that access to food must not become the province of wealthy western people and nations alone. With the green revolution we promised the world's poor that they could be fed. The obligation to live up to that commitment must not disappear simply because we need to use their land to produce fuel for our SUVs.
A simply reality that we also too easily ignore in our modern world is that the arable land and the production of food does not exist where the populations that most need that food exist. Our ability to feed 6.6 billion people is heavily dependent on a few small areas of the planet where the soil, chemistry and technology has allowed us to produce food surpluses that can be shipped all over the planet to where the people are that need them. The chemistry, technology and energy through which we produce those surpluses and the energy required to distribute those surpluses all around the globe are already going into an inexorable decline. Peak food is several years behind us and global food production which is already in decline will continue to worsen dramatically over the coming years. Thus far the available global food calories per person have not declined to the level that we are seeing dramatic increases in deaths by starvation and other nutrition-related diseases. But we are definitely at a tipping point and over the next decade the impact of having passed through that tipping point will become headline news on a daily basis, provided the media are not kept from publishing hard truths as they all too often are today.
Cities will definitely not be immune from the approaching energy, food and freshwater crises. The impact on them may be initially disguised, a process that may be underway now. Throughout history politicians and power brokers have lavished their attention and whatever money they could extract from the populace through taxes on the cities. It is very likely, based on what we see in the daily news, that cities will continue to be the objects of their affection. The further that goes, however, the more blatant it becomes, the greater the disparity to what financial and political attention is being spent on the rural community, the greater grows the likelihood that the rural areas and the agricultural community are going to cease being willing partners in maintaining the artificial sustainability of the cities. This has happened many times through history but never at a time when what the rural community has has been so critical to the ongoing survivability of the cities. The balance of power in the equation is very definitely going to be shifting in favour of the agricultural community as peak oil lags further and further behind us. It is unreasonable to draw too many parallels to history in this. Never in a our history, after all, have we headed into an age where every form of energy society uses is going to go into serious and irreversible decline over the course of a single lifetime.
An obvious key to post-peak community survivability is that the further we go beyond peak oil the greater the compromises that have to be made in the usage, allocation and marketing of what oil remains and is available on the world market. It is a reasonable question, in fact, as to whether an "oil market" will or even can persist beyond peak oil. The primary role of marketing, after all, is to create and maintain demand for a product, to ensure that the marketplace absorbs the surpluses that the producers turn out. But the Texas Railroad Commission which controlled world oil prices while the U.S. was the world's primary producer and exporter of oil lost control of the market pricing for oil when the U.S. passed peak. Similarly it looks as though OPEC is losing control of the market price as they seem to have collectively arrived at Peak Oil as well. At the moment, in fact, there seems to be a multilateral tug-of-war to see who is going to control oil prices in the future. In a world of no oil surpluses, however, the greatest need will be to stifle demand, not encourage it. If the massive machinery of the marketing industry can be turned toward stifling demand and developing new, rational consumer expectations it may still have a vital role to play. The likelihood is slim, however, that the oil marketing juggernaut can or will go through such a major turnaround.
You will have to forgive me if the following is repetitious to you but it is a point I am passionate about making. Peak oil is not just about the oil, not about liquid fuels! There are over 300,000 products in everyday usage around the world that are wholly or partially made from or derived from oil and natural gas. Not only does our society run on oil - including, very importantly, our production of food - but it is largely built from oil and built and maintained by the energy derived from oil. Whether we are yet approaching, at, or already past peak oil is irrelevant and the ongoing discussion of "when" is a needless and dangerous diversion. The uncertainty as to when does not in any way mean there is uncertainty about "if". Peak Oil will happen! What is important is that knowing we are approaching the limits of our oil production capacity we should be working to reduce our dependence as quickly as possible while we still have the oil-energy to fuel the required transition away from that dependence. Instead we continue to increase our dependence. As many as 14,000 new products per year are brought on the market which are wholly or partially made from oil or its derivatives. The result is that the closer we get to peak oil the more critical becomes our dependence on that oil and the greater the price we will pay after that peak. There are two lines in a poem of mine that keep haunting me as I see this unfold;
When you've come to the end of the line
And the living hurts more the shorter the time..........
Those lines were written about the physical trials of aging but the deeper I have explored the full implications of peak oil the more applicable they have seemed to me to that issue.
It should be obvious, but seems not to be to many including our political leaders, that cities are not now, have never been nor are they capable of becoming self-sufficient in a fossil fuel deprived world. The heavy concentration of population in cities relies critically on resources from outside the city for its survival. There is generally insufficient arable land within a city to grow the food that the city's population needs. The hard goods required by the city are made of metals and other resources that must come from outside of that city. The goods that the city produces are invariably greater than the citizens of the city can absorb and require markets outside of that city to absorb them. The physical distances within a city, especially modern cities, require some energy-dependent system to move the population about from place to place. And the other factor within a city that keeps cities energy dependent is the vertical development. Cities, especially modern cities where over half the people live in apartments, are built up as well as out. That vertical development requires energy to overcome gravity, a simple reality that is too easy to gloss over in an energy-rich world.
Regardless of the size of the city, thousands of tons of materials flow into and out of the city every day. Even with a drastically downscaled lifestyle hundreds of tons of materials, most importantly food, are going to have to flow into and out of the city everyday if the inhabitants of that city are to survive. Without fossil-energy transportation reliance is going to have to be on other forms of transportation, e.g. rail, water, animal-drawn transport, human-drawn transport, etc. As we are starting to see with oil-producing countries holding back reserves to use in their own futures, however, when there is a future conflict in rural areas surrounding cities of degrading their own resources of soil and water to produce food for the city or preserving those resources for their own future needs the obvious human decision is to hold back supply in order to preserve resources for future use.
The vertical infrastructure of cities will become a serious post-peak liability rather than an asset. A twenty-five storey apartment building without benefit of water raised by pumps, electricity for heating and lighting, and without elevators to move people and goods up and down will not be functional when the energy to do all of those things runs out. Anything higher than three or four floors up simply will not be workable over the long term except for the extremely fit. The most consistent argument in favour of the city as a post-peak community model are based on the efficiencies achieved by concentrating population in a smaller area. But when that density is based on vertical development and that population relies on resources from outside of that city the energy required to achieve those efficiencies of density negate the benefits in an increasingly energy-deprived world.
The increasingly common sealed apartment buildings dependent on mechanized air filtration and conditioning, for example, will be particularly ill-suited for the post peak era, regardless of vertical size. In these buildings windows cannot be opened in order to manage air flow, especially for cooling in the heat of summer. The concurrence of peak oil and global warming do not bode well in this regard.
The other major component of the city's vertical infrastructure, of course, is the office building. In the city center office towers of fifty stories and more are increasingly common. These are almost always sealed buildings and totally dependent on elevators for movement of people and goods.
The average city of one million occupies an area of 500-1,000 square miles. That is an equivalent of 320,000-640,000 acres (640 acres per square mile). Assuming that all of that city space were turned to the production of food (no buildings, roads or other infrastructure) that would mean .32-.64 of an acre per person for food production. The estimates of how much arable land per person is necessary for survival vary from a low of .5 in warm climates where multiple crops per year can be taken from the land to 5 acres or higher in cooler climates limited to one crop per year because of the short growing season. The reality is that over half the space in a city is taken up with buildings and other infrastructure which would mean less than .16-.32 acres per person for food production within the city. Clearly, therefore, even with the most efficient food production techniques possible without fossil fuels means that only a small fraction of the food needed by the inhabitants of a modern city could be produced within the confines of that city.
When any species or group exceeds its carrying capacity within the territory it occupies a number of things may happen to bring population and carrying capacity back in balance. I say its carrying capacity because multiple species may share a common territory when those multiple species do not compete with each other for food or other resources. As long as they do not compete for common resources they can continue to share the territory in relative harmony and balance.
But when the carrying capacity of a region is exceeded by one or more species or groups within that region various scenarios unfold. The members of the group may fight amongst themselves for ever-dwindling resources until they achieve some sort of equilibrium with carrying capacity, a battle that will recur regularly as the population continually rises above carrying capacity. If there is unoccupied territory on the periphery of the region the group may expand into this territory thus temporarily increasing their carrying capacity until an increasing population again exceeds that expanded carrying capacity. The group can go to war or battle with groups in adjacent territories and, if successful, increase their carrying capacity by acquisition of their neighbour's land. The group may recognize the limits and develop a new relationship with the environment of their region such that they can live sustainably within the region's carrying capacity. The group may try to simply carry on business as usual and pay the price as nature reduces their numbers down to the carrying capacity. Regardless of which scenario plays out there will have to be a rebalancing of population and carrying capacity. If the region in question is a city it is not difficult to imagine the various scenarios.
When the region in question is a city, of course, the possible scenarios are the same Cities do not exist in a vacuum. They are invariably surrounded by territories that are occupied by other groups, or are pushed up against natural boundaries such as a coast line, mountains, lakes or similar limits. There is no unoccupied territory on the periphery of the modern city into which it can expand. In fact there is essentially no unoccupied hospitable land left anywhere on earth in which a human population could establish themselves sustainably. Under the present system expansion of a city is accomplished through economic development, surrounding farm land bought up and developed with new suburbs of the city. In time, however, these cities begin to run into each other, the rural land between them all gobbled up. But that form of city expansion is a function of the current, growth-oriented economic system which is unlikely to survive, at least in its present form, much beyond peak oil.
It is difficult to live in our modern, highly-advanced society with our advanced technology, high employment, widespread social safety nets and our unprecedented size and power of the middle class, and comprehend a not too distant future where the most important key to our individual survivability will be, simply, food. But that is the future we are racing toward and the gate-keeper is peak oil. Whether you have money or not or whether that money does or does not have any value will matter very little if you cannot get food. I remember many years ago reading a newspaper story about a man found starved to death in his apartment. There were tens of thousands of dollars stashed in the man's apartment. As food becomes increasingly scarce on the other side of peak oil that may be a scenario played out over and over again with people who have done nothing to prepare because they believed that money would always get them what they needed. Ain't necessarily so.
Just as there is insufficient land within most cities to produce the food needed by the city's population, there is considerable debate whether the planet has sufficient carrying capacity to support the massive global human population that now exceeds 6.6 billion. The global push for biofuels as global crude oil reserves are pushed to the limit to try to keep up with global demand has brought the issue of food and carrying capacity into sharp relief. While energy companies are running ads with messages like "I want to grow my fuel, not pump it" critics the world over, including the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF, are warning that biofuels are creating a dangerous situation that might quickly lead to a massive humanitarian disaster where tens of millions could die of starvation either because their is insufficient food globally or because the poorest of the poor can no longer afford what food is available. The idealist in me believes that access to food must not become the province of wealthy western people and nations alone. With the green revolution we promised the world's poor that they could be fed. The obligation to live up to that commitment must not disappear simply because we need to use their land to produce fuel for our SUVs.
A simply reality that we also too easily ignore in our modern world is that the arable land and the production of food does not exist where the populations that most need that food exist. Our ability to feed 6.6 billion people is heavily dependent on a few small areas of the planet where the soil, chemistry and technology has allowed us to produce food surpluses that can be shipped all over the planet to where the people are that need them. The chemistry, technology and energy through which we produce those surpluses and the energy required to distribute those surpluses all around the globe are already going into an inexorable decline. Peak food is several years behind us and global food production which is already in decline will continue to worsen dramatically over the coming years. Thus far the available global food calories per person have not declined to the level that we are seeing dramatic increases in deaths by starvation and other nutrition-related diseases. But we are definitely at a tipping point and over the next decade the impact of having passed through that tipping point will become headline news on a daily basis, provided the media are not kept from publishing hard truths as they all too often are today.
Cities will definitely not be immune from the approaching energy, food and freshwater crises. The impact on them may be initially disguised, a process that may be underway now. Throughout history politicians and power brokers have lavished their attention and whatever money they could extract from the populace through taxes on the cities. It is very likely, based on what we see in the daily news, that cities will continue to be the objects of their affection. The further that goes, however, the more blatant it becomes, the greater the disparity to what financial and political attention is being spent on the rural community, the greater grows the likelihood that the rural areas and the agricultural community are going to cease being willing partners in maintaining the artificial sustainability of the cities. This has happened many times through history but never at a time when what the rural community has has been so critical to the ongoing survivability of the cities. The balance of power in the equation is very definitely going to be shifting in favour of the agricultural community as peak oil lags further and further behind us. It is unreasonable to draw too many parallels to history in this. Never in a our history, after all, have we headed into an age where every form of energy society uses is going to go into serious and irreversible decline over the course of a single lifetime.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
No Planet for Old Men
We are arriving at peak oil at a time when the largest generation yet in human history is entering statistical old age. Even more important, in most major western nations, it is a generation in which the majority of people have spent their working lives in various service industries, making their living through the neuron-firings of their brains rather than the sweat on their brows. Most have never turned a shovel, plowed a field, dug up a garden, grown their own food, canned, dehydrated or otherwise preserved their own food, harnessed a horse or helped a cow through the difficult birth of a new calf.
I am unusual in many respects. Firstly I was technically born before the arbitrarily-designated beginning of the generally-recognized Baby Boomer generation. It is generally accepted that that generation covers the period 1946-1964. I was born three months earlier in September 1945. I entered the computer software industry, one of those clearly service-oriented professions, in 1963-64 (long before the advent of the PC, computer monitors, GUIs and the internet) and spent thirty-five years in that industry. But unlike most in that industry I have done all of those self-sufficiency things I listed in the opening paragraph and even more, things such as working on farms during my late teens and even earlier if you count helping out on my uncle's farm as often as I could and working side by side with my mother and step father in our half-acre vegetable garden.
Despite my familiarity and comfort with skills that would be important in a post-peak world where self-sufficiency will be critical, I do not realistically expect to be able to achieve, let alone maintain, self-sufficiency in the coming years. In fact I do not expect to be a post-peak survivor. Nor do I at all expect the vast majority of the Baby Boomer generation to be long-term, post-peak survivors. It is one of those things that makes me wish that my non-belief in the afterlife turns out to be wrong so that I could watch from afar as peak oil unfolds...... just to see what happens.
In addition to the massive size of the Baby Boomer generation we are essentially a generation that have lived our lives with a totally unrealistic sense of entitlement. We feel that the lifestyle of relative wealth - relative to the rest of the world - and relative ease in which we were raised and have since lived and made our own way, is a God-given right. We have no sense of history, of the reality that we are the first and probably only generation that has lived in a long enough period of relative peace and economic expansion to have developed that myopic sense of entitlement. But it is the historical exception, not the norm. And the reality of history is very soon going to bite us in the ass and disconnect us from the matrix.
The other unrealistic view that we have developed in this past century is the assumption of a long and healthy life. Peak oil, I believe, will also mean peak life expectancy. Many seem to be unaware of or oblivious to the fact that the average life expectancy in industrialised nations has nearly doubled since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The greater the energy use per person the longer the average life.
That co relation is very definitely not accidental. That increased energy use has been the engine of innovation in human hygiene, human nutrition, human work and, most importantly, human medicine. Two keys to that statistical rise in life expectancy are; a major reduction in infant mortality especially in the areas of premature births and births of children with genetic diseases; and the dramatic improvements in medical care for the aged. Essentially if you can live into your sixties modern medicine can and will be used to keep you around for another couple of decades or longer. A very large proportion of seniors today have become seriously medically dependent, owing their continued survival to the wonders of modern medicine.
Both of these areas will face serious hurdles when we pass peak oil and the energy to continue the medical miracles of the past century - to which we have become accustomed and to which we feel entitled - goes into serious decline. Infant mortality will again be on the increase as access to medical facilities for difficult births declines. The increasingly difficult life that will accompany the decline of global oil availability will also exact a tremendous price on the aging baby-boomer generation and future generations of seniors. The heroic medicine that has been responsible for up to a 10-15 year increase in average life expectancy will be increasingly difficult to maintain as the world's energy resources decline.
I don't want to engage in a debate about creationism or intelligent design nor is this statement intended as an endorsement of either of those two points of view. Our bodies genetically evolved during millions of years where the average life expectancy was under forty years. Nature, for any species, does not expend a lot of resources on maintaining an organism beyond reproductive age. Man is the only living species on this planet that enjoys a lifespan that lasts twice as long as our reproductive period. That longevity is not of nature's doing. It has been of our own making, and it has been strongly linked to our use and expenditure of energy. Just as we have used energy - especially that from oil - to create an artificial carrying capacity 5-10 times greater than the earth's natural carrying capacity, we have used that energy to create an artificial life expectancy more than double the natural life expectancy for our species.
As the energy declines the age to which seniors live in industrialized nations will also go into decline. The artificial life expectancy created by our energy and technology will gradually be replace again by the natural life expectancy for which our bodies have genetically evolved. It is reasonable to assume that the first casualties in this transition will be those whose continued survival has been a result of the most recent and dramatic changes, improvements and innovations that our use of energy and technology have given rise to in this past century. The more medically and technologically dependent among us - which covers a high proportion of the senior population - will be the first to face serious problems as energy declines.
On a personal note..... I have been through two serious medical events in the past year, related to my heart, my circulatory system and my endocine system. The tests alone that I have endured would, if I were paying - I am Canadian and we have a universal health care system - would have added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The medicines that I have been prescribed and to which I owe my continued survival would, without that universal heath care and a good private medical plan, cost hundreds of dollars every month.
I am one of those medically-dependent people that will not fare well during a decline in global energy supplies. I have long accepted that. I continue to write what I write for the benefit of others. I want you to think about the ways in which your life and your survival, now and in the near-term future, are dependent on energy and technology. I want you to think about what you are going to have to do to ensure your longevity when the technology that our heavy of use of energy has allowed begins to disappear. I want you to consider what changes you are going to have to make as you become increasingly responsible for your own continued survival as the "system" that has taken care of you begins to fall apart.
I am unusual in many respects. Firstly I was technically born before the arbitrarily-designated beginning of the generally-recognized Baby Boomer generation. It is generally accepted that that generation covers the period 1946-1964. I was born three months earlier in September 1945. I entered the computer software industry, one of those clearly service-oriented professions, in 1963-64 (long before the advent of the PC, computer monitors, GUIs and the internet) and spent thirty-five years in that industry. But unlike most in that industry I have done all of those self-sufficiency things I listed in the opening paragraph and even more, things such as working on farms during my late teens and even earlier if you count helping out on my uncle's farm as often as I could and working side by side with my mother and step father in our half-acre vegetable garden.
Despite my familiarity and comfort with skills that would be important in a post-peak world where self-sufficiency will be critical, I do not realistically expect to be able to achieve, let alone maintain, self-sufficiency in the coming years. In fact I do not expect to be a post-peak survivor. Nor do I at all expect the vast majority of the Baby Boomer generation to be long-term, post-peak survivors. It is one of those things that makes me wish that my non-belief in the afterlife turns out to be wrong so that I could watch from afar as peak oil unfolds...... just to see what happens.
In addition to the massive size of the Baby Boomer generation we are essentially a generation that have lived our lives with a totally unrealistic sense of entitlement. We feel that the lifestyle of relative wealth - relative to the rest of the world - and relative ease in which we were raised and have since lived and made our own way, is a God-given right. We have no sense of history, of the reality that we are the first and probably only generation that has lived in a long enough period of relative peace and economic expansion to have developed that myopic sense of entitlement. But it is the historical exception, not the norm. And the reality of history is very soon going to bite us in the ass and disconnect us from the matrix.
The other unrealistic view that we have developed in this past century is the assumption of a long and healthy life. Peak oil, I believe, will also mean peak life expectancy. Many seem to be unaware of or oblivious to the fact that the average life expectancy in industrialised nations has nearly doubled since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The greater the energy use per person the longer the average life.
That co relation is very definitely not accidental. That increased energy use has been the engine of innovation in human hygiene, human nutrition, human work and, most importantly, human medicine. Two keys to that statistical rise in life expectancy are; a major reduction in infant mortality especially in the areas of premature births and births of children with genetic diseases; and the dramatic improvements in medical care for the aged. Essentially if you can live into your sixties modern medicine can and will be used to keep you around for another couple of decades or longer. A very large proportion of seniors today have become seriously medically dependent, owing their continued survival to the wonders of modern medicine.
Both of these areas will face serious hurdles when we pass peak oil and the energy to continue the medical miracles of the past century - to which we have become accustomed and to which we feel entitled - goes into serious decline. Infant mortality will again be on the increase as access to medical facilities for difficult births declines. The increasingly difficult life that will accompany the decline of global oil availability will also exact a tremendous price on the aging baby-boomer generation and future generations of seniors. The heroic medicine that has been responsible for up to a 10-15 year increase in average life expectancy will be increasingly difficult to maintain as the world's energy resources decline.
I don't want to engage in a debate about creationism or intelligent design nor is this statement intended as an endorsement of either of those two points of view. Our bodies genetically evolved during millions of years where the average life expectancy was under forty years. Nature, for any species, does not expend a lot of resources on maintaining an organism beyond reproductive age. Man is the only living species on this planet that enjoys a lifespan that lasts twice as long as our reproductive period. That longevity is not of nature's doing. It has been of our own making, and it has been strongly linked to our use and expenditure of energy. Just as we have used energy - especially that from oil - to create an artificial carrying capacity 5-10 times greater than the earth's natural carrying capacity, we have used that energy to create an artificial life expectancy more than double the natural life expectancy for our species.
As the energy declines the age to which seniors live in industrialized nations will also go into decline. The artificial life expectancy created by our energy and technology will gradually be replace again by the natural life expectancy for which our bodies have genetically evolved. It is reasonable to assume that the first casualties in this transition will be those whose continued survival has been a result of the most recent and dramatic changes, improvements and innovations that our use of energy and technology have given rise to in this past century. The more medically and technologically dependent among us - which covers a high proportion of the senior population - will be the first to face serious problems as energy declines.
On a personal note..... I have been through two serious medical events in the past year, related to my heart, my circulatory system and my endocine system. The tests alone that I have endured would, if I were paying - I am Canadian and we have a universal health care system - would have added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. The medicines that I have been prescribed and to which I owe my continued survival would, without that universal heath care and a good private medical plan, cost hundreds of dollars every month.
I am one of those medically-dependent people that will not fare well during a decline in global energy supplies. I have long accepted that. I continue to write what I write for the benefit of others. I want you to think about the ways in which your life and your survival, now and in the near-term future, are dependent on energy and technology. I want you to think about what you are going to have to do to ensure your longevity when the technology that our heavy of use of energy has allowed begins to disappear. I want you to consider what changes you are going to have to make as you become increasingly responsible for your own continued survival as the "system" that has taken care of you begins to fall apart.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Sorry, no more presentations
I have had several requests in recent months to make peak oil presentations. I regret that I have had to turn them down and that, further, I can not commit to any future presentations at this time. I have had serious health issues this past year and, considering the nature of those issues, do not see any point on the near term horizon when I will again be in a position to make presentations.
I have a condition called cardiomyopathy. Specifically two of my three heart arteries are completely collapsed, but the good news is that my circulatory system has rerouted itself successfully meaning that the cardiologists say there is no point in a bypass operation which would only duplicate what my body has already done for itself. The down side of my condition, however, is that I only have thirty percent heart function, which means my energy level is low, I tire easily, and long drives and air travel are definitely not recommended by my doctors.
All of that is further complicated by the fact that I have progressive arthritis in my hips, high blood pressure, and have, as a result of the heart condition, developed type 2 diabetes. All in all I am physically a mess at the moment
The good news is that none of this has interfered with my research and my writing on peak oil, of which this blog is a major component. Nor do I intend to let my condition interfere with that, other than concessions to my easily tiring.
I thank all of those who are regular readers of my blog and hope that it is contributing to your awareness of peak oil and its serious societal implications.
I have a condition called cardiomyopathy. Specifically two of my three heart arteries are completely collapsed, but the good news is that my circulatory system has rerouted itself successfully meaning that the cardiologists say there is no point in a bypass operation which would only duplicate what my body has already done for itself. The down side of my condition, however, is that I only have thirty percent heart function, which means my energy level is low, I tire easily, and long drives and air travel are definitely not recommended by my doctors.
All of that is further complicated by the fact that I have progressive arthritis in my hips, high blood pressure, and have, as a result of the heart condition, developed type 2 diabetes. All in all I am physically a mess at the moment
The good news is that none of this has interfered with my research and my writing on peak oil, of which this blog is a major component. Nor do I intend to let my condition interfere with that, other than concessions to my easily tiring.
I thank all of those who are regular readers of my blog and hope that it is contributing to your awareness of peak oil and its serious societal implications.
Monday, April 21, 2008
People Starting to see the Light on Oil Supply
In a recent WorldPublicOpinion.org poll (just released on April 20, 2008) conducted in 16 nations collectively containing 58 percent of the world's population, a majority of the 14,896 poll respondents believe "that governments should assume that oil is running out". That is the good news. The bad news is that they also believe "it is necessary for governments to make a major effort to replace oil as a primary source of energy." "Only 22 percent on average believe that enough new oil will be found so that it can remain a primary source of energy for the foreseeable future.” according to the poll. There does not appear to be a belief, however - there were no questions in the poll by which one could get an accurate reading - that this is a cause to change our lifestyle. The onus in the questions as posed in the poll is on governments to find replacement energy sources to allow life to carry on as is, for business as usual. It is not clear whether this was predicated on a pre-existing belief that that would be the position of the majority of people. It does, however, limit the utility of the poll.
Although it is heartening that a significant majority of people polled (the number of poll respondents is too low to be statistically accurate) appear to now understand that global oil supplies are running out, it is very disheartening that they have not made the connection that this is going to require any changes on their part. That connection has to be made before there is any chance of a realistic move toward a post-fossil-fuel society. Small steps, nonetheless, are better than no steps at all.
According to Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, in fact, “The widespread consensus that oil needs to be replaced as an energy source may be prompted by concerns about the effect of oil on climate change as well as the belief that oil will run out.” That suggests that there is, as yet, little understanding, even though the majority of people believe that global oil supplies are running out, of the serious implications for global society when they do. It suggests they see global warming as a threat to global society but do not make the same connection for depleting oil supplies. This may be based on the apparent belief or expectation that governments will find that elusive replacement for oil that will allow things to carry on as usual. The energy fairy would seem to be alive and well. Clearly much more work has to be done to get people to see the full picture.
What this poll does do, in a limited way, is help define the nature of the myopia in public opinion as regards the approaching global energy crisis. It gives us a little better picture of where the major efforts are going to be required to raise public awareness to a level where meaningful action can be undertaken. It also clarifies what the general public perception is of government's awareness of the energy situation. Whether that perception is realistic is irrelevant; perception is reality. Clearly if government continues down the road of assuring the people there is no problem, that technology will solve the energy problem, they are going to be in dire straits when that public perception catches up with reality, when people finally realize that there is no viable replacement for oil. Having now finally realized that oil is running out, when that final shoe drops (that there is no viable substitute) it will be devastating to society. Clearly as the public starts to make that connection there is going to be a strong need for very clear and meaningful leadership and direction of what society needs to do to powerdown to a non-fossil-fuel lifestyle. That's when things are going to get really interesting.
============================
World publics say oil needs to be replaced as energy source by World Public Opinion
World Publics Say Oil Needs to Be Replaced as Energy Source
Although it is heartening that a significant majority of people polled (the number of poll respondents is too low to be statistically accurate) appear to now understand that global oil supplies are running out, it is very disheartening that they have not made the connection that this is going to require any changes on their part. That connection has to be made before there is any chance of a realistic move toward a post-fossil-fuel society. Small steps, nonetheless, are better than no steps at all.
According to Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, in fact, “The widespread consensus that oil needs to be replaced as an energy source may be prompted by concerns about the effect of oil on climate change as well as the belief that oil will run out.” That suggests that there is, as yet, little understanding, even though the majority of people believe that global oil supplies are running out, of the serious implications for global society when they do. It suggests they see global warming as a threat to global society but do not make the same connection for depleting oil supplies. This may be based on the apparent belief or expectation that governments will find that elusive replacement for oil that will allow things to carry on as usual. The energy fairy would seem to be alive and well. Clearly much more work has to be done to get people to see the full picture.
What this poll does do, in a limited way, is help define the nature of the myopia in public opinion as regards the approaching global energy crisis. It gives us a little better picture of where the major efforts are going to be required to raise public awareness to a level where meaningful action can be undertaken. It also clarifies what the general public perception is of government's awareness of the energy situation. Whether that perception is realistic is irrelevant; perception is reality. Clearly if government continues down the road of assuring the people there is no problem, that technology will solve the energy problem, they are going to be in dire straits when that public perception catches up with reality, when people finally realize that there is no viable replacement for oil. Having now finally realized that oil is running out, when that final shoe drops (that there is no viable substitute) it will be devastating to society. Clearly as the public starts to make that connection there is going to be a strong need for very clear and meaningful leadership and direction of what society needs to do to powerdown to a non-fossil-fuel lifestyle. That's when things are going to get really interesting.
============================
World publics say oil needs to be replaced as energy source by World Public Opinion
World Publics Say Oil Needs to Be Replaced as Energy Source
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Wherefore Art the Widgets?
This article deals with the issue of whether nations need a National Infrastructure Database to prepare for the possibly severe infrastructure management challenges that will manifest themselves as we move past peak oil and head down the post-peak downslope. It was suggested by Geoff Holman of Australia, for which I thank him. Ah, the wonders of the worldwide web. May it last long and prosper. It has made this peak oil dialogue truly global, which it needs to be but which would have been very difficult to accomplish without the internet.
Also see my other articles in this blog on infrastructure;
Peak Oil and the Three Sisters of Social Collapse
Peak oil and overpasses
The myth of permanence: post-peak infrastructure maintenance
Post Peak Dam Maintenance, or Lack Thereof
Our Dangerous Infrastructure
Cascade Failure in River Systems with Multiple Dams
Our Dangerous Infrastructure II
Infrastructure is generally seen as - and loudly proclaimed by politicians and the captains of industry as being - a societal facilitator. In thefreedictionary.com it is described thus; "The term infrastructure has been used since 1927 to refer collectively to the roads, bridges, rail lines, and similar public works that are required for an industrial economy, or a portion of it, to function."[6] And investorwords.com defines it as "The basic physical systems of a country's or community's population, including roads, utilities, water, sewage, etc. These systems are considered essential for enabling productivity in the economy."[7]
But what happens when the ability to maintain that infrastructure disappears and the infrastructure becomes a hindrance rather than a facilitator, such as it will do during the probable long, grinding economic decline accompanying peak oil? When the current infrastructure maintenance professionals begin retiring or dying and aren't being replaced because of ever-tighter budget constraints, who will even know in a broad context what all is included in "infrastructure", where it is, what condition it is in, when it was built, how old it is, how long it should last, what maintenance it needs and when?
Will the same politicians who built their election campaigns around throwing up new feel-good infrastructure be as quick to accept the responsibility for ensuring it's maintenance as the global economy falls into serious, terminal decline? The paper, Deconstructing the Manifest has this take, "of course, maintenance of these "public" projects is left to the public. .....no politician could ever successfully run on a platform of "maintenance" or status quo. The public will is not swayed by the mundane. And so we see our roads and bridges decay, slowly, inexorably,..... Truly comprehensive maintenance is simply too expensive....."[12]
The reality is, as well as facilitating an economy, infrastructure is also a limiting factor for that economy, a constraint. The infrastructure defines the limits within which an economy can effectively function and, more importantly, evolve, adapt and change. For the economy to shift direction, as it must surely do on the peak oil downslope, it suddenly finds that its infrastructure is an impediment. The walls that enclosed and secured the fortified cities of medieval Europe, for example, were a serious constraint as those cities sought to expand and open up as the Industrial Revolution swept across the continent. The established infrastructure of any city suddenly becomes an impediment when that city wants to install rail lines or highways or subways linking the city center with the suburbs and areas beyond. The destruction of the infrastructure of so many European and Asian cities during two world wars, in reality, facilitated the rebirth of those cities around new infrastructure, saved those cities the agonizing decisions and complications of replacing and upgrading their infrastructure to satisfy and facilitate the drastically changed needs of a technology-oriented, growth-driven, post-war society.
The strong probability is that the infrastructure needed and maintainable by a post-fossil-fuel or seriously fossil-fuel-deficient society will be as different from today as today's infrastructure is different from that which existed in pre-industrial Europe. In the past, however, the impediment imposed by seriously outdated and unmaintainable infrastructure was handled by demolishing and replacing that old infrastructure with new. But will this be an option still open to us if we wait until we are on the peak-oil downslope before we start to address the infrastructure needs of the future? We will no longer have the exploitable energy, technology, finances and vast quantities of raw materials needed for wholesale replacement of that infrastructure. The only options left open to us if we sleepwalk into peak oil may narrow down to trying to somehow maintain that crumbling infrastructure in perpetuity or simply doing without as it falls apart. But infrastructure doesn't just shrivel up benignly in the sun like a tomato dropped from the vine. As infrastructure crumbles through age and lack of maintenance it can impose very serious risks on society that could, collectively, jeopardize millions of lives over the balance of this century and beyond.
Geoff Holman, a reader of this blog from Australia, as noted above, graciously suggested an article on the question of building a national infrastructure database to serve as the basis for dealing with the massive infrastructure inventory during the declining economy that will likely occur beginning with peak oil and the downslope beyond. Not surprisingly, various attempts at building national infrastructure databases have been made in the past.
One of the first projects, for example, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, formed following the terrorist attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, was the establishment of a Critical Infrastructure Database. This database was intended as a reference source of all U.S. infrastructure considered critical and susceptible to terrorist attack, infrastructure like nuclear power plants, major dams, water systems of large urban centers like New York, airports, and so on.
Like so many projects begun in the bowels of bureaucracy, the design of this database and the data collected for it was, at best, fuzzy and incomplete. An assessment report issued by the U.S. Inspector General's office in July, 2006 turned out to be a blistering critique. The Inspector General's report cited several deep flaws in the database that underlies the plan, including: "The database’s failure to distinguish the criticality of the approximately 77,000 assets it includes; The database's failure to provide a comprehensive picture of national assets; The need to develop more sophisticated tools to assess risks associated with various assets; The need for substantial additional work to complete the database. ..... The IG report specified multiple flaws that arose in the process of building the database, such as missing ZIP codes, missing facility names and language translation problems. At one point, “officials estimated that on average each [critical infrastructure/key asset] record they researched was missing information for about seven fields,” according to the report. Department officials progressively improved the methods of gathering and processing the data over the past three years, the report added. The IG analysts predicted that the database could eventually grow to hundreds of thousands of records."[11] Another report notes, "Among the critical assets in the database are Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, a Kangaroo Conservation Center, Jay’s Sporting Goods, several Wal-Mart stores, Amish Country Popcorn, and the Sweetwater Flea Market."[9] Partly as a result of the criticisms the database has been morphed into a National Asset Database but the fuzzy design, structure and data-gathering procedures still persist[8].
Whether or not the failings and criticism of the Critical Infrastructure Database/National Asset Database are responsible, the U.S. congress has recently introduced legislation taking another shot at a National Infrastructure Database. "The Dodd-Hagel National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2007 is a bipartisan measure that addresses the critical needs of our nation’s major infrastructure systems. The legislation establishes a new method through which the Federal government can finance infrastructure projects of substantial regional or national significance more effectively with public and private capital. ..... Infrastructure projects that come under the Bank’s consideration are publicly-owned mass transit systems, housing properties, roads, bridges, drinking water systems, and wastewater systems." The focus here, however, is still largely that of future infrastructure projects rather than maintenance of that already in place. Analysts and critics of this new bill, such as the American Society of Civil Engineers, note that "the current condition of our nation’s major infrastructure systems earns a grade point average of D and jeopardizes the prosperity and quality of life of all Americans." According to the Environmental Protection Agency, "$151 billion and $390 billion is needed respectively every year over the next 20 years to repair obsolete drinking water and wastewater systems. Drinking water and wastewater systems range in age from 50 to 100 years in age."[1] One wonders whether any database resulting from this effort will prove any more successful than that of the Department of Homeland Security.
A long, thirty-year career of designing and building information systems, almost always incorporating a database, has taught me that any database is as good as the ingenuity built into the design. Going back after the fact and trying to resurrect a poorly-designed, disfunctional database through retrofitting patches simply further exacerbates the problems and leads to the almost certain demise of the database, like retrofitting new extraction technology to a played-out oil well. Databases, unlike living organisms, do not evolve well. Any database, especially one as potentially complex as a national infrastructure database, needs to have considered in it's design; the motivation behind the database's existence, the breadth of data to be included, the depth of data the database can support, the data relationships to be incorporated which seriously impacts the flexibility, the controls on the purity and veracity of the data gathered, the uses the database is intended to satisfy, the ownership of and responsibility for the data contained, and much, much more. The fuzzy thinking and lack of clarity of potential use of the database that has characterized various government efforts at national infrastructure databases (not just that elaborated above) is and will, in my view, continue to be a drawback of institutional and bureaucratic control over the design and operational management of such databases. And yet I am not, for a moment, suggesting that any such national infrastructure database be privatized and handed over to business and industry. That, in my opinion, would burden such an effort with a purely business-centric, economic motivation rather than gearing it to the societal need it should serve.
For any nation to set out on a course of developing a national infrastructure database designed to help manage the infrastructure inventory on the peak oil downslope and transition into a post-peak, post-fossil-fuel age they must surely first recognize peak oil and the impact it will have on infrastructure maintenance. And considering the amount of feeding from the public trough that will be involved in the design and construction of such a database and the massive drain on public finances that will be involved in mitigating the impact of that decaying infrastructure while the national and global economy implodes, that is going to be an extremely difficult sell. It is an impossible sell when that government will not even utter the words peak oil but insists on perpetuating the myth of the steady growth economy.
There is no question, in my mind at least, that the massive, technology-dependent infrastructure on which our modern society is built is going to be a tremendous and dangerous liability on the peak oil downslope. I simply do not believe, however, and I hope that I am wrong, that any workable database could be developed at this late stage in the game, even if the political will were there to develop it, that could help mitigate the problem. Any such database is itself going to be dependent on a technology and infrastructure that may not survive long enough for the database to be a viable tool during the developing criticality of infrastructure decline. I for one, therefore, will not be joining and grassroots movement to demand that government build such a database. Sorry.
==========================================================================
1) NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE BANK ACT OF 2007
Senator Christopher J. Dodd and Senator Chuck Hagel
2) User Friendly Electronic Database Management System for Infrastructure Maintenance in Small Cities
3) British Virgin Islands Infrastructure and Utilities Broad Policy
4) The Age of Infrastructure
5) Definitions of Infrastructure on the Web:
6) Infrastructure
7) infrastructure
8) Critical Infrastructure: The National Asset Database
9) Critical infrastructure database full of useless junk
10) National Infrastructure Coordinating Center INSight Application
11) DHS asset database can't support vaunted infrastructure protection plan
12) Deconstructing the Manifest
Also see my other articles in this blog on infrastructure;
Peak Oil and the Three Sisters of Social Collapse
Peak oil and overpasses
The myth of permanence: post-peak infrastructure maintenance
Post Peak Dam Maintenance, or Lack Thereof
Our Dangerous Infrastructure
Cascade Failure in River Systems with Multiple Dams
Our Dangerous Infrastructure II
Infrastructure is generally seen as - and loudly proclaimed by politicians and the captains of industry as being - a societal facilitator. In thefreedictionary.com it is described thus; "The term infrastructure has been used since 1927 to refer collectively to the roads, bridges, rail lines, and similar public works that are required for an industrial economy, or a portion of it, to function."[6] And investorwords.com defines it as "The basic physical systems of a country's or community's population, including roads, utilities, water, sewage, etc. These systems are considered essential for enabling productivity in the economy."[7]
But what happens when the ability to maintain that infrastructure disappears and the infrastructure becomes a hindrance rather than a facilitator, such as it will do during the probable long, grinding economic decline accompanying peak oil? When the current infrastructure maintenance professionals begin retiring or dying and aren't being replaced because of ever-tighter budget constraints, who will even know in a broad context what all is included in "infrastructure", where it is, what condition it is in, when it was built, how old it is, how long it should last, what maintenance it needs and when?
Will the same politicians who built their election campaigns around throwing up new feel-good infrastructure be as quick to accept the responsibility for ensuring it's maintenance as the global economy falls into serious, terminal decline? The paper, Deconstructing the Manifest has this take, "of course, maintenance of these "public" projects is left to the public. .....no politician could ever successfully run on a platform of "maintenance" or status quo. The public will is not swayed by the mundane. And so we see our roads and bridges decay, slowly, inexorably,..... Truly comprehensive maintenance is simply too expensive....."[12]
The reality is, as well as facilitating an economy, infrastructure is also a limiting factor for that economy, a constraint. The infrastructure defines the limits within which an economy can effectively function and, more importantly, evolve, adapt and change. For the economy to shift direction, as it must surely do on the peak oil downslope, it suddenly finds that its infrastructure is an impediment. The walls that enclosed and secured the fortified cities of medieval Europe, for example, were a serious constraint as those cities sought to expand and open up as the Industrial Revolution swept across the continent. The established infrastructure of any city suddenly becomes an impediment when that city wants to install rail lines or highways or subways linking the city center with the suburbs and areas beyond. The destruction of the infrastructure of so many European and Asian cities during two world wars, in reality, facilitated the rebirth of those cities around new infrastructure, saved those cities the agonizing decisions and complications of replacing and upgrading their infrastructure to satisfy and facilitate the drastically changed needs of a technology-oriented, growth-driven, post-war society.
The strong probability is that the infrastructure needed and maintainable by a post-fossil-fuel or seriously fossil-fuel-deficient society will be as different from today as today's infrastructure is different from that which existed in pre-industrial Europe. In the past, however, the impediment imposed by seriously outdated and unmaintainable infrastructure was handled by demolishing and replacing that old infrastructure with new. But will this be an option still open to us if we wait until we are on the peak-oil downslope before we start to address the infrastructure needs of the future? We will no longer have the exploitable energy, technology, finances and vast quantities of raw materials needed for wholesale replacement of that infrastructure. The only options left open to us if we sleepwalk into peak oil may narrow down to trying to somehow maintain that crumbling infrastructure in perpetuity or simply doing without as it falls apart. But infrastructure doesn't just shrivel up benignly in the sun like a tomato dropped from the vine. As infrastructure crumbles through age and lack of maintenance it can impose very serious risks on society that could, collectively, jeopardize millions of lives over the balance of this century and beyond.
Geoff Holman, a reader of this blog from Australia, as noted above, graciously suggested an article on the question of building a national infrastructure database to serve as the basis for dealing with the massive infrastructure inventory during the declining economy that will likely occur beginning with peak oil and the downslope beyond. Not surprisingly, various attempts at building national infrastructure databases have been made in the past.
One of the first projects, for example, of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, formed following the terrorist attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, was the establishment of a Critical Infrastructure Database. This database was intended as a reference source of all U.S. infrastructure considered critical and susceptible to terrorist attack, infrastructure like nuclear power plants, major dams, water systems of large urban centers like New York, airports, and so on.
Like so many projects begun in the bowels of bureaucracy, the design of this database and the data collected for it was, at best, fuzzy and incomplete. An assessment report issued by the U.S. Inspector General's office in July, 2006 turned out to be a blistering critique. The Inspector General's report cited several deep flaws in the database that underlies the plan, including: "The database’s failure to distinguish the criticality of the approximately 77,000 assets it includes; The database's failure to provide a comprehensive picture of national assets; The need to develop more sophisticated tools to assess risks associated with various assets; The need for substantial additional work to complete the database. ..... The IG report specified multiple flaws that arose in the process of building the database, such as missing ZIP codes, missing facility names and language translation problems. At one point, “officials estimated that on average each [critical infrastructure/key asset] record they researched was missing information for about seven fields,” according to the report. Department officials progressively improved the methods of gathering and processing the data over the past three years, the report added. The IG analysts predicted that the database could eventually grow to hundreds of thousands of records."[11] Another report notes, "Among the critical assets in the database are Old MacDonald’s Petting Zoo, a Kangaroo Conservation Center, Jay’s Sporting Goods, several Wal-Mart stores, Amish Country Popcorn, and the Sweetwater Flea Market."[9] Partly as a result of the criticisms the database has been morphed into a National Asset Database but the fuzzy design, structure and data-gathering procedures still persist[8].
Whether or not the failings and criticism of the Critical Infrastructure Database/National Asset Database are responsible, the U.S. congress has recently introduced legislation taking another shot at a National Infrastructure Database. "The Dodd-Hagel National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2007 is a bipartisan measure that addresses the critical needs of our nation’s major infrastructure systems. The legislation establishes a new method through which the Federal government can finance infrastructure projects of substantial regional or national significance more effectively with public and private capital. ..... Infrastructure projects that come under the Bank’s consideration are publicly-owned mass transit systems, housing properties, roads, bridges, drinking water systems, and wastewater systems." The focus here, however, is still largely that of future infrastructure projects rather than maintenance of that already in place. Analysts and critics of this new bill, such as the American Society of Civil Engineers, note that "the current condition of our nation’s major infrastructure systems earns a grade point average of D and jeopardizes the prosperity and quality of life of all Americans." According to the Environmental Protection Agency, "$151 billion and $390 billion is needed respectively every year over the next 20 years to repair obsolete drinking water and wastewater systems. Drinking water and wastewater systems range in age from 50 to 100 years in age."[1] One wonders whether any database resulting from this effort will prove any more successful than that of the Department of Homeland Security.
A long, thirty-year career of designing and building information systems, almost always incorporating a database, has taught me that any database is as good as the ingenuity built into the design. Going back after the fact and trying to resurrect a poorly-designed, disfunctional database through retrofitting patches simply further exacerbates the problems and leads to the almost certain demise of the database, like retrofitting new extraction technology to a played-out oil well. Databases, unlike living organisms, do not evolve well. Any database, especially one as potentially complex as a national infrastructure database, needs to have considered in it's design; the motivation behind the database's existence, the breadth of data to be included, the depth of data the database can support, the data relationships to be incorporated which seriously impacts the flexibility, the controls on the purity and veracity of the data gathered, the uses the database is intended to satisfy, the ownership of and responsibility for the data contained, and much, much more. The fuzzy thinking and lack of clarity of potential use of the database that has characterized various government efforts at national infrastructure databases (not just that elaborated above) is and will, in my view, continue to be a drawback of institutional and bureaucratic control over the design and operational management of such databases. And yet I am not, for a moment, suggesting that any such national infrastructure database be privatized and handed over to business and industry. That, in my opinion, would burden such an effort with a purely business-centric, economic motivation rather than gearing it to the societal need it should serve.
For any nation to set out on a course of developing a national infrastructure database designed to help manage the infrastructure inventory on the peak oil downslope and transition into a post-peak, post-fossil-fuel age they must surely first recognize peak oil and the impact it will have on infrastructure maintenance. And considering the amount of feeding from the public trough that will be involved in the design and construction of such a database and the massive drain on public finances that will be involved in mitigating the impact of that decaying infrastructure while the national and global economy implodes, that is going to be an extremely difficult sell. It is an impossible sell when that government will not even utter the words peak oil but insists on perpetuating the myth of the steady growth economy.
There is no question, in my mind at least, that the massive, technology-dependent infrastructure on which our modern society is built is going to be a tremendous and dangerous liability on the peak oil downslope. I simply do not believe, however, and I hope that I am wrong, that any workable database could be developed at this late stage in the game, even if the political will were there to develop it, that could help mitigate the problem. Any such database is itself going to be dependent on a technology and infrastructure that may not survive long enough for the database to be a viable tool during the developing criticality of infrastructure decline. I for one, therefore, will not be joining and grassroots movement to demand that government build such a database. Sorry.
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1) NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE BANK ACT OF 2007
Senator Christopher J. Dodd and Senator Chuck Hagel
2) User Friendly Electronic Database Management System for Infrastructure Maintenance in Small Cities
3) British Virgin Islands Infrastructure and Utilities Broad Policy
4) The Age of Infrastructure
5) Definitions of Infrastructure on the Web:
6) Infrastructure
7) infrastructure
8) Critical Infrastructure: The National Asset Database
9) Critical infrastructure database full of useless junk
10) National Infrastructure Coordinating Center INSight Application
11) DHS asset database can't support vaunted infrastructure protection plan
12) Deconstructing the Manifest
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