Category: Uncategorized
Source: Brain Food mailing list - Tuesday, May 2, 2000

A Lethal Education

A six percent cut in crude oil supplies last year tripled the price! WOW! This email is to update my BRAIN FOOD subscribers on the news coming out of my "energyresources" mailing list. I have managed to attract several published experts, and this is a summary of the most important findings.

ENERGY SOURCES
Energy is the capacity to do work (no energy = no work).

By definition, energy "sources" must produce more energy than they consume, otherwise they are called "sinks" (this is known as the "net energy" principle).

Moreover, physical constraints limit how "fast" energy can be produced from any natural resource (the "peak" principle). One can only extract it at a certain rate, the rate peaks, and as the source empties, the rate falls off.

THE GLOBAL OIL "PEAK"
Published petroleum experts Colin Campbell, Jean Laherrhre, Brian Fleay, and Roger Blanchard all expect a "peak" in "conventional oil" around 2005. Moreover, the CEOs of Agip (Italian oil company) and Arco have both published estimates of peak in 2005. So it seems like a reliable estimate.

Campbell and Blanchard say that Norwegian production (the second largest export) is at "peak" now and set to enter long-term decline. Colombia and Venezuela are apparently well past their peaks and now in long-term decline. Mexico will probably peak this year at the midpoint of depletion.

The latest estimates by country can be found at http://dieoff.com/campbell.htm -- http://dieoff.com/campbell.pdf -- http://dieoff.com/campbell.xls

THE US NATURAL GAS "CLIFF"
Gas production is better described as a "plateau" followed by a "cliff" due to the high mobility and recovery of gas. Whereas oil declines slowly as it moves through the porespace of the rocks under declining pressure, the decline of gas is a cliff -- not a slope. The gas market gives no warning of the cliff because it is no more expensive to produce the last cubic foot than the first.

US gas production is at or near its "cliff" now. Canada currently makes up about 13% of the U.S. gas supply -- and Canada may already be past its cliff in natural gas production.

Canadians export most gas to the US under short-term contracts. Moreover, a vague law allows them to rein in the petroleum trade whenever it appears to be in their interest (and making the US pay dearly was in their interest in the late 70s). http://www.qv3.com/policypete/policypete.htm

Campbell says that it is not practical to make up the US gas shortfall by shipping it in from the Middle East. However, the construction of a new gas line to Alaska and the Canadian arctic where there probably are large untapped deposits could temporarily mitigate the US gas cliff.

CANADIAN OIL SANDS (BITUMEN)
The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board estimates that production from Canada's oil sands will be extremely slow (100 to 200 years for all of it). It is also worth noting that the processing of heavy oil and bitumen in Canada has used cheap, stranded gas. This gas is probably not going to be stranded or cheap much longer, which will reduce the economics of the heavy oil and bitumen extraction.

US COAL
US coal is expected to become an energy "sink" -- not worth digging out of the ground -- by 2040.

OCEANIC HYDRATES
Laherrhre has provided a new paper that shows that there is no evidence from all the worldwide research and extensive coring for any massive hydrate deposits. http://dieoff.com/page192.htm

POSITIVE FEEDBACKS -- WITH NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES
The rising energy costs (increasing extraction effort) and rising economic costs of oil set up a positive feedback loop: since oil is used directly or indirectly in everything, as the costs of oil increase, the costs of everything else increase too -- including other forms of energy. For example, oil provides about 50% of the fuel used in coal extraction.

OTHER ENERGY ALTERNATIVES
H.T. Odum's eMergy calculations show that the only other forms of energy that can survive the exhaustion of fossil fuel are biomass (burning wood, animal dung, or peat), hydroelectric, geothermal in volcanic areas, and some wind electrical generation. Nuclear power could be viable if one could overcome the shortage of fuel. No other alternatives (e.g., photovoltaics) produce a large enough net eMergy to be worth pursuing.

[ If you are interested in more specific details, read the messages at http://www.egroups.com/messages/energyresources or write to me at mailto:j@qmail.com ]

A LETHAL EDUCATION
Economic students are taught that banks "create" money every time they make a loan, and that the economy is powered by money instead of energy. The juxtaposition of these two data (the first is true, the second is false) leads even Nobel Prize-winning economists to conclude they have discovered a perpetual-motion machine!

No person has had a greater influence on the thinking of experts who have become government regulators of the world's oil and gas industries than economist Morris Adelman: "There are plenty of fossil fuels and no limit to potential electrical capacity. It is all a matter of money."

But Adelman -- and every government regulator he has ever influenced -- is wrong. It is a matter of energy! (The only source of energy in money is the medium itself, and a $100 bill contains no more energy than a $10 bill.)

ENERGY LAWS: PERPETUAL MOTION IS IMPOSSIBLE
Although economists treat energy just like any other resource, it is not like any other resource. Available energy is the prerequisite for all other resources. Moreover, universal energy laws tell us that the economist's perpetual-motion machine is impossible.

To lift 15 kg of oil 5 meters out of the ground requires 735 joules of energy just to overcome gravity -- and the higher the lift, the greater the energy requirements. The most concentrated and most accessible oil is produced first; thereafter, more and more energy is required to find and produce oil. At some point, more energy is spent finding and producing oil than the energy recovered. Thus, Adelman is wrong: it is not all a matter of money.

Neither capital nor labor nor technology can "create" energy (the first law of thermodynamics). Instead, available energy must be spent to transform existing matter (e.g. oil), or to divert an existing energy flow (e.g., wind) into more available energy. The engines that actually do the work in our economy (so-called "heat engines"; e.g., diesel engines) waste 50 percent of the energy contained in their fuel (the second law). Thus, Adelman is wrong again: there is a physical limit to potential electrical capacity.

Economists everywhere are wrong: perpetual economic motion is impossible!

NEARLY EVERYONE IS WRONG!
Nearly everyone in the world (all governments, and all but a handful of scientists, etc.) has accepted the economists' perpetual-motion machine. Even the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy has no idea how much energy is required to produce energy ("net energy"). Nor does the EIA have any idea how fast energy can be produced ("peak")!

But even a child can understand that machines do not run on money -- they run on energy (daddy's car needs gas) -- and available energy is a prerequisite for producing more energy.

Once the truth is told, no one will ever believe that the energy experts in the Clinton Administration were just too stupid to see it coming; too stupid understand these simple energy principles that can be taught to a child...

SURPRISE!
The sudden -- and surprising -- end of the fossil fuel age will stun everyone -- and kill billions. Once the truth is told about gas and oil (it's just a matter of time), your life will change forever.

Envision a world where freezing, starving people burn everything combustible -- everything from forests (releasing CO2; destroying topsoil and species); to garbage dumps (releasing dioxins, PCBs, and heavy metals); to people (by waging nuclear, biological, chemical, and conventional war); and you have seen the future.

Envision a world utterly destroyed by a lethal education.

Jay - www.dieoff.org

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-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Answers

Whew!

Scientists, business people and regulators, et. al, will be debating the energy situtation for the next 20 years... and beyond.

Despite the rancerous debates, renewable energy just "makes sense." Could make more then just "cents" for the early adoptors. Some wisdom is just "obvious."

My vote is for a global "business and lifestyles transformation," in all sectors (smooth if possible), that steers us away from peaks and cliffs.

Stay tuned... it might be a bumpy ride.

Got feet?

Diane

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Critt:

The sudden -- and surprising -- end of the fossil fuel age will stun everyone -- and kill billions. Once the truth is told about gas and oil (it's just a matter of time), your life will change forever.

There is reliable information that doesnt agree [in terms of timing] with that presented in the article. But, of course, these sources of fossil fuel will be depleted at some time in the future.

One thing that the article doesnt discuss [during the rudimentary thermodynamics lecture] is energy mobility. What does that mean? Well folks in Portland need energy. Anyone that would try to set-up a solar cell farm in Portland would be a candidate for another type of farm [funny]. One could build a solar facility in the southwest and use it to produce hydrogen, which could be transported to Portland. Thermodynamic efficiency would be trumped by mobility when one has an unlimited source of energy [sun; of course that will go out in the future; but that is too far away to worry about].

Everything is location. It reminds me of the arguments over food supply. Of course the world produces more than enough food to supply everyone with an adequate diet. But the excess food is not where the needy people are. Mobility of the energy, from whatever source, will be one major consideration. Of course you know that electrical transmission is not that efficient at the moment.

Be

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000