In response to my recommendation of Crude Awakening, a friend raised a good point with a comment that the problem isn't that we're going to run out of fossil fuels, but that we aren't. He is, of course, thinking of the problem of global warming.
It is a good point, but it is also wrong. It's a good point because the causal chain of burning fossil fuels, increases in greenhouse gases, atmospheric warming, climate change, potentially catastrophic physical changes to the planet is well-established. The more fossil fuels we burn, the more input goes into that causal chain, and the greater the magnitude of the consequences.
Where this formulation of the problem goes wrong is in the statement that this is "the problem." A lot of experience and study have taught me that whenever someone says "the problem is ...," he's wrong. At the very least, she is about to give us a very partial picture of the situation, in which she will identify as "the problem" that issue which happens to be most salient to herself and her concerns. If there were only one problem tied to our use of fossil fuels, it wouldn't be nearly so hard to figure out a way to solve it. There are, however, several problems, and finding a course of action which will solve all of them is very, very difficult.
First, to acknowledge my friend's point, there's global warming. The solution to global warming is to burn a lot less fossil fuels, coal, natural gas, and oil.
Next, there's the evidence that the world oil supply is at or near its peak, if it has not already passed it, so that we are going to have steadily declining reserves. We may be seeing the beginning of steadily declining annual production. The solution to this problem is to burn a lot less oil.
Third, there is the Malthusian problem of a large and rising population, which is facing limits upon the resources necessary to sustain it. The solution to this problem is to limit population growth, and to increase the production of food and other basic necessities.
Now, it would seem that the first two problems have solutions which are mutually consistent, if not reinforcing. If we are burning less oil, are we not burning less fossil fuel? Well, no, because when we stopped (mostly) using oil for electric power generation after the oil shock of the 1970s, we turned to natural gas and coal. Coal is less energy dense than oil, I believe, so you have to burn more of it to get the same amount of heat, and, therefore, electricity, so you tend to put more carbon into the air. Moreover, at this time oil is the only stuff that's really good for transportation. Even those two-mile-long coal trains that run out of Wyoming to the East coast are powered by diesel fuel. Substituting other stuff for oil in transportation is complicated (because of the lack of infrastructure), expensive, and often self-defeating. It takes about as much oil to make a given quantity of ethanol (from corn) as the ethanol replaces. It takes, with current technology, more oil to make a given quantity of hydrogen than the hydrogen replaces. (Much more, like four or five times as much.)
And the example of ethanol brings us to the interaction of the third problem with the other two. The so-called Green Revolution, which radically increased food yields, and which allows us to sustain a population of over six billion people, was really a petroleum revolution. (Crude Awakening has a discussion of this point.) In addition to providing fuel to power tractors and other farm equipment, oil and natural gas are the feedstocks for the fertilizers that allow increased yields, and the pesticides which allow the bulk of those yields to be harvested. Trucks and trains and ships, all powered by oil, allow us to move food around the world, so that people almost anywhere can have a balanced diet at any time of year, and no matter how limited the locally-grown crops may be. Plastics also protect food from pests and decrease spoilage. According to some figures bruited about on Crude Awakening, if oil runs out (should I say, when oil runs out), the planet will only sustain a population of about 1.5 billion people. 1.5 billion is the population of just two countries - China and the United States - today. (Or India and the European Union. Or any number of other combinations, each of which contains only a small minority of the countries of the earth.)
Now, then, according to some guesses (and they are guesses), global warming may displace a few hundred million people from their current living areas. It will increase the difficulty of cropping some areas, but will increase production elsewhere. A lot of the effects of global warming we can deal with, as long as we have a plentiful supply of energy. But the end of the era of oil could mean the deaths of five billion human beings, as well as of huge numbers of the animals dependent upon them. So, which should get the priority?
Glenn A Knight
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4 comments:
Hi Glenn ... glad to see you active again. Re the Crude Awakening, have not seen it - and likely won't as prefer to take info via text method - but appreciate the topic and ideas.
No real significant info from me not already in discourse. Two items of possible interest.
1) A friend whose economic accumen is highly respected by me, said about 8 years ago that oil above $30 would cause economic slowdown. Maybe adjust to $60/bbl today for adjustment to USD/Euro but still, we are seeing effects - slowly. That is practical method by which reduced oil availability will work thru - most likely.
2) Grain drying hereabouts is big thing, eg shelled corn in bin, not old fashioned corn crib air drying. Economics of that should shift. An older technology to be re-found and likely some new twists on old methods. Investing opportunities as well as interesting work for bright young people. Challenge is how to make food efficiently with reduced energy input from fossil sources. Eg, greenhouse veggies? New machinery for picking corn?
Ken/Glenn:
I read about some outfits investing in "local" produce production; that is, huge greenhouse operations that, despite the energy used, will realize a savings over transportation costs for produce from distant places.
All in all I'm in the 'drill here, drill now' crowd. I am skeptical - to say the least - about manmade global warming. Basic conservation, pollution reduction, and cost reduction on the other hand I'm all for.
Rgds,
Zabeli
Ken - if you'd like a book on oil and politics, there's Kevin Phillips American Theocracy. It's about the Bush family, and the relationship of oil, right-wing Christianity, and Southern politics. An older book, but really good on the history of oil exploration, is The Prize, by Daniel Yergin. There are many others, of course.
Agim, if you're skeptical about global warming, or about the human contribution thereto, then the obvious solution to part of the oil problem is to use more coal. And, indeed, we now use coal to produce about 50% of the electricity in the United States, while oil is definitely out of fashion.
Coal does have its limitations as a fuel for vehicles. While coal-burning ships and trains are certainly feasible, if less efficient than the oil-fired equivalents, I'm not sure about running airplanes on coal. What if the fireman gets tired?
What about coal to oil technology? It's an old technology, but one that is being revisited in light of $100+ a barrel oil.
I still say the only viable long term solution is a massive engineering effort to make fusion a practical energy source. If it works for the universe it works for me.
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