Guest post by Thomas Fuller
I have been broadly correct about two important things in my career as an analyst. (I wasn’t the only one and I wasn’t the first–just far enough ahead of the curve to make a difference.)
The two things were the demographic decline of much of Europe and the rapid adoption of the internet following the release of the world wide web. I was not studying or researching either topic at the time–the two phenomena leapt out of other research I was conducting and were obviously more important than what I was doing at the time, so I dropped what I was doing and started looking at them exclusively.
So now it’s time to try for the trifecta. (No, I really don’t care about that at all–but this is the third Capital Letter Issue that has jumped out at me, so what the hey…)
Inadequate projections of latent demand for energy are leading to poor decisions now and are muddying the debate about both climate change and energy policy for the rest of the century.
The U.S. Department of Energy and the United Nations both project global consumption of energy at 680 and 703 quads respectively by the period 2030-2035 (a ‘quad’ is one quadrillion btus, roughly the energy you could liberate from 36 million tons of coal).
However, consumption trends, if extended, are far higher–they could reach 2,100 quads by 2030, if adequate energy was available consistently and at decent prices. This is because of the confluence of several important demographic trends.
The overall population is rising–it will be about 8.1 billion in 2030, the equivalent of adding another China to the planet. The comparison is fairly apt, as most of these new humans will be born into societies that look like China does now, or like China did 15 or 20 years ago.
These new humans will be stepping onto the energy ladder and consuming vastly higher quantities of energy than did their parents–if it’s available. They will be moving from farms with no electricity into slums with a minimum of electricity–but shortly thereafter, development and globalization will start them on the road to refrigeration, television, washer/dryers, computers, motor scooters, cars, ad infinitum.
These new humans will be joined by yet another virtual China–existing people who benefit from the same processes of development and globalization and jump on the energy ladder with both feet and both hands.
Obviously, many of both type will actually be in China. But even more will be in places like Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, large swathes of Africa and the rest of the developing world.
They will want what they perceive as a modern lifestyle–in America that amounts to 327 billion btus per person per year in energy consumption. In Denmark, it’s a much more modest 161 billion btus. But in either case, latent demand for energy will far exceed the 700 quads currently projected by the DOE and the UN.
Assume 7 billion people will be on the energy ladder (changing from wood and animal dung on their way to coal, petroleum, natural gas, nuclear and hopefully arriving some day soon at the promised land of renewable energy). This means there are 1 billion people we have failed. (And I don’t want to ignore them–I just want to present believable numbers for this exercise.)
If those 7 billion consume energy as Americans do it comes to 2,289 quads. (The total will obviously be less, as they won’t all be near the top of the ladder by 2030). If they adopt a Danish model and develop towards that (efficient use of combined heat and power, high taxes on gas, generally high prices for energy, conscious drive to conserve), global energy demand will be 1,127 quads.
Although I would wish that people new to the modern world would automatically choose the far better Danish model, I predict that they will opt for the easier, softer American model and their energy needs will skyrocket.
However, in either case, we will need far more energy than is currently predicted. If they do not get it, they will not fully participate in what the modern world has to offer–education, good healthcare, clean air and water. Nor will they participate in the modern economy, further enriching the rich world with purchases of video games and expensive perfumes. We all will lose, although the losses of the poor will be heartbreaking.
It may well be that the DOE and the UN have correctly identified what governments are willing to build and provide in the way of new energy–but if they are correct, we are condemning billions of people to needlessly live a wretched existence that they would avoid if they could. Because using energy is not just a sign of success at development, or a reward for doing it right or a ‘welcome to the club’–it is often the key mechanism that enables development.
The poor–the two new Chinas–will fight and scheme to get the energy they need. They will burn coal, oil, whatever is available to escape the life sentence of the poor–lives that are nasty, brutish and short.
This conversation is not really about global warming at all. But it is certainly relevant to discussions of our planet’s future climate. China has doubled its energy consumption since 2000. There are two new ‘Chinas’ eager to do exactly the same, mimicking our behaviour of the last two centuries and following the original China’s current example.
The sources and quantities of energy we make available to the world will determine what our planet will look like in the medium term.
There’s no getting around that.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
This very issue has been spoken of at great length and since the inception of the excellent site http://www.masterresource.org/. Welcome to the economic realities of energy resource management where greenies fear to tread.
About oil peak and panic, I think some of you guys have read this one:
ENERGY RESOURCES:
Oil Peak or Panic?
David Lloyd Greene
http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/oil-7/
Tom Fuller says:
“I very much would like to see bio-engineered organisms that eat CO2 …”
I’m not exactly sure what your position is on AGW or how Peak Oil fits into your scheme of things in this website, but to add my 2 cents worth –
First I find pollution disgusting and the less we pollute the better it would be. Fossil fuels pollute, but are there better alternates? Plants eat CO2 to grow, so what would be the purpose of creating organisms that eat CO2 to compete with plants? Will these new organisms fit into our environment or will they come back to haunt us? How nano-materials interact with our environment is a big unknown. Again, in 50 years will we be hearing about pending environmental disasters caused by nano technologies? How would making our roads slipperier solve any problems but cause more accidents? It seems like every new generation has a crusade against some form of new technology put in place by an older generation.
Second, Malthus has been wrong for the last 200 years. Believe it or not, population growth has given us the markets to drive our economic expansion and innovations. Without it, the West would still be in the medieval ages. As baby boomers retire and the population of the West declines, we will see more economic deterioration in the years ahead.
This brings me to the last point. Global warming? Peak Oil? This is nothing that the West has to worry about because if we are at Peak Oil, then the problems of AGW, if there is one, will be resolved without our help. But more importantly, the continued economic deterioration of the West will make Global Warming and Peak Oil non-issues in the year ahead.
Kevin Kilty, about the 200 Gigawatts, read here:
http://cleantechnica.com/2010/08/09/nearly-200-gigawatts-of-us-energy-is-wasted/
Kevin, I used to be (many years ago) in the solar hot water business in Fl. Panels are easy to install. Right now, we’ve ramped up so quickly, that we don’t have anywhere near the number of “certified” people we need. The “installation” companies are getting a Huge price for installation. Trust me, this will change.
Novozymes, and Dupont Danisco have made Gigantic leaps forward in the last year on the cost of the enzymes for cellulosic ethanol They’ve dropped the cost of enzymes by roughly 90%, from about $5.00 per gallon of ethanol, down to $0.50/gal. $2.00, and less, per gallon (wo subsidies) are here.
There is no reason why having 5% of our marginal/waste land in switchgrass, opposed, for example, to scrub bushes, and weeds would “destroy the environment.” Quite the contrary, we won’t be digging up heavy metals, and carcinogens and releasing them into the atmosphere. We’ll just be recirculating the minerals, and gases that are already here.
Tom Fuller says:
August 13, 2010 at 10:14 am
“[…]
I very much would like to see bio-engineered organisms that eat CO2 and provide energy in return on a large scale, and nano-coatings that reduce friction for roads, tires, train-tracks and wheels, (emphasis mine) aircraft fuselages, ad infinitum. […]”
We already have that technology. It’s called “Ice” and we spend a few billion dollars in the U.S. each year on various chloride compounds and grits trying to remediate ice’s disasterous effects.
Roads, tires, friction; good.
Roads, tires, rolling resistance; bad.
Thomas, by your own chart speculate on how much energy would be available is you jut don’t axe coal, natural gas, crude oil, and fail to develop shale to the max?
If you just extrapolate a straight line out of those, the “total energy production” number is in a much better place. The decreases in each of those areas are projected precisely because of climate as opposed to availability of resources.
I agree generally with the idea but it should be tailored back a bit by technological change that will improve efficiencies in generation/waste heat recovery and there reduced unit consumption in transportation, etc. This is a given. Add the effect of comparatively muich higher energy costs and there will be lifestyle changes – not driving your car 4 blocks to the store, city planning that takes into consideration thrifting on energy. I hope I can make it to 2030 to collect my prize but I would go with the Denmark (1200 quads) model for the world, minus tech improvements – 25% or 900 quads – the UN and DOE may not be that far off.
You have 327 x 10^9 BTU per USA person per year, which is way too much. That comes out to
(327 x 10^9 BTU per person) x (380 x 10^6 persons) = 124260 x 10^15 BTU =
124260 quads per year for USA. A bit large since world consumption is about 500 quads.
Of course the above may be wrong if your billion is different than a USA billion.
Your bogus comparison of USA with Denmark, a country with population 380 million to a country of 5.5 million, as Denmark being more modest than the USA in energy use, is not even close to modest. A country with about 1/69 the population and using about 1/2 the energy is not a modest user.
The way I calculate it, the Athabasca tar sands – if all the heavy crude was recoverable – could supply the needs of the US for around 2,500 years. Perhaps the time will soon come when western Canada will become the most important place in the world for the US.
“There are several notable tar sands deposits around the world. Probably the best known is the Athabasca Tar Sands, also known as the Canada tar sands. The Alberta Energy Resources and Conservation Board estimated that 173 billion barrels of oil are recoverable with the total size of the deposit to be 1.7 trillion barrels.”
People who say that we have too many humans should be the first to volunteer and reduce the numbers. Unless, of course, they mean that there are too many OTHER people, in which case they should say so. We are all other to them.
Reading “The Rational Optimist” by Matt Ridley would be beneficial for most of the posters in this thread. Especially for all of you who buy into the Malthusian/Ehrlichian nonsense. Two people who, I might had, have been shown to be wrong on almost all accounts. Using biofuels and other land intensive energy solutions is the exact opposite way to keep mankind on an upward trajectory with respect to standard of living. Intensification and specialization will provide benefits that we haven’t even thought of yet. Retreating into some sort of mythical self sufficient hunter gatherer noble savage ethos will, in fact, push most of us into poverty.
Additionally, I have to give props to Layne Blanchard for a very good post.
“The sources and quantities of energy we make available to the world will determine what our planet will look like in the medium term.
There’s no getting around that”.
Right, but the anxiety of this posting is based on the “Peak Oil scare story” the “terrible” impact fossil fuels have on the planet and the “fear” for population growth and the quest for the clean electric future that isn’t realistic.
–“Peak Lithium” for batteries -demand will
soon increase cost, long before oil shortages
occur.
–“Peak Neodymium” (rare earth for motor
magnets) –China has 95% of the resource
and has already started limiting exports.
Appears more critical than Oil
Independence.
Predictions for “Peak” Oil,
Lithium and Neodymium are all wrong.
• Oil reserves have been calculated for 90 years
and each decade the prediction of ‘years
remaining’ has increased.
• The alarmists always leave something out –
the creativity of the human mind; the ability
to find better ways to find and mine the
resource or to find alternatives.
• None of earth’s resources will be critical in the
future as long as creative minds are free.
Fact is that oil and gas for now has the lowest impact on the planet compared to any renewable energy sources in terms of energy density, land use and price and we have plenty of it
Besides that, a green planet results from a CO 2-fertilized
atmosphere, not a CO2-starved atmosphere.
So, what’s the problem?
The “problem” is crude oil reached its “Peak Flow Rate” in 2005.
Those that study “depletion” statistics from existing fields, and New projects scheduled, and, not yet sanctioned, are pretty unanimous that it’s pretty much downhill, from here. The DOD, in its “Joint Operations Environment” Report predicts serious shortfalls by 2015.
Athabasca Tar Sands? That is one dirty operation. And Expensive. Even with $75.00 oil there’s not much expansion planned up there. And, just wait till one of those earthen dams breaks.
2012, folks. Today, the world is producing about 73 million barrels/day of crude + Condensate. In 2012 that drops to about 71 million barrels/day. I suggest a fuel efficient FFV.
R. de Haan
Your “Oil” is pretty elastic. The “Beverly Hillbillies” missed the coon and out gushed oil. So with Saudi light crude.
Bitumen in winter has the consistency of a Canadian hockey puck. US LIGHT oil peaked in 1970 and has been declining since, forcing US imports up 5%/year. To recovery and upgrade bitumen to “syncrude” requires $100,000/bbl/day plus converting 3 barrels of water to steam per barrel of bitumen recovered. e.g., costing about $50/bbl.
Replacing 100 million barrels/day (~1000 barrels/sec) would from bitumen require about $10 trillion – PLUS “some” environmental approvals!
“Peak oil” must be modeled for each region for each different type of resource.
See Tad Patzek “Exponential growth, energetic Hubbert cycles, and the advancement of technology”
Lloyds already warns of a supply crunch with rapid increases in price. When trillions of dollars and fiscal sovereignty is at stake, you better not make mistakes. Your approach would likely shut down half of our economy.
What y’all wanta bet that the Malthusians in the audience are also CAGWers? The self-debasing hatred of mankind motivates a lot of the “True Believers.”
Personally, if they’re going to pick on mankind, the also need to shutdown the chimps and other animals using tools. If they don’t, the next cycle will have all the same “problems” we do. /sarc
We are discussing climate and weather on a fantastic board.
The world wants to weld the topic of climate to energy and consumption,
Actually the same people want to control food, energy , wealth, education and even more population (yep eugenics) and place values on freedom from travel to speech.
There was an interesting story awhile back in the area of anthropology on the demise of the human population of the South Pacific’s Easter Island. Population growth exploding and resources shrinking till… POOF!… all the people were gone and the island was bare. The Earth is an island in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t care who or what is roaming around, there’s only so much, when that’s gone –and there ain’t no more– it’s over, and the Earth gradually recovers, and something else is the Big Cheese –maybe.
Unless someone comes up with a warp drive and a few other fancyful inventions in the next 20 years, the story will go in a very well rehearsed way. Someone will get a bright idea. They will start a war. The war will expand rapidly. It will be called World War III –or something like that. It will go on for a few long years, maybe even longer than that. Carpet bombing with nucs, using chem-bio weapons galore, eventually someone will win and likely billions will have died of war, disease, starvation, exposure, or what not. Then peace will once again rule the stars and the little speck of dust in the middle of nowhere.
When politicians and scientists fail, scientists and generals rule.
Mr. Springer is almost certainly right. Though the potential dangers of our being able to create new kinds of living organisms from scratch are great (think biological warfare), so are the potential benefits. My first inkling of this came from the pen of the superb SF writer Jack Vance, in a novel called The Houses of Iszm (1964), wherein the technicians of Iszm had created a monopoly on houses of their invention grown from seed. We are not so far away from that now.
Much of the work done today by machines and structures built of inanimate materials could conceivably be done by living, or quasi-living things. Indeed, the production of hydrocarbon fuels, already possible today with algae, may well be the simplest of the new biotechnologies to come.
Can you imagine a living spaceship? I can.
The future is wide open, if we don’t let the naysayers close the door.
/Mr Lynn
nandheeswaran jothi says:
August 13, 2010 at 6:00 am
great analysis.
one little typo.
when you said, “They will want what they perceive as a modern lifestyle–in America that amounts to 327 billion btus per person per year in energy consumption”
you meant 327 million btu per capita, right?
———————-
the numbers do seem to be off by factor 1000 don’t they.
Tom Fuller says: (August 13, 2010 at 10:14 am) “I very much would like to see bio-engineered organisms that eat CO2 …”
And if these organisms get loose and spread uncontrollably, causing a global CO2 plant starvation event…
I think this is perhaps one of the worst possible results of the current popular anti-CO2 hysteria. I hope no one is ever allowed to act on such a potentially dangerous idea.
The Grey Monk reminds me of why I’ve always thought of environmentalists as little Hitler’s. They believe there are too many of us and it is their plan to do something about it.
Keith Battye is Julian Simon reincarnate, with on-the-ground experience.
To quote:
“I live in sub-Saharan Africa and we are already experiencing black outs because the energy infrastructure inherited from colonialism has not been maintained adequately and the necessary investments in new energy sources and distribution has not been made. As a consequence we have widespread deforestation as individuals need to cook their food and warm themselves. It is true that we have governments that don’t care a fig about their populations or economic development beyond that required to keep the ruling class in Versace, Blue Label and Mercedes but we also have a bunch of “well meaning” eco freaks who don’t want to see hydro power or coal power plants and definitely not nuclear here. These well meaning types continually push for “renewables” and green solutions which all keep the poor living like stone age scavengers but they have a solar panel or two to drive the local propaganda radio. No wonder so many of my countrymen head off to the west at the first possible opportunity.
As long as these NGO’s are able to try out their experiments in sustainability here , while bribing the ruling class with Aid there will never be an upsurge in energy use as described by the author.
Another point I would like to make is that this continuing canard about using up finite resources will lead to us having shortages of everything over time is just silly. Where has everything gone? Isn’t it still here on Earth? It will be used again and again as new technology arrives to make such a thing economically viable. If that doesn’t happen remember the Earth’s crust is between 10km and 100km thick and it is everywhere. Has anybody taken a stab at what percentage of that crust has been exploited so far, to say nothing of the nodules at the bottom of the sea. Surface area is definitely finite but the volume is essentially unlimited and just awaits technology ( e.g. deep offshore drilling ) to be developed.
The single biggest constraint right now on human development is poor governance while energy available to all mankind is essentially limitless. Energy drives development and the current drive by the warmistas and incompetent governments to deny all citizens access to cheap energy is all about control and nothing more.
Energy leads to so many good things. Education, small families, leisure, a clean environment, the list is as long as you would like. It can also lead to war, oppression and worse it all just depends on good governance. If you care about your environment, your self actualization, the future of your children and the wellbeing of Earth then be a democrat. Push democracy everywhere you can whenever you can. It may not be perfect but it at least allows us to strive towards something more perfect and nothing else does.
Population is not a problem. Resource availability is not a problem. Those who think it is , having found themselves a nice place on the big boat that is Earth just want to keep anybody new from enjoying what they do already. Science, technology, engineering can solve all of the energy and resource issues but it takes good governance to create the environment for progress to happen. Not through the wicked coercion we see far too often but through the enablement of society to progress as it sees fit.
Yes there will be wars, pestilence, plague, floods and worse but those are the price humankind has paid throughout history for progress and I believe we are the most evolved generation so far seen on Earth and the young ones coming up behind us now show even more promise than we do. Push back these anti-democratic anti-scientists and lets move ever forward in the evolutionary game. We will not destroy ourselves , not even nature has manged that so far, and the more we know the more likely we are to survive and spread.
Sorry about the rant but I am not of a dystopian nature and I do believe we are , collectively and separately unique. The anti-science brigade are just nostalgic for a badly remembered halcyon past that never was because like all of our childhoods things seemed so much simpler then.”
My compliments to you, sir.
There is no ‘promised land’ of renewable energy. So called renewable energy is the same energy humans were using for thousands of years before fossil fuels allowed them to escape an existence of terrible poverty. Did the sun start shining brighter? Did the wind start blowing harder and with the reliability of a clock? No? Then what makes anyone think those things can power our modern civilization now?
The graph shows nuclear and coal energy in decline after 2020. This is laughable. The planet has centuries worth of easily accessible, cheap coal. This is what the developing world will turn to without reservation. They don’t care about western environmental theories, they want to have decent lives. And nuclear is the only truly long term (billion year), environmentally friendly energy source which can power our civilization. As a race nuclear is our future if we want to have a future that’s any better than the poor saps who came before us, living off the sun and wind, and working 12 hour days just to have enough food to stay alive until 30-35.
We have failed the developing world. We fail them with our nonsense about green energy and global warming. We should be fully developing nuclear power for electricity, and coal for vehicle fuels. (We’re a good 10-20 years away from affordable, usable EVs. After that it will take another 20-30 years to turn over the existing auto fleet. So we need liquid auto fuels that can run in existing engines for at least 30 and probably 50 more years.) Our goal should be to make energy as cheap and widely available as possible. Anything less is sentencing the entire human race to a harsher existence.
I quote Mr. Fuller:
“It may well be that the DOE and the UN have correctly identified what governments are willing to build and provide in the way of new energy–but if they are correct, we are condemning billions of people to needlessly live a wretched existence that they would avoid if they could.”
And
James H says:
August 13, 2010 at 10:28 am
picked up on it as well.
Reply: How did we humans allow ourselves to get to this place where we are at the mercy of “what governments are willing to build and provide in the way of new energy”. How is this an acceptable concept and moreover conventional wisdom? The marxist/socialist/collectivist/central planning/media lapdog “elites” have brought us to this juncture.
They know what’s “right” for the climate. They know what’s “right” for the world’s economies. They know what’s “right” for our lifestyles. And it is and will be literally killing us.
But yet the independent thinkers among us know that they are dead wrong! And there is an answer. Just as this ‘blog shines the light of day on the CAGW hoax, fr further enlightenment give a visit to lewrockwell.com
DT says:
August 13, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Nice one!