Guest Post by Thomas Fuller
This is a great time to talk about energy use worldwide. Not because it’s topical, or politically important, or anything like that. It’s a great time because the math is easier now than ever before, and easier than it ever will be again.
It’s similar to a time a few years ago when there were almost exactly 100 million households in the United States. It made a lot of calculations really easy to do. And this year, the United States Department of Energy calculates that the world used 500 quads of energy. Ah, the symmetry.
Even more conveniently, the United States and China will each use roughly 100 quads. Comparisons, contrasts–you don’t even need a calculator! A quad is a quadrillion British Thermal Units, and is roughly equivalent to the energy liberated from 36 million tons of coal. It’s a lot of energy, and 500 of those quads is really a mind stretcher. (For those of you who are counting, about 52 of those quads came from renewable energy. Of those 52 quads, about 50 came from hydroelectric power… urkk…)
In 2035, the DOE figures the world will consume about 683 quads, give or take. The UN, more ambitiously, thinks it’ll come in at about 703 quads. Either way, they anticipate a 40% growth in energy requirements. Is it okay if I say I think they’re both wrong?
Here’s why: The UN (and pretty much everybody else) believes that the world’s population will be at or around 8 billion in 2035. The UN (and pretty much everybody else) believes that world GDP will grow by about 3% per year between now and then–which is pretty much what it has been doing for quite a while. But most of that growth is projected to occur in the developing world. And most of that growth will be very energy intensive.
Here in the U.S., our energy consumption per person has been declining for a while, now. We’re down from 337 million btu’s per person to 323 mbtu’s per capita. But it’s going in the other direction in the developing world. They need the energy to actually, well, develop. And then they want the energy to enjoy the fruits of their development. Makes sense–that’s exactly what we did here.
Price Waterhouse Coopers has projected GDP growth to 2050 for major economies. For the U.S., they predict per capita growth in GDP from $40,339 in 2005 to $88,443 in 2050. Most of the very well developed countries show the same level of growth–a bit better than doubling.
The Department of Energy has energy use per person for many of the same countries. So let’s look at China. Before I start, remember that China has doubled its energy use since 2000. And they’re not done yet.
Their 2005 GDP per capita was $1,664 and their energy usage per capita was 58.8 mbtu’s. Their 2050 GDP per capita is projected to be $23,534, similar to Spain’s present GDP per person. Spain’s energy use is 164 mbtu’s. So who wants to predict China’s energy use per person in 2050? In 2035?
We’re always picking on China, and we don’t need to. The scary part is we can do the exact same thing for Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey and India. The developing world is developing. They are going to be energy-sucking monsters for the next 80 years–just like we were.
My calculations show that, if we succeed in persuading the developing world to use energy efficient technologies wherever possible, switching from coal to natural gas, adopting wind and solar, buying best of breed turbines, etc., the world’s energy consumption in 2035 will be about 1,100 quads. However, if they proceed as they are (mostly) doing now, throwing up dirty coal to avoid blackouts and brownouts, cobbling together solutions however they can, world energy use in 2035 might well approach 2,000 quads–or even surpass it.
Imagine a world of 8.1 billion people, 7 billion of whom are using energy at the same rate as we do here in America–323 million btu’s per head. (3.23 x 7, for Joe Romm). That’s over 2,100 quads. It is at this point that some ugly questions appear. If we burn coal to obtain this energy, that’s 2,100 x 36 million tons of coal. If we withhold energy from these people, we condemn them to lives of starvation and poverty. If we subsidize clean energy solutions for them, we are spending our hard earned tax money on the poorest of the poor, many of whom live in countries that are not friendly to us. Oh, wait… we’re already doing that, aren’t we?
I favor the third solution. Using your and my tax dollars to help the poor afford electricity that comes from natural gas, nuclear and other cleaner solutions, so they can afford to buy our video games and see our movies (and, well, pay for them…). I do not expect my idea of the best solution to be very popular. Not with climate alarmists, who already don’t like natural gas or nuclear, and want to limit energy consumption by everybody except for themselves. Probably not with many readers here, who have seen taxpayer money go up in smoke on so many poorly-designed projects. But I think it’s our duty to ourselves, as well as the poorest of the poor.
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The planet does NOT have infinite resources, per se. It is, however, a closed system — practically everything that was here, is still here. It cycles. CO2 fixed by plants/marine life, to limestone, subduction happens, volcanoes spew out CO2. Rinse, lather, repeat.
The question is how long is it in a useful state and how much?
We are finding new, useful reserves frequently. Some of them more useful than others as costs to recover them are still prohibitive. But they are there.
Personally, I’m for the nuclear power option. It’s clean and cheap. Handled correctly, very safe and low on emissions.
I’m 100% behind a clean, green world. Just not at the expense of killing civilization to get it.
Good post, Thomas, but you forgot to mention Africa, particularly black Africa. It appears that, in order to save the planet, African nations must cease developing and starve to death for lack of electrical energy and technolog in general.
Back here in Blighty, less than one pence worth of electricity from windmills adds 18 pence to our bills, and it’s still early days!
James Sexton says:
September 1, 2010 at 10:28 am
We’re getting a much better “bang for our buck” with fossil fuel subsidies in terms of production, retail and wholesale cost. In other words, it is fallacy to pour more money down a more costly, less reliable, inefficient source of energy. Again, I’m not much on subsidizing private energy industry of any kind, but if you ask me, we’re spending way too much on the renewables for the results we’re getting.
You say, “Fossil fuel industries are already heavily subsidised. Removing these subsidies, would at least level the playing field to allow renewables to compete on a fairer footing…IMHO.”
The renewable energy market is getting almost 30% of the subsidies while producing, 13% of the energy, and that’s with traditional hydro, which I don’t believe is receiving the renewable subsidy. Without hydro, they are producing about 4.5%. Nice, we’re paying so companies can charge us more for electricity.
I’d say renewables wouldn’t even exist without the significant subsidies they get. But, that’s just my opinion, too.”
The current subsidy to the fossil fuel industry comes after generations of publicly subsidised investment in technology and infrastructures, that is why the bang for your buck is relatively cheap. These companise now represent some of the profitable and powerful enterprises in the business world.
Renewable energies need investment to kick start the technology. Efficiency will soon improve and, as the raw resources are not finite, the future outlook for the public investment is likely diminish with time rather than increase as is case for many sources of fossil fuel.
All this in the context of the likely external costs of fossil fuels.
If anyone believes that global warming is at least a risk, then at the very least, let the fossil fuel industry pay for the right to pollute from it’s own purse.
GM says: September 1, 2010 at 9:23 am
Combined with fossil fuels non-renewability, this means is that we are in even greater need of reduction of population and consumption.
Using your and my tax dollars to help the poor afford electricity that comes from natural gas, nuclear and other cleaner solutions, so they can afford to buy our video games and see our movies.
If the US dollar wasn’t the world’s reserve currency, this entire thread would already be a moot point. Almost 50% of the US population isn’t employed for various reasons, and don’t pay any income tax. Some will be able to survive on unearned income for a time. We are almost to the end of our ability to spend other peoples’ money. There will be a time in the very near future where G.M.’s desires above will come to fruition.
At that time, Tom Fuller and G.M., drop us a note and let us know how the foolish are handling the fiat money, help the non-working poor, Obamanated socialist utopia.
After all is said and done WHAT IF nuclear fusion becomes a practical reality? New discoveries, processes and inventions in energy are being made gradually over time.
See also The Freeman
We really just don’t know how the energy forecasts will pan out in 40 years.
There is a beautiful paper on many of the concepts being talked about here. I have pasted the reference and abstract here. The focus of this paper is that the concept of finite resources (peak oil) is based on the unrealistic case that things in the future will be as they are now, and that energy resources consist in a bubble outside of the larger economy. This is of course incorrect. Give the abstract a quick read, and I highly recommend that anyone interested read the paper.
MY EDUCATION IN MINERAL (ESPECIALLY OIL) ECONOMICS
Annual Review of Energy and the Environment
Vol. 22: 13-46 (Volume publication date November 1997)
M. A. Adelman
Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139
The crude oil and natural gas markets have a long colorful history. To understand them, one needs some economic theory. The dominant view, of a fixed mineral stock, implies that a unit produced today means one less in the future. As mankind approaches the limit, it must exert ever more effort per unit recovered. This concept is false, whether stated as common sense or as elegant theory. Under competition, the price results from endless struggle between depletion and increasing knowledge. But sellers may try to control the market in order to offer less and charge more. The political results may feed back upon market behavior. These factors—depletion, knowledge, monopoly, and politics—must be analyzed separately before being put together to capture a slice of a changing history.
GM? ….is it you who was bailed out?
come on GM … lets have some more peak oil/coal/uranium comments … if you are going to be a moron you should go full moron …
Due to that inconvenient principle, called the law of conservation of energy and matter, the only way it can be false is if there was another unit of mineral stock created for every unit we use up. Which is not the case. Therefore you are talking BS
Every time. Apparently we have to add history to the long list of things the cornucopians are completely ignorant of. If human ingenuity always comes to the rescue there would not have been any civilization collapsed due to environmental reasons. Yet, history is full of such examples. Eastern Islanders were smart enough to find a way to erect those huge statues (something that it took a long time to Europeans to figure out how it had been done, and only after the remaining islanders showed it to them). But it didn’t help them to prevent their ecological overshoot
Another one…
Once again, what would it take for people to figure out that if it will take many times the energy contained in a hydrocarbon to bring it from Titan to the Earth, it makes absolutely no sense to do that?
If the following is correct then it can only get “more complicated” over time.
Geochemist Says Oil Fields May Be Refilled Naturally
Sustainable oil?
Oil and Gas Discoveries
Surprise discovery off coast of Brazil may confound the oil and gas doom-mongers
[Carioca field]
Massive oil field discovery in North Sea
It seems my post got lost, so I will try to recreate it.
[no, I trashed it, and will continue to do so on these tangential ideas ~ ctm]
It seems my post got lost, so I will try to recreate it.
Nuclear Energy is the best bet see WUWT Tips and Notes.
Biofuel is a waste of fossil fuel and results in food riots and in record profits for Monsanto, Cargill and the other dozen or so transnationals. click
Wind power is a Scam
POPULATION:
The maintenance level for the population is a birth rate of 2.1%
The USA has a birth rate of 1.3% click
France 1.3%
UK – 1.1%;
Canada – 1.0%;
Germany – 0.8%;
Switzerland – 0.9%;
Greece – 0.9%
Georgia – 1.0%;
China – 1.4%;
Paraguay – 2.8%;
Niger – 5.2%;
Cambodia – 2.5%;
Hong Kong – 0.7%
57% or 129 of the 224 countries are below the 2.1% benchmark. click Those above 2.1% are mostly in Africa.
The Rockefeller Foundation has funded vaccines implicated in sterilizing women: Covert Sterilization
“Between 1963 and 1965 more than 400, 000 Colombian women were sterilized in a program funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Dr. Louis Hellman, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs in the PHS, presented statistics confirming that 150,000 low income people were sterilized in the U.S. from federal grants. “
A Look at the Indian Health Service Policy of Sterilization, 1972-1976 by Charles R. England
“In 1975 alone, some 25,000 Native American women were permanently sterilized–many after being coerced, misinformed, or threatened. One former IHS nurse reported the use of tubal ligation on “uncooperative” or “alcoholic” women into the 1990s.” Broken Treaties, Empty Promises: An Introduction to Native American Women’s Reproductive Health Issues by Jay Heavner
The USDA has funded spermicidal GMO corn to sterilize men
“Epicyte, in 2001 announced the development of genetically engineered corn which contained a spermicide which made the semen of men who ate it sterile. At the time Epicyte had a joint venture agreement to spread its technology with DuPont and Syngenta, two of the sponsors of the Svalbard Doomsday Seed Vault. Epicyte was since acquired by a North Carolina biotech company. Astonishing to learn was that Epicyte had developed its spermicidal GMO corn with research funds from the US Department of Agriculture, the same USDA which, despite worldwide opposition, continued to finance the development of Terminator technology, now held by Monsanto.
In the 1990’s the UN’s World Health Organization launched a campaign to vaccinate millions of women in Nicaragua, Mexico and the Philippines between the ages of 15 and 45, allegedly against Tetanus, a sickness arising from such things as stepping on a rusty nail. The vaccine was not given to men or boys, despite the fact they are presumably equally liable to step on rusty nails as women.
Because of that curious anomaly, Comite Pro Vida de Mexico, a Roman Catholic lay organization became suspicious and had vaccine samples tested. The tests revealed that the Tetanus vaccine being spread by the WHO only to women of child-bearing age contained human Chorionic Gonadotrophin or hCG, a natural hormone which when combined with a tetanus toxoid carrier stimulated antibodies rendering a woman incapable of maintaining a pregnancy. None of the women vaccinated were told.
It later came out that the Rockefeller Foundation along with the Rockefeller’s Population Council, the World Bank (home to CGIAR), and the United States’ National Institutes of Health had been involved in a 20-year-long project begun in 1972 to develop the concealed abortion vaccine with a tetanus carrier for WHO. In addition, the Government of Norway, the host to the Svalbard Doomsday Seed Vault, donated $41 million to develop the special abortive Tetanus vaccine…” click
I wish the people who write articles would do a little research.
GM says: September 1, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Again, you have to be absolutely out of your mind to claim such things. We can’t even send a man to Mars, and we are due for global societal collapse in the next few decades, yet you are claiming that we will mine other planets????????? By now I know that basic reasoning, arithmetics, physics, and mental sanity aren’t your strong points, but I will still encourage you to do the math of how much energy it will require to go to Titan, and transport the methane from there to here (hint: it is a hundreds of times more than the energy contained in that methane). Simply idiotic
You earn no points, and please begone Mr Troll.
Yes, we can send men to Mars. The reason we haven’t yet is that we simply stopped trying. We knew less about sending men to the moon in 1960 than we knew about sending men to Mars in 1995, yet we haven’t done it. We haven’t done it because instead of NASA’s budget increasing after Apollo, it was decreased. It’s current level is nearly 0.5% of the federal budget. Read that again. Americans spend ~0.5% of their entire federal budget on the future of humanity. That’s like having children as fast as a multi-wived bigamist in Utah while throwing a few quarters at the kids each day for food. It is *pathetic* and you want to hold up a huge banner that says, “oh, we can’t do this, we wont ever do this.” without even acknowledging how little we’ve tried.
Please stop trolling, it’s clear you haven’t fully studied everything you’re commenting on.
Yet another one…
Ever heard of depletion? If not, read about it.
Also, remember the number 30 billion barrels a year and keep it in mind every time you hear about a “giant discovery” (at 1/10th the volume of the glorious Middle East fields) somewhere…
GM says:
September 1, 2010 at 5:50 am
“It is the same thing with resources – it is not a wild guess that resources will eventually run out, it follows from the basic nature of reality and the laws of physics. How exactly they will run out is a more complicated question, but we have a pretty good idea based on historical data.”
Wrong!
Resources never run out, rather the price increases until demand no longer exists.
The reason for this apparent paradox is that humans are not stupid. History shows man is highly intelligent and new ways will be found to provide the cheap energy we need. The % of geniuses amongst homo sapiens is slowly increasing over time, along with a slow general increase in intelligence. The larger the population of our planet becomes, so too does the absolute number of geniuses. Look at the way technology has developed in the last 30 years, then imagine – if you can – what we will be capable of by 2040.
History shows that trying to predict the future based on what has happened in the past is foolishness of the highest magnitude. Mankind does not make progress in a linear fashion, instead it moves forwards in a series of leaps and bounds, usually driven be one persons intuitive flash of brilliance. For humanity to try to eke out an existence by trying to ration a supply of dwindling resources would be a recipe for disaster and only by retaining a free market will mankind continue to prosper.
I’m with you GM.
Peakoil has already occured (juli 2008)
Peak-coal and peak-gas wil occur within the decade.
Read all about in the 35 year old book “Limits to Growth”.
The financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 is at least partly the result of oil shortage (and the rising oil price). If the warmists won’t accept that, fine. They can pump up their models some more and live happily ever after.
The end of growth and the end of fossil fuels will happen, for sure.
How much credibility does a person who doesn’t know the difference between percentages and total fertility rate have on issues of population???
Since you didn’t deny that it makes absolutely no energetic sense to mine hydrocarbons on other planets, it follows that:
1) you agree with it, in which case you wouldn’t have posted what you posted
2) therefore you don’t agree with it, in which the one who doesn’t belong to absolutely any kind of discussion is you
GM
What do you believe to be;
a) A viable world population size?
b) A consumption level you deem acceptable? The consumption of Chad? That of the US? Somewhere in between? f so which country currently has that level so others may judge if that is something they would be prepared to aim for. It inevitably means some would level down whilst others would level up
tonyb
GM says: September 1, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Each year we are using 5 times the oil we are consuming, and it is getting worse and worse every year. —-Etc –Etc ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
————————————————————————————-
GM. You are really no different from the man with the placard that said repent you sinners –the end of the world is nigh.
I have to say however that the placard man was much more succinct. The world will go on more or less with or without man one way or another. What is your point? Do you want us to return to the cave? Do you want us to reduce our numbers? If so whose numbers should be curtailed? If it is one of these, I always think it is a good idea to lead by example.
You seem to think that you can see into the future. You can of course, make all sorts of projections as to what might happen. We can all do that – we are all (well most of us – perhaps not in your case?) invariably wrong. You seem to overlook mankind’s ability to adapt and also our inventiveness which seems to be an inbuilt evolutionary phenomenon. Well I suppose we need hair shirts like you to amuse us but really Nostradamus was more interesting.
GM,
“If you had actually read what those projections are instead of believing what the propaganda machine has been feeding you, you would not be laughing.”
Most of us come to this site to learn, not laugh at others. If you have evidence of any Limit to Growth prediction from 1972 becoming reality, please share with us.
G.M. says
Please provide some links for any of the juvenile claims you have made. Here are just a few relatively recent discoveries I found in 15 minutes disputing your beliefs.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2010/3010/ 1.32 trillion barrels in Piceance basin, CO. Strip mineable. EPA won’t let us get to it.
Here’s the Bakken field amount in North Dakota:
http://geology.com/usgs/bakken-formation/bakken-formation-assessment-lg.gif
Google Brazil offshore oil discovery.
Don’t just spew unsupported dogma, give us references or leave.
RE: GM
Learned long ago not to waste my time, breath or computer on people with closed minds, ie liberals and greenies. They are proof that a little education is a dangerous thing. And don’t forget that anyone can obtain a degree in any discipline, nowdays, if they have the time and money thanks to our liberal educational system.