Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Lots of folks claim that the worst possible thing we could do is to allow the third world to actually develop to the level of the industrialized nations. The conventional wisdom holds that there’s not enough fossil fuels in the world to do that, that fuel use would be ten times what it is today, that it’s not technically feasible to increase production that much, and that if we did that, the world would run out of oil in the very near future. I woke up this morning and for some reason I started wondering if that is all true. So as is my habit, I ran the numbers. I started with the marvelous graphing site, Gapminder, to take an overall look at the question. Here’s that graph:
Figure 1. Annual income per person (horizontal axis, constant dollars) versus annual energy use per person (tonnes of oil equivalent, denoted “TOE”). I’ve added the horizontal red line to show the global median per capita energy use, in TOE per person per year. (The median is the value such that half the population is above that value, and half is below the value.) Click here for the live version at Gapminder.
So … how much additional energy would it take to bring all countries up to a minimum standard? We could perhaps take the level of Spain or Italy as our target. They each use about 2.75 tonnes of oil equivalent (TOE) per capita per year, and they each have an annual income (GDP per capita) of about $26,000 per year. If that were true of everyone on the planet, well, that would be very nice, with much avoided pain and suffering. So how much energy would it take to bring the billions of people using less energy than the inhabitants of Spain and Italy, up to that 2.75 TOE level of consumption? Now, here’s the wrinkle. I don’t want to drag the top half down. I don’t want anyone to use less energy, energy is the lifeblood of development.
So I’m not proposing that the folks using more energy than Spain/Italy reduce their energy consumption. Quite the contrary, I want them to continue their energy use, that’s what keeps them well-fed and clothed and healthy and able to take care of the environment and the like. As a result, what I wanted to find out was the following:
How much extra energy would it take to bring everyone currently using less energy than Spain/Italy up to their usage level of 2.75 TOE/capita/year, while leaving everyone who was using more energy than Spain/Italy untouched?
So, remembering that the figures in the graph are per capita, what say ye all? If we want to bring the energy use of all those billions of people up to a European standard, and nobody’s energy usage goes down … would that take five times our current energy usage? Ten times? Here’s how I calculated it
First, I downloaded the population data and the per capita energy use data, both from the Gapminder site linked to in the caption to Figure 1. If you notice, at the bottom left of the graph there’s a couple of tiny spreadsheet icons. If you click that you get the data.
Then, I combined the two datasets, multiplying per capita energy use by the population to give me total energy use. There were a dozen or so very poor countries (Niger, Afghanistan, Central African Republic, etc) with no data on energy use. I arbitrarily assigned them a value of 0.3 TOC/capita, in line with other equivalent African countries.
Then, I checked my numbers by adding up the population and the energy use. For total energy use I got 11,677 million tonnes of oil equivalent (MTOE). The corresponding figure for 2009 from the BP Statistical Review of World Energy is 11,391 MTOE, so I was very happy with that kind of agreement. The population totaled ~ 6.8 billion, so that was right.
Then for each country, I looked at how much energy they were using. If it was more than 2.75 TOE/capita/year, I ignored them. They didn’t need extra energy. If usage was less than 2.75 TOE/capita/year, I subtracted what they were using from 2.75, and multiplied the result by the population to get the total amount of extra energy needed for that country. I repeated that for all the countries.
And at the end? Well, when I totaled the extra energy required, I was quite surprised to find out that to achieve the stated goal of bringing the world’s poor countries all up to the energy level of Spain and Italy, all that we need is a bit more than 80% more energy. I’ve triple-checked my figures, and that’s the reality. It wouldn’t take ten times the energy we use now. In fact it wouldn’t even take twice the energy we’re now using to get the poor countries of the world up to a comfortable standard of living. Eighty percent more energy use, and we’re there.
In closing let me note a couple of things. You can’t get up to the standard of living of Spain or Italy without using that much energy. Energy is development, and energy is income.
Second, the world’s poor people are starving and dying for lack of cheap energy today. Driving the price of energy up and denying loans for coal-fired power plants is depriving the poor of cheap energy today, on the basis that it may help their grandchildren in fifty years. That is criminal madness. The result of any policy that increases energy prices is more pain and suffering. Rich people living in industrialized nations should be ashamed of proposing such an inhumane way to fight the dangers of CO2, regardless of whether those dangers are imaginary or real.
Finally, regarding feeding and clothing the world, we’re getting there. It’s not that far to go, only 80% more than current energy usage rates to get the world up to the level of the industrialized nations.
Anyhow, just wanted to share the good news. The spreadsheet I used to do the calculations is here.
w.
PS—Will this make the planet run out of fossil fuels sooner? Ask a person living on $3 per day on the streets of Calcutta if they care … but in any case, here’s the answer. As mentioned above, as of 2009 using about 11,500 MTOE per year. Total reserves of fossil fuel are given here as being about a million MTOE (although various people’s numbers vary). That doesn’t include the latest figures on fracked gas or tight oil. It also doesn’t include methane clathrates, the utilization of which is under development.
That means that at current usage rates we have at least 81 years of fossil fuels left, and under the above scenario (everyone’s energy usage at least equal to Spain and Italy) we have more than 46 years of fossil fuels left … ask me if I care. I’ll let the people in the year 2070 deal with that, because today we have poor people to feed and clothe, and we need cheap energy to do it. So I’d say let’s get started using the fossil energy to feed and clothe the poor, and if we have to double the burn rate to do that, well, that’s much, much better than having people watch their kids starve …
The map shows Canada with one of the highest energy uses per capita. There are some conventional explanations of this but it is instructive to look at a similar map of Canada itself.
link The differences within Canada were interesting. It drew two possible conclusions:
1 – Urban areas use less energy per capita than less densely settled areas. link
2 – Areas that produce energy have high per capita energy use. On Willis’ map the heaviest energy users were Kuwait and the UAE. On the Canada map, the heaviest energy users were in Alberta.
Given that much of the third world is heavily urbanized, it is reasonable to extrapolate that their prosperous energy use will be much closer to Spain or Italy than to the US of A.
Bottom line: Willis is probably right.
@TimtheToolMan
Okay, I might have been a bit too impatient and ready to cast judgement – I’ll watch the whole video later. Perhaps you’d agree though that an uncritical assumption that high energy usage in the developed world automatically equals ‘terrible’ is a bit irritating, as is the posting of long videos and links with no commentary or summary from the poster?
richardscourtney says:
August 22, 2013 at 3:37 am
Thanks, Richard, for emphasising this point. Outside a few mostly minor religious groups, families tend to get smaller the better-off people are. Increase the standard of living and birth rates drop, like night following day. Simples.
I’m sorry to say this is totally thoughtless comentary.
No-one wants to see people live in poverty – yet in USA people still do despite cheap energy.
Who is going to pay for the energy ifrastructure to be built – grid, powerstations etc are not free
Where is all the water for generating the steam coming from. Most impoverished people do not live near sea or river – France and USA have to turn of neuclear reactors when water is scarce or too hot.
How are the poor going to pay for the power used – nuclear is about £0.04/kWh. (mainly infrastucture payback costs)
How are the poor to use the cheap power to improve their lot.
How are cheap fertilizers and tractors going to cause the still impoverished soils to produce producing potable water from sea water is no problem but getting it to where it is needed is a great problem.
finally you make this despicable comment:
“under the above scenario (everyone’s energy usage at least equal to Spain and Italy) we have more than 46 years of fossil fuels left … ask me if I care. I’ll let the people in the year 2070 deal with that, because today we have poor people to feed and clothe”,
You basically say live now forget the future – unbelievably crass!!!!! and very sad that anyone could think this way.
dp says: @ur momisugly August 22, 2013 at 12:07 am
………Sometimes I think the world needs an annual “Kick the crap out of an elitist day”. If I weren’t a pacifist I’d buy a ticket.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
dp, even pacifist are allowed to kick the crap out of bullies especially the bullies with the blood of innocent babies on their hands. How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis:
Don’t blame American appetites, rising oil prices, or genetically modified crops for rising food prices. Wall Street’s at fault for the spiraling cost of food.
Of course the correct way for a pacifist to deal with the problem is to transport these elitists (sans body guards) to the middle of the food riots (And there will be more food riots) and allow nature to take its course.
For those who have not read Pointman’s wonderful essay The big green killing machine: They sit with God in paradise.
With advances in nuclear power technology, such as breeder reactors, fast reactors, etc,
the availability of energy is simply not an issue. For example, fast reactors able to burn our nuclear wastes can provide all the electricity we currently consume in the US for the next 1000 years. Even today, uranium fuel costs for current nuclear reactors is trivial – a fraction of a cent per kWhr. And we still have plenty of uranium
Thanks Willis
Excellent perspective that the poorer countries can be raised up to industrialized countries for a total energy use on the order 21,400 MTOE/year. Then add 1.5%/year for population growth.
That is a great target to start with to use the fossil fuels we have as “training wheels” while we develop the technology to transition to renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuels. The most important challenge is to provide interim liquid fuels.
For further discussion on energy and caring for the poor I encourage readers to explore the Cornwall Alliance and its articles.
RobertInAz
You might stand a chance if you at least spellchecked your web pages before posting!
See Nclear innovaive.
Something else that should be noted is that the per capita fossil fuel usage of the US peaked in 1979, bumped around for a while and began declining steadily in 1999. We are now at the same level of fossil fuel use as in 1962 and have declined 5% since the 2009 data used in this chart. A continuance of that trend would mean less than the 80% increase you calculated.
It’s a work of fiction. Reality is often nastier. What the essay paints wrong is the supposed cluelessness of the NGO community. Generally they know when they are putting their lives on the line and they do it anyway. As an example: Doctors Without Borders finally withdrew from Somalia only after it became obvious that they could no longer do their job. link
Pointman’s essay is kind of disgusting.
JJB MKI:
Thankyou for your post addressed to me at August 22, 2013 at 4:27 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/#comment-1396949
It quotes from my post at August 22, 2013 at 3:17 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/#comment-1396904
Where I said
Then asks me
I answer, there are two issues.
Please consider what I said about the nature of fuels in my post you query; i.e.
It is important that the energy release is slow and controllable. A recent train crash in Canada demonstrates that even for oil there is a risk when the energy is accidentally released.
It is hard to see how the unintended release of any proposed energy storage system could be as slow as burning oil (the burning rate is limited by oxygen access to the burning fuel which releases combustion products). Even relatively small electricity storage facilities would provide potential for explosion.
However, assuming technology and cost considerations do not prevent it then, to some degree the energy could be stored in cells where it is needed and in sufficiently small stores for the safety risk to be negligible.
For example, small and cheap “cells” may be useful for domestic consumers. They could accumulate e.g. solar power by day, store some, then use the store at night. Whether this could be truly economic is moot. However, if it were economic then it would not avoid the problem concerning large electricity users.
For example, the Alcan aluminium smelter alone consumed between 7% and 10% of total UK electricity generation. It was closed – it was claimed – because of AGW fears. In fact the closure has deferred the UK’s imminent electricity shortage while the UK still needs aluminium so the AGW emissions have merely been exported.
The economics of a distributed facility for large electricity storage useful at industrial scale are very, very unlikely to be surmountable (at least not for the foreseeable future). But the big benefits of such storage are from the needs of industry and not domestic consumers.
I hope this is sufficient answer to your question.
Richard
JJB MKI writes “Perhaps you’d agree though that an uncritical assumption that high energy usage in the developed world automatically equals ‘terrible’ is a bit irritating, as is the posting of long videos and links with no commentary or summary from the poster?”
That’s (often) Mosher’s MO.
So why has Obama chosen to lead on a path of failure than to lead on a path of world wide success.
Willis, you are making the same mistake that all people, who do not understand what peak oil is about, make. Peak oil is not about what’s left in the ground, never has been. Peak oil is about the rate of extraction of that oil. An 80% increase in oil consumption would mean an 80% increase in extraction rate. The current rate of oil extraction is about 85bb/yr. 80% increases that to 156bb/yr.
Oil producing countries are struggling to get that 85bb/yr, which hasnt changed since 2005. If there was room to increase oil production, we would have seen in within the last 8 years.
Sure, some deposits are slowly increasing, but it’s slowly. And it’s barely keeping up with declines elsewhere.
The other mistake made here is that oil use is not linear to standard of living increase. The higher the standard of living, the disproportionately more oil is needed. The reason for this is because the amount of maintenance and repairs goes up disproportionately as society advances (more old things to keep running).
Lastly, more difficult deposits require disproportionately more energy to extract (ERoEI). Increased production suffers from the Red Queen Principle and the Energy Trap.
Henry Clark says: @ur momisugly August 22, 2013 at 12:08 am
….The global warming excuse for trying to stop such will further flounder once substantial global cooling occurs in coming decades…..
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M Simon comment @ur momisugly Pointman’s sums it up nicely.
And just what will happen when we have a real return to a cooler climate? Especially when the farmers are told the climate is warming and more important the SEED companies BELIEVE the propaganda. A few years ago the weather in NC hiccuped and all the Abrussi rye that was planted early died. Farmers wanted to replant but you could not get seed no where no how. If I recall correctly the response time for a change in variety is about three years or more.
And to make it even more nasty the EPA considered tightening regulation of farm dust. We dodged that bullet for five years. …if the PM standard had been tightened, “it would have been virtually impossible for current agricultural operations to demonstrate compliance, subjecting them to fines under the CAA of up to $37,500 per day” noted NCBA. McDonald added that NCBA will continue to fight EPA’s dust standard until legislation is passed by Congress that gives cattle producers permanent relief from dust regulations.
Then there is the Strategic Grain Reserve:
Want Food Security? Bring Back a National Grain Reserve
At the request of the international grain traders the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act abolished our national system of holding grain in reserve. Not surprisingly the bill was written by the VP of Cargill, Dan Amstutz. The WTO Agreement on Agriculture, also written by Amstutz and this law were so successful in diverting gobs of money into the pockets of Big AG, they rewarded him with establishing the “Dan Amstutz Award”
The BIOFUEL LAW:
…. there were real warnings about possible starvation as a consequence of the law Sarasohn refers to [the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 ].
The possible consequences were clearly communicated in a Senate briefing a week before initial passage of the Senate bill and 6 months before final approval of the final House-Senate bill.
Here’s a bit from a June 13, 2007 Senate briefing given by Lester Brown from the Earth Policy Institute:
Worse what happens if you remove oil energy from farming?
In 1930 one American farmer supplied 9.8 persons.
In 1849 -mixed chemical fertilizers sold commercially. By 1930 The use of hybrid-seed corn was becoming common in the Corn Belt. The change from horses to tractors was from 1945-70. By 1890 most of the basic potentialities of agricultural machinery that was dependent on horsepower had been discovered.
By 1970 one farmer supplied 75.8 persons. This is dependent on chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and TRACTORS, all of which depend on OIL. GMO crops are no better than hybrid. It is only that they allow the use of herbicides to kill the competition that gives them an advantage. link
“We are Hungry!” A Summary Report of Food Riots, Government Responses… in 2008
5 January 2011 World food prices at fresh high, says UN: Global food prices rose to a fresh high in December… Its Food Price Index went above the previous record of 2008 that saw prices spark riots in several countries…
Messing with the world food supply is not only stupid but DEADLY and that is exactly what big Ag/WTO is doing.
commieBob says:
August 22, 2013 at 5:01 am
… On the Canada map, the heaviest energy users were in Alberta.
=====================================
Two things:
1. Home heating requires a surprising amount of energy. The US devotes twice as much energy to heating buildings as it does to cooling them. Alberta is both cold (albeit not as cold as the Arctic or Manitoba), and not terribly urban which suggests the residents have more square feet of housing to heat per Albertan than do folks in Toronto or Montreal.
2. Energy extraction requires a lot of energy investment compared to most other human activities (other than refining metals).
“Areas that produce energy have high per capita energy use. On Willis’ map the heaviest energy users were Kuwait and the UAE. On the Canada map, the heaviest energy users were in Alberta.”
And the reason why is simple. It takes a lot of energy to develop the oil sands. ERoEI is around 8:1 (Conventional oil fields is 100:1, world average today is around 24:1). That high energy use in Alberta is a prime example of the Energy Trap.
Maybe not even that. Many of the poorest countries are much warmer and brighter than Italy and Spain. Less heating and light (more AC though) etc. Also many of these countries are well placed for domestic solar (we just need priced to come down some more). Kenya is tapping well into it’s geothermal I hear. Also there are energy efficiencies continually being made with electrical gadgets and machinery. Just my 2 cents.
Willis and I have both lived in impoverished countries. We know what it’s like when power goes out in the early evening – yet we are both probably better off that those relying on $2 a day. They hypocrisy of those with access to energy makes me very angry. Electricity for me but not for thee. 1.2 billion people don’t have access to electricity.
Willis: the link should be:
http://www.bit.ly/184Fhfr
not:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/www.bit.ly/184Fhfr
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Steven Mosher says:
August 21, 2013 at 10:45 pm
The chart in the video does not appear to correct for inflation…..
Ooops!
“The hypocrisy…..”
Please note I am not lumping ALL those with access to electricity. I am talking about Warmists who have access yet want the rest to use even less of very little or to have none at all. I hear some biog financial institutions and the US govt. are now blocking funding for coal powered stations for developing countries.
Expanding on what JJB MKI said at 4:27 am
The ideal use for high capacity high cycle storage is in conjunction with current transformer yards that are diffused about most metropolitan areas. Not only would they be much smaller then those “multiple Hiroshima’s”, but they could be constructed in a manner with a below ground base profile and blast deflectors to make sure if one did go catastrophically, it would send the blast vertically through the atmosphere. (OK it may be a problem if it is below a commercial flight path and a plane is unfortunate enough to be passing overhead when one goes). If they can be made in even smaller capacities they could be placed with the current home service transformers that step the voltage (in the US) down to 120VAC for supply of one to about a dozen homes. Diffusing the storage in this way makes sure that the chance for catastrophe and mushroom clouds expressed by some people would never happen. Finally, the design of such a device, using modern engineering practice, would be such that the failure modes would be controlled in such a way that critical energy bleed would occur in a safe manner. Engineers don’t put their names on designs prone to catastrophic explosion unless they are in the military weapons design business.
A “Manhattan Project” for fusion energy is what we need. Fund it, set goals and demand results. Maybe it needs to be turned over to the military and someone like General Groves who wasn’t an academic and demanded actual results. A couple of decades of pushing could turn this planet into a paradise and get us off this rock and out into the solar system.
Excellent discussion, Willis. You can’t handle everything in a brief essay, but it’s interesting to think about how changes in price will affect energy use in the poorer countries. Inevitably, fossil fuels will become more expensive with greater use, slowing down the development you advocate. This will encourage conservation, which should appeal to the greens, and it should also spur innovation, but too great an increase in price could make it very hard for the indigent to get enough fuel. It’s probably foolish to try to make a numerical estimate of price increases because it is impossible to predict the schedule of inventions of alternative energy sources. In any case, the question of price raises the question: as between increasing availability of fuel or increasing wealth, which is the initial driver of the process you advocate. My guess is that the quickest route is for the poorer nations to adopt policies to make themselves rich.
As to the fear of others here that using fossil fuel now robs from our grandchildren, here’s a challenge. Try to state the energy use policy that preserves fossil fuel on earth for the next billion years. The answer would have to be vanishingly close to zero usage, which is not going to happen. So plans for the future must envisage ultimately turning to alternative energy sources.
“Hay to feed horses was the major transport fuel 300 years ago and ‘peak hay’ was feared in the nineteenth century, but availability of hay is not significant a significant consideration for transportation today.”
Bad analogy. Hay is grown every year, thus there is a new crop every year. Oil doesnt grow every year, it’s a one time deposit never to replenish for our consumption.
Peak oil is about extraction rates, not how much is still in the ground. Doesnt matter that reserves are increasing, it matters how fast it takes to get it out. Using your diamond example, Person A can supply the demand, maybe even Person B, but Person C may have the reserve, but it takes him more time to extract it. And if the required demand is higher than Person C can physically extract it, society is in trouble. Someone does without, and the price soars because demand is higher than production. Doesnt matter if Person C has a 300 years of diamonds.
“A “Manhattan Project” for fusion energy is what we need. ”
There are fundemental barriers to fusion. We are better off going to Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors, a technology that works but was shelved in the 1960’s China, India and Japan are moving in that direction. We indeed have at least 1000 years of Thorium power.