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 …
Matthew R Marler says:
August 22, 2013 at 11:22 am
Mmmm … I guess my first question is that when folks say “invest … in all reasonable alternatives”, they usually mean “subsidize all reasonable alternatives”. So far, we’ve tried that with wind, solar, and ethanol. It has been spectacularly unsuccessful with all three. None of them are economically competitive at the grid-power level.
So what do you mean by “invest”?
Next, my point was the size of the task. I, like many people, had thought for many years that it would take five or ten times current energy production to raise the world’s poor to a reasonable standard of living. The fact that the amount currently required if we could do it today is less than double current energy production is big news on my planet. Yes, it’s still a large task, but an 80% increase in fossil fuel production is certainly doable, particularly with fracking and the future of methane clathrates.
I lived in “poorly developed parts of the world”, including remote islands, for many years. And I agree that for villages in such places, certainly 12 volt wind and solar plus automobile batteries can provide reasonable amounts of home power, as long as you don’t try ironing …
For cities, however, both solar and wind are currently impractical. This is because of their intermittent nature. For some years I lived in Honiara, capital of the Solomon Islands, on Guadalcanal Island. Power there is most definitely intermittent … but the solution for the businesses and industries and residences in Honiara is not wind or solar. The solution is, everyone buys diesel generators that switch on and off automatically when the grid power dies. And the long-term solution is hydroelectric, the islands have steep volcanic mountains plus tropical rains. But solar or wind? All cities whether developed or not are out of luck regarding wind and solar until the electricity storage problem is solved,.
My best regards,
w.
Willis Eschenbach: I’m sure you can see the problem with your claim that they will run on wind and sunshine in forty years …
Was that my claim? I don’t think so, but maybe you can supply a quote. I think I claimed that they would have solar and wind after they had run out of fossil fuels. I also claimed, I think, that solar and wind would be cheaper in the future than they are now, and cheaper than fossil fuels. You’re the one who said we’d all run out of fossil fuel, so I expect that you do not expect the exponential growth of fossil fuel consumption to continue. That makes your second graph incidental to plans for the future.
“the problem is, I’ve watched them doing it for half a century now, same prediction, same lack of results.”
We have entered the longest period of no increase in oil production, 8 years now. The only way you will know we have past peak production is when we no longer have any increase in peak production, that is, through the rear view mirror. Just because past predictions were wrong doesnt mean the principle of peak oil is wrong. Complexities interfere with predictions.
US production is up a bit, but no where near peak production in 1972. Thus the US reached peak oil in 1972. North Sea reached peak production in 1999 9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_oil), Cantarell in Mexico reached peak production in 2003 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantarell_Field), and so on.
“I think, that solar and wind would be cheaper in the future ”
How do you plan we use wind power when the wind isnt blowing/ Or do we shut society down on those days?
Willis Eschenbach: The solution is, everyone buys diesel generators that switch on and off automatically when the grid power dies.
You posited the end of fossil fuels, and how to prepare for that future over 4 decades. Those generators will be useless according to you. I do concur in your support for hydroelectric power. I forgot to put it on one of my lists of power sources I would like to see developed. In a world without fossil fuels, current storage technology would probably be good enough, but I support continued R&D on new batteries and capacitors.
My preference is for more nuclear, but I doubt that sufficient capacity could be approved, financed and built to replace all our fossil fueled power plants in 40 years.
“As a result, I don’t care if we run out of fossil fuels in 40 years. At least we’ll have had 40 good years, years during which I’m sure we’ll figure out what to do next.”
I’m of the same opinion. 40 years from now is a long way off (my kids will be in their 60’s, my age now). That said, it could take those 40 years to bring 3rd world people out of poverty, assuming that is even possible.
Abject poverty and hard life is the normal state of all organisms, including humans until we exploited fossil fuels. High living standards consumes a lot of energy to maintain, and the longer we have that society, the disproportionately we need more energy. This is why I think your numbers are off, as in the future just to maintain this high level of civilization we would need more energy per person than we consume now.
That’s not likely to happen, so what we will see is countries like China and India increase their living standards while the First World loses its (ie like Detroit, Greece, Egypt etc).
jrwakefield: How do you plan we use wind power when the wind isnt blowing/ Or do we shut society down on those days?
Willis began with an analysis that showed fossil fuels running out in 46 years. The challenge is to plan for that eventuality, and to create the alternative over the required time of 4+ decades. My preference is for more nuclear power. I might mention that the San Onofre plants are shut down due to inadequate quality control and testing in the manufacture of steel tubes. That’s about 2GW of power production off line, probably for years. One must not write as though some form of power production is without problems.
jrwakefield:
At August 22, 2013 at 1:26 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/#comment-1397457
you say
You miss the obvious point that producers do not produce more of their product than economic activity requires. If they did then they would flood the market and the price of their product would plummet so their profits would disappear.
We have been in a global economic recession so demand for oil has been suppressed.
But, purely for sake of argument, let us assume you are right and we reached ‘peak oil’ 8 years ago. It has not been a problem, so why are you worried about it?
In reality, there is no possibility of a problem of ‘peak oil’ for the reasons I explained in my post at August 22, 2013 at 2:36 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/#comment-1396883
and you have failed to understand.
I refer you to the comment made by Willis at August 22, 2013 at 1:19 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/#comment-1397453
where he says
That is certainly true whether or not you are right that we reached ‘peak oil’ 8 years ago.
Richard
Hmmmn.
46 years, eh?
Your criteria for “projecting engineering and energy production” into the future, right?
46 years.
By your statements above, WE MUST DENY the world’s poor immediate and practical and economic energy (now, today, the next 2 years, the next 4 years) IMMEDIATE relief from part of their problems by trying to develop a permanent and “sustainable mix” of their assumed future energy needs.
In the MEANTIME< you (the CAGE-renewables-acadmic-laboratory-politically-connected-liberal-donors industry) ARE destroying the world's economy with your CAGW propaganda and renewables propaganda (er, central 5-year planning).
OK. You can go ahead and kill them (now) so their (not-able-to-be-born-and-survive) children and grandchildren will not face a future of coal and real energy reliably supplied. Your choice: Their death, or their lives.
Today, real world – no 46 year future propaganda! – you are killing them by denying them clean water, good roads, any kind of sewage pipes and sewage treatment plants, irrigation canals, irrigation pumps, irrigation pipes, trains, bridges, reliable power, better heat, better cooking, a market for their crops, food for their children, fodder for their livestock (ever wonder about that "livestock" word?) and better clothes, shelter and cleanliness, better jobs, etc?
But, no matter, you want to project 46 years into the future.
Let's do that: 46 year project, and rely on not just 10 years of technological progress (without internal combustion engines by the way) but with coal power and "renewables) wind and water power and animal power and human labor exclusively. No regional electricity, nothing but your "ideal life (in real life) for progress.
1906. Build me an airport and fly me and my luggage reliably across the English Channel.
Hmmmn. Sorry, can't do that. The last flight across was 121 years before, and all that the two passengers got across was one letter. (Addressed to Ben Franklin by the way.) Reliability and passengers and luggage?
Well, the rest of the mail, all their clothes, all of the ballast, food, and drink got thrown overboard to prevent them from ditching in the Channel. Fortunately, their "restroom facilities" were also "overboard", because that weight too they had to discharge to lose enough weight to stay aloft.
1907. Build me an airport and fly me across the English Channel. 121 years of "renewable green energy progress" later.
Hmmmn. Bleriot just made his first flight, but only got 500 meters. Not quite far enough. His "airfield"? Hey, THAT we can do. You can borrow a 30 meter pasture, run the cows out, and buy a gas can and a canvas tent. No, scratch the tent.
No passengers. (Don't need a reliability study, the plane crashes every time on landing.) No luggage.
1908. Build me an airport and fly me and my luggage reliably across the English Channel.
Bleriot can now carry a passenger. Just one. Total flight length of his longest flight? 17 miles.
Sometimes the airplane doesn't crash or need repairs on landing.
His airport? We can still use that one pasture you borrowed the last time, he hasn't tried cross-county, cross-city, or cross country flights yet. Make sure you kick the cows off of the runway first.
1909. Build me an airport and fly me and my luggage reliably across the English Channel.
Bleriot crosses the Channel. Misses the other "runway" (also a cow pasture) but the plane crashes and at least misses the awaiting crowd on the beach. (Not the last time that a flight won't use the original gate at the terminal, though. No passengers, no luggage. (His wife has brought their luggage and clean clothes over first by ship. The same way that Caesar crossed the Channel, by the way.) No comforts; on an earlier flight, Bleriot got 3rd degree burns on his leg from the engine exhaust pipe hitting his leg.
So, when will you build me that airport and get me and my luggage over the English Channel? Well? There are still no "airports" in England, and no passengers or payloads either in Europe, although ONE plane (over in the US) – the Wright Flyer" is already trying to train student pilots. At least one of those early student pilots (not a passenger!) died in a crash, by the way.
Hmmmn. 46 years of progress and design later. Remember, YOU (that CAGW-sponsored-government-academic-laboratory-liberal-socialist-politically-connected-donor industry are the
ones LIMITING our energy development NOW, because YOU are actually projecting the world's energy supplies 46 years into the future and "saving" that future by killing innocents NOW, right?
Hmmmn. 46 years of progress and design later.
1952. Build me an airport and fly me across the English Channel. Just 46 years of "REAL ENGINEERING and DEVELOPMENT later.
46 years of ENCOURAGEMENT AND PROMOTION of engineering development and energy progress BY the government (and militaries!) instead of HINDERING IT for political gain and the government's political donors. No computers yert though, just slide rules and good design and real world development.
1952. Build me an airport and fly me and my luggage reliably across the English Channel.
Well, you need to give me two 10,000 foot reinforced concrete runways, 300 feet wide and 5 feet thick. Add a pair of 12000 foot taxiways, and a couple hundred acres of reinforced concrete parking and operational and maintenance spots. Several 150,000 gallon fuel tanks. A fleet of trucks and support vehicles. Two fire stations. Accommodations for 5,000 crew and their dependents. Throw in several hangers – better make them wider, higher, and longer than any building in the world in 1908 as well.
Control tower, radar and weather station, training buildings and ……
Oh. The airplanes?
The B-36 has been flying for several years already (Cynics may be faulted for claiming that it hasn't had to land yet, but that not strictly true) but it is already outdated and is too slow, too limited a range to be even thought of as state-of-the-art of engineering. Luggage space? Well, the B-36 has 18,000 cubic feet internally, so, yes, there is room for my luggage. They could carry two 42,000 lb bombs, so the luggage weight is not an issue either. But, can the B-36 cross the Channel? 410,000 lbs take-off weight, 6800 mile rounf trip. Yes, it can make it.
Ironically, it can't use that cow pasture you specified in 1908. That government-approved cow pasture isn't even large enough to park the airplane, must less let it stop (the grass will sink in under the plane's weight.)
1906. Build me an airport and fly me and my luggage reliably across the English Channel in JUST 46 years.
The B-52 is already flying in 1952.
Round-the world flights. Routinely capable of more than a half-million pounds takeoff weight. Closed circuit flight of (not of Bleriot's mere 17 miles) but 11,337 miles.
1952. Build me an airport and fly me and my luggage reliably across the English Channel.
Blohm und Voss BV222
Blohm und Voss Bv238
Junkers Ju322
Me421
Me323
Douglas B-19
Potez-CAMS 161
Martin 170 Mars
SNCASE SE200
Latecoere 631
CCF B-1000
CCF B-2000B
Dornier Do214
Short Shetland
Douglas Globemaster
Northrup B-35
Northrup B-49
Convair B-36
Lockheed Constitution
Hughes H-4 Hercules
Blackburn Clydesman
Breta-Zappata BZ-308
Breguet Deux Ponts
Sud-Est 2010
Bristol 167 Brabazon
“Peak oilers are funny.
Current worldwide oil demand is 92 million barrels per day. (Easily met and a new peak no less.) ”
World production for 2012 was 89mb/day. (http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=5&pid=53&aid=1&cid=ww,&syid=2005&eyid=2012&unit=TBPD) 2005 to 2011 was flat around 85mb/day.
“OPEC spare capacity is growing.” Source please. If that was the case why arnt they producing more?
OPEC output is fairly flat the last 8 years (http://www.eia.gov/cfapps/ipdbproject/iedindex3.cfm?tid=5&pid=53&aid=1&cid=CG9,&syid=2005&eyid=2012&unit=TBPD)
“Alberta oil production is growing,”
Only in the oil sands, conventional fields are all in terminal decline. Predicted maximum production by 2020 at the oil sands is 3mb/day. That’s Canada’s total consumption, and with a pipeline west to east, we will consume less imported oil.
“US oil production is growing.” But way way below 1972 peak. The US will never get back to that level.
“That doesn’t even take into account all the newly economic gas production in North America.”
This will be short lived. Shale gas has serious limiting issues, specifically, the number of wells to keep production flat. Wells have to be drilled at an accelerated rate just to keep the flow constant. Shale gas wells lose 80% of their output within 6-8 years. They dont follow a bell curve, they follow a decay curve.
Things are not as simple as you think.
Matthew R Marler:
In your post at August 22, 2013 at 1:44 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/#comment-1397481
you say
I think the conservative estimate Willis cited is a gross underestimate and it would be centuries – not decades – before fossil fuels could start “running out”.
However, purely for sake of argument, let us assume it is only 46 years before fossil fuels run out. In that case, it would be clearly apparent in 26 years time; e.g. reserves would have fallen to to equivalent of only 26 years supply. That would still leave us 20 years to deal with it; e.g. by building nuclear plants to replace power plants that reach the ends of their operating lives.
Windfarms only have operational lives of 20 years so we would have wasted our investment in them. And that wasted wealth would not be available for the transition you claim would be needed.
In other words, even on your own terms your argument is plain wrong.
Richard
“But, purely for sake of argument, let us assume you are right and we reached ‘peak oil’ 8 years ago. It has not been a problem, so why are you worried about it?”
It is a serous problem. The price of oil because of peak oil is now around $104/barrel. Fuel here in Canada is $1.25 per liter. Our gasoline costs have skyrocketed as a percent of our after tax dollars and because of that we have dramatically reduced our driving (hence lowered our living standard).
Economic growth is directly linked to the availability of oil and it’s price: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544211003744
“Here’s an extra 100 billion barrels in the most drilled up place on earth:”
4 years of world consumption.
Gail The Actuary from the Oil Drum has her own blog posts continuing now the Oil Drum is sut down. Last year she posted about this very topic.
http://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/07/18/how-much-oil-growth-do-we-need-to-support-world-gdp-growth/
jrwakefield:
re your post at August 22, 2013 at 2:06 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/#comment-1397502
which provides a silly answer to my sensible question.
You don’t seem to understand the difference between price and cost. For example, what is the proportion of the gasoline prices you cite which is taxation, and how has that taxation changed?
I yet again ask you to read my post at August 22, 2013 at 2:36 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/#comment-1396883
and try to understand it.
This time, please take especial note of my comments with regard to synthetic crude oil and the constraint on the maximum price of oil provided by the existence of the LSE process. Oil price varies for a variety of reasons, but its maximum is constrained.
Richard
Matthew R Marler says:
August 22, 2013 at 1:17 pm
No, I didn’t say that. I said that if we divide the current proven reserves by the current usage plus the amount to bring the world’s poor up to Spain’s level, we get about fifty years.
However, to take just one of the fossil fuels, proven reserves of oil have stayed at about forty years of current consumption for well over forty years, despite increasing consumption … go figure. That’s because how much is available is a function of two things, price and our ingenuity. The former has gradually risen, and there seems to be no limit to the latter. As I mentioned above, the first experiment looking at commercial-scale production of methane from clathrates has already been done in Japan. The amount of the fossil fuels in shale formations is not well-known, and new discoveries are being made constantly. We get more and more efficient with our drilling technologies.
So no, I don’t project us running out of fossil fuels in fifty years. For example, people talk about “EROEI”, the energy returned on the energy invested, for something like the Alberta tar sands oil as if it were a fixed number. It’s nothing of the sort, and people are at work every day making it more and more efficient. The basic problem is, you have essentially tar mixed with sand, and you need to separate them. One obvious way is to dig up the mixture, heat it, and when the tar gets all liquid, you can get it out. Another way is to dissolve the tar in a solvent, and then recover the solvent in a subsequent step.
Each of those has a different EROEI, and people are very hard at work looking to reduce the energy it takes to unlock the tar from the sand. And this is true about every phase of oil production and consumption, from the well to the automobile.
Regards,
w.
“what is the proportion of the gasoline prices you cite which is taxation, and how has that taxation changed?”
Taxation is the biggest #1 increase. A recent study showed it doubled as a percent of one’s expenses over the last 30 years. Number 2 was gasoline.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/industries/2013/02/04/americans-spending-greater-percentage-income-on-gas/
“Oil price varies for a variety of reasons, but its maximum is constrained.”
How so? And what is that maximum? What is the constraint?
Willis:
At August 22, 2013 at 2:39 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/#comment-1397532
you say
Hmmm. Yes, but how that “ingenuity” is applied defines the period of “about 40 years”.
I explained this in my above post at August 22, 2013 at 2:36 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/#comment-1396883
where I discussed alternatives to sources of reserves and said
Richard
“I don’t project us running out of fossil fuels in fifty years.”
You are still assuming peak oil is about what’s in the ground. It isnt. We will never run out of fossil fuels. People 1000 years from now will likely be using some form of fossil fuels, albeit local consumption.
All that increase in proven reserves is only important to keeping energy cheap if it can be extracted fast enough. Unconventional sources have slower extraction rates. If the rate of extraction cannot keep up with demand, then the price goes up (no limit on that) and hence someone gets out bid for the oil, and hence someone who needs it does without because they can not afford it.
The most indebted countries will have the hardest time competing for oil that rich countries can outbid them on. Hence the US will see the effects of oil constraints than China will.
richardscourtney says:
August 22, 2013 at 2:26 pm
Oil price varies for a variety of reasons, but its maximum is constrained.
=============================
Sort of. If and when it becomes obvious that the price of crude oil is higher than the price of synthetic oil, AND IS GOING TO STAY THERE you’ll start to see serious CTL and maybe even GTL proposals. Conversion plants are surely going to cost a great deal of money and no one has the slightest desire to build a plant that needs $80 a barrel crude prices to break even only to see crude drop to $55 even if the drop is only temporary. Championing a plant like that is likely to be a career limiting move and many corporate decision makers try to avoid those.
Marler: the solutions you posit provide subsistence energy for subsistence survival. They cannot be used on a large scale for commerce, mass transportation, or just reliable 24×7 power. I don’t think those in third world countries are that impressed with solar powered cell phones when they need power for heat, cooling, running water, etc. And don’t even mention trying to use wind turbines to provide running water for a city of hundreds of thousands. The technology you extol will be consigned to the role of supplemental power sources far after our grandchildren are gone. In the meanwhile, the philosophy you support is consigning millions to a nasty, brutal, and short life. Wind power has been used for over a thousand years; batteries for several hundred; I was playing with solar cells and making solar furnaces fifty years ago. They still aren’t practical for satisfying the energy needs of the general population.
jrwakefield says:
August 22, 2013 at 1:26 pm
Say what? That’s simply not happening. From the US Energy Information Association, I find:
Even if they’re off by a bit, that’s a long ways from “no increase in oil production”. And that doesn’t even mention the effect of the global financial crisis …
See, this is why I hate discussing anything with peak oil guys. They think they’re not only entitled to their own theories—at no extra cost, they also supply their own facts.
You’ve gotta know, JR, that your credibility is now officially shot. It’s not just the IEA. I can’t find anyone reputable who is claiming an eight-year period with no increase in oil production either.
Your move … make it a good one.
w.
[UPDATE: I note that you cite the same data source … go back to your cited source and graph the data yourself. You’ll get the graph I show above … -w.]
sergeiMK – when you criticise w for saying “I’ll let the people in the year 2070 deal with that”, you are missing something: the people in 2070 will deal with it very easily because they will have 2070 technology not 2013 technology.
jrwakefield – w wasn’t talking about 80% more oil (which IMHO won’t happen), he was talking about 80% more energy.
Matthew R Marler says:
August 22, 2013 at 1:37 pm
Nope. See my comment above.
w.
jrwakefield:
At August 22, 2013 at 2:52 pm
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/#comment-1397542
you avoid one of my questions and ask me a question about another issue.
I asked you
And you have relied
I did NOT ask you the percentage of household incomes which is taxation.
I asked you the percentage of the gasoline price you cited which is taxation, and I asked you how that had changed. I asked because you claimed recent increase of gasoline prices is an indication of oil shortage. I suspect it is an indication of increased taxation of gasoline.
I also said
And I referred you to my explanation of that in my earlier post at August 22, 2013 at 2:36 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/21/double-the-burn-rate-scotty/#comment-1396883
where I wrote
You have replied
The constraint is that if the crude oil price were to rise too high then it would be economically viable to produce syncrude from coal using the LSE process. This would take some of the available market for crude.
The maximum is ~US$94/bbl so the crude price rarely rises to this level and cannot be sustained at this level.
However, it should be noted that there is no such thing as a single price for crude. Refiners need to provide products which match market demand (e.g. providing a required amount of gasoline should not provide a glut or a shortage of benzene). Hence, they blend crudes from different sources to obtain refinery input which provides refinery outputs that each match market demands.
This need for blending is why Brent crude is so valuable. Saudi crude is the most abundant so is cheapest crude, and it happens that a blend of Saudi:Brent in approximate proportions of 2:1 provides refinery outputs close to market demands.
The surprising economics of the LSE process derive from two factors. LSE consumes sulphur-rich refinery ‘bottoms’ that have a disposal cost and, very importantly, LSE can be ‘tuned’ to provide a syncrude with desired composition for a refinery to match market demand.
Indeed, this is why the UK Government – which owns the LSE process – keeps important details of the process as a State Secret. Sale of Brent crude is a significant income to the UK and adoption of the LSE process would collapse the value of Brent crude. But that would change if the oil price rose sufficiently because the UK would then benefit from adoption of the LSE process.
Richard