[gaelenb]

I'm curious to hear your informed replies to this email I just received from a relative. They are an executive in the Energy Industry, and these are their counterarguments against Peak Oil being relevant.

Thank you for your consideration. The e-mail follows:

The "Peak Oil" mechanism is sound and no one really knows the date it will happen. Normally when I read about it it is always in a year or two, and its been that way the last 8 years. Using oil as a mechanism is incomplete, it is really an energy question. I imagine at one time people were talk about "peak oil" with regards to whale oil. Some info that I hold and is useful in reading the world.

***wells are shut down when the easy oil is gone, normally about 25% to 40% removed - most of the oil is still there it just cost too much to get it out
***There is "peak oil" for easy oil, and then "peak oil" for all oil and they are different dates - I have no idea when either one will be (nobody will until it is history)
***New technologies are lowering the cost of removing the next 40% of the oil from a specific well, doubling the reserves
***Shale Gas - They have figured out how to get gas out of shale - this is a market changer - since this new technology all forecasts for natural gas price are at $4 (really cheap)
***natural gas and oil are interchangeable with just a little technology that all ready exist - for energy (plastics are a different question)
***it is much cleaner than oil and can be converter to electricity or pumped into your car from your house (if your interested check out www.bloomenergy.com , for a next generation of fuel cells, this could also be a market changer)
***USA natural gas reserves with shale include make us the new Saudi Arabia of energy
***Coal Gasification - technology not commercially viable yet - But the Germans were using it during WWII to power their trucks (gas was for fighting equipment only) - Will be another market changer. There is enough coal in the US for another 1000 years
***The nuclear issue - it is where we have to go, supplies are greater then coal, gas and oil combined, it does not polute our atmosphere and is the safest source. PR is what is holding it back. The French new that 40 years ago and 90+% of their power comes from nuclear sources

It is my reading that "peak oil" is real and completly irrelevent... except for making great rhetoric to sell your agenda or ads. But I will keep watching, it might change.

Probably more than you wanted, but is a complex issue and easily misinterpreted.

[hillsidedigger]

There is not enough coal in the United States to fuel current levels of energy consumption for 1,000 years. I guess not even for 30 more years.

[ian807]

Disclaimer: I work for a company that makes seismic analysis software for the purpose of oil and gas exploration.

Well, for the record, I hope your "industry insider" is 100% right. As far as some of the statements go, he's correct, there's much more oil in the ground. The USA has quite a bit of natural gas, shale and otherwise, and still has significant coal reserves. Moreover, there are fissionables to be had and safe ways to build nuclear power plants.

The problems are time, price, infrastructure and conversion efficiencies (i.e. effective EROEI).

Bottom line? Cheap easy oil is largely gone. There's still some in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq, but keep in mind that world consumption is about 30 billion barrels a year, more or less. Economic pressure almost mandates that this goes first, and fast. No solutions there.

The world's transportation infrastructure is geared toward liquid fuels. Nothing else is as cheap and easy. Replacing this is not a trivial, hand waving problem. It will take trillions of dollars, worldwide and not inconsiderable time to replace this with natural gas based, or electrically based transportation infrastructure. For gas, think pipes, engines, delivery systems, safety systems, engine redesigns, etc. It can be done. It won't be cheap. For electricity, think of the fact that lithium, even if there's enough of it to supply the world forever (doubtful), is mined almost exclusively in Bolivia and a few other countries, making the world depend on yet another unstable country for energy (http://www.printedelectronicsworld.com/articles/concerns_about_lithium_supply_00001193.asp?sessionid=1). You could replace it with nickel cadmium batteries, but these are less efficient and considerably more toxic.

Nor is natural gas necessarily a long term solution. As with oil, it's not about how much you have as how much you can extract profitably in an energy positive way. Even conventional natural gas plays deplete far more rapidly than oil fields. Less than half survive 10 years (http://gswindell.com/tx-table.htm). Shale gas requires horizontal drilling and fraccing to release enough gas to be profitable, at a higher cost, and a lower EROEI than conventional gas.

Fuel cells too, are a bit of a problem. At the moment, they require platinum, a limited resource in itself, and a costly one. Think of what prices would do if fuel cells became ubiquitous.

Nuclear energy has great potential for electricity production, but again, our transportation infrastructure is set up for liquid fuels, not electrical fuels. And as noted earlier, our lithium-based battery technology has certain disadvantages.

It's not like there aren't solutions. It's that we don't seem to be implementing solutions in a time-frame that matters to reduce the impact of an oil depletion whose economic and political effects hit us long before we actually "run out" of oil (e.g. oil price feedback). I don't doubt that the world will adjust, but that adjustment may include starvation, wars and near universal poverty before we get civilization back on an even keel.

[Pops]

Yes there is a lot of gas and coal - until you figure in our ever-increasing use then start using them to replace oil - actually there is lots of oil too, we just waste a large portion driving a 3,000 pound vehicle to the store to haul home 12oz cans of beer.

Yet with all your insider's magic bullets the price of oil has risen as high as 1,500% and steadied (for now) at around 800% higher than it was in 2000, perhaps your relative can explain that for us?

[gaelenb]

Very good. Thank you.

The reply would be: yes, the transition to natural gas will be a gradual process that takes years, but so does every transition. The market will handle it better than you're giving it credit for. There'll be cost, but it wont be crippling. We'll use the remaining oil for jet fuel, plastics, etc. We'll transition onto Natural Gas, and then be fine until the 2030 peak. At that point, we'll have had time to develop the various technologies that will lead to real long term sustainability.

<sigh> I'd love a fulsome reply to that reply.

I am trying to advocate for government action - a Manhattan Project scale effort to transition off oil starting now. Make it a matter of National Security and have the military start work. Impliment the smart grid. Build light and high speed rail. Deficit Spend like nobody's business, in other words.

[Carlhole]

It's not like there aren't solutions. It's that we don't seem to be implementing solutions in a time-frame that matters to reduce the impact of an oil depletion whose economic and political effects hit us long before we actually "run out" of oil..

Yes we are. According to the most recent peak oil warning (German military) we have 15 - 30 years before we even begin to feel the effects of peak oil. This sounds about right. Even after the peak, Oil & Gas will still be enormously significant contributors to total energy. It's not as if alternatives and renewables have to take on the full burden of energy demand at some instant in the near future.

The progress being made in dozens of different catagories of energy technology is very rapid, whether one looks at small modular nuclear, thorium, fast breeders, battery tech, grid tech, bio-energy, solar... It all looks like standard economics to me. The price of oil goes up and substitutes are found.

[Xenophobe]

.. It all looks like standard economics to me. The price of oil goes up and substitutes are found.

Once the invisible hand of Adam Smith gets involved things get ugly for the descendants of Malthus.

[Pops]

Just to take one part, you say we'll transition to nat gas and use the remaining oil for jet fuel and plastics.
When does that start? Who initiates it. Who bankrolls the infrastructure? Who buy up the old fleet?

The government certainly can't agree on a Manhattan Project, it can't tie it's own shoe right now because the right hand is too busy arguing with the left over which way the laces should go. It's like they say about economists, lay all the congressmen end to end and you couldn't reach a conclusion.

It probably isn't business - as T B Pickens found out there is no demand for nat gas vehicles (and now he may have gone down with the Deepwater Explorer) and it looks like the gas business can't even keep it's existing infrastructure in good enough repair to keep from blowing up houses like like in San Bruno (didn't think I could use the so soon :^) )

There are options, I'd also like to see them implemented sooner than later but they aren't being done now after what should have been a real wake up call so I'm not sure what it would take to get them going.

What do you think it will take?

[Xenophobe]

What do you think it will take?

It will take some of the effects which are often claimed for peak oil but which haven't happened since the 70's. We need a decent shortage of gasoline to convince someone who REALLY wants to drive to work that an EV isn't all bad because even though it might not be his Excursion, it still beats the bus or walking. We need the President to talk about running out again, combined with nearly ANY legislation, versus just the usual "we shall be energy independent in XX years!" routine. We need common acceptance of that idea that while energy might always be relatively cheap, its use carries costs beyond just its price which perhaps should be included when we think about it, and these costs should be carried along in the form of a floor price of less attractive fuels, if only that Adam Smith may work his magic within known parameters.

The odds of any of this happening naturally are just too slim, the energy crisis type effects of the 70's are almost required to start this process operating at an optimal level.

[Carlhole]

We do not have the political will, excess money, time, or energy to replace our liquid fuel suburban sprawl.. We have built our nest and we will sleep in it however greasy it may become.

Those are just your own highly-biased doomer beliefs on the matter. I don't see it that way at all. Neither do people like Dr. James Hansen of NASA who sees solid options for clean, affordable, baseload energy that is doable now.

[Carlhole]

We do not have the political will, excess money, time, or energy to replace our liquid fuel suburban sprawl.. We have built our nest and we will sleep in it however greasy it may become.

Those are just your own highly-biased doomer beliefs on the matter. I don't see it that way at all. Neither do people like Dr. James Hansen of NASA who sees solid options for clean, affordable, baseload energy that is doable now.

Blah. Appeal to authority. Ad hominem. No content. blah. You extracted my summation not my points. You have degraded a conversation in your usual manner. bye bye.

Yeah right. Like anyone would appeal to the authority of some anonymous poster on a public discussion board to get the straight poop.

[Carlhole]

Integral Fast Breeder Reactor Q&A

There is not a long list of people who support it because hardly anyone knows about it. Hansen and Lynas just found out about it and Gore just found out about it from Hansen...

Hansen told Congress early on about global warming. Congress didn't listen. Who was right?

Here's a partial list of IFR supporters:

Dr. James Hansen, Columbia University, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Dr. Klaus Lackner, theoretical particle physicist at Columbia University
Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute and advisor to the UN, also at Columbia
Dr. Bruno Comby, president of Environmentalists for Nuclear Power, Paris
Dr. Jean-Bernard Minster, U.C. San Diego professor of geophysics
Dr. Charles Archambeau, a geophysicist who did a study of Yucca Mountain for the DOE in 1989-90.
Dr. Doug Carroll, nuclear engineer at GE, retired
Dr. Richard Mattas, retired former manager of the US fusion research efforts, Argonne National Laboratory
Dr. Jasmina Vujic, chair of U.C. Berkeley Dept of Nuclear Engineering
Dr. Jeff Crowell, nuclear physicist at Sandia National Laboratory
Dr. Charles Till, former director of Argonne National Lab, retired
Dr. Yoon Chang, Till's successor at Argonne, recently retired
George Stanford, retired, scientist who worked on the IFR
California Lt. Governor John Garamendi

Who is opposed to it?

I don't know of a single person who opposes it who approached this from an open mind and was briefed by the scientists directly and is qualified in the nuclear physics enough to make a value judgment. At worst, they go away saying, "yeah, this could work" and agree that there isn't a clearly superior technology available as an alternative...

The opposition comes from people who haven't been briefed first-hand on the technology and/or who make associations with old nuclear technology or who really don't understand the technology and the alternatives.

And it will likely come from people who are simply misinformed and look for arguments to support their position. John Kerry's arguments against the IFR in 1994 fall into this camp. Blees's book, Prescription For The Planet, examines each of Kerry's argument in Chapter 12. Charles Till's excellent article on the IFR was succinct about Kerry's arguments: His arguments against the merits of the IFR were not well informed and many were clearly wrong. But what his presentation lacked in accuracy it made up in emotion.

The story below just happens to be out today. It's just one example of a stream of continuous news articles about energy development. This particular story concerns one of several promising avenues towards small modular nuclear reactors. Its an example of the type of energy development that Hansen and others support.

NBF

Hyperion is developing a 25-MW fast reactor that uses uranium nitride fuel and lead bismuth eutectic coolant. Hyperion power generation wants to factory mass produce these reactors and to eventually build hundreds each year. Hyperion Power Generation has letters of intent with several other international companies.

The parties aim to build an operational prototype by 2017 or 2018, said Mike Nevetta of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, which operates the Savannah River Site. He also said Thursday that the demo reactor will not connect to the grid but will produce electricity for internal use on site.

Savannah River Nuclear Solutions is talking with five or six other companies about building prototypes at the complex "in which manufacturers of small reactors can come and prove their technologies," said Nevetta.

[Ludi]

Integral Fast Breeder Reactor Q&A

One in five Americans are functionally unemployed. How would an integral breeder reactor allow them to make their new electric-car payments?

Where are the integral breeder reactors being built in the US? As far as I know, my own state (Texas) only has plans for a couple of conventional reactors, which I think have not yet been started, just approved.

Better get on the stick with the new reactors! They will provide energy that's "too cheap to meter" - right?