Cate Blanchett, patron of new charity SolarAid, explains how solar power can be used to fight poverty and appeals for support.
Cate Blanchett talks SolarAid

 
SolarAid believes …

SOLAR HOT WATER – Past and Future
This video features John Perlin, co-author of A GOLDEN THREAT: 2500 Years of Solar Architecture and Technology. He talks about the history of solar hot water heating, its current …

Critic: Facts bury theory on Peak Oil

IHS Inc., owner of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said those who espouse the theory that the world’s oil production has already peaked lack evidence to support their claims.

“The only thing that’s relevant is our data,” Jerre Stead, chief executive at Douglas County-based IHS, said Wednesday in an interview in Houston.

Believers in the so-called Peak Oil theory “don’t have our data,” he said.

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Simmons: Empty Holes and Black Swans, Part II

It took about three months after the book came out before I started getting feedback from within the system, and then there were these Saudi Aramco guys saying “God, what a fabulous book. We had all told ourselves that this stupid guy in Houston was writing this stupid book that Saudi Arabia no longer has any oil through total incompetence and how these camel jockeys screwed up the world’s biggest oil fields, and it made us madder than hell.” And, of course, the book didn’t say anything like that.

Mankind Can’t Afford More Oil Drilling – Ex-BP Exec

Known oil, gas and coal reserves may already contain a quarter more carbon than mankind can emit and still avoid dangerous climate change, putting the value of new oil exploration in doubt, said a former oil major executive.

The oil industry may be wasting $50 billion annually searching for new fields, said Jan-Peter Onstwedder, formerly BP’s most senior risk manager. He left BP in December.

Peak Oil Models Forecast China’s Oil Supply, Demand

Peak oil models show a widening gap between China’s oil demand and production. The generalized Weng model predicts a peak oil production in China of 196 million tonnes in 2026 and the Hubbert model indicates a peak oil demand in 2034 of 633 million tonnes. Production

Because forecasts indicate a widening gap between production and demand, China’s government is undertaking various measures to reduce this gap and more measures will be needed in the future. In 2006, China imported 47% of the oil it consumed.

Saudi Aramco to invest $90bn over five years

Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil producing company, is planning to pump nearly $90 billion (Dh330.3bn) into the hydrocarbon sector in the next five years to expand crude and refining capacity, according to its chief executive officer.

Abdallah Jumah said the projects would double the Kingdom’s refining output and add nearly three million barrels per day of crude to capacity. Addressing a conference on energy security in Houston, Texas, on Tuesday, he said the investments are part of Saudi Arabia’s commitment to ensuring long-term supplies to consumers but stressed this would not be enough to tackle global security concerns about crude supplies.

Total to decide on Saudi refinery before June

PARIS, Feb 14 (Reuters) – French oil and gas company Total will decide before the end of June whether to go ahead with a planned refinery in Saudi Arabia as it weighs the impact of rising industry costs, it said on Thursday.

Chávez’s Oil Threats Slick but Not Solid

Oil accounts for 90 percent of Venezuela’s export earnings and half of the government’s revenue. Chávez has tapped into the revenue of the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, to finance domestic food and fuel subsidies, social programs, the Fund for National Development, and a $1.7 billion aid program for Cuba and other countries in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Moreover, the United States is Venezuela’s biggest market, and Venezuelan crude oil is of such low quality that few of the world’s refineries outside the United States can use it. One firm well-suited for using Venezuelan crude is U.S.-based Citgo, a unit of PDVSA. Chávez may talk of cultivating new customers by selling to China, but China doesn’t have a refinery capable of handling the heavy crude.

Judge confirms freezing of Venezuelan assets

NEW YORK: A U.S. judge in Manhattan has confirmed the freezing of $300 million in cash held by Venezuela’s state-run oil company, finding it probable that Exxon Mobile will win its legal battle with the company.

Obama asks EPA to review BP permits

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama and two of his Illinois colleagues are urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to mount a “comprehensive” review of proposed air and construction permits for BP’s Whiting refinery.

Obama and fellow Illinois Democrats Sen. Dick Durbin and Rep. Rahm Emanuel suggest that Indiana is rushing the permit process for the refinery, which BP plans to expand into a hub for processing heavy Canadian crude oil.

The poor shiver while Big Oil profits

We all know that to exist in a drive or die society we pay $3 to $4 a gallon for gasoline. However, some families lacking those dollars may shiver in their homes unable to pay oil barons exorbitant prices for heating oil.

UN Says Soaring Prices Leave Poor Hungry

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Many of the world’s poorest people are unable to get enough food because of soaring prices partly caused by the use of food crops to produce biofuels, the head of the U.N. food agency said.

“We’re seeing more people hungry and at greater numbers than before,” Josette Sheeran, executive director of the Rome-based World Food Program, said in an interview Monday with The Associated Press.

Higher oil prices are contributing to steeper food prices by boosting transportation costs, and severe weather is also hitting many countries and hurting crop output, she said.

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Future Of Our Cars – Part 4

Hardly a day goes by without an announcement that some company is either developing a new model of an electric powered car or has made some sort of progress on the ones under development. These announcements are coming from major automobile manufacturers all over the world and from numerous startups working in small garages. It is clear from all the activity and rapidly increasing oil prices that the day of the electric car is almost upon us. For the immediate future there is no practical alternative for personal mobility with the speed, flexibility and comfort that we have become accustomed to except the electric car.

Australia: an auto backwater

Labor’s review of auto industry assistance is timely: Mitsubishi is closing in South Australia, Ford is downsizing in Geelong, and there is an urgent need to position Australia’s car manufacturing to meet the imperatives of global warming and peak oil.

Big, hulking SUVs starting to turn green

There’s a flood of new, large sport utility vehicles hitting the road, but they’re not the gas guzzlers that might immediately spring to mind.

The latest fad in hulking SUVs is fuel economy, and that’s why you’ll soon be driving trucks with names like the Chevy Tahoe, Cadillac Escalade or GMC Sierra with the coveted “hybrid” suffix, showing that the terms fuel economy and SUV aren’t mutually exclusive.

Five-seat concept car runs on air

An engineer has promised that within a year he will start selling a car that runs on compressed air, producing no emissions at all in town.

The OneCAT will be a five-seater with a glass fibre body, weighing just 350kg and could cost just over £2,500.

It will be driven by compressed air stored in carbon-fibre tanks built into the chassis.

Ukraine hails gas victory, Russia puzzles

KIEV/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Gazprom on Wednesday said it would keep intermediaries for some gas supplies to Ukraine, only hours after Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko called the decision to axe them a “great victory.”

Production v Reserves is the Key

Now, assuming that we’re talking about actual proven reserves, we must now conceive the huge difference between billions of barrels of oil in the ground or trillions of tons of coal – and the ability to bring actual daily production on line. For perspective, we consume over 20 million barrels per day of oil and oil equivalents, and we produce only 7+ million bpd. Saudi Arabia’s daily production is only running about 8 million bpd now. As you can see, we would need the equivalent of nearly TWO Saudi Arabia’s of new production to become independent of foreign oil. Again, that’s actual daily production we would need to replace – not just reserves.

World first: Spokane fights climate change and peak oil

Many cities have plans in place to reduce greenhouse gases, and a growing number are planning for declining global oil production. But the northwestern U.S. city of Spokane (pop. 199,400) has become the first to tackle climate change and global oil depletion together, marking a new step in local government responses to these increasingly urgent challenges.

Prince Charles calls for greater EU efforts on climate change

BRUSSELS (AFP) – Prince Charles urged the European Union Thursday to show even greater leadership in the fight against global warming as the “doomsday clock of climate change” ticks down.

Investors eye climate role at UN

UNITED NATIONS – Hundreds of investors controlling $20 trillion in capital were set to gather Thursday for talks on financial risks and opportunities from limiting carbon emissions that scientists blame for global warming.

AAAS honors climate scientist James Hansen

BOSTON — James Hansen, a government scientist who has spoken forcefully about human influence on global climate despite pressure to alter his message, is the recipient of the 2007 AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility.

Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, has become a familiar and determined voice in the ongoing national conversation about climate change. The AAAS award citation credits Hansen for “his outspoken advocacy on behalf of scientists’ responsibilities to communicate openly and honestly with the public on matters of importance to their health and welfare.”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

In response to a recent query from an independent student newspaper in the UK, I wrote up an editorial piece on the politics of biofuels. That essay is reproduced below the fold. (The original can be found here.)

One of the intentions was to point out for European readers why the U.S. and the EU have begun to diverge on their biofuel policies. In the U.S. this is mostly a political issue, because our primary biofuel is home grown. In the EU, biofuels are mostly imported, so the EU can take a more objective view.

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Introduction

Government policies often generate unintended consequences. This has turned out to be the case with the aggressive biofuel policies pursued over recent years by the European Union and the United States. While the EU was developing action plans and setting targets to promote biofuels, many states in the U.S. – especially those with high levels of corn (maize) production – were enforcing mandates to turn that corn into ethanol.

Superficially, this may sound like a great idea. The world obviously can’t continue forever down the path of fossil fuels. Global Warming is a serious concern worldwide. Much of the remaining fossil fuel resources are located in areas hostile to the West. What better way to address these concerns than a movement toward renewable fuels? Furthermore, if the market won’t encourage that move because of poor economics, wouldn’t it make sense for governments to be proactive and force a move to biofuels? Of course this is the path we have taken, but we didn’t sufficiently consider the potential consequences before doing so.

Criticisms

While corn farmers and palm oil plantation owners have been elated by the policies, critics have warned all along about the short-sightedness of these policies. Some, like Cornell Professor David Pimentel and Berkeley Professor Tad Patzek, argued that a full life-cycle analysis showed that most biofuels are actually net energy negative – that is it takes more fossil fuel energy to produce biofuels like ethanol than is returned in the process. This assertion, if true, would imply that expansion of biofuels would actually increase greenhouse gas emissions. However, Professors Pimentel and Patzek have their own critics, who assert that their studies made flawed assumptions.

But the criticisms of the rush into biofuels didn’t stop there. Some argued that the diversion of grains and edible oils away from food and toward biofuels had the potential to starve the poor. The United States Department of Agriculture, longtime staunch supporters of the biofuels expansion, published a study that concluded that the policies of the U.S. and the EU would raise prices across the food sector. Lester Brown, the president of the Earth Policy Institute – a group that advocates environmental sustainability – famously noted in a Washington Post opinion piece that “the grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol would feed one person for a full year.” Brown further wrote:

“Plans for new ethanol distilleries and biodiesel refineries are announced almost daily, setting the stage for an epic competition. In a narrow sense, it is one between the world’s supermarkets and its service stations. More broadly, it is a battle between the world’s 800 million automobile owners, who want to maintain their mobility, and the world’s 2 billion poorest people, who simply want to survive.”

Thus, at best the critics suggested that the impact of biofuels policies would increase food prices. Worse, biofuel mandates may be mandates for starving the poor.

Additional criticisms emerged. It soon became clear that the new policies were resulting in land usage changes. Grassland was turned into farmland, and tropical forests into palm plantations. As a result of EU-fueled demand for palm oil, Indonesia was destroying peat bogs to make room for new plantations, and this greatly increased their greenhouse gas emissions. This move reportedly made Indonesia the third largest greenhouse gas polluter.

In the U.S., former ethanol proponents such as Dan Kammen and Alex Farrell of the Energy and Resources Group at UC Berkeley have recently abandoned their position that corn ethanol is environmentally beneficial. In a January 12, 2008 memo to California regulators attempting to tackle greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector, they wrote:

“Simply said, ethanol production today using U.S. corn contributes to the conversion of grasslands and rainforest to agriculture, causing very large GHG emissions. Even if only a small fraction of the emissions calculated in this crude way [through land use change] are added to estimates of direct emissions for corn ethanol, total emissions for corn ethanol are higher than for fossil fuels.”

A pair of studies in the current issue of Science was apparently the basis for their change of heart. The Wall Street Journal reported on the studies:

While the U.S. and others race to expand the use and production of biofuels, two new studies suggest these gasoline alternatives actually will increase carbon-dioxide levels.

A study published in the latest issue of Science finds that corn-based ethanol, a type of biofuel pushed heavily in the U.S., will nearly double the output of greenhouse-gas emissions instead of reducing them by about one-fifth by some estimates.

“Even if we’re dramatically wrong, it’s hard to get to a result that says you get a benefit over 50 years,” said Timothy Searchinger, a researcher at Princeton University and a co-author of the paper on corn-based ethanol.

In the second study, researchers found that . . . draining and clearing peatlands in Malaysia and Indonesia to grow palm oil emits so much CO2 that palm biodiesel from those fields would have to be burned for more than 420 years to counteract it.

I made my own criticisms, on several fronts. I criticized what I felt were misleading energy balance studies, which inflated the attraction of corn ethanol. I criticized the morality of using food for fuel. I challenged venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who was promising the world something I didn’t feel that he could deliver, and in the process wasting taxpayer money and precious time. I also challenged the hype of cellulosic ethanol, pointing out issues that the critics were ignoring. As I was warning about the folly of U.S. ethanol policy, I also cautioned over the irrational exuberance of ethanol investors. (I should also note that I wrote several essays in favor of certain ethanol applications. See here, here, and here.)

The World Responds

The criticisms didn’t go unnoticed. The Chinese recognized the threat to their food supplies, and put a halt to new corn ethanol projects, noting that “the current maize-ethanol production capacity has far surpassed what the corn output can provide as an important grain resource.” The European Union began to recognize the dangers. EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said that “the EU had initially underestimated the danger to rainforests and the risk of forcing up food prices from its policy of setting binding targets for the use of biofuels.” The EU further announced that they would be issuing a certification scheme and promised a “clampdown on biodiesel from palm oil which is leading to forest destruction in Indonesia.”

The U.S. government continued to show short-sightedness, however, and mandated an enormous expansion of the ethanol program. To understand this, one has to understand that ethanol policy in the U.S. is dictated almost entirely by politics, and not by science. Because the source of U.S. biofuels is largely domestic, the issue impacts upon a large segment of voters. Former presidential candidate Bob Dole once explained the issue to oilman T. Boone Pickens: “Bob Dole once told me that there are 42 senators from farm states and that pretty much means the government is going to be into ethanol.”

The prominence of the Iowa presidential caucuses also plays a major role. The Iowa caucuses are held prior to the elections in most other states, and presidential candidates hope to do well there and gain momentum going into the rest of the campaign season. Since Iowa is the heart of ethanol production country in the U.S., candidates pander to the voters there who have greatly benefited from U.S. ethanol policies. In order to win Iowa, you must support ethanol policy. Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and John McCain provide perfect examples of the Iowa influence. Longtime critics of U.S. ethanol policy – both changed their positions during the most recent presidential campaign. In 2003, McCain had come out strongly against U.S. ethanol policy:

“Ethanol is a product that would not exist if Congress didn’t create an artificial market for it. No one would be willing to buy it. Yet thanks to agricultural subsidies and ethanol producer subsidies, it is now a very big business – tens of billions of dollars that have enriched a handful of corporate interests – primarily one big corporation, ADM. Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality.”

Contrast that with his statements in 2006 as he prepared for a presidential run:

“I support ethanol and I think it is a vital, a vital alternative energy source not only because of our dependency on foreign oil but its greenhouse gas reduction effects.”

Thus, while the world wakes up to the overall social and environmental ramifications of a broad expansion of ethanol policy, the U.S. is unlikely to deviate from the current policy. If there was a major Midwestern drought that caused the corn crop to fail, it might cause a reevaluation of the policy as corn supplies disappeared. But barring some sort of catastrophe that impacts ordinary Americans, the policy of turning food into fuel will continue unabated in the U.S.

Lessons Learned

The consequences from these biofuel policies was foreseen by a number of scientists. However, their criticisms were often shouted down, and their motives were questioned by some proponents. In the U.S., proponents cast the ethanol debate in terms of national security, energy independence, and the benefits to farming communities. Opponents were cast as being anti-farmer and un-American. This had the unfortunate effect of largely quelling the public debate as these policies were being unveiled and expanded.

Yet these debates must take place, preferably before a well-intentioned policy begins to have such undesirable consequences. Our political leaders need to carefully consider not only the arguments of proponents, but they also need to give the critics a fair hearing. Had this been done, we may have been able to focus our attention on renewable options that do not compete with our food supply.

The Canberra Times recently published an article, rather misleadingly entitled “Generating solar energy in the dark“, which looked at the use of purified graphite for thermal energy storage.

The company developing the technology is called Lloyd Energy Systems, and they are prototyping solar energy storage, a wind-to-heat plant and a small-scale plant that combines water treatment, energy storage and steam turbine generation.

The company has received a $5 million Federal Government grant as part of its advanced energy storage technology program in the western NSW town of Lake Cargelligo, with Country Energy agreeing to purchase the power generated. Lloyd Energy also has an agreement with Ergon Energy in Queensland to build a $30million plant at Cloncurry in Queensland, partially funded by the Queensland state government, which the Sydney Morning Herald reported on last year.

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[Lloyd Energy CEO] Mr Hollis said large amounts of coal-fired energy were lost during long transmission to remote areas. As power loads built up over time, mainly because of demand for air-conditioners, the grid could no longer cope in peak periods. Towns at the end of the line suffered the most from power shortages.

“We’re putting environmentally friendly generation out at the end of the branches of the tree if you like, so it can pump energy back in when the branches are in trouble,” he said. “It actually serves three purposes. Firstly, it is a renewable energy replacement for coal. Secondly, it avoids the country energy authorities having to upgrade their transmission lines so they can get more power out in the peak.” The third benefit was having an energy source at the end of the line that could return power into the grid.

Sixteen full-scale models would go to Lake Cargelligo and 54 to Cloncurry. The system’s mobility and flexibility had caught the attention of key Australian mining companies, which use diesel and gas generators.

Mr Hollis said making renewable energy available when it was required added to the system’s value. … “You can store thermal energy in a lot of things, but high-purity graphite is an extremely efficient way of storing it it doesn’t have any losses. You can move the heat in and out very quickly.”

Graphite based storage does not seem to have been used anywhere else in the world thus far. Storage for renewable energy has usually been limited to compressing air underground (Compress Air Energy Storage or CAES), where it can later be released under pressure, or pumped hydro, where the power is used to pump water back up into dams that can generate hydro-electricity. While both techniques are effective, they require suitable locations and complex infrastructure to be put in place.

The Queensland project will make Cloncurry the first town in Australia to rely exclusively on solar power, produced by a concentrated solar power (CSP) system. The system contains almost 7200 mirrors, which will guide the sun’s rays into holes in the bottoms of 54 elevated graphite cubes, heating them to 1800 degrees (C). The stored heat is then used to generate steam for turbines on demand. The company claims the turbine will use less water than falls in an average year on the power station’s roof.

Wind to Heat on King Island

A third system using the graphite system is being planned by CBD Energy, which has licensed the Lloyd technology and will build a wind-powered version of the system on King Island. The island, in the Bass Strait north-west of Tasmania, currently relies primarily on diesel to generate power for its 1800 residents.

The joint venture with Hydro Tasmania is not expected to make the island wholly powered by renewable energy, but it will eliminate the need for 1.25 megalitres of diesel fuel a year, says CBD’s chief engineer, John Giannasca.

CBD plans to install two megawatts of wind turbines to supplement existing systems along with six graphite blocks. The blocks are each the size of a standard shipping container, and will be heated to 800 degrees (C).

Some solar panels will be also be installed for periods when the island is without wind, and there are ongoing investigations into harnessing ocean current and tidal energy in the region.

CBD Energy is run by ex-Impulse Airlines chief Gerry McGowan, with the company partly owned by German clean energy company Solon. CBD is also looking to develop solar energy projects in Australia, with plans for the first operation to be set up in the northern NSW town of Moree.

Graphite energy storage in context

King Island received a lot of press attention for an earlier project to store energy using Vanadium Redox flow batteries that began in 2003.

The company involved in that initiative, Pinnacle VRB, has since changed name to Cougar Energy and doesn’t seem to have any active VRB projects going.

Another Australian company developing a slightly different form of Vanadium based batteries (Vanadium Bromide) is VFuel, though there hasn’t been much news from them in some time either. Both VFuel and Pinnacle/Cougar are using technology pioneered at the University of NSW.

What will happen to the flow battery installation isn’t clear, though a visiting parliamentarian (pdf) reported in 2004 that “The vanadium batteries would appear to best suit the ironing out of the wind fluctuations rather than holding larger quantities of power. The battery is expensive and takes up considerable space” and that graphite was being considered as an alternative.

TreeHugger noted last year that the advantage the Lloyd Energy graphite system has is that they have apparently managed to figure out how to refine low grade graphite into high quality crystalline graphite, and the storage capacity “ranges from around 300kWh (thermal) per tonne at a storage temperature of 750°C to around 1000kWh (thermal) per tonne at 1800°C.”.

The Australian Greenhouse Office has a review paper on Energy Storage Technologies (pdf), published in 2005, which includes a brief look at graphite in a section on thermal energy storage.

Thermal energy storage systems use material that can be kept at high temperatures in insulated containments. Heat recovered can then be applied for electricity generation using steam Rankine cycle or other heat engine cycles. Energy input can, in principle, be provided by electrical resistance heating but the overall round trip efficiency will be low. However, as with thermochemical energy storage, thermal systems have considerable advantages when integrated with Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies (ie parabolic troughs or dishes, central receiver/heliostat systems and Linear Fresnel systems).

Integration of thermal storage for several full load hours, together with new storage materials and advanced charging/discharging concepts, would allow for increased solar thermal electricity production without changing the power block size (ECOSTAR, Nov 2004). Provided that the storage is sufficiently inexpensive, this would lower the levelised energy cost, and additionally increase the dispatchability of the electricity generation.

The kind of storage system used for solar energy storage depends on the Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) technology, the heat transfer medium used and the required temperature of operation. In general, high-temperature thermal storage development will need several scale-up steps over an extended development time before market acceptance will be achieved.

Storage systems for thermal energy storage need to:
• be efficient in terms of energy loss and temperature drops
• have low cost
• have a long service life
• have low parasitic power requirements.

The development of storage systems for high pressure steam and pressurized, high temperature air, is especially challenging. If or when developed, such storage systems would lead to a significant drop in CSP electricity costs. The high-temperature thermal storage technologies utilised or under development now are (ECOSTAR, Nov 2004):

Molten salt storage and Room Temperature Ionic Liquids (RTILs)

• State of the art is the 2-tank molten salt storage tested in the “Solar Two” Central Receiver Solar Power Plant demonstration project in California, combined with using molten salt as heat transfer fluid. The use of new, so called Room Temperature Ionic Liquids (RTILs) has recently been proposed. RTILs are organic salts with negligible vapour pressure in the relevant temperature range and a melting temperature below 25°C. Room temperature ionic liquids are new materials that have the potential to be stored at temperatures of many 100s of degrees without decomposing. It is not yet clear whether they are stable up to the temperature level required for CSP and also whether they may be produced at reasonable costs.

Concrete Storage

• The concept of using concrete or castable ceramics to store energy at high temperatures for parabolic trough power plants with synthetic oil as the heat transfer fluid (HTF) has been investigated in European projects. The implementation of a concrete storage system is claimed (ECOSTAR, Nov 2004) to be able to be realised within less than 5 years.

Phase Change Materials (PCM)

• Phase change materials are materials selected to have a phase change (usually solid to liquid) at a temperature matching the thermal input source. The high “latent heat” in a phase change offers the potential for higher energy storage densities than storage of non phase change high temperature materials. Because a solid/liquid phase change is involved, a heat transfer fluid is needed to move heat from source to PCM. At present, two principle approaches are being investigated:
- encapsulation of small amounts of PCM
- embedding of PCM in a matrix made of another solid material with high heat conduction.
• The first measure is based on the reduction of distances inside the PCM and the second one uses the enhancement of heat conduction by other materials (e.g. graphite). Storages based on PCM are in an early stage of development but the cost target is to stay below A$34/kWh based on the thermal capacity. Although the uncertainties and risks of the PCM storage technology are in a medium range, the technology time required for full development and commercial implementation is likely to be more than 10 years (ECOSTAR, Nov 2004).

Storage for air receivers using solid materials

• Storage types using solid material for sensible heat are normally used together with volumetric atmospheric or pressurized air systems. The heat has to be transferred to another medium, which may be any kind of solid with high density and heat capacity. Another innovation is to develop for pressurised closed-air receivers a storage container that has to be pressure resistant up to about 16-20 bar depending on the gas turbine pressure ratio.
• For both cases the time for development and implementation is considered to be between 5 to 10 years and the risks and uncertainties are in the medium range (ECOSTAR, Nov 2004).

Storage for saturated water/steam

• The steam drum, which is a common part in many steam generators, is often used to provide process heat storage in industry. The main problem is the size of the steam vessel for larger storage capacity and the degradation of steam quality during discharging. However, this storage type is ideal as buffer storage for short time periods of several minutes, to compensate shading of the solar field by fast moving small clouds. Using appropriate encapsulated PCM inside the storage could enhance the storage capacity because the latent heat content can be used to slow down the temperature and pressure decrease and enable smaller storage vessels for the same thermal capacity.
• Recently, underground thermal energy storage has been proposed again as a lowcost solution to high-temperature, low-loss thermal storage for CSP systems (Mills et al, Nov 2004). It involves storage of water under pressure in deep metal lined caverns where the pressure is contained by the surrounding rock and the overburden weight.

High-purity graphite.

• This readily available material has the attractive property of increasing its heat storage capacity as the temperature of storage rises. However, the relatively low temperatures of solar thermal systems are not optimal for this storage medium unless the graphite storage blocks could be positioned at the very high temperature focus of a concentrating solar collector.

For another good description of a range of energy storage technologies, try Richard Baxter’s book “Energy Storage: A Nontechnical Guide“.

One obvious advantage for graphite is that carbon is extremely common, unlike some of the minerals used in various battery technologies and so there will be no meaningful material “limits” to the creation of these. Perhaps one day we’ll see CO2 being sequestered in the form of graphite blocks, ready to be installed into CSP power stations.

On semi-related news, energy storage has also been getting some attention in The Economist lately, courtesy of EEStor’s ultracapacitor technology.

(Crossposted from Peak Energy).

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080212/venezuela_us_oil.html?.v=9

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s state oil company said Tuesday that it has stopped selling crude to Exxon Mobil Corp. in response to the U.S. oil company’s drive to use the courts to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.

Exxon Mobil is locked in a dispute over the nationalization of its oil ventures in Venezuela that has led President Hugo Chavez to threaten to cut off all Venezuelan oil supplies to the United States. Venezuela is the United States’ fourth largest oil supplier.

Have at it.

The handwriting has been on the wall on this issue for a couple of years. In fact, I first mentioned it in March 2006 in Improving the Prospects for Grain Ethanol. Here is an excerpt of what I wrote:

This is an option that most environmentalists will abhor. However, it is the one most likely to take place in the short-term. The natural gas input into ethanol production is a serious long-term threat to economic viability. Since natural gas is a fossil fuel, and supplies are diminishing, it will put upward pressure on the price of ethanol over time. However, if the energy inputs could be produced from coal, ethanol prices would be insulated from escalating natural gas prices.

Using coal might also lessen the significance of the EROEI debate. If you take 1 BTU of (cheap) coal, and you get back 0.8 BTUs of (more valuable, liquid) ethanol, then EROEI doesn’t have the same significance as when you use natural gas to produce ethanol. You converted the BTUs into a readily usable liquid form. This argument may be valid from an economic point of view, but it ignores the fact that coal is still an inherently dirty energy source. If coal remains abundant and cheap, coal economics will beat natural gas economics, but coal will increase the rate at which we put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If we come up with a viable method of sequestering the carbon dioxide produced at the power plant, then we might have a temporary economic solution (although we are still using up a non-sustainable fuel in the process).

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Now I am not going to tell you that I think this is a good idea. I am just telling you what I think is going to happen. And a few days ago a friend sent a link that says Iowa is considering a couple of new coal plants for some ethanol plants, acknowledging the superior economics of coal as fuel:

Iowa needs $2 billion in coal-fired electricity production to supply power for ethanol; critics say coal use “ungreens” ethanol

Two coal-fired electricity plants, in Marshalltown and near Waterloo, have been proposed in Iowa to provide electricity for the growing collection of Iowa ethanol plants. Critics say that ethanol’s need for coal-powered electricity makes the case that it is not a green fuel.

Alliant Energy, co-owner of the Marshalltown project, said that the needs of the ethanol plants can only be solved at this point in time by nuclear, natural gas or coal, and that natural gas is not economical while nuclear has been taken off the table due to environmental concerns. The proposed plants would cost $1 billion each.

Last week, Xethanol Corporation announced that it would invest $500,000 in Consus Ethanol for its cogeneration project that would provide power for its ethanol production process from waste coal, that would have a $0.48 per gallon cost advantage over comparable ethanol plants in the Midwest powered by natural gas. The Pittsburgh-based facility will distribute fuel to East Coast markets, which have higher prices for ethanol.

On the subject of using coal as the source of BTUs for ethanol production, there are two things that stand out. First, the current process of using natural gas to produce ethanol makes little sense, since you can use natural gas directly in a CNG vehicle. You gain little or nothing by turning a BTU of natural gas into a BTU of ethanol (plus some animal feed). However, coal can’t be used directly as automotive fuel, so one can make the argument of upgrading the quality of the energy source by turning some of coal’s BTUs into ethanol.

Second, the cost of energy per BTU is far lower for coal. The current price of natural gas is $8 per million (MM) BTUs. However, according to the EIA coal sells for about $40/ton, or 2 cents a pound. The energy content of bituminous coal is about 12,750 BTU/lb, which calculates out to $1.57 per MMBTU. (Just double-checked my numbers, and found that the EIA reported that coal prices in September 2007 were $1.78 per MMBTU, so I was in the ballpark).

So, the economics are going to drive ethanol producers toward coal as their fuel of choice. And some have already been driven there. I predict we will see a lot more of this in the future, especially in light of my previous essay on the economics of corn ethanol. Plug in coal at $1.57/MMBTU instead of natural gas at $8, and it makes a huge difference. But for ethanol producers who do go this route, don’t pretend that what you are doing is clean or renewable.

We found this video over at Kerry Trueman’s blog, TakePart. Words under the fold.

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“Gasoline,” from Sheryl Crow’s just-released Album “Detours,” is set in 2017, and foresees a nightmarish future when the world runs out of gas:

It was the summer of the riots

And London sat in sweltering heat

And the gangs of Mini Coopers

Took the battle to the streets

But when the creed was handed down

For no more trucks and no more cars

They threw cans of petrol through the windows at Scotland Yard…

…When the Mounties stormed the palace of the Saudi family

They held them up for ransom

Without disturbing their high tea

But their getaway was shaky

They stalled in the Riyadh streets

Cause you can’t make it very far

When your tank is on empty

Crow’s song sends the message that we’ve built our whole way of life on a shaky foundation that’s bound to crack when we run out of gas. Towards the end of “Gasoline,” she sings: I’ve got a message and a megaphone, and I’ll scream it to the death…”

Will a post-petroleum scenario set to music get more Americans reflecting on the fact that there’s only so much oil in the ground? No doubt someone, somewhere, right now, is sitting in their car, stuck in traffic, grooving to the strains of “Gasoline.” I hope it sinks in, and makes a stain.

This is Part 2 of my rewrite of my earlier post relating to curriculum for a science peak oil course. The earlier version can be found here. Part 1 can be found here.

Part 2 has been substantially rewritten. One theme is energy, and why energy is important to our standard of living. I try to compare the energy in oil to the energy in food. To make the comparison more understandable, I convert energy to kilocalories, since most people are familiar with calories in food. I also point out the errors of economists, both in the text and in the discussion questions at the end.

Another theme is the special characteristics of oil, and why oil is valued as a liquid fuel. I think we are sometimes kind of fuzzy in our thinking about substitutes for liquid fuel. We don’t think about our built infrastructure, and just assume electricity can be substituted for oil when it really is at best a very long-term alternative. I discuss various alternatives including battery-operated cars, hydrogen, and conservation. The two sections relating to corn ethanol could probably be a post of their own.

I also talk about the impact of oil on prices. I make the point that big increases in petroleum prices are likely, with only a small shortage of oil. I also point our that food prices are likely to increase, partly because of the use of petroleum for food production, and partly because corn for ethanol competes with food for land use.

I made a small change to the section on actions young people can take. I also added some discussion questions at the end.
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1. Why is petroleum so highly valued?

The main reason that petroleum is highly valued is for its energy content. If petroleum is burned, it can do work that makes our lives easier. For example it can be used to power an automobile or an airplane. We eat food to give us energy that allows us to do work of various kinds. In many ways, petroleum is the equivalent of food for many types of mechanical objects. For example, petroleum allows us to drive a car, and to do the work of transporting our luggage and ourselves. If we didn’t have petroleum, we would have to do the work ourselves – walk and carry our own luggage.

Another reason petroleum is valued is for all the things that can be created from the petroleum itself, without burning it. Final products include fabrics, plastics, drugs, herbicides, insecticides, and much more. At some point, we may decide oil is too valuable to burn. These products are very valuable, and it would be difficult to find replacements.

2. What is the relationship between energy use and standard of living?

There is a close tie between energy use and standard of living. Energy use gives us mechanical slaves that can do much work that we could do ourselves, but would take much longer. For example, mechanical equipment is used to plant and harvest crops, and to wash and package the food. Trucks are used to transport food to market. We could do many of these steps ourselves, by digging in the ground, picking the crops ourselves, and walking to market with the produce, but it would take much more of our own physical work.

Many economists dismiss the close tie between energy and standard of living. They say that energy costs are only a small portion of total costs, so energy is not very important. This reasoning is not correct. If there is a shortage of petroleum, it is in some ways analogous to a shortage of food. The real problem is not that we have to pay more; it is that we have to get along with less. If our diet were reduced from 2,000 calories a day to 1,900, it would make a difference to our lives. If the economy suddenly experiences a shortfall in petroleum products, fewer goods can be transported to market, and someone will have to do without a product or service that they would otherwise have had.

Robert Ayers and Benjamin Warr showed the close relationship between energy use and standard of living, disproving the standard belief of economists. In particular, they showed that there is a very strong tie between energy use, including the more efficient use of energy, and economic growth. http://www.iea.org/Textbase/work/2004/eewp/Ayres-paper1.pdf

3. Why is petroleum more highly valued than other forms of energy?

There are many reasons:

a. Its abundance. Petroleum is the largest energy source for the United States, comprising 40% of our energy use. Coal and natural gas are each a little over half as big (23%). The new alternatives are tiny in comparison.

b. The fact that it is a liquid. Liquids are easy to transport and store. Imagine filling your fuel tank with coal!

c. Its high level of concentration. Those of us who have done cooking or counted calories know that oils have a lot more calories for the same volume than other foods. It is the same way with fuel. Gasoline has 115,000 Btu per gallon, or in terms we are more familiar with, 29,000 calories (of the type you eat in food –- actually kilocalories) per gallon. Ethanol, which is equivalent to alcohol in alcoholic beverages, has only two-thirds as many calories (that is, energy) per gallon.

d. Its low price. The reason oil has historically been inexpensive is that it takes a relatively small amount of resources to extract oil. In the early days of production, it took roughly the energy of one barrel of oil, plus a few other inputs (human labor and iron ore) to extract 100 barrels of oil. Even recently, it has taken as little as the equivalent as 15 barrels of oil (plus human labor and a few other inputs) to produce 100 barrels of oil.

e. Very favorable energy balance. This is just the flip side of Item d, oil’s low price. If it only takes one barrel of oil to produce 100 barrels of oil, a small investment can create a huge amount of energy. Even if it takes 15 barrels of oil to produce 100 barrels of oil, there is still a very favorable return. This extra energy benefits society in many ways. It gives us the extra energy we need to build roads and malls and better our lifestyle.

f. Built Infrastructure. Nearly all of the cars, trucks, airplanes, and farm equipment currently in use were designed to burn oil products. While theoretically they could be replaced, this is a huge sunk cost. It would require technical innovation, a large investment of fuel and other resources, plus a timeframe of thirty or more years to convert to a new base.

g. Non-intermittent supply. At least historically, the supply of oil has been there, so that we could depend on it. We didn’t have to worry whether the wind was blowing, or a cloud was covering the sun.

4. What are petroleum’s disadvantages?

a. Not renewable. The supply is depleting. Decline may begin within a few years.

b. Not environmentally friendly. There are problems in three different areas:

Global warming gases. Oil is only 80% as bad as coal in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide formed per unit of energy, but 40% worse than natural gas. Because we use so much oil, total carbon dioxide is more from oil than from coal or natural gas.

Air pollution. Smog, airborne particulate matter, and some carcinogens are the indirect result of the burning of petroleum.

Local environmental damage. Spills. Pollution problems particularly for Canadian oil sands, where much water is required for extraction. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/01/10/6304/

5. How are oil and gasoline priced?

Oil is priced based on supply and demand. If there is not sufficient oil for everyone who wants it, the price increases until some would-be buyers are priced out of the market or an alternative appears. Additionally, the price must be high enough to cover the cost of extraction of even recently discovered oil. If the price drops too low, or it the likelihood of profit is too low because of punitive taxation, oil companies will discontinue their attempts to produce more oil.

Prices tend to “shoot up” if there is a shortage oil or gasoline, because people are unwilling to go without, and substitutes are very limited. A rough estimate is that 1% shortfall in supply will result in a 17% increase in gasoline prices, and a 2% shortfall will result in a 33% increase in prices. (This is based on a shot-term price elasticity of demand of .06. See http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8893/01-14-GasolinePrices.pdf )

The price of gasoline is fairly closely related to the price of oil, plus the additional costs involved. One US Energy Information Administration government website shows this relationship:

6. How does corn-based ethanol compare to petroleum as a solution to our energy needs?

Corn-based ethanol is a very poor substitute for petroleum. Actually, it is only, at best, a substitute for gasoline. Other petroleum products, such as diesel, lubricating oil, and asphalt require different types of substitutes.

The major problems with ethanol from corn are

a. Not scalable. A very large amount of land is required to produce a small amount of fuel. In 2007, over 20% of America’s corn was devoted to ethanol, but this provided only the energy equivalent of 3% of our gasoline use (or 1.1% of our petroleum use). More than doubling this will be very difficult.

b. Causes food prices increases. Competition of corn for land raises food prices. We end up paying a second time for corn ethanol through higher food prices.

c. Causes fertilizer shortages. Corn uses a lot of fertilizer. Fertilizer is made from natural gas and mostly imported. Fertilizer prices are now double what they were a year ago. The situation may get worse in future years and lead to shortages of fertilizer for food crops.

d. Environmental impacts as bad as gasoline (or worse). There are problems in several areas. Ethanol produces more global warming gasses than gasoline, according to recent studies. Older studies say that ethanol might produce slightly less global warming gasses than gasoline, but even this is not much help. http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/September/21090701.asp http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/biofuels-make-cl…

A Stanford study says that air pollution is also worse than with gasoline. Ozone, which causes smog, is likely to be worse with ethanol than gasoline. Ethanol decreases some carcinogens, but increases others. http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/april18/ethanol-041807.html

The planting of corn also has negative environmental impacts, including aquifer depletion, topsoil erosion, and fertilizer runoff. These are especially problems if expansion of corn acreage means that corn is planted in hilly or arid locations where it would not usually be planted.

e. Energy intensive. Nearly as much energy must be used to make ethanol as is gotten back in return, so we are mostly recycling scarce fuels. Ethanol is not like petroleum, which has a positive energy balance to benefit our standard of living. If corn ethanol replaces petroleum, the impact on standard of living is likely to be negative. (See Item 3e)

f. Poor fit with petroleum system. At most 10% ethanol can be used in gasoline, without causing corrosion, unless autos are especially modified. Ethanol cannot be transported by pipeline, so costly and complex special arrangements must be made.

g. Less energy per gallon than oil. Ethanol has only about two-thirds the energy (calories) of gasoline.

h. Summer gasoline price run-up. Adding ethanol to gasoline makes gasoline evaporate at lower temperatures. To counter this, the fraction of gasoline that evaporates most easily (molecules with 4 or 5 carbon atoms, rather than 6 to 10 carbon molecules) must be removed from the gasoline mixture. Removing this portion of the gasoline reduces supply in the summer, and increases prices.

i. Drought sensitive. Supply depends on good weather in growing regions. http://collinpeterson.house.gov/PDF/ethanol.pdf

j. Expensive. Requires subsidies to be cost-competitive. Subsidies raise tax levels. Even with subsidies, ethanol’s cost is often higher than that of gasoline.

7. Why is ethanol so popular?

The primary reason ethanol is popular is because it makes legislators look like they are doing something about reducing imports of gasoline. People do not realize that the benefit is tiny at best, and offset by many other problems.

The use of corn ethanol was expanded before people had a chance to learn its real-world problems. Many continue to support it because they believe it will be a “bridge” to better second generation fuels, such as cellulosic ethanol.

Corn ethanol also provides income to investors in biofuel refineries and jobs in rural areas. The offsetting costs of subsidies and higher food prices are far enough removed that people are not aware of them.

Car manufacturers like ethanol also because of a loophole that allows them to get credit for cars with higher mileage than they really have. Because of this, car manufacturers can build more gas-guzzlers than they would otherwise and still meet mileage requirements.

Ethanol’s use was expanded in 2005 and 2006 because clean air laws required the use of an additive called an “oxygenate”. The previous oxygenate, MTBE, had been found to be unsatisfactory. A number of people have raised the question as to whether oxygenates are really needed any more. Engines manufactured since 1994 have substantially reduced tailpipe emissions, so that an oxygenate may not to be needed.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,104259,00.html

8. What other possibilities are there as a replacement for oil as a liquid fuel?

Some other biofuel possibilities include the following:

a. Biodiesel from rapeseed. This is equivalent to what we in the US would call “canola oil”. Use of farmland for nonfood items is likely to drive up food costs. Heavy user of fertilizer. Has somewhat better energy balance than corn-ethanol. Mostly produced in Europe.

b. Cellulosic ethanol. Can be made experimentally, but isn’t yet commercially viable. Would be made from non-food bio-products such as wood, switchgrass, and corn stalks. Likely to be more energy efficient than corn ethanol, and cause less pressure on land use. Most methods are not economic at this time, but one approach claims better success.

Larger potential volume than corn ethanol, but still would not replace more than 20% of petroleum use. Cellulosic ethanol will compete with electricity generation for the use of the same biomass. Some analyses indicate that cellulosic ethanol is not the best use for biomass. http://www.coskataenergy.com/process.html http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/19842/ (Requires free registraton)

c. Biodiesel from left-over oil. Can be made from leftover vegetable oil or from animal fat. Energy efficient, but total volume likely to be small.

d. Ethanol from sugar cane. Not cost efficient in US; Brazil makes low-cost product with much hand labor. Brazilian product is very energy efficient, but has human rights issues for laborers. Relatively small amount available for export. Would be another source of imported fuel.

e. Biodiesel from palm oil. Also made from other tree fruits. Often grown on forest land that has been cleared for this purpose, so has very adverse environmental impacts. Often competes with food use for oil. Would be another source of imported fuel.

f. Biodiesel from algae. Under investigation, but no one has found a way to do this in a commercially viable way yet. Requires little land use.

Besides biofuel approaches, there are also fossil fuel approaches:

a. Coal to liquid. Process to convert coal to a petroleum substitute was developed many years ago. Method is quite energy intensive. Has much worse carbon dioxide impact than petroleum. Probably less expensive than most biofuels. Several plants now being planned.

b. Natural gas to liquid. It is theoretically possible to convert natural gas to a liquid fuel, but it is very expensive and not much used. Cars can also be adapted to run on compressed natural gas. Natural gas solutions may work in some parts of the world, but supply is not adequate in North America, and imports are very limited.

9. How about solutions such as wind turbines, solar voltaic panels, battery operated cars, and hydrogen powered cars?

None of these are liquid fuels. They don’t directly solve our need for something to keep are current fleet of vehicles and other devices using petroleum products operating. It is possible that over the very long term they can be part of the solution, but they cannot keep our current fleet on the road and our airplanes in the air.

Wind turbines and solar voltaic panels really relate to our need for better sources of electricity. Electrical supply is likely also to be a problem in the future, but we have not attempted to address the electrical supply issue in this document.

Battery-powered cars are a worthwhile idea, but there are some obstacles that need to be overcome. http://www.evworld.com/

a. Common materials. Batteries that require rare minerals will not scale up to the volume needed for millions of cars. If we do not require too long a range, more options may be available. It is possible that ultra-capacitors may be part of the solution. http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/energystorage/ultracapacitors.html

b. Long time frame. Even if technology were fully perfected today, it would still take 15 to 20 years to get factories built, and the current fleet of cars replaced. Peak oil may delay this further.

c. Electricity issues. We assume that adequate excess electricity will be available to charge the cars 20 or 30 years from now, but that may not be the case. It would be ideal if a way could be found to use solar power to charge the cars. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3316 http://jalopnik.com/335956/austrailian-solar-bus-is-mighty-green-mighty-…

Hydrogen powered cars seem to be much farther in the future than battery powered cars. Hydrogen is not a fuel source; it is more like a battery. Somehow, we would have to produce the huge amount of energy that would be necessary to separate the hydrogen from the compounds in which it is found. Besides having to build new cars, we would have to build a new pipeline network, a new set of filling stations, and the infrastructure to make this work. The whole process would be extremely expensive and likely require over 30 years.

10. Will biofuels and the other alternatives be sufficient to compensate for the petroleum shortage?

No, not based on what we know today. If nothing else, there will be a time-gap before the transition to alternatives can be made. There are a lot of alternatives under consideration, but none, by itself, seems likely to solve our need for a liquid fuel substitute in the timeframe in which it is needed.

Conservation will need to be an important part of the solution to our liquid fuel shortage. Better use of what we have, like carpooling, is one possibility. Another is electrified rail transportation. Streetcars were used years ago in many places, and could be built again, without developing new technology. Existing rail systems could be enhanced to permit more freight to be transported by rail. In some cases, sails can be added to boats to reduce fuel needs. If need be, personal vehicles can be made much smaller than we drive today, perhaps akin to golf carts or electric bicycles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram

11. Besides higher oil prices, what types of impacts can we expect from peak oil?

Increasing food prices. One reason is that oil is used in planting, harvesting, packaging, and transporting food. Another reason is that growing corn for ethanol will compete with other uses of land, and drive food prices up. Also, if there are fertilizer shortages, yields may be lower.

More defaults on loans can be expected, as food and petroleum prices increase. Families will have less money left over to pay mortgages and credit card debt.

Pre-peak impacts. Increases in oil and food prices are likely to begin even before peak hits, and seem to be happening already. All that is needed is a gap between oil supply and demand (see Part 1, Figure 5), not an actual decline. Ethanol-induced land shortages also contribute to the food price increases. Higher oil and food prices may be contributing to current US financial problems.

Reduced discretionary spending. People will spend less on things like restaurant food and out-of-town vacations.

Reduced economic growth or actual decline appears likely.

12. What are the implications of the likely shortfall in oil production on career opportunities?

Careers in fields that are very petroleum-dependent may not be good choices. For example, there will likely be fewer airline pilots in 2040 than there are today.

If there is less petroleum, people are likely to be interested in having stores nearby that they can walk to. Thus, there may be an opportunity for starting a small store in your own neighborhood, or developing a neighborhood clinic.

Recycled products, especially those using petroleum inputs, are also likely to become more important. There may be careers in buying and selling these products.

There is clearly a need for more scientist and engineers in many energy-related fields. We need to find better ways to extract the oil that is available, and we need to develop more fuel-efficient vehicles. We need to find more and better petroleum alternatives, and to find ways to scale up these alternatives to the quantities needed as replacements for petroleum products.

13. Are there any actions we should take?

These are several ideas:

a. When buying a car, purchase the smallest, most fuel-efficient model you can find.

b. Consider sharing rides with someone else who is commuting in the same general direction, or take public transportation.

c. Make greater use of work-at-home programs and distance learning programs. Or live in a dorm.

d. Move closer to work or school.

e. When distances are short, walk or ride a bicycle, rather than drive.

f. Use recycling, especially for petroleum-based products like plastic. Other recycling is also helpful from a general energy-saving perspective, but not necessarily from a petroleum-saving perspective.

g. Avoid fruits and vegetables that have been flown to the United States from around the world. These tend to be quite expensive.

h. Reduce trips taken to distant locations, whether by air or automobile.

One idea which looks at the shortfall in a different way is to reduce meat consumption by eating smaller portions of meat or by substituting beans for meat in some meals. We are currently using biofuels as a substitute for petroleum, and this puts huge pressure on the food supply. By eating less meat, a person can help reduce the pressure on the food supply.

Animals eat several times as many calories in grain products as they produce in meat calories. By eating less meat, fewer acres of grains need to be planted to meet our food needs. We also reduce the production of global warming gasses, because animals, particularly cows, are big contributors to these gasses.

Another idea is to get involved with campus groups or political groups to try to solve some of the problems in the years ahead. It is likely to be a difficult adjustment, but working together we are likely to be able to accomplish more than we can as individuals.

Part 2 – Discussion Questions

1. US oil consumption is about 25 barrels per year for each person in the United States. There are 42 gallons in a barrel, and each gallon contains on averages 34,800 (kilo) calories (gasoline has less, asphalt has more). How many (kilo) calories does this equate to? (Answer: 36,540,000)

If we had food equivalent to this many calories, how many people could be fed with this many calories, assuming people, on average, eat 2,000 (kilo) calories a day? (Answer: 50)

What does this relationship say about the likelihood that we will be able to grow enough crops to turn into biofuels to meet our current petroleum usage?

2. If oil rationing were imposed, and the amount of gasoline you could purchase were limited to half of what you are currently using today, how would that change your driving / commuting?

3. If you were the president of the United States, and needed to impose rationing, in what order would you rank the following in priority.

a. Military
b. Farmers
c. Chemical feedstock use
d. Transportation of food
e. Mining of coal and uranium
f. Transportation of non-food items
g. Railroad and bus fuel
h. Air travel
i. Emergency services (ambulance, police)
j. People with jobs
k. People without jobs (retired, students)

4. There have been numerous governmental studies about peak oil. It is clear from public comments that Alan Greenspan is a believer in peak oil, as is former President Clinton. President Bush and Dick Cheney worked in the oil industry before their election.

Do you think that President George W. Bush is aware of peak oil? If so, how do you think it has affected Bush’s presidency? How long do you think that they have been aware of peak oil? Do you think it has had any impact on their policies? Why haven’t they said anything about peak oil? http://search.doe.gov/search?output=xml_no_dtd&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&ie… http://www.peakoil.net/Articles2005/Westervelt_EnergyTrends__TN.pdf http://www.straight.com/article/clinton-raises-alarm-about-oil-depletion… http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119763743685729349.html (Greenspan) http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/Oil_Peaking_NETL.pdf

5. One of the reasons that there has been little said about peak oil is that economists keep saying that peak should not be no problem; in a free market economy, substitutes will be found.

Name three substitutes for food.

How does your answer to the substitutes for food question suggest that economic theory may be incorrect in with respect to replacements for liquid fuels?

6. If biofuels, at least at this point, seem to have as many environmental problems as oil, would it make sense to concentrate our efforts on enhanced oil recovery? How about coal to liquid?

For further reading – Relates to both Part 1 and Part 2:

A number of links are given in the reading material. In addition, some websites that may be of interest are

www.TheOilDrum.com – Discussion about energy and our future, including peak oil. Many articles written for the site, plus news items related to energy, and discussion about the various items. I write as “Gail the Actuary” for this site. A list of my articles can be found at http://www.theoildrum.com/user/Gail+the+Actuary/stories

www.EnergyBulletin.net – Peak oil related news items. No discussion.

Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas – USA http://www.aspo-usa.com/ Has a good weekly newsletter, and an annual conference.

Educational website about oil and gas, how it is formed, and production ins and outs http://www.ukooa.co.uk/education/storyofoil/index.cfm

“Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management” by Robert Hirsch, Roger Bezdek, and Robert Wendling. Analysis of peak oil and mitigation options, prepared for the for US Department of Energy in early 2005. http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/Oil_Peaking_NETL.pdf

Rear Admiral Hyman Rickover’s 1957 speech talking about the expected future decline in fossil fuel resources and the need to tell the younger generation. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2724

Myths of Biofuels – Talk by David Fridley – Free video for download – http://www.sfbayoil.org/sfoa/myths/index.html

Peak Oil and the Fate of Humanity – Series of downloadable presentations – Canadian http://www.peakoilandhumanity.com/chapter_choice.htm

A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn’t interfere with food supplies, company officials said.
Coskata, which is backed by General Motors …