Peak Oil has Likely Come and Gone - Now What?

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AndyH

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Here's one group's view of peak oil and one possible way thru.

http://www.theintelligentcommunity.com/

The first video is a 10-minute overview of the problem from their perspective:
"The Intelligent Community Video Overview of the Peak Oil Crisis"

It's looking very likely that worldwide oil peaked in 2005. US production peaked in 1970.
 
Interesting video. Even without peak oil, the rate of increase by the Chinese (7.5%+ per year) will make this an expensive commodity. China is now the leading export market for Saudi output.
 
The absolute best overview I've yet seen of both our ability to produce energy and how we use it comes from David MacKay in his book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air"

The author is a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge

It's available in paperback from book stores and on-line retailers, but is also available free on-line in both HTML and PDF format.

The 'without the hot air' part refers to the omission of emotion and political-speak in the book. The author states in the preface that:
"I'm concerned about cutting UK emissions of twaddle - twaddle about sustainable energy. Everyone says getting off fossil fuels is important, and we're all encouraged to "make a difference," but many of the things that allegedly make a difference don't add up.
Twaddle emissions are high at the moment because people get emotional (for example about wind farms or nuclear power) and no-one talks about numbers. Or if they do mention numbers, they select them to sound big, to make an impression, and to score points in arguments, rather than to aid thoughtful discussion.
This is a straight-talking book about the numbers. The aim is to guide the reader around the claptrap to actions that really make a difference and to policies that add up."

I can't recommend this book highly enough.
Andy
 
sjfotos said:
Interesting video. Even without peak oil, the rate of increase by the Chinese (7.5%+ per year) will make this an expensive commodity. China is now the leading export market for Saudi output.

Yes sir. That makes the fact that 42000 gallons of crude a day is flooding into the Gulf of Mexico from the rig explosion hurt just a little bit more. :(
 
AndyH said:
That makes the fact that 42000 gallons of crude a day is flooding into the Gulf of Mexico from the rig explosion hurt just a little bit more. :(

Well, whats 1000 barrels compared to 20 million we consume eery day ? :(
 
AndyH said:
Peak Oil has Likely Come and Gone - Now What?

To quote Nate Hagens of TOD ... there is hardly any agreement on how it will play out.

http://campfire.theoildrum.com/node/5839

The % of people acknowledging at least the possibility that we are already passed the peak in global oil production has markedly increased (though is still a minority overall). However, though most of the 'early peakers' (the small pink circle above) remain in that camp, 4+ years of analysis and insights have created a vast disparity of world views, beliefs and objectives within this once homogenous group. Slow collapse, fast collapse, catabolic collapse; renewable energy to the rescue; conservation and efficiency champions; human extinction let me count the days; powerdown, drill baby drill, retreat to steady state economy, World War III, Mad Max, the dawn of space based energy, lets just party and enjoy ourselves, etc. - the list of differing views is a long one.

I think Catabolic Collapse is a strong possibility.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2006/05/on-catabolic-collapse.html

Book : "The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age" : John Michael Greer

http://www.amazon.com/Long-Descent-Users-Guide-Industrial/dp/0865716099/ref=tag_tdp_ptcn_edpp_url
 
AndyH said:
The absolute best overview I've yet seen of both our ability to produce energy and how we use it comes from David MacKay in his book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air"

The author is a professor of physics at the University of Cambridge

It's available in paperback from book stores and on-line retailers, but is also available free on-line in both HTML and PDF format.

The 'without the hot air' part refers to the omission of emotion and political-speak in the book. The author states in the preface that:
"I'm concerned about cutting UK emissions of twaddle - twaddle about sustainable energy. Everyone says getting off fossil fuels is important, and we're all encouraged to "make a difference," but many of the things that allegedly make a difference don't add up.
Twaddle emissions are high at the moment because people get emotional (for example about wind farms or nuclear power) and no-one talks about numbers. Or if they do mention numbers, they select them to sound big, to make an impression, and to score points in arguments, rather than to aid thoughtful discussion.
This is a straight-talking book about the numbers. The aim is to guide the reader around the claptrap to actions that really make a difference and to policies that add up."

I can't recommend this book highly enough.
Andy

I read the book about the topic of wind power he uses the figure of 20kWh/d per person. But then this:
Then we conclude: if we covered the windiest 10% of the country with windmills (delivering 2 W/m2 ), we would be able to generate 20 kWh/d per person, which is half of the power used by driving an average fossil-fuel car 50 km per day. Britain’s onshore wind energy resource may be “huge,” but it’s evi-dently not as huge as our huge consumption. We’ll come to offshore wind later. I should emphasize how generous an assumption I’m making. Let’s compare this estimate of British wind potential with current installed wind power worldwide. The windmills that would be required to provide the UK with 20 kWh/d per person amount to 50 times the entire wind hard-ware of Denmark; 7 times all the wind farms of Germany; and double the entire fleet of all wind turbines in the world. Please don’t misunderstand me. Am I saying that we shouldn’t bother building wind farms? Not at all. I’m simply trying to convey a helpful fact, namely that if we want wind power to truly make a difference, the wind farms must cover a very large area.

What kind off assumption is this? An electric car uses much less energy then a gas powered one. How can you compare a gas car to wind power an come to the above conclusion? I cannot fill my car up with wind power. I am having a hard time saying this is a false conclusion because I am not a professor maybe I am missing something but for now I don't see this as a fair comparison. I will read the book further to check more.
 
Ugh, what nonsense. He's arguing that your average EVs needs 40kWh/50km (~1300 Wh/mi) generator-to-wheel. Generator to home is over 90% efficient (nearly 93% in the US), home to plug is likewise efficient, and a vehicle like the Leaf will consume ~250Wh/mi on the highway. You can run an electric class 5 or 6 truck on 1300 Wh/mi!

The problem is that he's treating EVs as though they are of equal efficiency to non-hybrid gasoline cars, when in reality, they're much more efficient. A gasoline car will only average turning about 20% of the energy in its tank into useful work.
 
One of my all time favorite comments; unfortunately I don't recall the source:

"When do you think we will hit peak oil? Hopefully it will be soon, we really need prices to start coming down."
 
KarenRei said:
Ugh, what nonsense. He's arguing that your average EVs needs 40kWh/50km (~1300 Wh/mi) generator-to-wheel.

I'm not sure he is arguing that. Looks to me he is just comparing to give an example - but not having read the whole book - I don't have the context.
 
LTLFTcomposite said:
One of my all time favorite comments; unfortunately I don't recall the source:

"When do you think we will hit peak oil? Hopefully it will be soon, we really need prices to start coming down."

Must be by one of those who thinks we have infinite amount oil & offshore drilling is perfectly safe - CERA's Yergin, may be ?
 
Matthijs said:
What kind off assumption is this? An electric car uses much less energy then a gas powered one. How can you compare a gas car to wind power an come to the above conclusion? I cannot fill my car up with wind power. I am having a hard time saying this is a false conclusion because I am not a professor maybe I am missing something but for now I don't see this as a fair comparison. I will read the book further to check more.

Fear not. :D

The author isn't saying anything about EVs with his 40kWh/day number for cars. In chapter 3 (page 29) he outlines that he arrived at the number by using a 50km average daily drive and the ~12 km/l economy number from a UK family car. He's also looking only at the energy content of a litre of gasoline for the estimate - not energy to produce the fuel (1.4 energy units per unit of fuel) or of the energy to make the car (chapter 15).

The book looks at what is happening now - and there aren't a significant number of EVs on the roads today. He develops broadly where energy is being used, where it currently comes from, then looks at what it would take to produce enough through renewable means.

In addition - the first half of the book is more 'general' - the 'back half' and it's parallel chapters has technical bits and more thorough info. He takes a much more detailed look at cars (and trains and bicycles) starting on page 254 where the geeks can get into Cd/Cda, speed, rolling resistance, and EVs.

Y'all Enjoy!
 
A bit of reality....I have solar, I have a wind turbine, I have a PHEV Prius.... the 10KWh Li pack takes the Prius from being a 40mpg commuter to a 80mpg commuter. For that hilly, 36mi commute each day the pack uses about 4.7KWh (recharge amount measured with Kill-Watt). A full tank can take me 800+mi.

The solar panels are way better power producers, where I live...on a sunny, windy day the panels (7.4KW array), may produce 40KWh of power, the turbine has only averaged around 1.6KWh/day for the first month.

Yes, it is quite feasible to power your household/car with a strong enough installation...As electric rates rise, and gas prices do their inevitable climb the payback period may soon be less than 10 years....Hard to say...Meantime the "feelgood" factor is priceless.

Scott
 
scottsim said:
A bit of reality....I have solar, I have a wind turbine, I have a PHEV Prius.... the 10KWh Li pack takes the Prius from being a 40mpg commuter to a 80mpg commuter. For that hilly, 36mi commute each day the pack uses about 4.7KWh (recharge amount measured with Kill-Watt). A full tank can take me 800+mi.

Let us add another bit of reality here.

How much does all this setup cost ? How much would it cost to have the same setup in 100 million US homes ?

Problem with all these feel good measures (that includes Leaf) is the scalability. If we had half a century to slowly transition - it would have all worked out. But we don't have 50 years before hitting major oil shortages - more like 5.
 
evnow said:
Let us add another bit of reality here.

How much does all this setup cost ? How much would it cost to have the same setup in 100 million US homes ?

Problem with all these feel good measures (that includes Leaf) is the scalability. If we had half a century to slowly transition - it would have all worked out. But we don't have 50 years before hitting major oil shortages - more like 5.

What's your plan, evnow? I agree with you absolutely 100% that we don't have 50 years to roll-out the next step. So - what's your plan?
 
evnow said:
scottsim said:
A bit of reality....I have solar, I have a wind turbine, I have a PHEV Prius.... the 10KWh Li pack takes the Prius from being a 40mpg commuter to a 80mpg commuter. For that hilly, 36mi commute each day the pack uses about 4.7KWh (recharge amount measured with Kill-Watt). A full tank can take me 800+mi.

Let us add another bit of reality here.

How much does all this setup cost ? How much would it cost to have the same setup in 100 million US homes ?

Problem with all these feel good measures (that includes Leaf) is the scalability. If we had half a century to slowly transition - it would have all worked out. But we don't have 50 years before hitting major oil shortages - more like 5.

The time argument is nonsense and it's brought into this world by the conventional power players. Nothing can be implemented faster then renewable energies.
 
Matthijs said:
The time argument is nonsense and it's brought into this world by the conventional power players. Nothing can be implemented faster then renewable energies.

Fear is a very powerful human motivator and there's a lot of fear involved as we shift to renewables.

On the supply side, power companies have enjoyed a virtual monopoly for a long time and haven't had to focus on customer retention as an area grows - but they're afraid of alternatives because it directly impacts their cash flow. The fuel companies that supply the power company with coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear material fear renewables for the same reason. Both of these groups have plenty of money and strong lobbies - and we already know how much money to pay to transfer their fears to our politicians. The fear messages will get stronger from these groups as the renewable lobby grows.

Consumers bring fear as well - they've had the magic power socket for a long time, and their parents before them. What?! That gives me hot water? Does that stuff really work? I hear that wind is useless and kills birds and solar only works during the day - how will I use my lights at night?

As with moving from gas cars to EVs - once one person safely transitions it's in their best interest to take as many people for rides as they can and tell others. More will try and 'live to tell the story'. The fears won't be balanced until people hear enough positive stories from folks doing the 'new scary thing.' The private pilot community has been doing this for years - take someone for a ride - show them what flying is really like - only that can destroy the fear and news stories about plane crashes.

As I type this, I'm listening to news reports covering the aftermath of a 24 inch natural gas pipeline explosion on the north side of San Antonio, and reports about evacuations and toxic emissions as a refinery burns on the south side.

I envy you, Matthijs - I really wish we could import a heavy dose of the European view of energy and environmental stewardship - the US could really use some of that. :(
 
AndyH said:
What's your plan, evnow? I agree with you absolutely 100% that we don't have 50 years to roll-out the next step. So - what's your plan?

Get an EV, try not to be dependent on things made far away, eat local. Be careful in investments. Try to travel and see as much of the world as I can before air travel gets too expensive (something I'm yet to put into practice !).

I don't think as individuals we can do too much about it - I don't believe in some mad-max apocalypse fantasy like some do.
 
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