[quote=darbikrash]
I’m really puzzled by the reference to electric cars and carbon fiber as “fantasy technology”. No doubt, these technologies are not currently optimized for true mass production, but they are real and they are available. Today.
(…)
To not account for and anticipate this possibility is a major mistake in my view.[/quote]
These are fantasy technologies because they do not exist at scale today. There are over 100,000,000 cars in America today and there are 700 delivered Teslas as of Sept 2009. It is too far for me to leap from the fact that Teslas exist to thinking that they represent a realistic replacement alternative for a hundred million vehicles.
I understand the allure of technology but I insist on running the numbers for time, scale and cost.
1) Time: How long would it take to replace existing technology with new technology? How much time do we have? Are these numbers at all aligned?
2) Scale: Do the rare earth metals even exist to support the magnet requirements of these modern technological miracles? How many factories will we need? What sorts of manufacturing skill sets? If we lack any of the above, how long will it take to build/train what we need (see “time” above)?
4) Cost: Given all the other things we need to spend money on, will we be able to afford a complete overhaul of our manufacturing base to create enough cars to allow us to continue our car centric way of life? What about the energy cost of replacement? Is the best use of our remaining energy surplus essentially building a new vehicle to replace existing units?
Given everything I’ve studied, it is a complete fantasy to propose that we’ll make a smooth transition into carbon-fiber electric vehicles. We’re out of time, haven’t even started on the scale issues and most likely cannot afford to make the transition to any meaningful extent. Instead we’d do better coming to grips with the notion that the car-centric way of life is due for a big change and with it our operating assumptions about how life works.
If we’d started in earnest 20 years ago I would have a completely different outlook. I’ve yet to notice that we officially started at all outside of entirely too few underfunded private enterprise efforts.
I am not surprised that some within the IEA have leaked this news. Rather, it is astonishing that this has not become known earlier. (See the article in the Guardian: Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower.)
The article ”The Peak and Decline of World Oil and Gas Production” was published as long ago as 2003 in the scientific journal Minerals and Energy – Raw Materials Report by Kjell Aleklett and Colin C. Campbell (Volume 18, Number 1, 2003 , pp. 5-20[16].) It was the first “peer reviewed” article to discuss Peak Oil.
That article was read in 2007 by representatives of the “Global Transport Forum” of the OECD and they gave me the task of writing the report, ”Peak Oil and the Evolving Strategies of Oil Importing and Exporting Countries”. This report was one of those discussed at a round table meeting that was held in the IEA’s conference room in Paris. At that opportunity, in November 2007, I had a number of private conversations with officers of the IEA. The revelations now reported in the Guardian were revealed to me then under the promise that I not name the source. I had earlier heard the same thing from another officer from Norway who, at the time he spoke of the pressure being applied by the USA, was working for the IEA. Since these anecdotes were not scientific evidence I never made use of the information other than as inspiration to continue our own research.
Earlier, following a suggestion by Colin Campbell, I had communicated to Sweden’s delegate at the IEA that Sweden should leave the IEA since it was deceiving the world and this would have serious consequences globally. I also asked how they could approve of something like the World Energy Outlook that was so in error. I had previously posted an analysis of World Outlook 2004 on ASPO’s homepage. In the discussion that followed it was revealed that the USA was applying pressure. The pressure was that the IEA should consider the prognoses that USA’s Energy Information Agency releases half a year earlier as guidelines for the IEA report. In connection with this I can mention that, in 2003, we received financial support from [Sweden’s] Energy Authority to begin the research that has now resulted in our publication “Peak of the Oil Age” and that Sweden’s Energy Authority also financed the first Peak Oil conference (ASPO) that we held in Uppsala in 2002.
After meeting with the Swedish delegate I have, at various times, communicated my view that Guy Caruso (who was then responsible for the EIA and its prognoses) was one of the world’s most dangerous people. Today a great deal of the responsibility for this situation rests with him. I have also asserted that I did not think that the level of competence within the IEA could be so low that all of its officers believed in what they have been presenting. What these faulty analyses will cost the world in the future is difficult to estimate but all the crisis packages that are currently in place are presumably a smaller part of that cost. In our publication ”How reasonable are oil production scenarios from public agencies?” we have shown that the IEA’s future prognoses are erroneous.
I truly wonder what advantage the US EIA saw in promoting an overly rosy view of world oil supplies? Was this simply really poor thinking? Was it reflective of short-term political desires? Is there a larger game afoot?
Whatever the reason, we were very poorly served by these efforts.
I think any reasonable scenario that covers the next 5 years has to include not only very high oil prices ($250+/bbl) but actual shortages as well. I wonder how many companies have a plan in place for such an outcome?
Chris,
In response to your last comment. How much of this is political short termism given the reaction that Carter faced in trying to awaken people. Ultimately, from what I can see every politician fails in the end, do these things then become a propoganda tool in order to hold onto the reins of power for as long as possible???
I agree with what you are saying by the way, I’m just fascinated and frustrated by all this at the same time. I just wonder when we will see meaningful debate and if we do, who will be blamed.
Re: Carbon Fiber
In preparation for a third career, I just completed a two-week course on bicycle repair (United Bicycle Institute). When discussing carbon fiber, one of the instructors mentioned that there is more carbon fiber used in a single airplane than all the bikes manufactured (w/ carbon fiber) each year. From a health perspective, it certainly makes sense to get people on carbon fiber bikes rather than finding a way to get them into carbon fiber cars.
Is there a benefit to DC in Argentina as opposed to Costa Rica or Panama? Spend some time on the subject myslef and wondered if you can comment. One of my close non-family members was killed in Guatemala last year so I have ruled that out.
Chris,
Thanks so much for this post, I’ve been agitated all day since coming across this article. Thanks as well for pointing out the importance of looking at the multiple factors required when assessing any of the proposed technological solutions; time, scale and cost/resources.
As to another item you raised in a comment, I’ve also been wondering what the point of suppressing information would be. I could certainly understand downplaying the situation while working like crazy to make and start to implement contingency plans build out electric transport/ infrastructure etc. Good to prevent panic while working on adaptation. What reason would there be to keep it from the larger public otherwise? Your question about whether there is a larger game afoot makes me shudder.
Anyone else see the parallels between the financial mess and the energy one… ?
Replace IEA with the Ratings Agencies… - “lets hope we’re retired before this house of cards comes down” …
Just speculating… but I wouldn’t be that suprised to see a sudden energy panic, some time next year…
Peak oil going mainstream, saturation coverage… followed up with unpopular measures rammed through a reluctant congress…
… what would be the oil equivalent of TARP etc ? Rationing ? Higher fuel taxes ?
The 2009 Tesla Roadster, a high-performance electric sports car that retails for more than $100,000, can be yours for nearly 40% off. There’s one catch. You have to be a Colorado resident.
Those in the Rocky Mountain state qualify for a whopping $42,083 discount when they buy a Tesla Roadster before Dec. 31.
How is this possible? A new tax regulation gives Colorado residents a credit on their 2009 income tax for up to 85% of the difference between the cost of a vehicle that runs on alternative fuel and one that runs on regular liquid fuel, Fox News reported.
Colorado residents can also use this credit for other alternative fuel cars like the 2009 Lexus LS 600h - on which they’ll get a $20,000 rebate - the Honda Insight of Toyota Prius.
Biodiesel is NOT expensive, but it isn’t an option because of all the things CM has said over and over and over… scalability and timing. And in any case, bio fuels are usually made with crops used as food either directly for humans, or indirectly to feed the animals we eat or milk.
Mike
Why keep this in the dark? What are the benefits?
Well, you keep the populace of your society in the dark, pop the problem on them out of nowhere which creates a “crisis”. Then you bring about a “solution” that the masses will HAVE TO go with because there aren’t any other options on the table at the time. Again, it’s the basic fascist agenda: Problem - Reaction - Solution
It’s real people…open your eyes and connect the dots.
Great piece that covers why breeder reactors and fusion are not going to
save our bacon. Breeders are several decades away, and fusion will never
happen…
The Future of Nuclear Energy: Facts and Fiction - Part IV: Energy from
Breeder Reactors and from Fusion? http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5929#more
This is the fourth part of a four-part guest post by Dr. Michael
Dittmar. Dr. Dittmar is a researcher with the Institute of Particle
Physics of ETH Zurich, and he also works at CERN in Geneva.
The accumulated knowledge and the prospects for commercial energy
production from fission breeder and fusion reactors are analyzed in this
report.
The publicly available data from past experimental breeder reactors
indicate that a large number of unsolved technological problems exist
and that the amount of “created” fissile material, either from the U238
→ Pu239 or from the Th232 → U233 cycle, is still far below the breeder
requirements and optimistic theoretical expectations. Thus huge efforts,
including many basic research questions with an uncertain outcome, are
needed before a large commercial breeder prototype can be designed. Even
if such efforts are undertaken by the technologically most advanced
countries, it will take several decades before such a prototype can be
constructed. We conclude therefore, that ideas about near-future
commercial fission breeder reactors are nothing but wishful thinking.
We further postulate that, no matter how far into the future we may
look, nuclear fusion as an energy source is even less probable than
large-scale breeder reactors, for the accumulated knowledge on this
subject is already sufficient to say that commercial fusion power will
never become a reality.
continued… http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/5929#more
FJ.. no need for panic.. it took 80 years to climb the peak.. the transition is inevitable but not instant.....
Realisation can occur instantly… but the actual descent will be gradual…
Everything will not fall apart instantly… it will degrade… and evolve…
The decline is likely to be far steeper then the ascent:
Oil production began with limited technology. Up until the 1940’s drilling was limited to shall depths, and they couldn’t drill in regions that were capped in very hard rock. It took a long time for technology to develop that could tap much of oil available.
Demand for Oil was weak in the 1860’s, as it took 80 years to build an infrastructure that was dependant on Oil. We didn’t start our with tens or hundreds of millions of Oil guzzling vehicles on the roads. Nor did we have commerical airplance that sucked a swimming pool of oil to reach their destinations.
40% of the Oil produced comes from 10 super giant oil fields that all have been in production for more than 30 years. All of which are in or near tetrary oil recovery which is the final stage of oil production with any sizeable production. Its Just a matter of a few years when these super giants begin to water out and production drops to a fraction of current production. An example of what happens is the Mexican Cantarelli field, the second largest field that experienced a severe production collapse that began in late 2007, and continues to this day. We also have the North Sea Field which is in terminal decline and is following a steep production curve. We need to plot the future production curves using the data from these fields that have entered terminal decline to get a sense of future production curves from the remaining super giants.
The remaining untapped oil consists of small fields that are in difficult to reach locations (artic, deep water) which make it expensive to produce ($80 to $140 USD-2008). It can take more than a decade of development before these fields can deliver oil to the market. Some of the recent discoveries are simply not economically viable because the cost to produce will exceed the costs that the average consumer can afford. Some of these fields have development costs exceeding $100 Billion (in 2008 USD). Thats larger than most countries’ GDP!
The oil production curve is likely to follow a mirror image of the Chi-Square curve, the tail of the chi-square curve fits in nicely with the beginning production curve from the 1860’s to the 1970’s. War, politics and economics have largely distorted the production curve from after the 1970’s. Currenty we are still very near the peak production, and the global recession is distorting current demand/production. A few years from now (4 to 8 years) the production decline curve will become much steeper, as all of the super giants water out, and the newer, much much smaller discovered fields, can’t replace the production losses of the super giants. It also wouldn’t surprise me to see much more gov’t interference in to oil production that further excerbates production declines. Gov’t interference could be nationalization of drilers, subsidizes that permit unqualified/inexperience drillers to drill and mismanage fields, or other stupid policies that only a bureaucrat can think of.
Another issue to concerned is that some oil exporters may choose to drastically cut exports in order to extend production over a much longer period. Many exporters in the Middle East need oil exports to to pay for food, and critical manufactured goods such as trucks, tools, building materials since they lack natural resources and domestic manufacturing capablities to produce manufactured goods. This may alter future anticipated oil export models. Another factor is which nations will go to war in order to secure declining oil production for their own economies. The United States seems to be the first power to undertake this strategy and I doubt it will be the last country. As more countries struggle with declining production it will significantly raise the chances of another World War.
FWIW: I expect that we will experience a global whip-saw economy as the price of oil swings back and forth, because of the falling production that causes prices to rise rapidly, that causes demand to plummet, that causes prices to fall back. This cycle will repeat many times until something falls apart, perhaps its a global war, or a total collapse of a major world power. Although, a long duration economic recession caused by the credit bubble will probably smooth out and cap price swings.
Chi-Square Distribution Curve of oil production:
Future 1970’s 1860’s
WhipSaw Oil pricing effect caused by supply contrain and strong demand:
Orangedem,
I was never convinced that the oil was the real reason for invading Iraq. Right after watching a lecture on the Future of Oil by Prof. Roland Horne in the School of Earth Science at Standford University (please see the link below), the exact same thought occurred to me. I had to re-think about the real reason for invading Iraq in perspective. Does it make us a thief nation and a bully nation with the biggest gun in the world?
Oil demand (excluding biofuels) is projected to grow by 1% per year on average over the projection period, from 85 million barrels per day in 2008 to 105 mb/d in 2030. All the growth comes from non-OECD countries: OECD demand actually falls. The transport sector accounts for 97% of the increase in oil use. As conventional oil production in countries not belonging to the Organization
of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) peaks around 2010, most of the increase
in output would need to come from OPEC countries, which hold the bulk of remaining
recoverable conventional oil resources.
