Local Future Network - Peak Oil - Crude Awakening - 2

Crude Awakening: Peak Oil and The End of Cheap Energy

Part 2 - Impact and Transition by John Richter

Highlights

Length: 50 minutes

"We want our oil, we want our gas, we're gonna drive, and we'll pay whatever it takes, and, if we have to, we'll cut back somewhere else in our lives, to free up the money, to buy that gas, because... what choice do you have, in the short term?"

Richter explains the physical and economic constraints on oil flows, including the demand and supply sides. He discusses the disappearance of excess capacity, increase in US and Chinese demand, lack of tankers, and limited personnel. He points out how supply has failed to increase rapidly enough to hold price steady, marking the beginning of entering the top of the peak oil curve.

Richter tackles the various hopes for increasing supply. Converting tar sands in Alberta and Venezuela into oil is extremely expensive, energy intensive, and environmental destructive. Production will be unable to increase production as fast as the depletion rate of conventional oil. Shale rock ("oil shale") requires more energy input than the energy extracted. This requires the heating of the rock for several years before the oil can be extracted, at a very low rate. Gas to Liquids are also extremely expensive.

"These are the illusions that people are clinging to... in the desperate hope that we can go on living the way we're living."

Converting biomass or plants to transportation fuel can not displace oil. Ethanol currently contributes to 3% of US gasoline. The goal is to double that in six years. About twenty-five percent of the US agricultural land is used to grow corn. If 100% of that land were used (with none remaining for food), then 20% of US gasoline could be supplied. "We have to eat, too. That's kind of important for some of us," says Richter. Ethanol has a very poor net energy return, and has not been looked at closely enough to say for sure if it is a qualified winner or loser. Sugar cane and sugar beets have much better return factors. Cellulose conversion is a distant hope for finding a new way to create ethanol. Bio-diesel can provide less than 10% of US diesel needs.

Electrical energy from coal, nuclear, and renewables can not be converted into transportation fuel. "Hydrogen is not a source of energy." Energy must be used to create hydrogen, it takes up a lot of space, is hard to contain, weakens regular steel containers, and hydrogen is explosive. A fuel cell is a battery utilizing hydrogen, but fuel cells also have multiple drawbacks.

Two thirds of US oil consumption is used for transportation fuels. Not only is fuel economy dropping, but people are driving much more, especially from suburbs. "It's our life style, which, of course, our Vice-President [Cheney] has told us, 'is not up for negotiation'. Well, we won't have to negotiate it. Nature doesn't negotiate."

Richter points out that moving people from low fuel economy cars to mid fuel economy cars, while others move from mid fuel economy to high fuel economy, would cut in half gasoline demand, if usage held steady. Policies are needed to increase the average fuel economy of the fleet. Hybrid engine automobiles greatly improve the economy with which vehicles use energy in the fuel by recovering energy that is wasted in regular vehicles. One hundred mile per gallon vehicles are possible. Fully electric vehicles are also viable, especially if charged by up with renewable, sustainable electricity sources.

One difficulty is that over 75% of US workers drive to work alone. In contrast, four-fifths of New York's workers commute by mass transit. Correctly matched buses and trains are the most efficient forms, next to walking and biking. Choosing homes near work, stores, and schools greatly reduces individual transportation needs.

"At some point, the low wage worker can not afford to drive to work anymore... We can't shut down the low wage section of the economy because of oil..."

"What are the economic effects of Peak Oil? Higher inflation and higher unemployment... When you have rapidly escalating energy prices, you get stagflation."

"We have a lot of options here, to reduce our energy use, but the runway is short... Peak Oil is imminent, and the declines will be sharp, and we will have to act quickly."

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Tim Hudson, John Richter and Dominic Crea are founding members of the "Institute of Sustainable Energy Education" (I.S.E.E.) and known as the "Energy Myth Busters". They have delivered talks on Peak Oil at venues including the G.L.R.E.A. Michigan Energy Fair, the Upland Hills Ecological Awareness Center, St. Clair County Community College, Cedar Creek Institute, and the Midwest Renewable Energy Association's Energy Fair.