The Oil Drum: Europe

Do people appreciate the scale of the problem facing us?

NO!

Not even the people who read TOD ... I find it amazing that people can see that oil production will peak but propose alternatives completely blind to the fact that they could also peak.

Peaking is a phenomenon of consumption of any resource faster than it can be profitably created - if the peaking resource in question happens to be a Liebig minimum for 'something else' then the 'something else' will also peak.

Example resources might be credit, steel, copper, gold, fish, agriculture, tropical jungle, etc. etc. etc.

Example 'something else' - humans.

The Severn Tidal Power Group proposal, which appears the most developed and costed, suggests 17 TWh per year from 8.64 GW installed capacity.

UK electricity consumption is 350 TWh per year, so the barrage scheme would supply less than 5%

for starters we can allow shell oil to start using the technology they have developed to mine crude from oil shale in the american west. we can gassify coal and drill off both coasts and in anwar. we can use one type of gasoline in the us. , as opposed to the multi region blends foisted upon the american public by the greenies.

EP - to be fair to Andris, most EU energy policy statements do mention / focus upon efficiency. It is just omitted from this blog article - which has focussed on salvation via renewables.

I think that you and I are pretty much in agreement that the way to go is a combination of energy efficiency and use of energy efficient alternatives - which does not include bio fuel. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

EP,
In our last saga, about the ICE vs battery, I quoted VW as an example of a major automobile manufacturer who had just invested in common rail diesel technology, although it already had a leading "unit injector" design under the "PD" designation. I don't know who/what Passivhaus is, but I get the gist of your comment. Germany has very predominant car manufacturing industry and is obviously reluctant to implement any policy that may damage that. It is also a major EU economy and is against speed limits on its Auto Bahns. Speed restriction is a very cost effective way of fuel conservation as I'm sure you agree. In contrast, the UK will implement any amount of legislation as long as it does not affect finance.

Changing the subject, Jevons's paradox is alive and well. My first diesel was a Montego estate. It was direct injection and offered very good fuel economy at the time. A work collegue had also bought a similar vehicle, he was an ex coal miner. He said to me in his North Notts/yorkshire accent " Trouble is youth, thou buys a car that does twice miles per gallon, but thee ends up doing trice the miles and you gain nowt.

KiltedGreen - I won't argue with what you say here. Consume less will come with high energy prices which IMO are only just getting up a head of steam. Part of what you say here is explained by Jevon's paradox - this is lifted from a post we should publish this week. If any Jevon's experts want to comment?

Jevon’s Paradox

At this point it is worth visiting Jevon’s Paradox which according to Wikipedia states:

that as technological improvements increase the efficiency with which a resource is used, total consumption of that resource may increase, rather than decrease.

This may provide grounds for scepticism with regard to our focus on energy efficiency. It may be postulated, however, that in an energy-declining world, Jevon’s paradox will break down, or at least will have to work in another way.

It will not be possible for consumption to rise in response to improved efficiency since we will be experiencing the decline of a finite resource. At best, what we can hope for is that efficiency improvements will allow industrial civilisation to continue to function in much the same way as before whilst using considerably less energy whilst becoming increasingly reliant upon alternative energy sources.

In an energy declining world energy efficiency will be King and the following examples of vehicular transportation and electricity generation will show that this focus on energy efficiency will actually deliver greater CO2 reduction than the CO2 focussed approach achieves.

Where I am really coming from with my efficiency argument is in, for example, coal fired power stations that are only 37% efficient where they could be over 90% efficient. Do you not agree that it would be much better to use all primary energy much more efficiently than 37%?

KG

I read carefully what Euan says and I think he is well aware of the problems you adress. But you are right in what you say here. There is an interesting "rant" on the Australian blog about health and safety. It touches my heart. Here's the article.

Hi Folks,

I hate to be the one to tell you, but you are all deluding yourselves that "Help is on the way"

I am now in a Third world country where we know the cost of oil.

We load up to seven people on a 150cc motorcycle. I personally only limit myself to four at a time.

150cc divided by 7 = 21cc/person

We use "Easy-rides" for people-transport. It is a 900cc, twelve valve, five speed Suzuki Multi-Cab. We load at least 12 people before the engine is started. More may jump "On" as it goes.

900cc divided by 12 = 75cc/person.

I understand that the "safety" arrangements are a bit lacking

We have 95 million people sharing limited resources and we have found a way to make it work. We lose some through lack of "Safety" but nowhere near the 4 Billion that the Olduvai Theory says will be lost if we keep doing things the "Safe way"

With GM, Ford, and etc, etc, still putting out 7 litre engines and still measuring the time from 0-60 MPH, I do not believe any one of you who read this, can honestly think anything will change until the bottom falls out.

Not even the less intelligent believe that this modern Industrial/military complex of Consumerism can be diverted.

China and India are going to get their share no matter what.

The tragedy is that (Modern American)Culture has exploited all the Homo Sapien innate weaknesses. There is no voluntary escape from what our pleasure centers tell us is so rewarding.

I have enjoyed 66 years of wasting and squandering. I had tremendous fun and reward, mostly at the expense of the Future. The Dilemma of my Commons was very simple. Starting at the Apex of the Pyramid, when "they" get the conviction of "Actually doing something that matters" I will hold their hand. However, as long as they are fooling the system I am going to do it better and quicker than they can. I am sure "God" will take care of things.

Sorry, but this how I see reality.

Urgh...

we should certainly NOT have policies that encourage gas burning.

majorian, as my conceptual forecast for UK gas shows, growth in storage capacity is essential in the short term but only provides a short term solution (which will happen). Medium term (10+ years from now) we may struggle in the UK to source sufficient gas in summer to fill storage for use in winter.

On LNG - global supply is about half global import capacity.

Current storage capacity (as of 2006):

(1 bcm = 35 tcf)

France, Italy and Germany are close to 25% of yearly imports.

As the song says 'this could be the start of something big'. I wouldn't bother too much cleaning up the biosyngas, just store it in a low pressure gasometer for use in low speed diesel or turbine generators. There is a nice symmetry about forest areas helping backup renewables located in desert, offshore or mountain areas. Urban sewage plants could also store biomethane for backup purposes.

I believe we have to move towards a society where we simply use less energy, cut consumption, don't use more.

Now this is far easier said than done and it isn't a simple matter at all. Consuming less energy both directly and indirectly is a direct challenge and critique of our current economic paradigm, free market capitalism. Now I do very, very, well out of the globalized market economy. However, that doesn't mean I think it's a just or sustainable model, now or in the future.

I think we cannot ignore that cutting consumption and using less energy will bring us into direct conflict with the most fundamental tennets of the 'free market' system we all live under. This is a direct challenge to the way power and wealth are distributed in society. I think this was always the Achilles heel of the Green movement. The lack of understanding and appreciation of basic political realities and power relationships. That somehow environmentalism was politically neutral. This concept is so far from accurate as to be absurd.

If one is really serious about the environment and reversing the disasterous road we are on as a society, one has to be politically serious as well, otherwise nothing will really change very much.

. . . eventually they will have none to sell and all the resources spent to generate energy from their fossil fuels will be an enormous waste, as bad as building US-style sprawl.

The EIA has released their 2007 crude oil production estimates, which gives us a pretty decent idea of net exports by the top five net exporters. The actual 2005 and 2006 top five net export data and estimated 2007 data are as follows (EIA, Total Liquids):

2005: 23.5 mbpd
2006: 22.7
2007: 21.7

This is an average decline of 900,000 bpd per year, which would put them in the vicinity of zero net exports around 2031, which is also the middle case in our (Khebab/Brown) net export study. Of course, some smaller exporters, like Angola, are showing export increases, but smaller exporters tend to peak and decline faster, e.g., Mexico, which is on track to approach zero net exports around 2014 (the key determinant is consumption as a percentage of production at peak).

In any case, I think that we are headed to a future where the primary international trade is bilateral trade between net food exporters and net energy exporters, i.e., food for energy and energy for food. It's not a good time to be both a net food and net energy importer.

"The biggest fallacy of Energy Independence is that such is impossible. Not even death is independent of enegry, as the dead body becomes an energy source."

It seems you didn't really grasp the definition of 'energy independency'. It doesn't mean "not depending on energy" as you imply, it means "not depending on another sovereign body to get energy".

Notice that it is a concept that is orthogonal to fossil or renewable energy usage. It is just a coincidence that for Europe it requires renewable or nuclear.

Robert:

Academia is currently hopelessly timid and unimaginative.

I'd tend to agree. I would actually quite like to spend the last 10 years of my productive life (or that may be 30) working in academia but thus far the type of research I have to offer is viewed with fear and loathing. Universities, permeated by the cancer that is PC are unwilling to take risks with corporate funding or student numbers upon which government funding is based.

I cannot offer a complete picture to the problems you raise but can offer a few jigsaw pieces that one day will fit together in someone's mind - maybe after the fact. Forecasting the past is seen as a worthy exercise by many. And so a few disjointed ideas:

1. Population will need to fall during the 21st century and this will result in a focussing of existing assets and resources (stuff) down through the generations.

2. We need to abandon the idea of pensions which I see as one of the main drivers for growth. Once we dispense with the need to save for the future we dispense with much of the need for growth. Most people will finance their day to day needs through work. We will all need to work till we die (this gets rid of some of your 50% tax burden)

3. Energy efficiency savings combined with expansion of renewables (your view on coal is much too optimistic) will enable us to power this declining population, shrinking economy.

4. Stock valuations will need to re-base in the 4 to 7 range - your S&P 500 looks like it is heading for a major spreading - simply because high PEs anticipate growth. There will still be growth companies - I don't know how many times I looked at Apple and thought naw - too expensive. Energy companies are still the play of the day.

Bank valuations in the UK are already headed for the 4 to 7 PE range.

5. Human attitudes will have to change and wealth may become measured in new and different ways. Things will happen that we have not yet imagined.

Euan

I too have been trying to think positively, about solutions to the challanges we face, and directing society's resources towards mitigating climate change and the multitude of challenges we face.

Unfortunately the 'solution' that first sprang to mind only underlined the true magitude of the fundamental changes that are required in Western society if we're to have any chance or hope of getting through the next few very difficult decades.

Western countries have currently squandered well over three trillion dollars in fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even if we stopped the fighting now and withrew our forces the cost is going to rise substantially, mainly due to the horrendous longterm costs of looking after the sick and wounded soldiers, that we allegedly care so much about and think of as heroes. The total figure for the wars now leaps up to somewhere in the region of six trillion dollars! That is a vast amount of money by anyones standards. A tremendous weight around our necks, which could have been spent far more wisely and productively. For example invested in alternative energy and the 'reforms' we so badly and urgently need to implement.

So we really do have the resources available to pay for change, yet we 'choose' to waste them on these ghastly and vile wars instead. The challenge is to stop and reverse these insane policies and divert the resources towards 'sanity' instead.

We have clearly vast sums available to waste on wars and we obviously have a whole list of challanges where the resources and money could be better spent. But what about the will? Do we really have the will to change? Change the way we live? Let's say we do have the will, what about the power? Do we really have the power to take on the tiny and currupt elite that decide to waste trillions of dollars on wars that benefit no one and are only dragging us closer to the edge?

I think the ruling elite have decieded that the answer to the challanges we face as a society, both environmental and in relation to energy supplies, are best addressed resort to even more war. That there is a military solution to the coming energy/resource crisis. This will have profound implications for the way we organize Western society. Is the 'military solution' a real 'solution' at all? Is the military solution compatible with democracy? Does it require the 'militerization' of society? Will the militerization of society mean the evolution of a kind of fascism? Will large sections of the community actively oppose the lurch towards a disciplined, controlled and agressively militeristic society?

Now this is clearly highly speculative. But one can already see that important figures in Nato and in the US are already preparing the ground for a radical re-think of Nato's role in the world. Two things are mentioned more and more frequently; the security implications of rapid climate change and the ability of Nato to access the energy resources we require and demand, and at prices we can afford. Nato forces are going to become the 'pipeline police' and the citizens of Europe need to be 're-educated' about the importance of the military in securing our way of life, and especially the way of life of the fabulously wealthy elite that rules over us.

Soon we are going to have to choose. Are we really going to allow the elite to lead us towards innumerable resource wars, or are we going to oppose this strategy and demand a radical alternative and effectively challange the elite for control of society, with all that that inevitably implies.

CAES is more efficient than CCGT because the compression energy is supplied externally from wind farm excess electricity.

One of the major challenges of the power business today is to generate electricity using fossil fuels while minimizing the impact of air emissions on the environment. For simple cycle machines, low- NOx burners are the primary emissions control technology. For CC technology, the HRSG enables the use of a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) module that removes most of the NOx from the air stream. CAES technology also permits use of an SCR module, but in this case it is integrated into the air-to-air heat exchanger design, permitting close control of the catalyst temperature. The NES facility is permitted at 3.5 ppm NOx.

The CAES machine also uses much less fuel than either a GT or CC, which results in air emissions per kWh substantially lower than those of a GT or CC. A typical heat rate for the CAES power generation cycle is in the range of 4,000 Btu/kWh (LHV), which is substantially lower than that of even the best combined cycle.

The features of the CAES cycle mentioned above create a physical machine well suited to the demands of today's changing power business. The CAES cycle turns low-cost energy from underutilized baseload plants into valuable on-peak energy utilizing the least natural gas of any power generating technology. This mix of energy costs allows a CAES plant to operate during the daily peak periods for virtually every day of the year. The lack of a steam cycle minimizes complexity and creates greater flexibility for daily cycling duty compared to a CC or fired steam boiler. The heat recovery aspect provides far better economic performance than a GT.

Because the NES plant will rely on baseload plants for off-peak power - potentially increasing their capacity factors - retrofitting emissions control technology on coal-fired plants in the Midwest becomes more viable. Finally, the combination of generation on the daily peaks and compression during the off-peak period creates ancillary services availability in virtually all hours of the year. CAES is a good example of where technology neglected during cost of service regulation can be encouraged by market forces to increase the efficient use of existing plants while minimizing the capital necessary for additional peaking capacity.

http://tiny.cc/80YAa