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The EU Strategic Energy Review: maybe not so depressing after all
Posted by Jerome a Paris on November 14, 2008 - 10:15am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Yesterday, on the basis of press reports, I noted that the new EU Energy Strategy was depressing, if predictable. But today, the strategy was actually posted on the EU's website (you can find it here, with all supporting documents) and, reading it, I find it much less offensive than the press makes it to be.
For one, beyond an early reference to the current goals of "sustainability, competitiveness and security of supply", there is not a word about competition and market mechanisms in the whole Memo on the Strategic Energy Review (pdf). Not one. I was amazed. In fact, this memo, beyond a bit of fluff that can easily be ignored, is almost sensible!
Let me get you through it.
The EU approach to energy security
Energy security is an issue of common EU concern. With the integration of energy markets and infrastructures within the EU, specific national solutions are often insufficient. And while each Member State is in the first instance responsible for its own security, solidarity between Member States is a basic feature of EU membership. Strategies to share and spread risk, and to make the best use of the combined weight of the EU in world affairs can be more effective than dispersed national
actions.From a medium to long-term energy security viewpoint, the EU's 20-20-20 strategy is the right direction to go in. An energy system with a diversity of non-fossil fuel supplies, flexible infrastructures and capacities for demand management will be very different in energy security terms than today’s system.
In the short to medium term, Europe's dependence on imports means that effective provisions for preventing and dealing with supply crises must be in place. Europe can and must diminish its vulnerability to energy supply shocks, first and foremost by developing its own strengths, internally and externally.
The focus on solidarity, infrastructure, non-fossil fuel source and - gasp - demand management is not just appropriate - it's downright refreshing! Remember that the "20-20-20 strategy" can be criticized for lack of ambition, but it certainly goes in the right direction (the three 20s refer to 20% share of renewables in energy sources, 20% increase in energy efficiency, and 20% reduction in carbon emissions, ie two of the three are effectively demand-side targets).
EU energy security and solidarity action plan
The Commission proposes a five-point EU Energy Security and Solidarity Action Plan:
- Infrastructure needs and the diversification of energy supplies
- External energy relations
- Oil and gas stocks and crisis response mechanisms
- Energy efficiency
- Making the best use of the EU’s indigenous energy resources.
The press has focused on the first items, which include the usual suspects (Nabucco, groan), smart stuff (reinforcing networks connecting the Baltic countries to the rest of Europe) and spectacular announcements (a "supergrid" connecting offshore wind farms in the North Sea to various countries around it), and these, with the dubious exception of Nabucco (which can be built only if gas is found to fill it, the only credible source right now being Russian gas, which rather defeats the stated purpose of reducing dependency on Russia), make a lot of sense.
Large-scale infrastructure and network development is definitely what EU energy policy should concentrate upon, and the parallel plans to increase reserves and crisis response mechanisms can only be applauded (unless what is meant is countries with large reserve capacity - Germany, France, Italy, ie countries with strong long term import policies - being forced to share them with countries that did not bother to build any - the UK and its "efficient" liberalised markets, because that would be looting, not solidarity).
Energy efficiency (with specific focus on construction standards) and "domestic" energy (ie renewables) certainly need to be encouraged and supported - it's smart policy that pays for itself very quickly, and it's good to see it figure here prominently enough.
Even the paragraph on external energy relationships is sensible, with a focus on interdependency:
With producer countries outside Europe - notably Russia, Caspian countries - we need to develop a new generation of “energy interdependence" provisions in our broad-based agreements. As much as Europe seeks security of supply, external suppliers and industry seek security of demand.
This is quite correct - the only thing that's lacking is that acknowledgement that longstanding policies by countries like Germany, Italy and France have done exactly this - and the fact that State-owned, or quasi-monopolistic companies ran these policies needs to be seen as part of the solution rather than part of the problem... but at least the goal is there.
What is heartening is to see this memo dominated by two old-fashioned concepts: energy demand (the side of the balance we actually control) and energy infrastructure (an acknowledgement that public policy is fundamental, both to set rules and to create the field on which other actors play).
What is more depressing is to see the media headlines focused almost exclusively on how that policy is "anti-Russia." But hey, train them long and hard enough, and they will keep on doing it even when you don't actually want them to anymore.
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The EU as a whole (except Norway) is a net fossil fuel importer by a huge margin. To go to renewables for "energy security" has one flaw: storage. Of any possible source of energy, either wind, solar, tidal or wave which can produce electric power, all will require a means of storage. What is the EU doing to promote the research and development of this energy storage? Without this key element in an energy plan, no renewables even comes close to supplanting fossil fuels.
Well, from http://ec.europa.eu/research/energy/nn/nn_rt/nn_rt_st/article_1157_en.htm:
"During the past few years over €30 million has been allocated to more than 20 projects in the field of energy storage."
I could not get the link to work. Even 30 million Euros is a drop in the bucket for research purposes. They need to invest 3 billion to get anywhere on bringing energy storage into production.
No need for the exception, as Norway isn't part of the EU.
Here is one energy storage project:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5119585.ece
It can be done, but of course has to be added to the already large costs of renewable energy generation.
The reality is that "Strategic Energy Review" should be concerned with long term trends (namely PO), rather than focusing on short term fears (lack of demand and falling energy prices). If they want to play this card (security of demand) they should title the document as "Tactical Energy Review").
IMHO, this is just a cheap shot to rattle Russia, which feels some trouble now. I think Europe should have known better. Where are the plans to lower fossil fuel consumption? As crazy as it might seem, Europe should raise fuel taxes NOW. You need to teach people to shrink the energy usage. They won't listen to arguments, so you have to force the argument upon them. What are we going to do, when PO really becomes a concern? It is only question of time.
Hell, I drive a car that uses too much petrol. Force the heavy tax on me and I will reconsider.
The poster volunteers the information that an increase in already heavy petrol taxation will increase his driving cost, but does not choose to tell us whether his financial mainstay is the public purse.
This has the unfortunate effect of making his "Force the heavy tax on me" suggestion ambiguous.
--- G.R.L. Cowan, author of 'How fire can be tamed' --
you should read it -- http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan
Don't forget that energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs is one of the very few peak oil aware leaders on this planet. I hope that he will walk the talk.
It's interesting that his blog is not currently accessible.
That's because your url was mixed up.
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/piebalgs/http://blogs.ec.europa.e...
Notice that you have two instances of "http:" there. It's actually two links rolled into one.
The first link is to his main page. Going to his page there and clicking on "blog" gives the mixed-up link you posted.
The second half of the double link is his actual blog, with the latest post 2008-11-11, in which he speaks of the "Southern Corridor" of natural gas supplies to the EU as part of the "diversification policy".
When you first hear the words "diversification policy" from an Energy Commissioner, you might be tempted to think that it means using a diverse range of energy resources - coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, wind, and so on. And in this article in which he defines "diversification", that seems to be part of it.
But it turns out from both those articles that in practice it actually has nothing to do with renewables or nuclear, but, "Russia has us by the balls with gas, we should try to make sure they don't have us by the throat, too." Which of course is what the recent Russia-Georgia war and the EU's inaction over it were all about, as I have written before.
Best to try just one link at a time. :-o
Thanks Jerome, for drilling down beneath the press headlines with your critical analysis.
Yes, it seems that Commissioner Piebalgs has promulgated a plan that outlines substantive progress across a number of fronts, integrating several directly and indirectly related topics into a coalescing whole.
Comments like "Mediterranean energy ring, linking Europe with the Southern Mediterranean... to help develop the vast solar and wind energy potential" IMO shows the influence (directly or indirectly) of TOD through articles such as Stuart Staniford's Powering Civilization to 2050. Congratulations, TOD, visions and plans like this make it all worthwhile. And people like you, Jerome, are ones who are carrying these plans through to such fruition. Kudos, kudos, kudos.
A minor quibble I might make refers to the comment "Nabucco (which can be built only if gas is found to fill it, the only credible source right now being Russian gas". Right now, Kazakhstan has reserves and upcoming additional marketable production, and they are seeking Western markets. Until the EU can wean themselves from gas with policies such as the UK's 2016 Net Zero Carbon Building codes and can replace NG in electrical generation and industrial processes, Nabucco will be needed to reduce the growing geopolitical power wielded by the (growling) Sleeping Bear. I would prefer, of course, to see much more wind and solar energy backed by hydro on a smart supergrid, and an all-out pursuit of geothermal power, as it is a desperately needed baseload source.
Replacing NG use is as smart as it gets.
Putting Kazakhstan gas into (non-existent) Nabucco is unrealistic because, in addition to building Nabucco, you need, at the same time, to build a TransCaspian pipeline - when Kazakhstan already has access to pipelines to Russia. ie Russia will always be able to offer a beeter price to Kzakhstan for its gas than any other buyer that additionally needs to pay for the pipeline that would take the gas. That will remain true as long as the pipes to Russia are not full, which is far from the case.
Concur. What measures could be taken to wean EU buildings off of NG heat? I can see some geothermal district heating, though such resources are not evenly distributed, and conversion to district heating can be fraught with obstacles in local cultures and practices. Perhaps geothermal heat pumps powered by additional wind/geothermal power? I can see energy efficiency through greater ceiling insulation, but most types of walls would need extensive renovation to add insulation.
I see your point on Nabucco.
Don't tell us, tell the EU Energy Commissioner. As I note above, he is quite keen on Nabucco.
Georgia, Africa and the security of energy supply
The complex meaning of diversification
Making Nabucco a reality
The door to Eastern energy
and so on. Just on the page of most recent articles, four are basically about gas and oil from the Caspian, while only one is about solar and one about wind.
Yeah, the EC's obsession about Nabucco is just beyond my understanding
It's the same as the Persian Gulf with the US. When a large portion of your energy goes through one route, or from one country, you want to either,
(a) control that country/route, or
(b) have some alternatives
The EU cannot control Russia and the central Asian republics, so it must find another route.
Either the EU has Nabucco, or else Russia has the EU.
Well, unless the EU stops using natural gas and oil and goes only for renewables, but that's just crazy talk I know... :)
I believe it is because they are afraid of power Russia wields with it energy club. Unless they can make drastic reductions in natural gas consumption, they feel they have to get the natural gas from somewhere.
The EU will invest more in solar and wind energy.
But highway maintenance and power grid maintenance are not feasible without ample supplies of oil. Without the power grid, the solar panels and wind turbines will be virtually useless.
Ideological beliefs in solar and wind power are diverting resources, investment, time and attention away from preparing for Peak Oil impacts. And as commercial centers, plazas, factories, and offices close in the worsening Greater Depression, there will be spare electric power.
Electric energy does not supply the liquid fuels needed, and alternatives can't even supply the energy lost by declining oil. The Energy Watch Group (funded by the German Parliament) concludes in a current report:
http://www.globaliamagazine.com/?id=482
http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/
Passive solar is not sexy, but could significantly reduce the consumption of natural gas, especially if coupled with massive use of down comforters/blankets and wearing down vests during the day at work and home.
The percentage of oil used on highway maintenance and power grid maintenance is as blatantly insignificant as your argument. Besides, this would be one of those applications where biofuels are useful, if EVs can't do it.
Hey, let's put a ban on Coca-Cola since it contains CO2. That way, we can offset our coal use!
/sarcasm
In just a few years, there won't be enough oil to maintain the highways and provide for home and institutional heating.
Highways use much oil in road bed reconstruction, surfacing, bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning, snow plowing, asphalt, getting workers on the job. If the gas stations are closed, how do people get to work?
Oh please. Show me your calculations of how much % of global total oil use goes to maintenance and construction of transportation + electric infrastructure. Then show me your calculations as to why biofuels, EVs, plugin-hybrids can't do the maintenance. And why alternative road building materials like granite, concrete, bio-asphalt, or even plain dirt roads (in a pinch) and such will not be feasible even if there wasn't enough fossil asphalt production.
Oh, and you might want to check out some of the discussion here if you haven't already.
Hi Cyril,
Please see my comments below to Neil, and other of my comments for this post here which respond to your comments.
Biofuels are an energy sink, and are not sustainable, that is essentially what the Energy Watch Group is saying, and they are saying that alternatives won't fill the gap.
Clifford writes:
Not only that --- the upcoming recession/depression and the temporary collapse in oil prices seem to have put peak oil off the agenda altogether. Jerome may enthuse about the Commission's 'Second Strategic Energy Review' but nowhere does it mention oil depletion, not even en passant. So I fear that the Commission's strategy document is part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
"enthuse" is a big word - it was better than expected, which is already a step in the right direction. A significant focus at the EC level on demand reduction can only be welcome. I agree that much more needs to be done.
True, though with current building stock, passive solar would require extensive renovation (insulation, adding equatorial facing windows, reducing east/west/polar-facing windows) and would only be feasible for those homes with significant polar-facing exposures in areas with sufficient winter solar insolation. There are, however, simple, quick, and inexpensive measures a homeowner can take, though the magnitude of change is dependent on the above factors, plus the number of such devices that the homeowner chooses to add. And the breadth of passive solar enhancements is significant. Caveat: I designed and live in a passive solar house.
This is very disappointing. Still the same old nonsense I see, even though you have had your arguments critiqued and had no response.
You state in you alleged 'exhaustive analysis' of the non-fungibility of energy resources simply that they cannot be substituted, which is palpably and demonstrably false, and to which in spite of many opportunities you could in no way substantiate, but did not have the guts to withdraw.
You appear not to understand the basic method of debate, whereby if you make a statement you either defend it or withdraw when it is critiqued.
If you choose not to be part of this methodology, which is basic to all civilised and scientific discussion, would you please refrain from posting palpable nonsense.
Hi Dave,
Last June I took a trip to Albany, NY-USA to talk to 3 audiences on Peak Oil impacts. In the group that invited me, the Capital Regional Energy Forum CREF), is a physicist who teaches energy at a well-known university, and he served in the Peace Corps.
He has solar powered just about everything, including a solar powered canoe which we went for long ride in on a lake in the Adirondacks, and a PV solar powered house and pump for his well. He repairs about everything on his house himself and he heats much with passive solar. So the guy knows his stuff. He is no ivory tower academic.
We talked for hours about survival in colder areas after the last power blackout.
Survival looks difficult in the colder areas.
Eventually batteries and even the solar panels deteriorate. He thinks that he could store dry batteries with the liquid stored in glass to thus get "new batteries" after they conk out (my idea :) ). But eventually the batteries and solar panels give out.
Cutting and moving wood without trucks, horses, and wagons will be hard and time consuming. There are not many horses around and it will take decades to breed enough horses to go around. Horses require food, care, vets, and medicine. most horses will be eaten when there is no other food. And, no one is making wagons these days locally.
Wood stoves break, just like everything else. You could keep 1 or 2 extras, but eventually you have none and can't get more, as there will be no transportation on the highways, and their manufacture will cease without materials coming in on the highways.
In many areas irrigation is needed and will fail. Irrigating by manual labor is very difficult and time-consuming.
Asphalt roof shingles need to be replaced, and houses need to be painted and maintained.
Food must be grown in a short growing season, and all of the farm stuff that was once in an 1890 Sears catalog will no longer be available. Last summer I took a tour of a farm and saw how dependent farming is on oil -- transportation and manufacture of plastic feeding bowls, containers to store grains/feeds, straw, roofs for animals and storage areas, wire, rope, wood boards, cement, fencing, antibiotics for animals, asphalt shingles, glass, insulation, paint, heating, refrigeration etc. Seed and hardware will no longer be available at the local hardware store. No more Mason jars, they were once made in Muncie, Indiana and transported by rail all over the U.S.. No more Mason jars, unless they are made locally.
Then there is clothing which is currently manufactured and transported from afar. Making cloth is a major operation from growing cotton to making cloth. I have studied the textile mills of Lowell National Historical Park in Lowell, Massachusetts, as I used it as an example of the confluence of capital, technology, and labor for a course I taught on Global Urban Politics at the University of New Hampshire. I know that the parts in those factories were manufactured in many places with a vast transportation network. Those factories will not be built again. And there are not many sheep around, nor animals for making leather clothes. Eventually down coats and down comforters wear out, as do blankets. Keeping warm will be a major problem for survival.
Potable water is another problem, and sanitation. When sanitation systems fail, raw sewage will be dumped into rivers. Those living downstream will die of intestinal and infectious diseases. This and exposure will account for most deaths.
And there will be no modern pharmacies and hospitals.
Cliff Wirth
cjwirth,
Read some history, Canada, Northern US were settled without any oil( except whale oil for lamps). The US now has a very large electricity grid and unless you can come up with some figures to show otherwise, your continued statements: "that roads, electricity grids need significant amounts of oil" are not credible.
Give some figures or your best estimate of how much oil would be required to maintain the existing US electricity, rail and road infrastructure! ie 100,000 barrels/day, perhaps 1,000,000 barrels/day???
Neil,
The highways will collsape as soon as gas stations close and people can't get to work to do the maintenance, and when bankrupt state governments use the little money they have to buy oil for keeping people warm/alive in homes and state/private institutions, and they don't have enough for highway maintenance.
State governments get revenues from: 1. sales tax and soon there will be few sales. 2. income taxes, which will continue to decline toward zero. 3. gasoline taxes, which are declining toward zero. 4. property taxes, and property values are declining rapidly. State governments have many responsibilities, and many of them life supporting, but eventually, there is not enough revenue for highway maintenance.
When these things happen, the highways go out, and so does the power grid, which depends on the roads for thousands of parts coming from all over the world, like the transformers that come from Germany and South Korea, that is just one of a thousand examples. When big pylons go down, you won't be able to get them back up. As for electric vehicles to do this. Do you see any big mover afoot to buy such equipment. And now capital to buy such stuff is in the past.
Your are comparing the "settlement" of the Canada and Northern US to modern societies with a 150 million population that is totally dependent on industrial agriculture, oil/natural gas for heating, and electric power without which most modern/mechanical things fail.
Why are you so utterly convinced you know the future?
The simple fact of the matter is that you do not know the future. You don't know which oil deposits will be developed, you don't know how efficiently or quickly they'll be developed, you don't even know how big they are (lack of info from OPEC). You don't know the manner in which alternatives will be built, how infrastructure will change, or - most crucially - how people's behaviour will change to adapt.
It's simply not rational to believe you know the future without knowing any of these important pieces of information. Insisting your data-starved beliefs represent certain knowledge of the future is irrational behaviour, and people will likely continue to treat it as such.
If you don't want to be dismissed as a crank, stop acting like one.
Basically these are statements of fact. The best science, all of which has been posted on TOD and much by the best of TOD members, indicates when Peak Oil will occur and how fast production will decline. My statements give no time frame. What I predict is clear and will occur at some point as oil production declines. Your interest for data is puzzling. When you run out of gasoline, your car stops. Do you need some data to understand this? When oil production is sufficiently low, the highways collapse. There are no plans for an electric economy, nor is there capital or time to build it. Do you need data, besides all that has been published on TOD to understand this.
The Energy Watch Group (funded by the German Parliament) concludes in a current report:
"By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame."
http://www.globaliamagazine.com/?id=482
Clearly, it is important to note that not only will oil production soon decline, but that alternatives will not fill the gap.
See also the Hirsch report.
No - you believe them to be fact. That is not the same thing as them actually being facts. And, yes, that is a key distinction.
If you're trying to convince someone of something, you need to start with things they believe, and work from there. If you start with things you believe, then you construct what is to you a convincing argument, but which may be utter nonsense to your audience.
If you want to use a "fact" in your argument, and if the audience doesn't believe it, then you need to dig deeper and justify that "fact" with more basic ones. If some of those more basic ones are not believable to the audience, you need to keep digging until you find common ground where you and your audience both agree, and build from there.
Yes, it's a lot of work, and yes, you might not be able to find common ground, but it's the only way to go. Starting your argument off by saying "assume all these claims I'm making are right" is nothing more than the fallacy of Begging The Question, and will just keep failing to be persuasive.
Where "best" means "agrees with your beliefs"?
All of the sources of uncertainty I mentioned - and more - are unavoidably present in estimates of the timing and profile of peak oil, necessarily making any projections tentative at best. This level of uncertainty is something that the main analysts here (SS, EM, RR, etc.) are well aware of, and indeed have mentioned in their own analyses and in the current discussions of the IEA report.
If they don't believe they have The Truth, why do you believe they've given it to you?
That you believe it to be "clear" does not make it so.
You are making predictions about the future actions of people and of societies; how can you possibly know in advance what people will choose to do some unknown number of years from now?
I do if I drive a diesel car, or an electric car, or a propane car, or...
Compared to the future of the world, cars are extremely simple, but even they are not simple enough to fit your explanation. You're making the mistake of assuming that one possible future is the only possible future.
Why?
Highways can be made without oil (concrete highways already exist), and vehicles can run without oil (already exist), so your outcome is not the only possible outcome. Ergo, you need to back it up for it to be credible.
And your evidence that there is neither capital nor time is? That's not a claim you can expect people to take your word for.
A credible argument regarding this would provide, at minimum:
Reasonable quantitative estimates can be made for each of these, and doing so would be enormously more persuasive than simply waving your hands and shouting "OMGSOBIG!!!" The capital needs of electrification are large, but then so is the world's economy and manufacturing base. Enormous amounts of the former can be done with surprisingly small amounts of the latter; see, for example, Alan's discussions of electrified rail.
You do understand that many different views get written on The Oil Drum, not all of which agree with each other?
There's no monolithic "TOD Message", just a lot of people kicking around a lot of ideas, some of which are better-supported and more well thought out than others. Not all of these ideas and analyses will be correct, precisely because so many of them disagree with each other. An excellent example is the graph showing a dozen or more estimates for future oil production - most of them disagree significantly, so most of them will be wrong. We don't know the future, so we don't know which ones are wrong, and that's why it's valuable to have a range of different ideas.
***
More importantly, though, you keep referring to this nebulous "data" that's been written here. You do realize that merely referring to the fact that some data exists doesn't in any way bolster your argument? You need to show what the data is and where it came from and how it supports your argument.
Just waving your hand and saying "the data is all there" is exactly the same as saying "in my opinion the arguments made by others have been compelling". Even saying "I found this argument to be compelling" would be much more valuable.
This is the only attempt you make to support your arguments, which is some progress. However, there are serious problems with relying on those reports to make your claims.
First is that the Hirsh report explicitly ignores the idea of adaptation or electrification of transport; it's strictly a report on producing enough liquid fuel to maintain 2% yearly growth. It says nothing about how much capital would be required to adapt to electric fuel, and what it says about time is actually incorrect (it uses a figure of 17 years as the median age at which a car is retired in the USA, but 50% of vehicle miles come from vehicles less than 5 years old, meaning that it grossly over-estimates the time needed to make rolling-stock changes).
Second is that there are enormous flaws in the EWG report on oil. Within literally a few minutes of downloading it, I found that they had claimed in situ oil sands production is "under development" and "10,000bbl/day" and consequently irrelevant, when the reality is that in situ oil sands production has been commercial for decades and at the time of their report accounted for roughly 400,000bbl/day of production. It took me all of two minutes reading their report to find that error, and 10 minutes online to find official production data from the Government of Alberta to find out quite how far off from reality they were. With a 40-fold error in something so basic and so simple as that, how can I give the rest of the report any credibility?
Not that the extremely bold claims you're making would be supported by either report even if they didn't contain such gross and relevant errors, of course, but those are simple and direct examples of why your beliefs are by no means well-founded enough for you to rationally have the level of certainty you display.
Your technique, Clifford, when challenged to justify your statements, is simply to blather on about something else.
Why do you think that I or anyone else should bother reading them when you have not got enough respect for what you yourself have said to either justify your statements or retract?
To repeat, yet again, your statement in what you have repeatedly characterised as your 'exhaustive analysis' of the non-fungibility of energy resources was that that they were absolutely and definitively not substitutable.
My reply was that in fact goods transport had moved in the past from coal-powered rail to oil-powered trucks and maybe back again in future to electric railways went uncountered, you just waffled on and changed the subject.
Please do not continue to obfusticate - put up or shut up.
That's actually a very interesting question, just how much fossil fuels are required to maintain our roads, rail and electrical grid.
On the one hand, maintaining asphalt roads obviously requires bitumen. Finding figures for how much is used each year on our current roads shouldn't be too hard. My instinct is that it's relatively little oil compared to that burned by vehicles on it. In a situation of oil scarcity we can imagine that rather fewer roads will be needed. If you have (say) one-fourth as many cars then you can afford to let three of the four lanes of your highway get cracks and potholes.
The actual diesel and so on burned by all the vehicles building and maintaining roads, rail and grid - I can't find figures for that. I had a good look a while back, since many government departments, mining companies and the like now post their carbon footprint figures, and you can reverse the calculation to get at least a ballpark figure for their fossil fuel consumption.
But detailed figures don't seem to be available.
My instinct is that, as I said, much less is used to build and maintain them than is used by people actually on them, and that when fossil fuels decline in availability then just as the use of the roads declines, so can their building and maintenance. I think the limiting factor of our driving will not be the fuel to make and maintain roads, but the fuel to drive on them.
I think that the roads will become deserted and then start falling apart, rather than falling apart and as a result becoming deserted.
But I can't say for certain. It's something that's worth a look.
In my part of the world, the Bitumen - binder -content in pavement asphalt is approx >5% .The rest is aggregates that are carefully chosen to give optimal result.
In larger renovation of pavenments, the asphalt is cold grinded 3-4 inch deep, heated- and laid out again, with heating energy coming from natural gas.
I have not done the math- but the energy consumption must be relatively low, as minerals in pavement has an heat capacity approx 1/4 of water.
There also exist replacements for bitumen, made from vegetable oils, so we could replace a small ?part of the bitumen.
http://asp.vejtid.dk/Artikler/2006/04%5C4633.pdf ( Danish, I'm sorry- but informative).
And info from supplier http://www.sir-colas.fr/en/pdf/Vegecol_GB.pdf
Kind regards/And1
One of the interesting things about bitumen roads is that you actually need vehicles driving on them to keep them from breaking up. The bitumen contracts if it is not continually compressed by vehicles driving on it. That is why you normally don't see bitumen footpaths or cycleways even though there initial cost is much lower than concrete.
Some years ago, an electricity authority I worked for had a bright idea that they would save on maintenance costs in substations by placing bitumen over all the ground surface and therefore not need to maintain grass. However, in only a few years the bitumen dissolved and all that was left was the gravel.
Consequently, I think you will find post PO that we will have a lot more dirt/gravel roads than today.
The US uses 190Mb/yr of asphalt and road oil, of which 80% is for roads. Total US oil consumption is about 7,500Mb/yr, meaning road surfacing accounts for approximately 2.0% of US oil consumption.
One thing to keep in mind is that utility vehicles are actually a major area of potential for electric or hybrid drivetrains. The canonical example is the bucket truck used by linesmen working on power lines; it spends a lot of time active (moving the bucket up and down) but not moving, so being able to shut down the main engine except for point-to-point transit is a huge savings (up to 1.5gal/hr, according to the article).
Isn't bitumen essentially a waste product left at the bottom of the refining industry? Smearing on the roads gets rid of it in a vaguely useful way.
Yes, but doesn't it look like we actually have plenty of heavy oils (tar sands etc.), so perhaps bitumen demand could be satisfied for a long time from these unconventional sources, even if they couldn't be scaled up to meet current liquid fuel demand.
DaveMart,
rail coverage in the U.S. is extremely limited, do you see any coming manufacture of steam drive trains? most coal is surface mined, using lots of oil.
The large number of negative ratings on this comment is an indication of how strong the solar/wind ideology is :)
What's really needed is smart metering for electricity which not only exposes customers to real-time price fluctuations so they learn why deciding to consume energy when the supplies are not available is a bad idea (and presently expensive for everyone), but can also impose sliding scale charges, eg "first 150 kwh / month has no premium, next 300 kwh / month is charged a premium of $0.025 / kwh, all above that is charged a premium of $0.06 / kwh". The meters would be smart enough to communicate with and identify specific loads such as PHEV's and ground-source heat pumps, and keeping them out of the profile, using a standard chip in each load communicating to the meter with powerline carrier. Also can be used to enable customers to "consume onlt electricity from identified renewables, if desired" types of systems. Easily do-able technically now, only needs a mandate.
Independent Market for Every Utility Customer - Preliminary Business Case
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=1176
Independent Market for Every Utility Customer - Part 2 - Market Operation
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=1181
Independent Market for Every Utility Customer - Part 3 - Alternative Market Operation
http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=1811
Energy Central Blogs - IMEUC - Independent Market for Every Utility Customer
http://www.energyblogs.com/imeuc/index.cfm/2007/9/18/Introduction
Absolutely, this in conjunction with real-time pricing and declining carbon caps (and/or tax) has the best promise to realizing the most energy independence (by also addressing demand) while reducing GHG emissions when the transition to electrical transport becomes mainstream.
There is an aspect to all the recent articles and their attendant posts, that is truly disturbing. That is, the apparently complete acceptance of a need to reduce CO2 emissions, on the basis of the much-promoted and little-justified "dangerous man-made global warming" thesis.
There is a plethora of highly detailed and expert analysis of peak oil data. Peak oil really does seem to be a "done deal". The exact date can be argued, but who cares? The exact depletion rates can be argued, but who cares? The effects (it seems to me likely deleterious) of enhanced extraction technologies can also be much surmised, but who cares? The fact is, the crunch is now, no matter which way you look at it.
So policy decisions need making, NOW, which give the developed world half a chance of not collapsing into societal chaos. Yet, either those in the oil world actually believe in "global warming" or if they do not, feel some need not to rock the boat. A recent Times article, actually disseminated the ludicrous proposition that the globe will heat up by 6 Celsius - and then equated that to 43 Farenheit. The writer is an idiot, and anyone reading it who cannot see the mistake is an even bigger idiot.
The recent New Labour decision to link "Climate Change" (putative) with energy policy will prove to be one the costliest mistakes this government has ever made. But it will not of course cost the government; it will cost US!
Can anyone out there kindly advise me, as to how a belief in AGW can be sustained in the light of all the work and exposure done by the likes of Professor Robert Carter, or Dr. Steve McIntyre and dozens of other real scientists? The global warming thesis simply does not stand up. How can ANYONE who has studied both sides of the argument give it even a minute's consideration when faced with the collosal socio-economic issues that hinge on Peak Oil?
I despair; and am developing a hydro electric power scheme on my property.
Good work T.O.D. and any small thing which this reader can do to help, please tell me, but please, please, will you just give "global warming" a decent burial?
Hi, Peak oil is pretty easy to get and understand - there is a finite amount of oil and the rate it is being extracted cannot increase indefinitely. You are going to hit a ceiling and then the only way is down - unless demand falls off a cliff due to long recession, global pandemic or other drastic cause.
Global warming science is far more complex. The scientific concensus is overwhelming that it is happening and it is man made.
As the "cure" for both is very similar - increase efficiency in use, more renewables etc. I don't see a problem with lumping them together.
"The scientific concensus is overwhelming that it is happening and it is man made."
Man made for now? Perhaps soon to be swamped (accidental humor?) by release of methane?
I'm afraid that's likely the case, a positive feedback from our AGW influence.
Climate change is rather confusing for some of the following reasons:
1) the influence of sunspot activity and the possible ameliorating effect of GHG emissions.
2) the influence of cloud cover, Atlantic Ocean and Southern Ocean dynamics
3) the influence of methane hydrate and melting permafrost.
4) the influence of geothermal and human activity.
Tell us ,oh knowledgeable ones, is the concensus global warming or global cooling?
The consensus is:-
- that we ought to try to spell "consensus" before questioning it,
- that greenhouse gas emissions have no "ameliorating" effect,
- that sunspots neither warm nor cool the Earth,
- that the Earth's atmosphere and hydrosphere is overall warming,
- that the bulk of this warming is caused by human activity, and
- that those who deny human causes for climate change, or deny climate change itself, ought to come to my blog where they can get a full and frank response in a tone they deserve.
Ergo, I should stop practising my Latin. I'd say practicing where you come from
With regard to sunspot activity and the effects of cloudcover http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125691.100-global-warming-will-t... http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12459-global-warming-and-cooling-l...
rather confusing...the influence of sunspot activity...
You might want to look into current peer-reviewed research on solar activity; earlier claims that warming over the last few decades was due to sunspot activity has been thoroughly debunked. To get you started (since you must have missed it earlier);
Schiermeier, Quirin, No solar hiding place for greenhouse sceptics Nature 448, 8-9 (5 July 2007) | doi:10.1038/448008a
T Sloan et al, Testing the proposed causal link between cosmic rays and cloud cover 2008 Environ. Res. Lett. 3 024001 (6pp) doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/3/2/024001
Even Lassen and Friis-Christensen have accepted that the current warming is due to something other than the sun.
Thanks Will,
I prefer this dialectic approach rather than the proselytising of the other post.
One of the current articles I cited above deals with lack of sunspot activity over the last few years and a possible link with global cooling. There is another
article from New Scientist (recent but not cited above) which sees global warming as
masking this effect.( ie. presence of GHG as mentioned in my post)
It does show a projection from a researcher that concludes that, though it also says;
About the constant slagging of Cliff Wirth by the very linear, rational, quantitative thinkers here:
There is this other way of thinking; often quite irritating to the 'left-brain'-preferring thinkers; but just as legitimate, in real-world practise. Call it gestaltic, right-brain, intuitive, whatever pleases -- or displeases -- you.
Seems to me that Cliff practises the best sort of thinking of all, which is, IMHO, a judicious blend of the two.
For the very little that it's worth, I second his overall global conclusions, as also his wisdom in not being lured into putting specific timings on any of them. That really is beyond anyone.
I often like to offer a bet, in cases like this, of -- oh say a hundred euros-worth -- of certified actual physical gold bullion, to be matched by any taker who thinks I'm fullafertiliser, that the view I'm backing will turn out to be right in a specified time-frame; results to be decided by our agreed escrow holder. I sometimes even offer good odds.
Trouble is, by the -- fairly short -- time that Cliff's foreseeings are vindicated, quite a lot of us, maybe including me, will be dead; merely of time, if of nothing worse. So I suppose I can't offer the bet this time.
Still, for all the quantitative slagging, I still think Cliff sounds frighteningly accurate in his proper seer-style seeing.
I have absolutely no objection to seers. It is the presentation of prophecy as rational analysis that causes difficulty.
Ezekiel was probably a great chap, and yea, verily, all that he said has come to pass - or possibly was back-edited by later scribes.
There are clearly difficulties in swapping energy sources, and also with EROI and EROEI.
There are equally clearly some possibilities to mitigate or avoid these effects.
What the outcome will be I don't know, but get irritated when it is asserted that the outcome is inevitable, with naff all in the way of proper or even logical analysis.
As an 'in my opinion', fine, but as a sweeping and absolute generalisation it is absolutely false.
When your car runs out of gas, it is inevitable that it will stop. So too is it inevitable that modern society will stop when oil runs low enough. Oil is the enabler for all other energies.
Hi Dave,
My report is a policy analysis of Peak Oil impacts and alternatives based on the best scientific studies. For this reason, the report is posted on a number of websites. You talk about many possibilities that are not realistic given the available capital and future cost of energy. For example, you have mentioned the electric economy many times, and I have asked you to cite the plans and where the capital will come from. You have not responded.
That's an extremely valuable style of thinking, but it's an utterly useless style of communicating.
Intuition is excellent for rapidly coming to conclusions, but it's also excellent for rapidly coming to false conclusions. Slow, plodding, data-based analysis is the way in which the gold is separated from the dross after intuition has narrowed down the field.
Fundamentally, intuition is nothing more than an opinion, and there is absolutely zero reason to put any faith in some random internet guy's opinion. The beauty of data, though, is that it doesn't matter who's pointing you at it, the data's the same, so it's really the only way that random internet guy - which is what we all are - can make a credible argument.
The extract below is from the EU Strategic Energy analysis quoted in your first rate article
"In the short to medium term, Europe's dependence on imports means that effective provisions for preventing and dealing with supply crises must be in place."
Did anyone else notice that in amongst all the highly erudite, and I don't doubt equally authoritative analyses of the IEA WEO etc, and the discussions about security etc., the above sentence illuminates that someone somewhere ought to be checking out the basic logic, before anything else fancy is done?
If one has "effective provisions for preventing . . " something, you do not have a concomittant need to "deal with it". Because "it" won't have happened; it will have been prevented.