Energy: future prospects

An American friend and I were talking recently, as we usually do, about Free Flight model design and flying, when out of the blue he wrote:

And I'm concerned about the economy. There doesn't seem to be any top end in site for the price of oil...not with China growing and consuming at its extra-ordinary rate. I've got a feeling that the USA is caught in a deadly stranglehold. We are going into debt 2 billion a day! Gas is over $2.00 and it looks as if it might hit 4 bucks by next spring. Past that price the reprocussions will be drastic with the economic structure crumbling worse than it did in the great depression of the thirties.

I replied with the following unedited, apart from turning it into a Web page, rant:

Indeed. Its not going to improve either. New Scientist,issue 2406,2nd August, 2003 did a piece on energy futures. Bleak prospects. Basically it said that:

• The real crunch time for oil is not when it runs out, but when the rate of new discoveries falls below the rate of consumption. Industry analysts expect that in 10 years +/- 5 and expect prices to go ballistic at that point. I don't know how China will affect that timing: it wasn't mentioned in the articles.
• Forget the hydrogen economy. The technology isn't ready yet (look at what Bob ^[1] said about fuel cells) and even if it was, 15 years isn't enough time to build both hydrogen plants that don't run off fossil fuel and a distribution system.

To this I'd add:

• Nuclear? Won't run cars & trucks interstate and it takes more than 10 years to build a new nuclear plant from the start of the planning process. I think this is another nail in the Hydrogen coffin because I can't see any other energy source that could produce enough hydrogen to replace the oil used for transport. No new nuke generators are even being talked about in the UK.
• North Sea gas is used up and natural gas is already being imported from somewhere - the Middle East I assume. The stuff is being wasted in electricity generation (40% efficiency) when it should only be reserved for direct heating and cooking (up to 80% efficiency). Wait till the first tanker explosion - at a guess not far short of an A-bomb in energy release - and listen to the public demand it stops. IIRC the US is about on the verge of importing gas too.
• Fusion power. I think what I said above probably applies to fusion as well as fission. Even if a clean, safe fusion plant could be built, and its not even on the horizon right now, do you really think the average NIMBY could tell it from a fission plant and would let one be built next door?
• Wind and solar. Possible for stationary use provided the eco-warriors allow sufficient acreage to be installed to handle the total electricity and heating requirements of domestic and commercial buildings. Doesn't touch transport, apart from shipping. There's significant effort going into reviving sailing ships right now.
• Hydro? As far as I can tell all the suitable US dam sites are up and running. Ditto in the UK. NZ (and Norway?) are about the only places that have a hope of handling most of the electricity demand with hydro.
• Forests? Judging by the rate that US forests are vanishing there's no spare capacity there for energy generation, renewable or not. Besides, from what I hear the forestry companies are making no attempt to replant what they cut. UK forests are more or less static and trees are pretty slow growing here. Scratch this one too.
• Burning shit and garbage. It happens, but the NIMBYs are against it in the UK, so it doesn't look like a goer here. I guess that's the same in the US.
• What's left? Oh, yeah. Coal. Produces lots of CO2: I'm not at all convinced that the current plot for burying it in disused coal mines and oil wells is a safe or permanent solution. It's being hyped by the oil companies who smell a revenue stream from dead oil wells. If the CO2 can't be gotten rid of coal may be good for steam trains but not much more.
• Synthetic petrol. The Germans and South Africans tried like hell to make petrol from coal but the result was just expensive and inefficient. For inefficient read "burns lots of coal to make a bit of petrol". Think lots of CO2 again.

Basically I think that the US and the UK are stuffed, maybe the US more than the UK due to its greater transport requirements. Both should be actively seeking to reduce use of all forms of transport but that won't happen with those powerful transport industry lobbies or with the way bosses like their minions to be in the office under their eye instead of working from home over broadband. Ditto a more concerted attempt to switch away from oil ASAP, but Bush is an oilman and Blair talks a mile but doesn't actually do anything. Nobody here is pushing energy saving at all.

The UK probably can't feed its current population without importing food. Horse-drawn transport too is impossible here without a return to 19th century population and city sizes. The US doesn't have the farmland to feed the required horses and hasn't since the '60s. Thats even assuming that farms are not needed to feed people. Now knock off all the areas that require major pumped irrigation and other energy inputs for farming or for people to live there: much of the Californian farmland, virtually everybody living in Arizona, the Columbia Valley. None of the latter are show stoppers but would cause major problems, like mass resettlement of the blue-rinses and/or another Dust bowl.

Why do you think I'm reckoning on moving to NZ sooner rather than later? It will take a big hit too, but at least there's enough farmland (I think) and a small enough population to use horses for transport as well as feed people. In addition there's local coal to run the railway and, as I said above, the country's power supply is still largely hydro. Its even got enough oil, maybe, for lubrication but certainly none for anything else. Roll on the bicycle economy.

Sorry to let fly with such a depressing diatribe, but you pressed the GO button on something I've been thinking a lot about recently.

Here's to the New World Order! America... just another third world country!

We'll all be third world countries soon. Its just that the current crop have rather more recent practise at doing it.

Martin Gregorie, May 2005