Future Energy Development

[Geezer38]

Future Energy
An interesting and well thought out article in Wikipedia. I won't post the entire article, just a few tidbits because the original version also contains graphs and many references that you might want to follow. I think it's important, going forward, to know what options are available to us.
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Future energy development faces great challenges due to an increasing world population, demands for higher standards of living, demands for less pollution and a much discussed end to fossil fuels. Without energy, the world's entire industrialised infrastructure would collapse; agriculture, transportation, waste collection, information technology, communications and much of the prerequisites that a developed nation takes for granted. A shortage of the energy needed to sustain this infrastructure could lead to a Malthusian catastrophe.

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World energy production by source: Oil 40%, natural gas 22.5%, coal 23.3%, hydroelectric 7.0%, nuclear 6.5%, biomass and other 0.7% [5]. In the U.S., transportation accounted for 28% of all energy use and 70% of petroleum use in 2001; 97% of transportation fuel was petroleum [6].

The United Nations projects that world population will stabilize in 2075 at nine billion due to the demographic transition. Birth rates are now falling in most developing nations and the population would decrease in several developed nations if there was no immigration [7]. Still, economic growth probably requires a continued increase in energy consumption. Since 1970, each 1% increase in world GDP has yielded a 0.64% increase in energy consumption [8].

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Energy production usually requires an energy investment. Drilling for oil or building a wind power plant requires energy. The fossil fuel resources (see above) that are left are often increasingly more difficult to extract and convert. They may thus require increasingly higher energy investments. If the investment is greater than the energy produced, then the fossil resource is no longer an energy source. This means that a large part of the fossil fuel resources and especially the non-conventional ones cannot be used for energy production today. Such resources may still be exploited economically in order to produce raw materials for plastics, fertilizers or even transportation fuel but now more energy is consumed than produced. (They then become similar to ordinary mining reserves, economically recoverable but not net positive energy sources.) New technology may ameliorate this problem if it can lower the energy investment required to extract and convert the resources.

[Belle Starr]

ah, was going to pose a question,
does globalization depend on oil?


When the oil runs out will the world shrink again?
End of Global Village and so on?


Actually, I suppose the answer is yes to both.

This is because I have a student home for half term, doing an essay on Globalisation.

[jpn of Seattle]

Belle asks: "does globalization depend on oil?"

Wikipedia defines globalization thus: Globalization (or globalisation) is a modern term used to describe the changes in societies and the world economy that result from dramatically increased international trade and cultural exchange.

I imagine oil will just get more and more expensive, and be gradually replaced with alternatives as they become more economic.
I doubt this process will have Draconian effects on international trade and cultural exchanges, other than making them somewhat more expensive.

I have little doubt that the world will just keep getting smaller and smaller as our communications technology gets better and better.

[CockySOB]

Originally Posted by JPN

I have little doubt that the world will just keep getting smaller and smaller as our communications technology gets better and better.

To a point, I agree. The problem will eventually become one of moving essential product from the point of manufacture/creation/growth to the consumer. While communications may make the world smaller in some aspects, the physicality of the world will keep the separated.

[Belle Starr]

and isn't that where the oil cost of transport will come in?

[Fredfredson]

ah, was going to pose a question,
does globalization depend on oil?


When the oil runs out will the world shrink again?
End of Global Village and so on?


Actually, I suppose the answer is yes to both.

I would agree with that.

Cheap energy for transport is what drives Globalization. Modern communication may facilitate the structures that supportGlobalization but without a cheap way of getting Chinese geegaws to market in it will implode.

As for the alternatives being economic once oil prices climb higher, that only works for a very short time once the costs of higher oil prices work through the supply chain the cost of alternatives also rise.

If they are not economic now they won't be later.

This assumes that there is no Star Trek like "miracle discovery". If that happens all bets are off.

F

[jpn of Seattle]

Oh man, you mean just about the time I get to retire (ten years hence) it'll be too expensive to take trips to Europe?

Not fair!

[Geezer38]

Fred posted: Cheap energy for transport is what drives Globalization. Modern communication may facilitate the structures that supportGlobalization but without a cheap way of getting Chinese geegaws to market in it will implode.

I think you are quite right about that; so how are we going to power oceanic shipping without oil? In the past, we used wind power (sails) and later, coal-fired boilers. I wonder if the solution might be a combination of the two? Wind power can be harvested now without conventional sails and coal can be burned cleanly. I suppose we could use nuclear power as the the military does but I have a feeling it would be way too expensive.

How about air transportation? Modern 300 passenger jets use an unconscienable amount of fuel. Is there another way or do we have to develop modern (but slow) dirigibles?

I think it will be easier on land. Long-haul trucking can easily be replaced by long-haul electric trains. The electricity can be harvested from solar, wind or nuclear sources.

Any ideas?

[Fredfredson]

Ocean transport will likely go back to Sail, it's essentially free and with efficient fossil fuel or nuclear powered auxiliaries the problems of uncertain wind direction and power can be overcome.

The bigger problem is the systems around ocean transport, transport of raw materials and the manufacturing systems themselves all take energy. China has had problems supplying their manufacturing centers this year and even with all their infrastructure development they are still just barely able to keep up.

Global transport will not stop as getting energy becomes more complex but it will get more expensive to ship massive quantities of "stuff".

F

[Fredfredson]

I'm a big fan of Airships actually.

There are several benefits to them.

They can lift very heavy items, just not many of them.

They can move large numbers of people very efficiently if slowly.

They transport NATUAL GAS, in fact they would make good tankers for the stuff.

Modern materials and engines could easily make them workable at VERY large sizes, where economics of scale could kick in.

I know an engineer who is working on designs for airships that would be used for NG transportation and heavy equipment transport in the arctic, very interesting stuff.

F

[Geezer38]

Fred, I've been thinking about your airships proposal for the north; it's a fascinating idea! If you run across any good links; please post them.

We have a huge northern expanse as you do in Alaska. Most of it is unpenetrateable wilderness. I say unpenetrateable because it is incredibly frustrating and expensive, not to mention environmentally disasterous, to build roads or railroads in the north. When the land isn't frozen rock-hard, it is a sea of mushy, seemingly bottomless bog. That probably inhibits development of the north more than any other factor.

Sea transport isn't any easier, the Arctic ocean is frozen a good bit of the year and only open long enough for a few fast trips in and out. The rivers and lakes support ice roads in winter but it's slow and hazardous as well as very expensive. In summer there is a brief flurry of barge traffic on northern rivers before winter shuts that down. The only other alternative has been aircraft and there is quite a lot of very expensive air traffic supplying remote settlements and projects.

It would seem that large airships, cargo carriers and transports, would be a viable alternative. When you spoke of them being used to transport natural gas, I presume you mean the liquid form (LNG)? Why couldn't they be designed to carry LNG out and transport cargo back in?

[thaanatos]

a lot of what has been said depends greatly on what type of technology comes forward as the alternative....one of the unique factors about oil as the source of energy has been its disparate source, with some nations having no assets and others having an abundance....

this has driven civilization in many ways, but certainly within the economy it has the impact of adding a cost of transporting the energy to where it was used....

if other forms of energy, such as solar, become economically cheaper then the transportation of the energy source will no longer will play a part....a solar powered ocean transport would be as possible as a solar powered city in the Himalayas, and would likely use the same type of system....

Globalization got its start when Europe sent the first caravans to China....I rather expect that those first spices and silks were extravagently expensive....

if some other part of the world offers something unique, and someone can afford to buy it, then someone else will find a way to get it to them....

what might end globalization then, is if no-one has anything unique or no-one could afford to buy it....

[Fredfredson]

I would generally agree there Thaan.

"Globalization" is different than simply international trade. There has been long distance transport of goods for centuries. The price that could be obtained for those goods had to be able to support the cost of the transport.

Therefore long distance transport was for luxury goods only. It is only the advent of high energy transport, first iron sailing ships, then coal powered steam, then oil powered steam, diesel and diesel electric systems, that the markets could even consider the transport of strawberries halfway around the world.

The other thing that makes the current phase of Globalization different than it's predecessors is how many fewer actors there are. The same availability of cheap concentrated energy sources that make global transport economic also permits the system to concentrate into far fewer corporations. It's the ultimate "cutting out the middle man".

This makes the system fragile, IMHO, and slows the rate at which alternatives can be adopted.

As the Globalization process begins to react to increasing disruptions (by cost or by supply) of energy we will see a resurrection of the "middle man" big time. While from the consumer of Chinese made cheap goods standpoint this will mean a huge increase in cost, there will be a much more diversified economy as a result. A much more robust and sustainable one I hope.

F

[Francois Cellier]

Yesterday, the company that received the bid for constructing our geothermal heating system finally started drilling. We had to wait for four months, because geothermal systems are now in hot demand in Switzerland, although they are still not helping you to save money at current oil prices.

The current price of heating oil for 1 kWh is roughly CHF 0.07. If you heat your house electrically, the cost of electricity is roughly CHF 0.22 per kWh. With the geothermal system, you are able to get an efficiency factor of about 3, i.e., you need roughly 1/3 of the electricity for running the heat pump and circulating the coolant through the loop of the amount that you would need for the heat pump alone. Hence you pay roughly CHF 0.07 per kWh, i.e., the same amount as you pay when you use oil.

Taking into consideration that the installation cost for the geothermal system is still roughly twice that of a corresponding oil heating system, it is still not an economic proposition to install a geothermal system in Switzerland.

Why then have these systems become popular in the last two years? The reason is simple: the broad masses finally recognize the peak oil problem and its associated end to cheap oil. Many people here in Switzerland now prefer to be proactive, and do something about the problem. By investing in a geothermal system they help alleviate the fuel dependence of Switzerland, and in that process, they also make themselves less dependent on fossil fuels.

Why shouldn't we wait until the price of oil has risen to a value, where it truly makes economic sense to invest in an alternate technology? The answer to this question becomes obvious as I observe how the drilling is done. First, they came with a big truck that runs on fuel. On that truck sits a big drilling machine that also runs on fuel. The drill itself needs to be greased constantly, which once again consumes oil.

The real problem with peak oil is not that we have to try to resort to alternate types of energy (wherever and whenever this is possible), but that producing these alternate sources of energy itself consumes lots of ... fossil fuels.

[Francois Cellier]

There is an end to drilling for now ...

Drilling big holes into the ground requires lots of water for cooling the drills. The company simply connected their hose to our outside water faucet, opened it full blast, and started cooling.

After a few hours, they rang the bell at the door to tell my wife that there was no more water coming.

They didn't know that we are not on a city water line. We have our own wells with gravity feed (two of them) that deliver the water into a 500 gallon water tank burried behind the house. We then have a (linear) electric pump that repressurizes the pipes in the house, as soon as water is being used, by replenishing the water from the storage tank.

By opening the faucet full blast, they quickly emptied the storage tank, as they were consuming water faster than the well was able to resupply ... end of drilling!

Now, they'll have to find the nearest water hydrant (about 250 yards away), get a permission from the community to connect their hose to the water hydrant with a counter that measures how much water they consume, and only then will they be able to continue drilling.

This brings up the question: how is the water pressure in the city line maintained? I actually don't know the answer to that question. There surely aren't any water towers around here, i.e., the city line must be connected to much bigger pumps that repressurize the city line in similar ways as my small pump repressurizes the pipes inside my house.

How are these pumps operated? Are these electric pumps as well? Do they possible run on ... fossil fuels?

[Francois Cellier]

As of yesterday, our new geothermal heating system is finally working. The geothermal probes were put in about six weeks ago, but we didn't want to replace the oil heating until it got warm enough so that we could survive for three days without central heating in the house. This finally took place during the past week. The oil burner has been thrown out, the burried oil tank outside in the yard has been disconnected and cleaned, and the new heat pump has been placed where the oil burner used to be and has been connected. No more oil being used in our house for heating purposes.

During the summer, we plan on putting together a similar heating system for our weekend house in the Swiss mountains: solar collectors to preheat the water of the secondary loops; geothermal probes to preheat the coolant in the primary loop; a heat pump to reheat the water in the secondary loops (one for space heating, and the other for hot water); and radiators in the house for space heating.

We already have the secondary loops and the radiators. Those can be reused. The water heater will have to be replaced, because a solar system requires a considerably larger storage tank for water than an electric or gas heater; and the solar collectors, the geothermal probes, and the heat pump will have to be installed fresh.