Message #738 From:
TheMachine Date: May 27, 2009 02:59:23 AM
World Energy in Crisis a compelling read.
Sound bites, political speak, media spin, tabloid sensationalism,
propaganda and misinformation are the media's language. How do you see
through the lies and discover the truth? Be discerning; critically analyze what you are being told. The media does not have a
responsibility to report the news honestly; profit is the purpose of
the media corporation. They answer to their shareholders. News and
advertising is their product. The viewing public are their consumer. No
Conspiracy theories here.
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
In 2008 the International Energy Agency announced that, "Current trends
in energy supply and consumption are patently
unsustainable—environmentally, economically, and socially." This
statement represents a wide and growing public consensus reflecting
concerns about climate impacts from the burning of fossil fuels, as
well as questions regarding the security of future supplies of those
fuels.
However,
replacing the oil, coal, and natural gas energy infrastructure of
modern industrial societies will be challenging. Significant changes in
the processes by which energy is supplied to, and consumed by, modern
societies will require massive influxes of capital across multiple
industrial sectors at considerable financial risk. Decades have been
spent building this infrastructure, with trillions of dollars invested.
If the transition from current energy sources to alternatives is
mismanaged, consequences could be severe, as there is an undeniable
connection between per-capita levels of energy consumption and economic
well-being.
The problem is perhaps best understood by quickly surveying the principal energy sources currently available.
Oil
is the world's current primary energy source, fueling nearly all
motorized transportation—cars, planes, trains, and ships—and providing
about 36 percent of total world energy. Oil is also non-renewable, and
many of the world's largest oilfields are already significantly
depleted. Most oil-producing nations are seeing declining rates of
extraction, and future sources of the fuel are increasingly
concentrated in just a few countries—principally, the members of OPEC.
Competition for access to those reserves has already triggered
geopolitical conflict on several occasions. Some analysts are of the
opinion that total world oil production has entered its inevitable
decline phase, and that production will never again achieve levels seen
in the period from 2005 through 2008. Oil is a hydrocarbon fuel, so
burning it releases carbon dioxide (70 kilograms of CO2 per gigajoule
of energy produced), which contributes to climate change.
Coal
has been the fastest growing energy source (by quantity) in recent
years due to prodigious consumption growth in China, and now accounts
for 27 percent of total world energy. It has the worst environmental
impacts of the conventional fossil fuels, both in the process of
obtaining the fuel (mining) and in that of burning it to release
energy. Because coal is the most carbon-intensive of the conventional
fossil fuels (94 kg CO2 per GJ), it is the primary source of greenhouse
gas emissions that lead to climate change, even though it contributes
less energy to the world economy than petroleum does. New carbon
capture and storage technologies could reduce this climate impact, but
at a significant economic and energy cost (by one estimate, about 40
percent of the energy from coal would go toward mitigating climate
impact, with the other 60 percent being available for economically
useful work). Coal is non-renewable, and some nations (UK and Germany)
have already used up most of their original coal reserves. Even the US,
the "Saudi Arabia of coal," is seeing declining production from its
highest-quality deposits. While official reserves figures imply that
world coal supplies will be sufficient for a century or more, recent
studies suggest that supply problems may appear much sooner.
Natural gas
is the least carbon-intensive of the fossil fuels (58 kg of CO2 per
GJ); of the world's total energy, natural gas supplies 23.5 percent. It
is easily transported through systems of pipelines and pumps, though it
cannot be carried by ship as conveniently as oil, as this typically
requires pressurization. Like oil, natural gas is non-renewable and
depleting. Recent disputes between Russia, Ukraine, and Europe over
Russian natural gas supplies underscore the increasing geopolitical
competition for access to this valuable resource.
Biomass,
principally in the form of wood used for cooking and home heating,
accounts annually for 13 percent of the world's total energy
consumption and is used by up to 3 billion people. Biomass can also be
converted into liquid fuel, used to generate electricity, or burned to
co-generate heat and electricity. Biomass is distributed widely; this
suits it for use in small-scale, region-appropriate applications. In
Europe there has been steady growth in biomassCHP (combined heat and
power) plants in which scrap materials from wood processing or
agriculture are burned, while in developing countries CHP's often run
on coconut or rice husks. In California, dairy farms are using methane
from cow manure to run their dairy operations. Biogas is used
extensively in China for industry, and 25 million households worldwide
use biogas for cooking and lighting. Biomass and biogas are considered
to be carbon-neutral fuels, since they operate within the biospheric
carbon cycle. While biomass is a renewable resource it is not a
particularly expandable one. Often available biomass is a waste product
of other human activities: crop residues from agriculture, wood chips
and sawdust from wood products industries, and solid waste from
municipal trash and sewage. In a less energy-intensive future
agricultural system, crop residues may be needed to replenish soil
fertility and won't be available for power generation. There may also
be more competition for waste products as manufacturing from recycled
materials increases. Liquid fuels made from biomass
(biofuels—principally, ethanol and biodiesel) can substitute for
gasoline or petroleum diesel, but doubts have recently been raised
about the environmental impacts of biofuels production, competition
between crop production for biofuels and for food, and limits to the
scalability of this energy source.
Hydropower
produces 6 percent of the world's energy and 19 percent of all
electricity. The carbon emissions from hydropower are site-specific and
substantially lower than those from fossil fuel sources. Much debate
about this energy source centers around its effects on society and
whether or not a constant supply of water for power, irrigation, or
drinking justifies the relocation of millions of people for dam and
reservoir construction. The International Hydropower Association
estimates that about one-third of the realistic potential of world
hydropower has already been developed.
Nuclear
power produces 5 percent of world energy (15 percent of electricity)
from 435 commercial power-generating reactors operating worldwide.
Uranium, the fuel for the nuclear cycle, is a non-renewable resource.
The peak of production of high-grade ores is likely to occur between
2040 and 2050, which means that nuclear fuel is likely to become more
scarce and expensive over the next few decades. The average grade of
uranium is already declining as the best reserves are depleted.
Recycling of fuel and the employment of alternative nuclear fuels are
both possible, but these technologies have not been adequately
developed. The construction of nuclear power plants is slow and
expensive, and there is widespread controversy about health and
environmental risks from radiation accidents, problems of waste
storage, and security threats from black-market distribution of nuclear
materials.
Wind power is one of the world's
fastest-growing energy sources, expanding more than five-fold between
2000 and 2007. However, it still accounts for less than one percent of
the world's electricity generation, and less than one-half percent of
total energy. Wind power is a renewable source of energy, and there is
enormous capacity for growth: it has been estimated that developing 20
percent of the world's wind-rich sites would produce seven times the
current world electricity demand. The cost of electricity from wind
power, already relatively low, has been declining in recent years to a
level comparable to the cost of electricity from fossil sources.
However, the uncontrolled, intermittent nature of wind reduces its
value as compared to operator-controlled energy sources such as coal,
gas, or nuclear power. The primary way for utility operators to guard
against loss of power to the grid during times when winds are calm is
to build extra generation capacity from other energy sources. Therefore
adding new wind generating capacity often does not substantially
decrease the need for coal, gas, or nuclear power plants; it merely
enables conventional power plants to be used less while the wind is
blowing.
Solar energy encompasses several
distinct technologies—several kinds of photovoltaic (PV) cells that
generate electricity directly from sunlight; active solar thermal,
which makes electricity by concentrating the sun's heat; and solar
thermal water or space heating. Less than one percent of world
electricity (less than one-half of one percent of world energy)
currently comes from these technologies. Solar power is renewable and
could be expanded dramatically, though PV solar cells are still
relatively expensive. PV has recently been the fastest growing energy
technology in the world, increasing up to 50 percent annually. However,
despite the enormous growth of PV energy, in recent years the annual
increase in oil, gas, or coal production has usually exceeded total
existing photovoltaic energy production. Therefore if PV is to become a
primary energy source the rate of increase in capacity will need to be
much greater than is currently the case. Like wind, solar power is
intermittent.
Other sources of energy, including geothermal,
tidal, and wave power, together produce much less than one percent of
current world energy.
The inescapable conclusions from even a
brief survey such as this are that fossil fuels will likely yield less
energy annually in the future than they do currently, while burning
them will entail unacceptable environmental costs. Yet society is
profoundly dependent on these fuels: together, they provide about 80
percent of world energy. Alternative energy sources exist, but each is
subject to limits of one kind or another, and there is no clear
scenario in which the energy from fossil fuels can be replaced with
energy from alternative sources without (1) enormous investment, (2)
significant time for build-out, and (3) significant sacrifices in terms
of energy quality and reliability.
The problem of how to
continue supplying energy in a world where resources and environmental
waste sinks are limited becomes much easier to solve if we find ways to
proactively reduce demand for energy. And that project in turn becomes
easier if there are fewer of us wanting to use energy (that is, if
population shrinks rather than continuing to increase).
How far
will energy supplies fall, and how fast? Taking into account likely
depletion-led declines in oil and natural gas production, a leveling
off of energy from coal, and the recent shrinkage of investment in the
energy sector due to the global economic crisis, it may be reasonable
to expect a contraction in world energy availability of up to 25
percent during the next 25 years. Factoring in expected population
growth, this implies a substantial per-capita reduction in available
energy. The decline is unlikely to be evenly distributed among nations,
with oil and gas importers being hardest hit.
Thus the question
the world faces is not whether to reduce energy consumption, but how.
Policy makers could choose to manage energy unintelligently by
maintaining fossil fuel dependency as long as possible while making
both poor choices of alternatives and insufficient investments in them,
in which case the consequences will be catastrophic. Transport systems
will wither, global trade will contract dramatically, and
energy-dependent food systems will falter, leading to very high
long-term unemployment and famine perhaps even in industrial nations.
However,
if policy makers manage the energy downturn intelligently, an
acceptable quality of life could be maintained in both highly
industrialized and less-industrialized nations; at the same time,
greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced dramatically and quickly.
This would require:
* Direction of significant public and private investment toward renewable energy research and deployment; *
Re-localization of much economic activity (especially the production
and distribution of low-value, bulky items and materials) in order to
lessen the need for transport energy; * Construction of highly efficient rail-based transit systems and the redesign of cities to reduce the need for car ownership; *
Retrofit of building stock for maximum energy efficiency (energy demand
for space heating can be dramatically reduced through super-insulation
of structures and by designing to maximize solar gain); * Redesign of food systems reduce energy inputs and the need for food transport; and *
Reduction of the need for energy in water pumping and processing
through intensive water conservation programs (7 percent of world
energy is currently used in moving water).
Improvements in
efficiency, the introduction of new technologies, and the shifting of
emphasis from basic production to provision of services can enable
economic growth to occur without an increase in energy consumption, but
such growth trends have inherent limits. Over the long run, static or
falling energy supplies must be reflected in economic stasis or
contraction. Nevertheless, with proper planning, there is no reason
why, under such circumstances, an acceptable quality of life could not
be maintained. For the world as a whole, this might entail partial
redistribution of energy consumption, with highly industrial nations
reducing consumption substantially, and less-industrial nations
increasing their consumption somewhat in order to make basic
necessities available to all.
However, societal adaptation to
energy limits inevitably raises the question of population. When
population grows but the economy remains the same size, there are fewer
economic goods available per person. If energy constraints effectively
impose a limit to economic growth, then the only way to avert
continuing declines in per-capita access to economic goods is to limit
population by (for example) providing economic incentives for smaller
families, access to birth control, and support for poor women to obtain
higher levels of education. Policy makers must begin to see population
shrinkage as a goal, rather than an impediment to economic growth.
Altogether,
the energy transition of the 21st century marks a historic shift as
significant as the Agricultural Revolution or the Industrial
Revolution. In retrospect, the two recent centuries of rapid
fossil-fueled expansion in economic activity and in human population
levels will likely be seen as a historic anomaly, one that entailed a
profound alteration of the global climate through the rapid digging up
and burning of carbon-based fuels that had been produced and slowly
transformed by geological processes over tens of millions of years. It
is unclear how this anomalous and perilous interlude in human history
will end and what will follow. The only realistic future scenarios
appear to be environmental and economic collapse on one hand, or a
managed process of economic contraction and conversion on the other. http://kurtrudder.blogspot.com/2009/05/world-energy-in-crisis.html
