Peak oil, peak coal, green house gasses

Both are the wrong questions.

What is peak CO2 from oil, coal and natural gas fossil fuels to stop environmental catastrophe of man made global warming. The science tells us we need to reduce use of fossil fuels to reduce and reverse fossil fuel caused global warming. We don't care how much more damage we can do with the extraction and use of existing fossil fuels.

US has an even more immediate subset of problems caused by oil use. The $500B per year oil import tax on US economy, $6T over last thirty years when US abandoned energy conservation and alternative energy in favor of increased oil dependence. And then there is the economic drag of 70% of US's $1.4T per year military spending, the entire $14T in debt run up over last 30 years plus the national security threats created by US supporting Saddam and Bin Laden in the misguided attempt to secure Middle East oil supplies.

That BP and Exxon claim they can extract more oil with deeper and more unstable wells near US coasts is not the issue. Getting US to use 50% less oil, coal and natural gas to match other advanced nation's level of energy efficiency is the key.

Garçon! More Teslas for my friends!

 

My perspective is on net new CO2 and not fuel-by-fuel. Conventionally extractable crude oil may peak or plateau, but there are several prominent alternatives to fill in.

As long as people, generally, are willing to buy more energy (and emit more CO2), there is no plateau or peak->decline. It's up from here. (5-decade view)

If liquid transportation fuels were a niche that could only be filled by conventional crude oil, then we could talk about peak petrol. But I think we can rely on chemists to continue to devise ways to convert essentially any hydrocarbon to essentially any other hydrocarbon.

 

"Once maximum world oil production is reached, that level will be approximately maintained for several years thereafter, creating an undulating plateau. After this plateau period, production will experience a decline."

This sound like a peak to me.

You can have a plateau followed by a cliff if you really want.

Time to exhaustion of any fixed resource should always be clearly kept in mind, and calculated from the rate of use, AND rate of CHANGE of rate of use. If you aren't including the second derivative in your calculations you are always going to be surprised.

 

Yes this is correct, converting coal and nat gas to liquid fuels is long proven technology in commercial practice.

Right now in USA we have a number of venture capital firms working on biomass (wood)-to-liquids, since Congress has subsidized creating liquids from renewable sources, and I believe mandated that these fuels be used, when the production starts. But generally it is the same chemistry as converting coal and gas to liquids, and at least one of these venture groups is shifting to natural gas as their starting point, which is already proven.

 

Wood decomposition, whether in the forest or as a lab step preparing for ethanol/methanol/butanol production, is impeded by lignin. That is the tough stuff. The cellulose is what bacteria are eager to ferment.

Few fungi (and fewer bacteria) can decompose lignin. For about 100 years the main description has been 'white-rot fungi'. These days, some 40 spp. of white rotters have been completely sequenced and many others partially so. This is an enormous resource for people like me, who want to know which fungi are 'doing it' in the forest and how they interact with each other.

It was quite expensive and paid for by bioenergy research in US and EU. All the sequences are free online to be BLASTED (which to be honest is something I don't know how to do -- collaborators). But is knowledge would be absent w/o investment by the cellulose -> alcohol folks.

So, while one may argue that ethanol makes not much sense as a fuel, I and others will benefit from the knowledge it paid for.

Perhaps OT here, I was following wjtracy's mention of biofuels. But I believe it makes a relavent point for Enviro (or other) topics: Even research that you may think is pretty dumb can generate valuable knowledge for other areas.

 

Natural gas is plentiful.
Its safer than nukes with low CO2 (if that matters).But we have the nuke option as well.(IMHO coal is safer but since you all hate CO2 ,then nuke em.)Interesting that one of the the main financial backers of AGW FUD are the Nuke industry.
We could make make oil as obsolete as whale oil tomorrow,with no effect on the economy.

 

The extreme natural gas extraction methods required, fracturing, hugely destructive and water intensive and a source of massive water pollution so saying gas is "plentiful" has a huge caveat.

As far as US economic issues, if US replaced oil with natural gas we are then importing natural gas instead of oil and are right back in the same economic and national security ditch, spending $500B a year to import it and another $1.4T a year to "secure" supplies, befriending the next Shah, Saddam or Bin Laden.

Biggest push for US right now is to cut energy use 50% to match the per capita and per GDP energy efficiency of every other advanced economy. It cuts our greenhouse gases by 50%, if focused on oil use, it eliminates the economic and national security costs and dangers. The focus on growth via alternatives. We already have a surplus of windpower to the point BPA is shutting it down so it doesn't compete. Same with solar even at the retail level with solar hot water and solar PV panels on homes and commercial buildings.

The 50% reduction buys us time and money to build alternatives even exotics like fusion power.

It's why the various "peak" conservations are irrelevant to US and world current energy problems.

 

From this data (said to be outdated)

List of countries by ratio of GDP to carbon dioxide emissions - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

USA is far down the GDP/CO2 list. Doubling the ratio would put us ahead of Japan but not quite to France. Those are the two countries with largest % nuclear in the energy mix, yes?

I would not regard the highest countries on the list as development goals for USA though.

All that said I certainly agree with Proximal , and have said before that there is much room for increased energy efficiency in USA and most countries. Starting with the ones that have negative costs.

Ah nuclear...a complicated subject, to be sure. It's lots of things/issues/groups.

A thermonuclear generator that did not produce (much) long-lived isotopes in need of geologic storage, and demonstrably safe enough to attract investors absent Price-Anderson, would please many people and sell like hotcakes. Even better than the Westinghouse AP1000, which is doing rather well in the global market.

I truly doubt that mojo and I are the only 2 poeple here who don't hate CO2. I see it as an indispensable trace gas, without which we would surely die (starve). But as levels now exceed those at any earlier time in human history, the presumption that more&more will be on balance better&better? Perhaps a bit of evidence could be offered? Experimental, modeling, something?

Otherwise the proposal calls for faith w/o evidence. Trust w/o reservation. I'm a sceptic.

 

Agreed conservation is a priority, but natural gas is domestic.
Your statement about imports of natural gas is just plain wrong.

 

Which part of it is wrong? The part that fracking comes at considerbe environmetal cost?

Icarus

 

If you'd bother to quote what you're replying to, you'd get a more relevant answer.

 

"if US replaced oil with natural gas we are then importing natural gas instead of oil and are right back in the same economic and national security ditch," ProximalSuns

We wont be importing natural gas,thats part of the attractiveness.​

Fracking just needs to be regulated to protect water sources.
​

 

Hey I like it when MoJo talks energy strategy!
I am a long time natural gas advocate, way before anyone knew anything about shale gas.
That means I was aware of Liquified Petroleum Gas and had visited the inactive LPG port at Calvert Cliffs MD.
Well, I was really visiting the fossil fields there along the river/bay at Calverts Cliffs and LPG terminal is right there. So in the past I thought we should be importing LPG. Now it looks like we do not need to. But I disagree with the premise that all energy imports must be banned. LPG comes from different locations than petroleum, and can be considered part of a diversified mix, whereas diversification is by definition more secure.

CORRECTION- Meant to say LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) replace all LPG with LNG above, got lost in my own alphabet soup, dang it.

 

AG, the wood-> methanol ('wood alcohol') isjust as diect as you say, but it is very low yielding. The high-yielding microbial fermentations are another matter.

Starting with natural gas, coal, etc to do the chemistry, it is another matter entirely. Re-introducing fossil C to the atmosphere, no matter what you do with it. An oil spill, cleaned by bacteria? CO2 to the atmosphere.

All kinds of bioE nibble off recent photosynthesis. Herbivores, carnivors, and BioE plants simply make less C available to the decomposers.

The financials and efficiency of all carbon/energy processess are secondary to this fundamental distinction.

 

Not sure this fits in, but the biggest east coast refinery in Philly is saved by shale oil + gas.
Apparently the plan is to use railroads to bring cheap crude oil from domestic sources.
Also to rely on cheap nat gas.

Carlyle saves big Sunoco refinery with shale boom, JPMorgan| Reuters