PEAK OIL: The 'fix' for the transportation half of emissions.

Citation please,,, I would be surprised if the ratio were that high.

But it is beside the point as well. The point I made was that TarSands oil, regardless of who is ultimately burning it (USA mostly!) is a very bad deal all the way around. It makes no sense economically, socially and certainly not environmentally. It only makes "sense" in some short term political sense.

We would be way further ahead just to import the natural gas and build a fueling infrastructure for LNG! (Or better yet, save the gas for what it does best, heating!

 

Peak oil is the point at which we can't pump it out of the ground any faster even though we're trying as hard as we can, to and the rate of supply drops even though demand remains the same.

Some people think that we've already reached that peak as supply has been at a plateau for the past 5 years - I think while that is quite possible and likely given the rise of oil prices during that same time period - the next 5 years will most likely show them right or wrong.

In related news, some believe that stated oil reserves are generous by a third.

Oil reserves 'exaggerated by one third' - Telegraph

 

the roughly 50% electricity formula for water/agriculture is based off several raw numbers, from water pumping & other elecrical usages (first paragraph, gets you to 1/3 right from the get go):

http://www.usda.gov/oce/climate_change/AFGG_Inventory/5_AgriculturalEnergyUse.pdf

While the other 17 ish % comes from collateral usage, such as the electricity needed to refine diesel & other fuels, heating etc ... I think the article I originall read had that percentage buried in this doc:

http://www.co.contra-costa.ca.us/depart/cd/current/ConocoPhillipsDEIR/4.05 energy.pdf


It's off topic I know ... the point was a HUGE part, just goes to agriculture, of which a huge part is getting the water delivered. In any event, and segwaying back to tar sands & other 'remaining' sources of energy, you don't have a huge amount of cheep fuel left anymore to produce/refine those poorer sources, once you use it up for residential / agriculture transportation, etc. So as power sources dwindle, and get poorer, it means you end up using WAY more costly power, just to obtain the poorer source of power ... all the while, more & more people / industry consume power. Thus, it'd be a strech to say we haven't hit the peak. World wide production (regardless of remaining poor sources) HAS peaked if you simply look at production numbers over the past few years. Please don't make me search for the numbers.


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Therein lies the irony. You have to go bug other countries to 'assure' your cheep energy keeps flowing . . . of which you spend a HUGE amount by maintaining fleets & fleets of jets, aircraft carriers, fuel trucks, choppers, military transport vehicles, and on and on ... just so we can continue to piss off the jihadists, and simultaneously use up the remainder of the cheep fuel. What a mess.

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One of the huge issues with Tar Sands oil is that the BTUs needed to recover it, are often nearly as much or even more than the BTUs that it provides! They use huge quantities of natural gas, to steam the tar out of the sand! Like I said, avoid the middle man, and just burn the Natural gas directly.

No one said that future energy supplies were going to be "cheap." The issues is what energy at what cost. As you know Hill, you PV provides "cheap" energy at considerable up front capital cost, but it is way cheaper net/net going forward!

 

I too, find that surprising. Are you including water for residential and industrial use?

For your numbers on China, 87.6/3700 = 2.4%

Too bad the U.S. didn't report results to the second link you have. But if you use Canada, they used 10.2 x10^9 KWh for agriculture. Not sure how this breaks down by particular use.
By [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Canada"]this wiki page[/ame], Canada consumed 563,000 GWh, or 563 x 10^9 KWh. This would come to 1/56th, again about 2%.

From an interesting Canadian report on total energy use (not just electrical):

2.2. Agricultural
Nationally, the agricultural sector proportionally accounts
for the lowest energy consumption, at approximately 2.7%;
at a regional level, however, the agricultural sector displays a
relatively high level of variability. The Atlantic Provinces
use only 1% of their energy for agricultural purposes, whereas
Saskatchewan uses approximately 13%.
This small proportion represents only those fuels consumed
directly for farming. The actual energy intensity of
food consumption in Canada is much higher, predominantly
due to transportation.
​

So it could be you read a statistic for a region (particularly out west where you are) and incorrectly assumed that could be extrapolated nation-wide.

 

Sheez . . . :doh: between taking as fact all that I read, and misplacing decimals, I'm really on a roll. Well . . . the good thing I suppose is that significantly lower percentages of colateral fossil fuel use means there's more to burn for transportation, build housing tracts in the middle of wheat fields, continue with war, make petrochemicals etc. That's a good thing ... right?

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Another new publication in "Energy Policy" by Owen et al. Quite gloomy as well. Excerpt:

“This paper supports the contention held by many independent institutions that conventional oil production may soon go into decline (Alekkett, 2007; Campbell and Laherrere, 1998; IEA, 2008; Laherre´re, 2009a; Robelius, 2007; Sperling and Gordon, 2007; USGAO, 2007) and it is likely that the ‘era of plentiful, low cost petroleum is coming to an end’ (Hirsch, 2005). Significant supply challenges in the near future are compounded against a backdrop of rising demand and strengthening environmental policy. Key conclusions include:

• The age of cheap liquid fuels is over. A condition of meeting additional demand is to develop unconventional resources, which translates to an increase in the price of petroleum products.
• Oil reserve data that is available in the public domain is often contradictory in nature and should be interpreted with caution.
• World oil reserve estimates are best described by 2P reporting. This means public reserve figures should be revised downwards from1150–1350 Gb to 850–900 Gb. Supply and demand is likely to diverge between 2010 and 2015, unless demand falls in parallel with supply constrained induced recession.
• Reserves that provide liquid fuels today will only have the capacity to service just over half of BAU demand by 2023.
• The capacity to meet liquid fuel demand is contingent upon the rapid and immediate diversification of the liquid fuel mix, the transition to alternative energy carriers where appropriate, and demand side measures such as behavioural change and adaptation.
• The negative effect of oil price on the macro-economy is significant, and should be used to build the business case to invest in alternative energy carriers. Many alternative fuel carriers also present the double dividend of improving energy security (i.e. utilize local resources) and reducing emissions (i.e. electricity, hydrogen)."

 

Looks like a good time to invest into renewable power and ditch all the gas guzzlers while you still can.

With the many predictions that gas will exceed $4/gallon this summer again, imagine what will happen when real shortages hit... The question is - will gas peak sharply again this time and then fall off, or will it be more gradual given the relative weakness of the economy?

 

'Not in my back yard' is what most in the U.S. think of, when it comes to building any nuke. And nuclear power production is far from being any kind of energy panacea ... from fuel mining, to environmental impact (and studies), to building cost over-runs, to decomissioning. It's been so many decades since the U.S. has built a nuke facility for commercial power generation, that it's hard to estimate accurately. And the energy return on investment isn't as spectacular as some may think ... and even that's at best, a guess ... maybe a 10 to 1 ratio for energy used, to energy created? ... or put in cost prospective, $1,000 to $1,250 per Kwh at current dollar values and fuel / supply costs.

The Oil Drum: Net Energy | The Energy Return of Nuclear Power (EROI on the Web-Part 4)

But it's better than folding one's arms and waiting to run even lower on fossil fuel supplies I suppose.
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Does it look like this?



It's sure SMALLER than the original.




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About 'peak oil', the US Joint Forces Command released a report suggesting that 2012 will be the end of 'surplus oil production capacity'. Perhaps not quite the same thing, but one would do well to not underestimate their interest in the matter. Downloadable here:

ASPO International | The Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas

Yeah I know that web site sounds agenda driven. D/L the report from somewhere else if you'd rather.

 

Hey, I just thought of something. We've already reached "peak hydrogen" before we've even started!

Cracks me up that there are people who think that peak oil is a myth. Was the US peak in the 70's a myth too?

 

Is anyone surprised that the price of oil (by the barrel and retail) is going up along with economic recovery? Does anyone think that we will routinely see gasoline in the $2/gallon every again? Do you think it more likely that we will see gasoline nearer $5/ gallon on a regular basis.

The economic meltdown of late presented a golden opportunity for us to make some real changes in energy policy/conservation/alternative. It seems, for the most part we are going to miss that opportunity. To bad as the benefits for global warming/energy security and national security are congruent and yet too few understand that. The result is we will continue to pay too much for too dirty energy from too insecure sources.

Icarus

 

No doubt. The US military is spending working quite hard at sourcing biofuels to fly their jets. Have seen a number of announcements about it over the past couple years.