ASPO Conference – Further notes

I couldn’t resist going back through my notes, and there seems to be a bit of interest, so here is an abbreviated version of the Friday afternoon presentations.

Kelly Sims Gallagher of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government spoke about China and the growth of auto culture. My mention in an earlier post about 13% of those polled in three major Chinese cities intending to buy a car in the next year comes from her presentation. To give a sense of proportion, she pointed out that China –

Has 2/3 of US energy consumption
Produces 61% as much CO2
Uses 1/3 as much oil
Imports 1/3 of its oil, 3.5 mbpd, 3rd after US and Japan
Accounts for 37% of world coal consumption

In 1991 China was producing less than 100,000 cars a year
In 2005 it produced 4 million
China has 25 million cars on the road, compared to 220 million in the US
Cars are now the leading source of urban air pollution in China

China is projected to surpass US in CO2 production in 2015

Those numbers, without any commentary, paint an ominous picture of China’s future effect on world oil consumption and CO2 production.

Michael Klare is the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies and author of “Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’s Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum.” He spoke on Peak Oil and Energy Security.

He started out with the obvious and the less obvious points about peak oil. Point one is that oil production peaks and declines. Point two is that the first half of the oil is easy to get and the second half is hard. We will transition from oil fields that are shallow, big, onshore, safe, and close, to fields that are deep, dispersed, offshore, remote, and unsafe.

He pointed out that of all the oil reserves left,
62% is in the Persian Gulf
10% is in Africa, mostly Angola, Libya, and Nigeria
10% is in the FSU, mostly Russia, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan
10% in Latin America, mostly Venezuela

Three fourths is in predominantly Muslim countries, and most is in countries that are unstable, corrupt, undemocratic, and ethnically or religiously divided. Historically, oil development increases ethnic and religious violence.

He used Iraq as an example. The Shias and Kurds occupy the major oil regions of Iraq, and all the political maneuvering since the invasion has served to exclude the Sunnis from any control of the oil resources and revenue. Its no surprise, then, that the Sunnis are driving the violence in Iraq.

In Nigeria, likewise, oil development and the unequal sharing of the benefits drives the violence.

The more we pursue their oil, the more they resist.

He concluded that for the U.S., and especially the young people of the U.S., the implications for violence and military action are as important as scarcity. The U.S. military has become an oil field protection service for the oil industry. He considers changing this a moral imperative. We cannot allow oil dependence to bring us into foreign wars.

Cutler Cleveland gave a fascinating talk on energy quality, net energy, and the coming energy transition.

Some historical points:
In 1800, 90% of our energy came from wood and animal feed.
By WWI, coal was dominant.
We made the transition from coal to oil and gas around 1950.

He made the point that from an economic perspective, all BTUs are not equal. Different sources of energy have different economic usefulness, different GDP per joule or BTU.

Quality factors:
Physical characteristics, Chemistry, Economics, Environmental
Cost, Density, Safety, Storage, Conversion Efficiency, Ease of transport
No one factor can adequately reflect quality – it is as much art as science right now.

Gasoline and diesel have a very high volumetric density, making them ideal transportation fuels
Hydrogen has a very low Vol. Density.
Biomass has a very low volumetric and gravimetric density – bulky and heavy for its energy content.

The dollar value of an energy source per BTU generally reflects its quality.

We tend to use the most concentrated sources available – highest watts per square meter (W/m2)

The Energy Return On Investment (EROI) is the ratio between the useful energy obtained from a source divided by all the direct and indirect energy inputs needed to obtain it.

An economy thrives on high EROI sources.

Oil 20:1 (2000)
Coal 80:1 (2000)
Gas 10:1
Corn Ethanol 1:1
Oil Shale Negative to 8:1
Coal Liquefaction Negative to 5:1

Methods of producing electricity (I’ll forgo the “:1” and give the ranges of the first number)
Nuclear 3-10
Coal 5-11
Hydroelectric 6-18, increasing with size
Geothermal 2-14
Wind 5-30, again, increasing with size
Solar Thermal 1-7
PV 2-10, depending on technology

Cleveland noted the drop in EROI between refined petroleum and best case numbers on corn ethanol. At 10:1, it takes 10 exajoules to net 90 useful exajoules. At 1.5:1 for ethanol, it takes 300 ej to net the same 90 ej. As Cleveland put it, if we tried to run our transportation system on corn ethanol, two-thirds of us would be working for Archer Daniels Midland growing and refining the stuff.

Another point he made was about energy concentration. If we compare the average energy draw of a building in units of Watts to its area, we get a W/m2 rating for a home, commercial building, or factory. The W/m2 of our buildings matches the W/m2 of our energy sources. Renewable energy sources tend to have low W/m2. We will run into a problem when we try to run concentrated uses on diffuse sources.

I was very impressed by Cutler Cleveland’s presentation. As we plan, design, and advocate for our energy future, we need to be cognizant of the relative qualities and EROIs of energy sources and their relation to the intended use. Some of the “gee-whiz” technologies such as hydrogen fuel cells and ethanol founder on the rocks of quality and EROI.

Charles Hall of SUNY followed, appropriately enough, with a call for a standardized protocol for determining EROI. Presently there is no global standard for defining assumptions, methods, and boundaries on EROI calculations.

He made some disturbing observations about EROI:

There may be a minimum EROI necessary to sustain a technological civilization – 5:1 has been proposed.
While renewable energy is promising, the magnitude of its resource is presently microscopic compared to the need.

Most significantly, the EROI for oil and gas is dropping. As we go for deeper, more difficult to extract deposits, we are spending more energy to explore, drill, and pump. Hall showed a graph of EROI for oil that indicated that the industry would reach a 1:1 ratio for newly discovered resources in 2015-2020. That means that within 10-15 years oil exploration for energy would be useless. We would have to operate on existing reserves as they deplete and approach 1:1 EROI themselves.

Again, it brings me back to lifestyle. Dick Cheney famously (infamously?) said that “the American way of life is not negotiable.” It seems that he is right. Nature will take away our lifestyle without negotiating.

The question is, where on the energy ladder will we be during the last resounding energy crisis? Right now we are balanced on the top rung, unsteady, with a long way to fall. Out in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, there are some hunter-gatherers who will notice that the white men don’t come around much any more, and will get on with their lives. The best we can do is to start the climb down from the top rung before the whole thing goes over.