Strategies for the Energy Crisis

Algal biofuels are in the R & D phase and 10 years and trillions of dollars of investement away from producing just a trickle of energy. Here is reality.

According to most independent scientific studies, global oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time demand will increase 14%.

This is equivalent to a 33% drop in 7 years. No one can reverse this trend, nor can we conserve our way out of this catastrophe. Because the demand for oil is so high, it will always exceed production levels; thus oil depletion  will continue steadily until all recoverable oil is extracted.

Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment.

We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables, all from far away. With the highways out, there will be no food coming in from "outside," and without the power grid virtually nothing works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated systems.

This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

I used to live in NH-USA, but moved to a sustainable place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area with a good climate and good soil? Email: clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or give me a phone call which operates here as my old USA-NH number 603-668-4207. http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/

By following the insights of Cardiff University sociologist, Harry Collins, readers will be able to decide whether or not the anti-coal drumbeat is worthy.

Is the Anti-Coal Drumbeat Worthy?

By José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, Ph.D.
Systemic Consultant: Electricity

First posted in the GMH Blog, on September 26th, 2008.

Copyright © 2008 José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without written permission from José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio. This article is an unedited, an uncorrected, draft material of The EWPC Textbook. Please write to javs@ieee.org to contact the author for any kind of engagement.

Whether he knows or not, the very intelligent, very important and well respected, Warren Causey’s is “talking the talk” in defense of the power utility and coal industries interests with his article If you want the utility industry to join the financial industry, keep up the anti-coal drumbeat!

This is part of the comment I posted September 25th, 2008, in response:

… I suggest the EWPC article "Is Gore's Revolutionary Leadership Challenge Feasible?,” whose summary reads: "Al Gore leadership challenge is based on leading expert advice. EWPC is the first holistic step ready to be implemented in an Energy Policy Act that satisfies the non-trivial power system requirements laid out by the leading experts [and] power industry insiders the late Fred C. Schweppe and Jack Casazza."

One thing that needs to become clear is that the fossil fuel "fueled" society system needs to be restructured out by opening the power industry to competition. Maybe 10 years could become 12 or 15 years transition, the whole point about EWPC is that it has a bridging function. It does that by letting generation competition work its way out, by having fossil fuels taxed in accordance with rules at the WTO. All those like Mark Gabriel and you [Causey] that feel that clean power will not make a dent should favor such free competition under in a power business without price controls.

Unlike the financial industry and deregulation, which are prone to systemic risks, EWPC has a controlled transportation market that is associated with short run and long run systemic risks. Please take a look at the article "Rethinking Electricity Restructuring as EWPC." Long run systemic risk is known in the power industry system adequacy.

End of the comment and the beginning of another comment.

In the article Strategies for the Energy Crisis, posted September 26, 2008, on Technology Review (TR), BP's chief scientist, Steven Koonin (SK), is interviewed by Kevin Bullis. Koonin says cutting greenhouse emissions will take major changes.

I infer that according to Cardiff University sociologist, Harry Collins, that SK as a leading expert and industry insider, while he cannot "walk the walk," he does a lot more than just "talk the talk," as Causey and Gabriel do, SK can "walk the talk." The difference between Causey and Gabriel on one side and SK in the other is scientific expertise. Also according to Collins Koonin can contribute, while Causey and Gabriel cannot.

To support the worth of the anti-coal drumbeat, I selected two interchanges from the interview:

TR: When you look at public policy decisions, what are some other mistakes you've seen?

SK: One is confusing transportation with stationary sources of power and heat. What problems are we trying to solve? If it's carbon dioxide emissions, there are cheaper ways to do it than improving transportation. If you improve the efficiency of a vehicle to reduce fuel use and carbon dioxide emissions, for many vehicle technologies it will take several hundred dollars per ton of carbon dioxide. But transport is only 20 percent of energy-related emissions. Heat and power from stationary sources are most of it. At $50 a ton, there's a lot of carbon that can be wrung out of stationary sources. When you start cranking the price up to $100 to $200, that's when you start to affect transport, whereas we can shift to lower-emissions heat and power at $50 a ton.

TR: Why the difference?

SK: There are about twice the emissions, per unit of useful energy, from coal as from gasoline.


Koonin concludes the interview with "We really need major changes in the ways we produce and use energy if we're going to prevent concentrations from rising. I don't think people understand that." I believe important and intelligent people don't understand it because it is a non-trivial matter, which means that they do not have the interactional expertise Koonin has to be able to walk the talk.

Koonin says "One of the things I have learned, which was surprising but makes sense in retrospect, is that companies are wonderful optimizers of their situation. If the government sets the playing rules appropriately, they will respond strongly and rapidly. So it is a question of getting the right policies in place, as well as a push from within the company."

By walking the talk, as a power utility insider and researcher, I claim that the EWPC market architecture and design paradigm will enable the mayor changes with the right Energy Policy Act for the power industry. In that respect, I suggest readers to consider my humble contributions on the EWPC Blog articles' summary EWPC Blog's First Year Anniversary: Electricity for the Digital Era.

The problem is not that the market is too short term to price the CO2 problem correctly.

The issue is the "well assigned property rights" as Coase stated. Currently, when we use energy, we cause externalities on other people (Pollution, CO2, Noise, Traffic congestion) that are not properly priced because the property rights are not assigned. If we had to pay for inflicting damage on others for our energy use, it could be priced by the market.

"Social Costs" can be priced by market mechanisms, but the property rights (clean air and low carbon dioxide on this case) need to be allocated and an efficient mechanism to for charging it found.

Kevin Bullis and Jason Paton's joint effort at publishing Steven Koonin's interview on the subject of Energy Crisis is highly commendable.
Having followed Koonin's perspectives at MIT
last week, and now, aforegoing excerpts, my perceptions that as good and supportive as alternative energy research and investment
might be, and regardless of time factor, a complete successful realization alternative
energy pursuits will never amount to complete universal replacement of fossil fuels
exploration and exploitation for the
benefit of mankind and society.
Economic dynamism of changing time and
society are not perfectly predictable. Man
needs to consider societal changes and
increasing population needs, unpredictable changing behavioral pattern and impact of
decision making process on critical
matters of sensitivity, both on
national and global economies, society,
human quality life and humanity.
Lastly, multidisciplinary discussion
provide an upper hand in every sound
decision making event than
a colossal investment, improperly
justifiable,but in fulfillment of
the thinking of a selected few.
Nations must stay in constructive
engagement discussions with
OIL PRODUCING AND EXPORTING COUNTRIES
even when successful realization of
"break-through" in alternative energy
research and development is recorded,
for disengagement from needy application
of fossil fuels, or crude oil and its
derivative products seems practically
impossible, not even in the context of
short or long term consideration..
M.Atayo (Martin@mpgatechnology.com)

If this years price increase at the pump drove consumption down and helped reduce prices, then it would make sense that a controlled decrease in consumption through a major National Telecommuting Policy would do the same, but also reduce demand for other Enrergy Sources as well.

Why doesn't the US have a National Policy to make Telecommuting Mandatory? We have 150 million workers, 60 million broadband Internet connections. If weonly Telecommuted 100% of the potential users - say three days per week, the impact would be enormous!