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Page added on November 27, 2013
Why Forecasts of a World Without Carbon-Based Fuel Are Delusional
Resource pressure is a constant.
While the US continues to engage in a delusional energy “debate” about whether we will continue to burn coal and whether natural gas is a panacea, China is struggling to acquire and deploy of energy resources to support its economic growth targets.
China has an environment versus growth problem. Already China is the #1 importer of oil in the world. That‘s right. China imports more oil than the United States.
The US can hold its energy consumption below GDP growth through increased energy efficiency (technological improvements) and because our economy is more “services based” than China’s.
China on the other hand has to continue to consume more energy, particularly oil. The emerging and growing middle class there wants to buy cars, as is typical when annual GDP per capital hits $10,000-20,000 per year. With 4X the population of the US, if China approaches even 50% of the US’s car ownership rates, it will have TWICE as many cars in nominal terms.
Consider the following data point: China is adding one million new cars to its expanding road and highway network every single month.
This kind of growth will strains China’s energy and water supplies. Whenever the gap between demand and supply is enormous, literal fortunes can be made.
16 Comments on "Why Forecasts of a World Without Carbon-Based Fuel Are Delusional"
DC on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 8:48 am
Who exactly, is forecasting a world without fossil-fools? By which I assume, the author mean , an industrial, technologically oriented civilization powered by say, wind or solar? I mean, not that that would be a bad thing as such, but I am pretty most of us(here at least) dont expect anyone to jettison oil anytime soon. If anything, we are witnessing talk and policy intended to burn every last litre of economically viable fossil-fuel(and now borderline ones) as fast as we can.
Who wouldnt want to see oil go away(gracefully preferably?) I would, but I am not expecting anything like that to occur.
As for the ridiculous assertion that the US of war can ‘hold’ its own and grow GDP through ‘efficiency’, there is one response to that notion:
ROFL!
The recent decline in US oil consumption has been anything BUT voluntary, and ‘efficiency'(how that makes me laugh when I hear that word now), had has precious little to do with any of it.
stilgar wilcox on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 8:55 am
According to that graph China only consumes 10,000 barrels a day, while the US consumes about 17 million barrels a day? Where is the math going wrong?
ulenspiegel on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 9:14 am
Stilgar,
your math is wrong 🙂
The Y-axis is labelled “THOUSAND barrels per day”, i.e. 10.000 *1000 barrels/d = 10 000 000 barrels/d.
J-Gav on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 10:03 am
There will always be fossil fuels (in the ground). Nevertheless, the day will come when they will no longer power the world’s economy as they’ll be too expensive to extract (or buy). And youngsters growing up now will likely see that day.
As for what will replace fossil fuels, my guess is ‘nothing,’ beyond a much simpler lifestyle. That’s a done deal within a generation (or possibly 2 with maximized deployment of ‘extenders’). Note that I’m playing the optimist here by not factoring in the potential for climate chaos, nuclear catastrophe, etc.
Arthur on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 10:30 am
Over the past two centuries Western civilization has shown what innovation is capable of, for better and for worse: rising the wealth of the ‘commoners’ to levels kings of the past could only dream of: central heating, cars, planes, IT, televisions, phones, health care, or in the words of Yule Brunner: etc., etc., etc.
In traditionally resource starved Europe already today wind and solar are price competative with fossil, that needs to be shipped from remote places like the Gulf or Siberia.
So J-Gav, I think you are too pessimistic about the possibilities for the future. The capacity for innovation of the West is unbroken. What we need to do is to apply this capacity within the confinements of the new emerging fossil fuel scarcity, dump the car, and put our cards on a ‘solid state’ economy, that is IT and solar panels and a ‘stay where you are’ localized anti-globalist mentality.
Mike on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 11:23 am
Get back on your cloud Arthur and take your blindfold off while your up there, it might give you a better view of what is actually happening around the world. 😉
Mike on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 11:43 am
just some facts for you Big A
solar costs about 80 cents per kilowatt hour in the US compared to the average of 10 cents kwh
In the US solar energy receives about 96 cents per kwh in subsidies
Solar energy is one of the worst ways to reduce carbon emissions
Germany will stop subsidising solar energy by 2018 at the latest after last year initiating a scaling-back of state support
Germany has seen a wave of solar company insolvencies and the number of people employed in the industry fell to 87,000 in 2012 from 110,900. Sales have plummeted by 11.9 billion euros, according to government figures.
expect those figures to continue downwards once the silly subsidies stop.
and yeah I could post links to these but I know you wouldn’t read them anyway. What with your penchant for outright lying in posts you make here like the whole “and this was midweek at peak time” regarding Germany’s solar output/usage when in fact it was a Sunday afternoon when most people were asleep or having a walk.
Arthur on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 12:51 pm
solar costs about 80 cents per kilowatt hour in the US compared to the average of 10 cents kwh
A kwh in Western Europe costs ca. 25 euro cent, that ca. 35 dollar cent. And panels for some reason (US import tariffs?) are much cheaper here, so solar already is cost competitive even without subsidies and the main reason why solar is growing fast here. Btw ‘subsidies’ play a minor role in the European solar business. What does play a huge role though is the feed-in tariffs, often denounced as a ‘subsidy’ by the enemies of solar, but which is not a subsidy at all, just a government initiated breaking of the power of the might of the big utilities. Just what we need.
Solar energy is one of the worst ways to reduce carbon emissions
You don’t explain why, but who cares about carbon emissions caused by a fuel that is running out sooner or later anyway.
Germany has seen a wave of solar company insolvencies and the number of people employed in the industry fell to 87,000 in 2012 from 110,900.
We have discussed this before and concluded that the German worker cannot price compete with the Chinese worker in the simpleton work of operating a turn-key solar factory. However, the solar factories keep coming by and large from Germany and western Europe (just like 100% of microchip manufacturing equipment comes from Holland) and that’s where the money is made. And it shows where on this planet the ‘solid state’ solar/IT revolution is taking place first, just like America was first with the exploitation of oil in the 2nd half of the 19th century and Britain with their coal in the 18th century. Now it is our turn.
Germany will stop subsidising solar energy by 2018
Because it is no longer necessary; objective achieved: solar revolution kicked off.
What with your penchant for outright lying in posts
Hmmm, am I irritating you? Not difficult to guess why: you are in the corner defending weaker arguments.
like the whole “and this was midweek at peak time” regarding Germany’s solar output/usage when in fact it was a Sunday afternoon when most people were asleep or having a walk
Not 100% sure, but I do remember overlooking that a particular data set applied indeed for a Sunday. However I also do remember that I corrected that by posting a data set showing you that
a) electricity consumption on Sunday is not that much lower than during the week (typically 55 versus 70 units)
b) solar and wind do indeed contribute considerably to German electricity production:
http://tinyurl.com/qd3pswl
Go for instance to page 50 of the pdf linked to see that in June this year in Germany wind + solar produced 7.7 TWh versus 26.4 TWh conventional. At peak days during peak hours, solar and wind produce 50% or more of the total German electricity production. And this is only 2013. Wait until 2020… maybe then 50% instead of 25% today.
All European governments have adopted a 100% renewable energy strategy to be achieved by 2050. The US has no official renewable energy strategy at all (just some lip service, too busy trying to conquer the world), and that is because there are too many people like you Mike with a self-defeating No I can’t attitude.
Arthur on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 1:01 pm
Mike, why don’t you browse this link:
http://deepresource.wordpress.com/category/countries/germany/
Some highlights:
– 9 Nov 2013: “Germany To Increase Speed Energy Transition” (2020: 40% instead 35% renewable)
– 23 Oct 2013: “Germany’s 67 GW Renewable Energy Market” (German population in overwhelming majority supports 100% renewable as fast as possible)
– 18 Oct 2013: “In 2014 German Electricity 29% Renewable”
– 15 Oct 2013: “Germany October 3 – 60% Electricity From Wind/Solar” (That was a Thursday Mike, 12 o’clock)
Mike on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 1:18 pm
Ah well we have nothing to worry about then do we? If Germany will be 100% renewable in a few years then the rest of the global economies will follow suit and we can carry on as we are. Great, thanks, I can stop coming to this website now.
Cheers!
Mike on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 1:24 pm
And I mean that by the way. If we are all going to be energy independent from solar and wind and then of course through the efficiencies we gain over the years in the tech then exponetial growth can continue. Soon we’ll have solar panels in space, maybe a orbiting sun station that feeds electricity back to us wireless style like the new mobile phones. Once we have that we can start mining asteroids and fly off into space to explore. I reckon the time frame is about 20-30 years. You’ve really changed my perception of the human predicament over the months and I thank you for your clear points and diligence. Goodbye peak oil doomers, hello future. Cheers all!
Mike on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 1:28 pm
Just before I go, check this out. You can buy a cold fusion device now, i know it’s expensive but the price will come down as the tech is perfected. Cold fusion is finally here. This system works. Peak oil is dead my friends DEAD!
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/171660-1-megawatt-cold-fusion-power-plant-now-available-yours-for-just-1-5-million
Ghung on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 5:46 pm
Yikes!
Arthur on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 5:50 pm
That red vessel in the second picture looks like the pressure vessel in my CV system. Can be bought for 50 euro at Praxis, our version of Walmart.
The good news is that, when E-Cat starts shipping its 1MW Plants, and third-party scientists can freely poke around, we will finally know if Rossi has created cold fusion — or if it’s just pseudo-scientific snake oil.
If it works we can take down all these ugly solar panels and wind turbines. Until that moment remain loyal to something that does work.
mo on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 10:08 pm
Cold fusion? That’s a scam. You cant believe that!! If it were true every major company and government in the world would be trying to get their hands on it by hook or crook. Holy Flieshman and ponz!!!!
cusano on Wed, 27th Nov 2013 11:01 pm
It wasn’t delusional to my great grandfather.