Oil and Sustainability

Oil and Sustainability

Charles A. S. Hall SUNY ESF January 31, 2013 What are humanitys critical resources ?

Water Energy (including food) Soil Breathable air

)33 HP animal power (controlled by 5 workers plus Land for feed, Human work, Water and soil, Stables

200 HP mechanical power (controlled by 1 worker)

I. Economic Production Correlates with Energy Production

Mention how small a portion comes from renewable sources. 8Oil Problems

I. Peak oil 10King HubbertAmericas greatest Scientist?Geophysicist at the Shell lab in Houston, TexasIn 1956, he wrote a paper with predictions for the peak year of US oil production

10The Epoch of Fossil Fuel Exploitation(after Hubbert, 1969)0-5-4-3-2-1+12+3+4+5Iron inMiddleEastStonehengeBuiltParthenoncompletedPyramidsconstructedMayancultureInquisitionBlackDeath Magellan'sCircumnavigation Steam Engine100200300Trillion kwh per yearHubberts pimple 11Many take the fossil fuel era and the wealth it has generated for granted.Ephemeral nature of fossil fuel era.What guided us into the era?Why did this take place when and how it did?What will guide us out of the fossil fuel era?

Villagers Su Jia Hong, 69, and Yan Man Bairen, 74, stand on the edge of the six-mile-wide toxic lake in Baotou, China that has devastated their farmland and ruined the health of the people in their community

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html#ixzz2L0RHvIog Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on FacebookDepletion is Easy to GraspAs every beer drinker knows:Glass starts full, and ends emptyThe quicker you drink it, the sooner it is goneThe same principle applies to oil and gasHow has this self-evident reality been concealed ?It is so obvious yet it is a DEVASTATING REALISATION19Depletion is easy to grasp as every beer-drinker knows.The glass starts full and ends empty.The quicker you drink it, the sooner it is gone.The bar shuts at closing time.The same principle applies to oil and gas.We may ask how this self-evident reality has been concealed and confused.Although self-evident, it is a devastating realisation with huge implications for the modern world. We may lack the mental courage to accept it, but Nature does not lie.

Peak oil? Then Peak petroleum? (Courtesy of Colin Campbell)

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Net exports Oil Problem II. Declining EROI Technology is real and important. But so is depletion

The integral of their effects is reflected in EROI

EROI: Origin of concept

We used Yield per Effort concepts from fisheries.. 1981

1. We have many studies now that are based on physical data

2. These studies tend to be consistent with our earlier studies

3. All show relatively high but declining EROI for conventional fuels and low but occasionally increasing values for e.g. new solar

4. All show decreasing EROI when effort is high Special issue of Sustainability on EROI:IV. We have a lot of new information about EROIPetroleum production in Norway in 1970 2008Energetic cost of petroleum production in Norway in 1991 2008.Leena Grandell EROI of Norwegian petroleum production in 1991 2008IIi. The growth rate of many economies is declining The evidence: declining growth rate of US GDP

Global petroleum

Systems science has often been concerned with STABILITY

4. Every recession since 1970 has been preceded by a spike in the price of oilPrice increases lead to recessions in fact, the three major recessions, and the small recessions in the early 1990s and 2000s, were all preceded by a spike in the price of oil. 40Break-Even Cost

McKinsey GEM, 2010 using IEA, Wood Mackenzie, Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission

Are we just in an economic downturn or are we on a slope? ??Why is this the case? Why is the economic growth in the US (and OECD and maybe the world) slowing down?What about alternatives to oil?

EROI - tight gas wells in AppalachiaAverage EROI for gas wells in Indiana County Pennsylvania. It is an EROI for gas at the well head only. 45This is an average EROI for gas wells in Indiana County Pennsylvania. It is an EROI for gas at the well head only. Scope of the problem. This concentrator photovoltaic collector can generate 138 kilowatt-hours per day, half the energy consumption of an average American.

R. Hersh

So I hope to have shown you that: The evolution of human society has been mostly about sequestering more energy That additional energy has allowed the human population to grow That fossil fuels, and especially oil, are the main reason that human numbers and economies have grownHuman societies cannot possibly be sustainable at anything like our present level without a large flow of cheap (i.e. high EROI) energyThat the availability of oil in the immediate future is of considerable concern That this may be our greatest issue related to sustainability of humans and civilization As far as I know it I and my students are about the only to think about this. -

Neoclassical economicsMy final professional goal

THE ENDThanks to the Santa Barbara Family Foundation 59End of a fossil fuel age.Another way of looking at the same data