It has long been prophesied that we’ll run out of oil. The first time I remember was back in the 1960’s when we were going to be all out by 1980. This was all based on “known reserves”, likely places remaining where we could look and the then current technology. Technology however improved, meaning that since then we have had a string of prophecies. At the moment we are due to run out by 2040. At some point in time it will come true.
Interestingly, the world’s biggest supplier, Saudi Arabia, has started constructing nuclear power stations, sixteen of them. Nobody knows how much oil remains there (the SAs are not letting on or lying) but this is perhaps an indicator that all is not well in Saudi Arabia.
However much the technology improves, at some point that prophecy will come true. Before then the price of oil will skyrocket as depletion kicks in. When we are talking of essentials, it only takes a small shortfall to cause massive price increases. (Eg, think on houses in the UK at this very moment).
This will also be a time when oil consumers can be held to ransom by the producers (already happening, some would say). It will take years and £billions to rejig our lives and commerce around any substitute. The quicker we have to do it, the greater the cost and disruption. Ideally we need an energy source where we are not depending on imports from dodgy and unstable parts of the world.
Other factors to consider are the energy recovery balance; ie energy returned on energy invested (ERoEI), also the energy payback time (EPBT), that is, the time taken to recover the energy invested in any power generating/converting project. This includes manufacture, maintenance and the energy input.
Example: Oil – ERoEI
When oil was originally discovered, it took on average one barrel of oil to find, extract, and process about 100 barrels of oil. The ratio, for discovery of fossil fuels in the United States for example, has declined steadily over the last century from about 1000:1 in 1919 to only 5:1 in the 2010s. This is due to the increased difficulties of extraction. We are now reduced to fracking as the easily recoverable reserves are exhausted. Obviously this means that as a 1:1 ratio is approached oil will become increasingly non-viable (and expensive.) As regards the payback time, the only reason oil is viable is because the infrastructure was built long ago. Whenever did you hear of a new oil refinery being built? Long before this happens we shall have to give up burning oil as a fuel, it’s far too valuable for other things. This also applies to the other fossil fuels.
Depletion
Oil will be the first fossil fuel to become nonviable, followed by gas and then coal. This is a very major problem, not only from the energy point of view. Where are our plastics and even tarmac for the roads going to come from? Will we end up “mining” old refuse sites to recover the plastics so gaily thrown away today? Where will our lubricants come from? How about pharmaceutical products? How will we make steel, bricks and cement? How will we make explosives and poison gas? What about artificial fibres and dyes? Will we even be able to make pots to p**s in?
Example – Wind turbines
The ERoEI ratio varies between 10 and 20 (depending on how windy the site is and how large the turbine is). This ratio will improve as the technology advances. The EPBT is three years on a perfect site, ie the time taken to recover the energy expended in manufacture and erection.
Example – Photovoltaic panels
ERoEI is between 8.7 and 34.2 . Payback time varies between 1 and 4 years. This depends on the site and the amount of sunshine. Again, the technology improves all the time.
No depletion
The difference with the renewable resources is that as time goes by, these figures will become more favourable as the technology improves, unlike fossil fuels doomed to an ever downward spiral. The input energy is unending and can’t be taken away from us by those nasty foreigners.
Intermittency
The problem of course is intermittency with weather related energy resources. However the wind is always blowing and the sun shining somewhere. Transcontinental electricity grids are already under construction to reduce this problem. This reduces but does not eliminate the problem. A lot of money is going to have to be spent on tidal energy which is constant and predictable.
Weather related energy is diffuse, it takes large and highly visible projects to capture it. People “Dahn South” don’t seem to like wind turbines for example. Well, tough luck I say. Oop North we have had to put up with coal mines and power stations for over a century. Energy gathering can be done on small scale widely spread rooftop PV panels for example. Most electricity generated is used locally so transmission losses are low. This takes up no additional valuable space. Gas will be used to “fill in” during dearth periods.. An expensive but unavoidable necessity.
Energy storage and management
There will need to be much effort, expense and research expended in this field. Already we have “Smart Meters”. The function of these is not actually to save money as advertised. It’s true function is adjust tariffs instantly. In times of dearth, electricity will cost more, thus they’ll encourage the consumer to switch off. This may well all be done automatically in the future, both domestically and commercially. There will probably be cheaper tariffs for people prepared to sign up to an interruptible supply. These may be people with their own electricity storage. There is already an “industry” where people charge batteries on cheap electricity and discharge into the grid at a higher rate. Electric vehicle batteries may also be linked in.
Energy efficiency
We are all going to have to use less. Domestic houses are to be built to much higher insulation standards. Gas will not be used for heating, it will go to the new breed of high efficiency Combined Cycle Gas Turbine power stations. Houses will be heated by heat pumps. All these arrangements are already in place. Domestic appliances are going to have to be much more efficient, there is still lots of scope.
Pollution
The extraction and burning of fossil fuels causes massive pollution which cuts years off the lives of many people and reduces the quality of life through ill health, especially in urban environments. As well as pollution of the air, we have pollution of agricultural land and hence water and everything we eat.
CO2
Finally there is of course there is global warming. I am not a climatologist, I was a combustion engineer (in part). The CO2/global warming link makes perfect sense to me. If I want advice on a technical topic, I ask an expert, not a politician. After all I would never ask a politician how to fix my car. Or indeed anyone with ties to the oil industry.
The Nuclear Option
We will look at the nuclear option in a further article: the lies and misinformation.
Further reading:
Yes, it’s a very big topic!
However, you can’t take a position unless you know the elementary stuff at least.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_depletion#Implications_of_a_world_peak
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle_power_plant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_contamination
TIDAL?
useless
ps no co2/global warming link
Tidal is interesting but has proved difficult to harness; probably better on a smaller scale than the Cardiff barrage which was proposed some years ago. There is (or used to be) a small example on the River Dee in Chester. Maybe the Severn would be a good location but access to Gloucester docks, if still required, would add a deal of cost. Of course the marine environment always adds issues and costs; I wonder how long those windmills in our seas will really last.
The AGW theory has been debunked if one cares to seek out the information rather than Gore’s deliberately distorted projection. Of course real pollution is a different matter. It was reckoned that the pollution resulting from battery manufacture for an electric car was more than the lifetime pollution from a petrol one. Of course that pollution was exported to China so it didn’t really matter did it?
The carbon footprint of all these so-called ”sustainable” methods of generating electricity is huge.
This was a good article from November 2019:
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/when-wind-turbines-die-the-problems-are-just-beginning/
Who reckoned this?
These detractors always seem to be anonymous somehow.
Plus when revealed are either journalists, politicians or estate agents/similar dodgy professions.
A guy with impeccable “green credentials” (Patrick Moore – not the stargazer) is worth watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWahKIG4BE4
Of course there are many more counter arguments to Gore’s climate change scam if one looks for them. As with any scam just follow the money to get to the truth.
Those of us who are old enough will remember the early 70’s when Petrol Ration books were issued to car owners. At the time I was studying for my AMIMI (Associate Membership of the Institute of the Motor Industry) and as a group, we investigated other forms of fueling for vehicles.We looked at electricity, and how it would be generated, vegetable oils, natural gas, and virtually anything that could be used as a fuel. As auto engineers we looked, in the main at mechanical solutions. Ideally, we sought a solution that used existing technology. At the time, batteries powered milk floats, very heavy, with poor performance, and needing overnight charging, however, electricity was not cast aside.We looked at gas replacing petrol, much as Propane is now available of forecourts today, but as the gas is produced as part of the oil process we discarded it. eventually we decided that, given the technology of the day and that which could be produced in the near future, possibly Hydrogen could be a solution. Hydrogen could replace petrol with few modifications, but it would need to be extracted from the air, which takes electricity. After looking into wind, hydro, and the possibility of some sort of solar power, we settled on Tidal, as existing technology could easily be developed to provide a never ending power source. It would have been possible to have a home based extraction plant. We also thought well outside the box. What if we used an electric motor as the driving force, with a battery as a power store, topped up by a small jet turbine engine (which did not exist at the time) running on hydrogen. Our thinking was thus, if the the jet turbine could produce enough power, electrolysis could take place on the vehicle, making the fuel for the turbine, with the shaft geared down to generator speed to provide charging for the battery. The advantage of this system were clear. The fuel source was abundant (air), the exhaust just water vapour, and the technology well within the ability of engineers at the time. The only difficult part would be the turbine, jet technology at the time was big, noisy and, because of the fuel, dirty (remember the VC10 spewing black smoke).
however, 40 years on, we now have jet engines small enough to mount 2 engines on a wrist mountings, providing enough power for human flight! I believe that today, it would be possible to do away with the battery all together, or maybe a very small one to provide start up power and for lighting etc. The modern trend to use Lithium ion for batteries is flawed. The use of rare earth metals is hardly “Green”! Please bear in mind that the above was thought up by a group of young engineers, working outside our direct experience. Without doubt we were thinking out of our comfort zone, and we realised that, and to a certain extent opened up some “Blue Sky Thinking”. I still think this would work, and if I had the workshop facilities I would design and build a hydrogen fueled, turbine driven Electrolysis and generating plant for use in a car. The result would be a vehicle fueled by a free source, pollution free, and not using up the planet’s resouces. There is a couple of problems though. First, how would HMG tax the fuel? Second, “Big Oil” would do anything to stop it!
Just an off the wall idea from 1974!
Jim Stanley
As an aside I remember as a lad meeting your namesake who hauled raw cotton from Liverpool and Manchester docks to the cotton mills of East Lancashire. We were admiring one of his trucks one day and I still remember his saying; “you can’t beat an oil engine”. I’ve certainly had good service from diesels over the many intervening years…
At some point there won’t BE any diesel oil
Some individuals have already managed to run them on vegetable oil…
A tiny minority.
We can grow enough vegetable oil to fry chips.
But beyond that?
There is virtually no Hydrogen in air. Hydrogen is made these days primarily from natural gas. (Which is self defeating)
It can be made from water by hydrolysis. a very inefficient process.
Hydrogen is a dangerous fuel and there is almost no distribution system.
The problem of taxation of electricity as road fuel is long resolved.
https://independencedaily.co.uk/why-the-age-of-motoring-is-almost-over/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=INDEPENDENCE+Daily+Newsletter1
I remember decades ago, getting a copy of Lord Shackleton’s report on the South Atlantic and all the Falkland islands ! – He reported that oil was there. – Since then Argentina became greedy and were corrected ! – Frustratingly, oil was found in small quantities, but the search was not fully carried out due to world oil prices setting the interest for discovery. – I wonder if that time has arrived again ?
What’s not to like about Tidal lagoons.?
Get 50 unemployed immigrants 50 pensioners for technical help and a few ex miners to give rude ( practical ) advice to build a wall. I believe the technology and engineering problemswere solved by Nebuchadnezar or maybe Greeks or Romans.
Buy some turbines. ( Mass produced for Damns or.. ask around.)
Main problem …. Fish
Really bad problem…” Towering “.Greed of Proposers. and Council backhanders, and ” Consultants Fees ” ( Romans or Brickies )[ see HS2 ]
Switchgear etc…… A few bob
The other problems :- Politics, Stupidity, Dredging , Swans, EU fishing quotas, EU approval ( To punish aforesaid Romans ), Chinese ( 24 hour delivery ) Add your own choices.
Harold
Why does global warming/C02 make sense to you.
Have you read Tony Heller’s site at http://www.realclimatescience.com
Who isTony Heller?
Not a climatologist.
https://realclimatescience.com/2019/04/who-is-tony-heller/
https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/hosted-by-former-australian-senator-tony-heller-repeats-false-claim-that-scientists-fake-the-warming-trend/
A politician in fact. Like all of them, famous for telling people what they want to hear.
A politician? Where do you get that from? As for fact checkers who are they? Main fact is that climate is a chaotic system that cannot be predicted.
I struggled to finish this ill informed item.
The icing on the cake confirming my thoughts was the wikipedia references at end. You will know that papers submitted to institutions and to universities (if you are a student with a thesis) will be thrown back at you if there are any references to Wikipedia or from Wikipedia. This is because it is run by a bunch of gretas with little or no knowledge of the subjects they are overseeing. I’m not even sure I would believe wiki comments about the tooth fairy.
If I have the time today, I shall maybe rebut many of the article comments.
Meanwhile, think of how many cars are going up and down motorways in a day. Translate that into miles. Then think of how much energy is being used – predominantly from hydrocarbons. From that, calculate the amount of energy required in windmills, to replace that energy. And that is how many million acres of blighted countryside?
Same with planting trees so we are all green as the grass, with a diminishing area to plant them on, I suppose we should just knock down houses – right?
Meanwhile, batteries will be produced, it seems, from a rare earth metal tree. All you got to do is shake it – a bit like the corebine money tree.
We are all going to have to think carefully about the future. Not just glib do this do that do the other and all will be well – I saw it on the BBC is not good enough. (And I’m pretty sure the BBC get a lot of their information or so-called research from Wikipedia).
Later.
Biscotte & Harold. I have done some calculations based on the number of vehicles on the road each day and the miles driven in a year and the average engine size and the average commute. Just for cars using petrol and diesel the amount of energy provided by these fossil fuels is 750GW a day. If that is recharged over a 5 hour period starting at 5 to 6pm and finishing between 10 & 11pm, then between 6pm and 10pm the national grid will need to supply an additional 150GW.
The present UK maximum generation is about 45GW and there are interconnects to other countries that can give us 5GW. The usual demand is 40GW so there is just a 5GW headroom. That is only enough to recharge 833,000 cars of the size of the Leif. The other 19,177,000 cars will presumably be priced off the road. Presumably also the only people who will be allowed to drive a car will be politicians and environmental campaigners.
That article is just so much bullshit and absolutely so full of errors. Tidal is worse than wind and solar in cost and energy created. If CO2 was going to destroy the planet China would not continue its ongoing building of 800 coal fired power stations. Also if it was true that CO2 is warming the planet and going to cause the apocalypse we wouldn’t allow China and India and other countries to destroy the planet would we.
This is just a new Caucasian religion and is based on anecdotal evidence, not science at all. Do you remember they said that a doubling of CO2 from 250ppm to 500ppm would raise Earths temperature by 2.5 degrees C. Well the Earth just refused to do it for them. There was over 20 years when they monitored and reported on the average temperature and it just wouldn’t rise. In the end they were forced to doctor the data sets by assigning higher temperatures to regions that had no weather stations. They were limited to how much they could get away with and could only produce an APPARENT increase in temperature of 0.6 degrees C.
The wild fires in Australia have in the vast majority of cases been caused by accidental throwing away a lighted cigarette or not putting out the barbecue properly and there are nearly 200 persons in custody charged with arson. The fires ran rampant because the environmentalist have persuaded the Government to stop clearing deadwood and brush in forests because it is habitat for insects. The ground is dry because of changing wind patterns ans less moisture rising from tropical oceans to fall as rain. That is because the oceans are slightly cooling NOT WARMING. It is also the reason why glaciers are shrinking because of less snowfall that is required to drive them forward.
The Environmentalists are NOT going to save the planet. All they will do is destroy Western culture while the rest of the World surges ahead. The Snowflakes don’t know what they are campaigning for. They won’t in future be able to drive a car. Electricity will be in short supply and maybe more intermittent than in many third World countries. They won’t be able to afford to heat their homes or cook food by electricity or gas. Industry in Western nations will stop due to the cost of electricity. They won’t be able to regularly charge their smart phones. They would be better off in a cave with a roaring wood fire.
The point of the article is that there won’t be any fossil fuels.
The low hanging fruit have been picked. We are down to what’s left, regardless of cost or inconvenience.
Plus, see my previous post re electric cars.
https://independencedaily.co.uk/why-the-age-of-motoring-is-almost-over/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=INDEPENDENCE+Daily+Newsletter1
Where do you get this information from? The Trump lobby?
Harry, CO2 is heating the planet. There is no mechanism by which it can prevent the escape of the daily input of energy from the Sun from escaping. The only thing controlling the escape of heat from the surface is water vapour.
There is estimated to be at least 400 years worth of coal under the UK. There is an enormous reservoir of gas absorbed in the shale rocks below the UK and out into the North sea. All the stories about it all running out are just project fear again.
Renewables are nonsense. Only those with illogical minds and reasoning can hope to replace on-demand electricity generation by fossils fuels and nuclear with intermittent not on demand solar, wind, or even tidal.
Fracking done big time in the UK could easily mimic the USA success by changing from a gas importer to a gas exporter.
Ultimately the bulk of base load energy supply could be obtained from small nuclear reactors using thorium salts in seawater. Lots of small stations dotted around the coastline extracting the thorium from the seawater and using the same for cooling. It is estimated there is enough thorium in the oceans to supply a planet heaving with people with the energy they require for 60,000 years. That should be enough.
Nobody knows how much gas is under the UK until the test wells have been drilled.
There are experts out here too that say a USA style gas bonanza is unlikely.
Even if true, it will be expended at some point. (Or exported for money as was N.Sea oil,)
Antony,
Great comment with which I agree. However I believe Greta and her followers are being used by a globalist (self declared) elite in pursuit of their evil ends. The UN agendas 21 and 2030 are examples of their thinking; they are prepared to destroy civilisation as we know it.
I did read that Greta had been indoctrinated by her single parent father among others. He ought to be prosecuted for child abuse.
Yes Jack. You are correct. This is not about CO2 really and that innocent molecule is the scapegoat for a scheme to redistribute wealth, mainly to the UN, and by controlling World energy production you control the World. Just an enormous version of the EU. All control and regulation and directives and no say for the ordinary citizen.
Fossil fuels CAN be controlled by hostile governments.
Renewables can’t.
Try to keep up 🙂
Well done Antony Nailer. You’ve nailed it with an excellent reply.
Yes that was a good comment!
Antony Nailer – SUPERB! Absolutely SUPERB!
I have never seen nor read a better post.
These insane people you speak of – you know, the ones who either don’t work or don’t need to work; never intend to work or are Civil Servants.(a Gross misnomer!) , or Government employees – are governing and degrading our lives, whilst improving the lives of almost every other Nation in the world, more especially China and countries of the Far East …….and are the same ones who buy from those countries every imaginable bit of trashy-rubbish they can get their hands on – whilst denying the expansion of our own home-grown industries.
I am told that what we might save on CO2 Emissions in a year, China produces in a day or so ( not fact checked – but you get my drift….!).
A million coal-workers employed in China and about three or four thousand in the U.K.
We are surely in suicidal mode………and blindfolded by the insane.
The Chinese are dying in their thousands due to air pollution.
At some point they’ll wise up.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/14/air-pollution-in-china-is-killing-4000-people-every-day-a-new-study-finds
Conflating deaths due to particulate emissions caused by burning coal in fireplaces to keep warm (the way GB used to do, London pea soupers anyone?) with the scrubbed gasses out of clean coal power stations is misleading to say the least.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/is-wikipedia-trustworthy-when-it-comes-to-science/2015/08/24/74c71904-4755-11e5-846d-02792f854297_story.html
https://www.zmescience.com/science/study-wikipedia-25092014/
“a bunch of gretas” I like that one, maybe we will see “greta” as an entry in the next edition of the OED.