Red, Green & Blue: Peak Oil and the Coal Conundrum
If you haven’t heard yet, peak oil is here: the Energy Watch Group released an analysis this week indicating that global oil production peaked last year and is now likely to start dropping by several percent annually.
Ironically, on the same day, the InterAcademy Council announced a new report titled, “Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future.” While that report didn’t include the peak oil news, it did emphasize that the world needs to start moving now to ensure both a dependable energy future and a climate that doesn’t tip dangerously into overdrive.
And here’s where the conundrum comes in: coal, the InterAcademy Council report acknowledged, is the most abundant fossil fuel we’ve got … but also the most potentially damaging. Coal-fired power plants, which are springing up in growing numbers around the globe, could help provide the energy safety net we need if the peak-oil analysis is true. But the emissions from coal-burning plants would only speed up today’s rising greenhouse gas levels.
So what’s the solution? Do we throw everything we’ve got at developing safe and cost-effective ways to capture and store the carbon from coal plants? Or do we “Just say no” to coal and invest like mad in renewables research and development? We need an answer in the near future apparently, but which will it be?
Tags: coal, coal mining, coal-fired power plants, energy security, Green and Blue, oil production, peak oil, Red, renewables
October 23rd, 2007 at 10:04 pm
The answer is multi-part.
-Burn more coal and try to develop ways to reduce the impact of the CO2 (algal bio-reactors for example). We will need the power regardless of the impact if we want to keep the economy from crumbling, which would make it quite difficult to do anything at all.
-Crank up the price of electricity and give people the tools and education they need to see and understand their electric power consumption and viable alternatives. People are wasteful partially because they just don’t know any better. Help them.
-Invest heavily in renewable technology, efficiency, and lifestyle changes. The American lifestyle is not sustainable in a post-peak future.
-Massive government and citizen commitment to change. The primary purpose for government should be to see the future and prepare for it. Our government, and we by extension, have failed in this task, and miserably. At this late stage there is no way to avoid much pain, but we can make it if we act soon, act fast, and act intelligently. This won’t happen without dedicated, strong, honest and charismatic leadership.
-Most important, immediate awareness. Nearly everybody I know in RL is oblivious. This is the biggest reason we’ll fail.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:10 am
Finally, a realistic forecast of peak oil!
Here is another forecast of oil, from The Oil Drum, that may be of interest
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3064
It shows a peak oil plateau starting in 2006 and ending in the middle of 2009.
October 24th, 2007 at 1:21 am
Burning more coal is definitely not the answer if the goal is to keep the economy from crumbling. The economy has its roots in the environment.
The answer is simple: Reduce Use and Renewables
With reduction of use through technologically gained efficiencies, some changes of habit, and the existing and growing renewable energy solutions, we can solve this “energy crunch”.
We need to prioritize our work. It doesn’t make sense that so many people are concerned about the energy crunch without regard to actual impact on the climate crunch.
October 24th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Charles, I agree with you: speeding up our use of coal is a sure way to help climate change go from bad to worse. As the InterAcademy Council report said, "The substantial expansion of coal capacity that is now underway around the world may pose the single greatest challenge to future efforts aimed at stabilizing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere."
On the other hand, I don’t see governments and people around the world agreeing voluntarily to give up such an abundant fuel source, especially if the peak oil analysis is true.
The InterAcademy Council report wasn’t all gloom and doom, though. It did offer some positive and hopeful recommendations, with the top three being:
1) Improve energy efficiency, reduce carbon intensity and introduce carbon emissions pricing globally.
2) Develop and deploy carbon capture and storage technologies so we can burn coal and other fossil fuels without increasing greenhouse gas emissions.
3) Speed up the development and use of renewable energy technologies.
All three of these things, the report added, need to be done "without delay and simultaneously."
And that’s where I see the problem: if we’re still arguing internationally about Kyoto-type agreements, how can we get everyone around the world on the same page for recommendations like these, which actually have teeth?
I think it will take reaching a far higher pain point than we’re currently at. Either oil prices will have to rise so high, or the climate situation will have to become far worse, before the public starts clamoring — even revolting — for real and meaningful change. Either way, it seems like we’re going to see things grow worse before they start getting better.
Anybody else have any ideas for how we could stimulate more immediate and meaningful action now?
October 25th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
No single approach will be successful. I think that is a large part of why we have a problem in the first place - humans have a tendency to put all their eggs in one basket. And when that basket breaks we are in crisis.
Early engines were designed to run on all kinds of fuel, but diversity was sacrificed for profits and all things turned to oil.
We can’t fall into the same trap with either coal OR any particular renewable. Diversity is the key. A sustainable energy future has to include a healthy mix of all the solutions put forth here, and avoid the tendency to find a magic bullet.
October 25th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Funny, no one mentioned the expansion of nuclear energy as a plausible solution.
Anyway, I would not get too worried about the pending pandemonium that the peak oil theorists predict. Mankind has a way of finding solutions to some of the stickiest problems. You may want to check out this doomsday rebuttal:
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=783d3834-5009-425b-a22d-b8acda2ea93b
Also, here is this interesting quote from Bruce Gottfred over at http://www.autonomoussource.com:
“I can’t help but think that there’s some intrinsic religious aspect to these type of fears — that there’s something in humanity that is uncomfortable with an easy life. There’s the idea that there’s a cost for everything we enjoy — that we must make sacrifices to balance our blessings. Even though religion is so passé to the clever people, this belief has not died, it has simply morphed into the new junk science cult.”
By the way, the answers may not be as complicated as we want to believe. I know of at least one multi-billion dollar coal/coke gasification facility already in the planning and design phases.
October 25th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
“Peak Oil” was supposed to happen back in the 1970’s I thought… hmmm… Funny how we’ve been at peak for so long. Kind of how there was going to be an ice age also right?
October 25th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
It did happen in the US in the ’70s — I’m almost certain that this report refers to global peak oil…
_______________________________________
Jeff McIntire-Strasburg
Senior Editor
Green Options
jeff@greenoptions.com
October 25th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
The solution will present and apply itself quite naturally. When oil is 300 a barrel and no one has a job, people will be chopping would and burning coal. And they wont be caring too much about global warming. They will however care very much about the foreign troops coming and rounding them up for violating international UN carbon emissions laws. Al Gore may be a decent guy, but what he is spearheading will be utterly disastrous for americans in the context of peak oil.
October 25th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Are you sure about that statement regarding the ’70s?
“theoildrum” makes that claim based upon the presumptuous calculations of M. King Hubbert and our current reliance on foreign resources. I even believed it for years, because that’s what we were taught in school. I think that this is the primary reason that the general public does not question the belief that the US is tapped out of oil. BTW, does it bother anyone else that the school system preaches “scientific-based” doomsday religions to our kids while concurrently erecting the wall of separation between church and state in the classroom?
Maybe the depletion of the Pennsylvania and Texas fields is a fact, but what about the untapped and proven reserves in Utah, Idaho and Alaska (ANWR)? What about the prohibitions that impede exploration on our Atlantic and Pacific coasts? What about the practice of “capping” many of the hits in the Gulf of Mexico? The US still has vast quantities of oil but chooses to rely on others to keep down costs. That’s why OPEC gets nervous when prices get real close to $100 per barrel. At that price and higher, we can competively produce it domestically.
Even if the above options were not available, there is still lots of oil out there. It’s just going to require newer technologies and a bit more cash to get.