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 26th, 2007 at 2:25 am
direfloyd, Jeff is right: this report refers to global oil production: the U.S. peaked long ago and has been declining for quite some time now.
Bobby B., the InterAcademy Council report did in fact say that nuclear power could be a valuable contributor to energy supplies … but only if "significant concerns in terms of weapons proliferation, waste disposal, cost, and public safety (including vulnerability to acts of terrorism) can be — and are — addressed."
James Lovelock (of Gaia theory fame) has made similar statements in favor of nuclear, but I’m beyond skeptical: nuclear has always required huge injections of government support, has years-long lead times, a sketchy history of waste disposal and storage, and questionable security. Furthermore, it isn’t really — as some try to frame it — a renewable energy source: mining uranium, transporting it and processing it so it’s useful for fuel all consume large amounts of energy. And where does that energy come from? Right now, it’s fossil fuels.
Finally, Iconoclast421, I’m not a big fan of waiting for "solutions to present themselves naturally." That didn’t work for clean air, clean water and consumer protections, and it’ll be even less promising a tactic for climate change/peak oil/energy conflict. And I’ll bet you if and when one country invades another, it won’t be on some lame pretext of carbon emissions violations but because the country being invaded has something of value (i.e., energy sources) the invader wants.
October 26th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
The statement “the U.S. peaked long ago and has been declining for quite some time now” is true in terms of production, not necessarily in terms of availability. The U.S. still sits atop vast quantities of untapped resources. Many of the proven pools remain untapped because of effective environmetal lobbying. Such restrictions would likely be lifted in a real crisis.
Regarding nuclear, I still find it amazing that many on the American left view Europe as a socialist paradise on so many levels (health care, public schools, government pensions, monetary practices, etc.), but refuse to acknowledge Europe’s largely successful implementation of nuclear energy. In addition to that, all of the world’s navies utilize nuclear power successfully. The concerns “weapons proliferation, waste disposal, cost, and public safety” are largely red herrings that have already been managed to a large degree. Some folks here even believe that Iran is developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes, even though they sit atop most of the world’s sweetest crude and don’t really need the supplemental energy. The vulnerability to acts of terrorism only requires that we actually enforce our existing immigration laws and control the borders to keep the danger far away. However, should the threats become local, nuke plants are generally treated like the strategic oil reserves, which are guarded by good folks who are well-armed and understand the importance of their assignment.
Regarding your last comments, countries don’t always invade another for its energy resources. Sometimes those resources are used to goad a potential enemy into action and provide the architect with the rationale to wage war. That’s how FDR did it:
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25637
Whether or not FDR’s orchestration was immoral is up to history to decide. However, give him credit for giving Congress a reason to declare war. All of the conflicts since WWII have been waged by presidents with congressional consent. Unfortunately, actions without official declarations from the legislative body sure provide a lot of “flip-flop” room for the majority of our elected officials.
October 29th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Great article!
Judging by another article that looks at the hidden cost of coal on health (http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/concentrating%20solar-coal-peak%20oil/532), renewable, clean energy looks like the cheaper option.
November 1st, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Bob, I’m glad you replied to this with exactly what I was thinking in my original statement! Shirley, I still am laughing how you completely ignored Bob’s argument about untapped oil in the US and cherry picked the nuclear part… pretty conspicuous…
April 14th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
[...] Red, Green & Blue: Peak Oil and the Coal Conundrum Add a comment or question Tags: 2000, alaska, beaufort sea, Chukchi Sea, oil, oil spill Share/Email Stumble It « Previous post aj_server=”http://rotator.adjuggler.com/servlet/ajrotator/”;aj_tagver=”1.0″;aj_zone=”green”;aj_adspot=”301173″;aj_page=”0″;aj_dim=”300787″;aj_ch=”";aj_ct=”";aj_kw=”";aj_pv=true;aj_click=”"; [...]
July 8th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Back in my time . . . America ran on rails! The Arabs made very cheap oil available, so cheap and available that we developed fleets of rubber tired diesel trucks to move goods to market faster and cheaper. This is no longer working because they no longer provide oil at very cheap rates. Be prepared to go back to the much more efficient steel wheel on steel rail system. This is not the end of the world for us, it is a change in the way we do things - Back to the future! Nowadays, with computers, we can expect totally automated intercity steel wheel freight systems, soon, and interlinking them should be simple computer switching technology - we just haven’t had to apply these solutions until now. Say goodbye to rubber wheeled trucks, transports right down to six wheelers, say hello to smaller lighter automated rail shunt systems to replace them. Most four rubber wheeled delivery will be battery/electric or hydrogen powered before oil hits $200.bbl and we will see a huge rise in public transport- yeah, buses and commuter trains. Welcome to the 21 Century America!