I say it week after week, but another great post this week by Tom Murphy (UCSD Physics Professor) on our fossil fuels dilemma. He reviews the Hirsch report, which outlines the peak oil problem and its ramifications. To review, peak oil occurs when we are roughly halfway through our conventional oil supply, and it is at that point that the production peak (the maximum rate of extraction) is reached.
Among the solutions offered to the peak oil problems are: increased vehicle efficiency, enhanced oil recovery, heavy oil and oil sands, coal liquefaction, and gas-to-liquid conversion. If one examines some of these options from a purely supply point of view (e.g., our now seemingly inexhaustible natural gas reserves), one naively reaches the conclusion that our problems are solved for decades or centuries.
This thinking ignores the rate side of the equation and the related problem of Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI). When you switch from a resource like conventional petroleum that offers a 100:1 ratio to as low as 5:1 for heavy oil/tar sands, you impact the rate at which that resource can be tapped into, no matter how large the supply might be (in theory).
And it is precisely the saturation and eventual decline in our rate of production of fuels that poses the biggest challenge to us (globally) right now. We have not faced such a dilemma before, as we have continued more-or-less unabated on a 2-3% global energy growth curve for many many decades.
The inability of some of our policy makers to see this is frustrating to me, being someone who is a scientist/engineer by training. Or perhaps they do see this and are just feigning ignorance about the problem?
Perhaps they could benefit from an introductory calculus class where they would begin to appreciate analogies like – a car with a 300 mile range that’s only capable of going 1mph, or a car with a top speed of 100mph that takes the better part of an hour to reach said speed.
It’s the rate that matters people!
Jason K. Holt 