Out of Gas 1098
Oil -- and energy in general -- has long been a big topic among
Slashdot readers. Predictions about The End of the Age of
Oil (about which, claims the subtitle, this book provides "all you need to know") certainly are not new --
and if civilization lasts long enough, one day they'll prove true.
It's nice to consider that automobiles aren't necessarily
tied to petroleum, but mine certainly runs on 87 octane gasoline,
and there aren't enough turkey guts or grease to power everything that we use petro-fuels for right now (though places like Iceland are trying hard to tap other sources). Current gas
prices (in the U.S. at any rate) are higher than they have been in a
decade or so, but in constant dollars, gasoline prices have certainly been worse. How much to panic, and when? Read on below for Arthur Smith (apsmith)'s brief review of David Goodstein's Out of Gas for a rather gloomy look at the future of oil-based energy.
Americans have started to notice prices at the pump with an unfamiliar '2' on the sign. Meanwhile, crude oil prices are hitting 13-year records close to $40 per barrel. As the International Energy Agency reports, there is "no relief in sight". All this should come as no surprise to readers of David Goodstein's Out of Gas - the only question is, have we left it too late to survive the inevitable shocks that are coming?Out of Gas: All You Need to Know about the End of the Age of Oil | |
author | David Goodstein |
pages | 128 |
publisher | W.W. Norton & Company |
rating | 9/10 |
reviewer | Arthur Smith |
ISBN | 0393058573 |
summary | Why replacing oil is the world's most urgent and ignored problem. |
In this slim and subtly illustrated volume Dr. Goodstein, physics professor and vice provost at Caltech, explains in clear and simple terms why the fossil fuel age is coming to an end. A "massive, focused commitment" is needed to develop alternatives, and every year of delay in that commitment adds immeasurably to future human suffering.
In years, or at best a decade, we will reach the global "Hubbert's peak" for conventional oil, when production starts to decline even with rising demand. Such a peak was reached for US production in 1970. "Foreign oil" has sustained us until now, but Goodstein shows why it cannot for much longer.
A number of books on this subject have come out in recent years, some very pessimistic about the future (for example Heinberg's "The Party's Over", which warns of a greatly decreased world population). Goodstein offers some hope in alternatives, substantially based on the analysis of climate scientist and space solar power advocate Martin Hoffert.
Solar-based renewables and fusion are the only long-run energy solutions. According to Goodstein, natural gas and nuclear fission can help tide us over. All of these have problems, with the most scalable (solar power from space) still the least mature. Goodstein's longest chapter discusses thermodynamics and the physical laws that explain usable energy and its relation to entropy. As a physicist, I was pleased and surprised to learn something from Goodstein's clear explanation here.
Goodstein also discusses global climate problems with continued use of fossil energy, particularly an increasing dependence on coal. He concludes: "Civilization as we know it will come to an end sometime in this century unless we find a way to live without fossil fuels."
There were a few minor things to complain about. Transitions between the chapters are too abrupt, perhaps caused by the wide range of discussion in such a short book. A few technical things seemed wrong - for example, it is quite feasible to run transportation systems off grid electricity (electric trains, subways, etc. do this) - would it be so hard to do it for personal transport too?
But Goodstein's book is the clearest explanation yet of our need to get beyond fossil fuels. Is it enough to get the public, and our leaders, actually paying attention?
You can purchase the Out of Gas: All You Need to Know about the End of the Age of Oil from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
On a related note.... (Score:4, Informative)
Article by Matt Helms [freep.com]
Snopes Article [snopes.com]
If all the idiots don't get gas tomorrow, just means less of a wait for me!
Re:Inflation. (Score:3, Informative)
Business will abosrb rising energy costs for a short period of time (the market keeps a downward pressure on price increases), but eventually, there will be overall rises in prices if energy prices stay high.
There are a couple of things affecting gas prices:
Re:Inflation. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Inflation. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Inflation. (Score:5, Informative)
The only OPEC country that isn't pumping at full capacity is Saudi Arabia. This shortage isn't a result of OPEC manipulation.
Re:Inflation. (Score:2, Informative)
Despite the original poster's notion that the prices of milk, butter *AND* ice cream imply some structural macro-economic issue, it's a pretty specific problem that will sort itself out in a year.
Too volatile (Score:2, Informative)
Let's face it; high oil prices are bad for them because it encourages the US to seek alternatives. For all you anti-US trolls who are now foaming at the mouth, if you are honest with yourselves, you will admin that we are seriously the only ones who will 1) come up with a viable solution and 2) implement that solution.
Do we need an alternative solution? Damn straight. Burning petrochemicals is bad all the way around. To paraphrase the Late, Great Douglas Adams, we took all this poisonous stuff that was safely buried far underground, pumped it up to the surface and turned it into asphalt to coat the ground with, smoke to fill the air with, and the rest we dumped into the sea.
Are solar energy and/or fusion the answer? Solar in its current earth-based form is too erratic and takes up too much land to be workable. As for fusion, the technology is just not there yet either. And the same environmental shills that are screaming about oil will scream even louder about anything "nuculer." Perhaps space-based solar energy will be a better answer, but it will be extremely expensive to implement unless we break NASA's currentl monopoly on launches ($40,000 per pound of payload is a bit pricey).
Re:What about alcohol? (Score:3, Informative)
More promising is using alcohol in fuel cells rather than gaseous hydrogen. Alcohol is not as good at combustion as gasoline, but it has more hydrogen and less carbon. If you use a Direct Methano Fuel Cell [h2fc.com] like the one that powered Daimler Chrysler's NECAR 5 [popularmechanics.com] on it's recent cross-country trek, you get roughly the same mileage on alcohol that you get on gasoline, but with a liquid fuel from a renewable [journeytoforever.org] source. Add it to the mileage improvements suggested by the mechanical changes from General Motor's AUTOnomy [gm.com] project, and automotive fuel cells become a viable option.
taxes (Score:4, Informative)
The US has what we consider high taxes on gas. Hawaii is 53.5c (as of July 2002), California is 50.4c, and Texas is 38.4c/gallon. (details [ca.gov])
Re:In the land of empty tanks (Score:5, Informative)
Cyclists are gods.
A pound of beef takes around a gallon of gasoline to produce. If we run out of oil, where is the energy going to come from to produce the food that you need to eat to power your bicycle? That, my naive friend, is what oil and energy crises are all about.
Re:Inflation. (Score:5, Informative)
It is not a measure of the amount of energy in the fuel. If you're using a higher octane fuel than required to keep your car from pinging, and your car isn't a new model that self-tunes based on the fuel's octane rating, then you are wasting your money.
So, either you're driving a high-performance "gaz-guzzler" (your term; I have no problem with high-performance engines) or you're an idiot - your call.
Re:What about deep oil? (Score:1, Informative)
Not fucking dinosaurs.
Vegetation => Oil, Natural Gases, etc
Think of how much vegetation can grow in a mostly carboniferous planet over 200,000,000 years, then rot, then get buried deep in the earth.
Re:Running out of gas (Score:1, Informative)
Whatever wall we might hit with processing power will happen at the top. Processors aren't going to suddenly start getting slower at that point. It's not like teraflops are a finite commodity that will suddenly begin running out.
The wall with Oil discovery and production is the floor that we go falling toward after we go over the cusp of having discovered the (easy) first half of all the oil in the world.
Sure, we can make discoveries that will help us use the oil somewhat less quickly. But it would have to be a miraculous discovery to get us back to the other side of the hump.
Re:It's worse than that (Score:3, Informative)
The hybrids sold by Honda and Toyota are jokes. When I went to UC Davis, the engineering department showed off a hybrid they had designed with funding from the U.S. Air Force (the Air Force was kicking in funds to convert the closing nearby McClellan Air Force Base into a manufacturing base for hybrid cars and the like). They took a V6 Ford Taurus and made it a hybrid. It averaged 66 MPG. Now compare that to the clam traps by Toyota and Honda with 3 cylinder engines and yet they barely get above 40 MPG. Let's repeat this... A car the size of a Ford Taurus with a V6 getting 66 MPG versus a shoe of a car with a 3 cylinder engine that only gets 40 + MPG. Its a disgrace. What I also do not understand is that how these hybrids cannot beat the fuel economy of a 1989 3 cylinder Geo Metro. The Geo Metro could get 59 MPG. And it certainly was not a hybrid.
The bigger picture -updated version (Score:4, Informative)
You can find it with many slides at http://online.itp.ucsb.edu/online/colloq/lewis1/
The summary is roughly that we need to make photovoltaics about 10 fold cheaper than they are today(about $4/watt ->$.40/watt), on the way to making them as as cheap as housepaint (say $.20/watt). There is no theoretical obstacle to doing this, and several promising lines of research. If (really when) we can do this ($.20/watt), solar electric energy will be cheap enough to electrolytically reduce CO2 to methanol (CH3OH) which is a fine fuel for transportation, etc., and is already nicely interfaced to out current energy distribution and use systems.
At this low cost, we can even pull CO2 out of the atmosphere directly, directly reversing the CO2 greenhouse effect (my own addition).
Furthermore, this is by far the best option, e.g. otherwise we would need 5000 new 1GW fission reactors to supply the growth in energy needs contemplated in the next 50 years (construction of 2/wk for 50 yrs.) This seems much too dangerous.
Since this is the best apparent practical way out, since we are really talking about a major determinant of the fate of the earth, and timing is critical, one might wonder why the federal funding is so low (about $10M/yr in the US maybe).
Some of the recent research, and the progress made by startup companies is summarized at
http://www.konarkatech.com/news_articles-forbes
http://www.konarkatech.com/news_articles-solrac
http://www.st.com/stonline/press/news/year2003/
http://www.nanosolar.com/advantages.htm
(this is an updated version of a previous post)
.
Excellent Timing to scare the masses... (Score:5, Informative)
Meanwhile, the USA is filling its strategic oil reserves to the highest levels ever [quicken.com]. The thought is that with the proper reserves, they could soak any future terrorist attack that may cut off supply... recall that Bill Clinton tapped the oil reserves in 2000 [bbc.co.uk] for price control, a move widely seen as covering up effects of the dot-com recession that had begun earlier in the year. In 2000, it was noted that the reserves could support 100% production levels in the USA for two months, and that was at 571m barrels. Prices at the time were only about $26/barrel as shown on this graph [oilnergy.com].
Water, not Oil. (Score:5, Informative)
The energy sector will move completely to natural gas alternatives (condensates, gas hydrates, LNG) long before it moves to free hydrogen. But this movement has already been happening and is already proving highly profitable for domestic and international companies (Double Cross, TXO, Chesapeake, Devon, CDX, Marathon, etc.). The petroleum industry is economically the largest industry on the planet. It has the resources to adapt to changing energy markets. In a way, the companies and people who work to bring you your hydrocarbon energy will never be out of business, their model will merely change. The end of the oil age shouldn't concern you nearly as much as the end of civilization due to demand for water and the rapidly declining availability of usable water.
Almost every part of the globe is seeing a decrease in available water supply. Disputes over water will be much more devastating than the disputes over oil have been. Not one hydrologist I've talked to has an optimistic outlook on the future of the worlds usable water supply. It's a problem that doesn't have even half of a percent of the resources or attention that is poured into petroleum and that's unfortunate because it's a problem that will kick the worlds ass a lot sooner than the lack of fossil energy.
Re:Unlikely to run out of oil -- ever!! (Score:3, Informative)
You're correct that most oil doesn't orginate from dinosaur era plant life, most of it is (or was before we burned it) older than that. Aboitic oil formation however does not account for any significant amount of oil.
Oil does not only form from marine life, so primordial seas are irrelevant. The basins are so deep because they have been buried by miles and miles of sediment being continuously deposited over millions of years. In fact it is the burial (heat + pressure, you were partly right about that) that produces oil from the organic matter, so all oil originates fairly deep. Oil that is found in shallower rocks has migrated upwards over time due to it's low density or the rocks themselves have been uplifted.
The rocks that the oil is found in (reservoir rock) is not usually the rock that the oil formed from (source rock) and remains of life are often found in reservoir and source rocks (which is why oil companies are the main employers of paleontologists) so that part is just plain wrong.
I don't know what the statement about chondrites is based on, but about the only thing carbonaceous chondrites have in common with oil is carbon and oxygen, so by that reckoning oil is consistent with the makeup of cement or cardboard. The isotopic signatures of carbon and oxygen will be very different in a chondrite than in organic matter though, and oil's signature matches what would be expected from an organic origin.
Disclaimer: IAA(Geologist), but not a paleotologist, and I don't work for an oil company.
Re:Grmbl... (Score:2, Informative)
So what do you suggest I do? Sell my four year old gas guzzler (which was 35000€ at purchase and I could perhaps sell for 15000€ now) and buy me a Smart Diesel? A nice Audi A3 TDI still costst about 25000€. So I'd need to find about 10000€ to replace my current car. For that I trade in performance and "coolness" (that's how you take it), and for that amount I fill my car up for 167 times at current gas prices. At two refills per month, I can keep it for 83,5 months, resulting in nearly 7 years of usage, at which time my car will be really old and will need replacement anyways. ;-)
For the moment I'll stick to it and complain about gas prices
there's a lot... (Score:2, Informative)
anyway, here ya go http://dieoff.org/
Best named website on the net if ya ask me
the best article off that site, for my loot, is
http://dieoff.org/page224.htm
Re:Let's not forget synthetics...and politics... (Score:3, Informative)
Thomas Gold of Cornell University (now deceased)
predicted this decades ago. His view was that
substantial hydrocarbon deposits in the crust were
the result of concentration and metamorphosis of
primordial methane, methane which was present in
the material which formed the earth's crust
aboriginally.
The amount of non-fossil hydrocarbon available
commercially appears to be quite small, however.
I would not count on natural hydrocarbons as a
fuel source past the Hubbert peak. The only real
mitigating factor which may result in a
substantial correction to Hubbert's original
numbers appears to be oil- and tar-sands.
New Discoveries - last 30 days (Score:3, Informative)
The Scotsman, UK - Apr 20, 2004
CAIRN Energy, the Edinburgh-based oil and gas exploration group, today announced a third and "potentially significant" oil discovery in Rajasthan, India.
Kerr-McGee makes deepwater Gulf of Mexico oil discovery - Apr 19, 2004... reported Monday the discovery of more than 250 ft of net high-quality hydrocarbon pay, primarily oil, with its Ticonderoga discovery well and initial sidetrack
May. 18, 2004 - Daugherty Resources went looking for natural gas in Eastern Kentucky early this year and got "a costly surprise." It struck oil. "We certainly didn't expect to find the oil field we found," the Lexington company's CEO, William S. Daugherty, said yesterday.
Connacher Reports First Quarter Results - May 11, 2004... Thirteen wells were drilled in the period. All were cased. - A significant oil discovery was made at Tompkins, Saskatchewan.
14/05/04 Oil Search Limited (OSH) this morning reported to shareholders that logging of their 25% jointly owned Neheb-1 well in Yemen has been completed. The oil and gas explorer explained that the data received has indicated the presence of hydrocarbons in surrounding sandstone.
Tullow Oil plc 2003 Preliminary Results... In May the company announced a significant oil discovery on the Acajou prospect, southeast of Espoir
May 5 -- Goodrich Petroleum Corporation today announced a Cotton Valley discovery on its North Minden Prospect in Rusk County, Texas.
May 12, 2004 - WOODSIDE Petroleum Ltd may have struck commercial oil in a new exploration well in Western Australia's Exmouth Sub-basin.
"The Prize": run out oil in 1862, 1894, 1912 ... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:you won't have any choice, you'll pay it (Score:3, Informative)
Not really. The maximum price for oil is limited somewhat by the fact that renewables (solar, wind, biomass, etc...) will become more and more cost competitive as oil prices rise. If scarcity occurs too quickly, there will be some pain in the transition, but since people are already taking steps to reduce fuel costs (e.g. hybrids and other high mileage vehicles) I doubt that will be a significant problem.
what they always forget is that this oil stuff is a finite resource, we cannot make any more of it.
Isn't technology [changingworldtech.com] great? Another slashdot article recently described a new process for converting cellulose (e.g. straw, paper, wood chips, and all kinds of plant waste) to ethanol [slashdot.org] more efficiently. Things aren't as bad as the gloom and doomers want you to think.
Re:The bigger picture -updated version (Score:2, Informative)
Great article, but you can improve it for us with just a little bit of html, making links is not hard:
Re:Umm Ethanol (Score:3, Informative)
Biological photosynthesis has a net thermodynamic efficiency of 0.3% = 3E(-3). Compare this to 10-30% efficiency for photovoltaic.
There is the possibility of direct solar photochemical reduction of CO2 to methanol say, which could be very efficient, but this is only in early stages in the lab now, and is expected to take several decades to develop. However it may be close to what you require.
In the meantime solar (any form) is the only technology which has the right scale (unlike wind and hydro, more than 1-2% of total energy requirements are extractable), is relatively safe, and is close to being practical soon.
Re:Inflation. (Score:2, Informative)
This depends a lot on what grade of petroleum and what the demand is. But you can figure that at least half of an average barrell will go towards fuels. (Gasoline, Kerosene, Hydrogen, Diesel, Bunker Oil, etc...)
Before anybody says antything stupid about "well only 10% of crude is gasoline". I'll say this:
Most any fraction of crude can be turned into any other though cracking, alkylation and related processes. About the only stuff that can't really be helped is vacuum resid, which is basically asphalt.
Re:This is true, but how much is the increase? (Score:3, Informative)
The point is that everything that is shipped by truck, plane, train, or sea increases in price when oil prices rise. Everything. Milk and ice cream are just concrete examples. Do I need to demonstrate the supply chain for every product sold in the US, or are you going to quit being myopic about the network effect of transportation costs?
I just don't see the temporary increase being all that much!
Many other parts of the economy act on a completely different timeframe from the ephemeral consumable goods markets. Take your phone company, for example. The cost of repairs and other maintenance work on their network goes up as the cost of driving around their repair vehicles goes up and as the cost of electricity in areas with oil-burning power plants goes up. If the company's planners do not see these higher prices as a temporary thing but instead as a long-term increase, your phone bill will go up.
This same sort of planning affects every industry in the nation as they must cope with effects from the subtle ones on the banking and healthcare industries to the massive disruption of airline and petrochemical fertilizer and pesticide suppliers.
I feel people have become complacent on a stable economy...they've forgotten that things can happen to throw it out of wack, and they've stopped preparing for such situations.
While the price rise is real, I feel it is poor spending habits that give the rises the enormous impacts they do.
I agree wholeheartedly with this, but to dismiss outright the effects of surges in oil prices as nothing to worry about if you've got some financial sense is a bit naive. Transportation costs will hit the values of your stocks and bonds as they hit corporate and government purses. Never forget too that the consumption of many of these poor planners are the driving force of our economy. If they get into the trouble, it will have ripple effects on you even if they don't leap out in your face.
Re:you won't have any choice, you'll pay it (Score:2, Informative)
Our apocalyptic friend is right about certain things though, the world population is WAY too high. We can synthesize the things we need from natural products, BUT, it requires lots of space to produce the raw materials, The kind of space otherwise needed to produce food.
Also people are going to have to get a hell of a lot less squimish about nuclear power. Nuclear power is a requirement. period. We have got to have the energy resources available to run industry. The alternative is essentially, "Let's give up and form an agrarian society." That requires that 80-95% of the current world population dies. There is no way around it. Getting a watt here from a windmill, and a watt there from a solar panel ain't gonna cut it with 6+ billion people. We have got to have large, reliable sources of energy.
Re:The only real answer is to reorganize society. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Economics motivation for conservation (Score:3, Informative)
China's economy is growing exponentially at a rate of about 7% a year - That's a doubling time of about ten years [chinadaily.com.cn].
It's now estimated that China [chinadaily.com.cn] will require about 80% of the world's oil exports by 2015 if this trend is continued.
The Big Rollover is here now! (Score:1, Informative)
http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/open-file/of00-320/
Re:Water, not Oil. (Score:2, Informative)
No. If you put in less energy in the production of hydrogen than what the use of hydrogen produces, you're effectively creating energy, and thus violating physics.
Hydrogen tanks will be like a more efficient battery. And as someone pointed out earlier, much more solar energy hits the earth than what we consume from all energy sources. So some overhead is certainly not too relevant.
Re:Water, not Oil. (Score:2, Informative)
The problem you refer to may be the rarity of drinking water, but if you solve the energy problem you should solve that problem too. I mean 2/3 of the planet is covered with it.
Re:WAY simplistic (Score:2, Informative)