End of Oil Heralds Climate Pain
By David Strahan
BBC News
Thursday 29 March 2007
Many people think that running out of oil, or "peak oil," would be good for the climate. In his new book The Last Oil Shock, David Strahan begs to differ; he suggests it may bring catastrophe.
It is becoming increasingly clear that global oil production will soon go into terminal decline, with potentially devastating economic consequences.
Although the idea of peak oil has traditionally been ridiculed by the industry, now even some of the world's most senior oilmen concede the case.
Last year Thierry Desmarest, chairman of Total, the world's fourth largest oil company, declared that production would peak by around 2020.
He urged governments to find ways to suppress oil demand growth and put off the witching hour.
Other forecasters are convinced the peak date is even closer.
But many environmentalists continue to resist the idea.
Some seem to suspect that anybody who argues that oil production is set to fall must be a closet climate change denier with a secret agenda.
Others, like Stephen Tindale of Greenpeace, instinctively distrust forecasts of an imminent peak, but wish fervently that it would come soon.
"Let's hope that the oil does run out", he told me, "and that the world has to develop alternatives to oil seriously quickly, and from a climate point of view that would be an excellent outcome."
Neither position could be more wrong.
Dirty Growth
It is mathematically impossible that peak oil will solve climate change.
Although oil is the biggest single source of energy-related greenhouse gases, coal and gas combined are bigger still, and the expected growth in their emissions would overwhelm any reduction from oil.
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End of Oil Heralds Climate Pain
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Dardedar
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DAR
I don't think the hydrogen car "solution" is viable and I think this article shows how badly the biofuel "solution" is as well.
A Lethal Solution
Posted March 27, 2007
We need a five-year freeze on biofuels, before they wreck the planet.
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 27th March 2007.
It used to be a matter of good intentions gone awry. Now it is plain fraud. The governments using biofuel to tackle global warming know that it causes more harm than good. But they plough on regardless.
In theory, fuels made from plants can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by cars and trucks. Plants absorb carbon as they grow – it is released again when the fuel is burnt. By encouraging oil companies to switch from fossil plants to living ones, governments on both sides of the Atlantic claim to be “decarbonising” our transport networks.
...By 2050, the government hopes that 33% of our fuel will come from crops(2). Last month George Bush announced that he would quintuple the US target for biofuels(3): by 2017 they should be supplying 24% of the nation’s transport fuel(4).
So what’s wrong with these programmes? Only that they are a formula for environmental and humanitarian disaster. In 2004 this column warned that biofuels would set up a competition for food between cars and people. The people would necessarily lose: those who can afford to drive are, by definition, richer than those who are in danger of starvation. It would also lead to the destruction of rainforests and other important habitats(5). I received more abuse than I’ve had for any other column, except when I attacked the 9/11 conspiracists. I was told my claims were ridiculous, laughable, impossible. Well in one respect I was wrong. I thought these effects wouldn’t materialise for many years. They are happening already.
Since the beginning of last year, the price of maize has doubled(6). The price of wheat has also reached a 10-year high, while global stockpiles of both grains have reached 25-year lows(7). Already there have been food riots in Mexico and reports that the poor are feeling the strain all over the world. The US department of agriculture warns that “if we have a drought or a very poor harvest, we could see the sort of volatility we saw in the 1970s, and if it does not happen this year, we are also forecasting lower stockpiles next year.”(8 ) According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the main reason is the demand for ethanol: the alcohol used for motor fuel, which can be made from both maize and wheat(9).
Farmers will respond to better prices by planting more, but it is not clear that they can overtake the booming demand for biofuel. Even if they do, they will catch up only by ploughing virgin habitat.
Already we know that biofuel is worse for the planet than petroleum. The UN has just published a report suggesting that 98% of the natural rainforest in Indonesia will be degraded or gone by 2022(10). Just five years ago, the same agencies predicted that this wouldn’t happen until 2032. But they reckoned without the planting of palm oil to turn into biodiesel for the European market. This is now the main cause of deforestation there and it is likely soon to become responsible for the extinction of the orang utan in the wild. But it gets worse. As the forests are burnt, both the trees and the peat they sit on are turned into carbon dioxide. A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or ten times as much as petroleum produces(11). I feel I need to say that again. Biodiesel from palm oil causes TEN TIMES as much climate change as ordinary diesel.
The rest...
I don't think the hydrogen car "solution" is viable and I think this article shows how badly the biofuel "solution" is as well.
A Lethal Solution
Posted March 27, 2007
We need a five-year freeze on biofuels, before they wreck the planet.
By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 27th March 2007.
It used to be a matter of good intentions gone awry. Now it is plain fraud. The governments using biofuel to tackle global warming know that it causes more harm than good. But they plough on regardless.
In theory, fuels made from plants can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by cars and trucks. Plants absorb carbon as they grow – it is released again when the fuel is burnt. By encouraging oil companies to switch from fossil plants to living ones, governments on both sides of the Atlantic claim to be “decarbonising” our transport networks.
...By 2050, the government hopes that 33% of our fuel will come from crops(2). Last month George Bush announced that he would quintuple the US target for biofuels(3): by 2017 they should be supplying 24% of the nation’s transport fuel(4).
So what’s wrong with these programmes? Only that they are a formula for environmental and humanitarian disaster. In 2004 this column warned that biofuels would set up a competition for food between cars and people. The people would necessarily lose: those who can afford to drive are, by definition, richer than those who are in danger of starvation. It would also lead to the destruction of rainforests and other important habitats(5). I received more abuse than I’ve had for any other column, except when I attacked the 9/11 conspiracists. I was told my claims were ridiculous, laughable, impossible. Well in one respect I was wrong. I thought these effects wouldn’t materialise for many years. They are happening already.
Since the beginning of last year, the price of maize has doubled(6). The price of wheat has also reached a 10-year high, while global stockpiles of both grains have reached 25-year lows(7). Already there have been food riots in Mexico and reports that the poor are feeling the strain all over the world. The US department of agriculture warns that “if we have a drought or a very poor harvest, we could see the sort of volatility we saw in the 1970s, and if it does not happen this year, we are also forecasting lower stockpiles next year.”(8 ) According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the main reason is the demand for ethanol: the alcohol used for motor fuel, which can be made from both maize and wheat(9).
Farmers will respond to better prices by planting more, but it is not clear that they can overtake the booming demand for biofuel. Even if they do, they will catch up only by ploughing virgin habitat.
Already we know that biofuel is worse for the planet than petroleum. The UN has just published a report suggesting that 98% of the natural rainforest in Indonesia will be degraded or gone by 2022(10). Just five years ago, the same agencies predicted that this wouldn’t happen until 2032. But they reckoned without the planting of palm oil to turn into biodiesel for the European market. This is now the main cause of deforestation there and it is likely soon to become responsible for the extinction of the orang utan in the wild. But it gets worse. As the forests are burnt, both the trees and the peat they sit on are turned into carbon dioxide. A report by the Dutch consultancy Delft Hydraulics shows that every tonne of palm oil results in 33 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, or ten times as much as petroleum produces(11). I feel I need to say that again. Biodiesel from palm oil causes TEN TIMES as much climate change as ordinary diesel.
The rest...
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Barbara Fitzpatrick
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I'm getting so tired of these - I don't know if they are subversive industry shills or just ignorant - people with their "biofuels will destroy us" and "food v. fuel" arguments. WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY TO BIOCONVERT GARBAGE AND SEWAGE TO ETHANOL!!! Last time l looked, nobody was eating sewage (at least not deliberately) in any of the industrialized nations. BRI Energy isn't the only bioconversion process/company, just the one I think is the most efficient (since it creates more electricity with its waste heat than it takes to run the plant, so provides both "grid" fuel and "vehicle" fuel). Corn-based ethanol isn't even efficient, with all its fossil fuel and water inputs, and the food issue isn't going to be one of "food v fuel" with corn, it's going to be "we've drained the Ogalala and can't grow corn anymore in the midwest".
The actual possible disaster (per Amory Lovins - I forgot the name of the book) is that we won't get our "green" fuel sources online beforeoil gets too scarce/expensive and we'll switch back to coal since we are already comfortable (meaning lots of corporate connections) with coal technology, no matter how dirty and life/breath threatening it is.
The actual possible disaster (per Amory Lovins - I forgot the name of the book) is that we won't get our "green" fuel sources online beforeoil gets too scarce/expensive and we'll switch back to coal since we are already comfortable (meaning lots of corporate connections) with coal technology, no matter how dirty and life/breath threatening it is.
Barbara Fitzpatrick
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Hogeye
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Probably they are people who observe the fact that most biofuels are made from food plants (e.g. corn, sugar beets) or stock that requires deforestation (oil palms.) Currently, what percent of biofuels are made from celluose or waste products? How long will it be before cellulosic ethanol production becomes cheaper than other technologies?Barbara wrote:I don't know if they are subversive industry shills or just ignorant - people with their "biofuels will destroy us" and "food v. fuel" arguments.
"May the the last king be strangled in the guts of the last priest." - Diderot
With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of tyranny, every form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty. - Ingersoll
With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of tyranny, every form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty. - Ingersoll
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Barbara Fitzpatrick
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The cellulosic and bioconversion processes are already cheaper to do. The issue is most of them (bioconversion plants) haven't been built yet. There are corn and sugar conversion plants in existance that are so under utilized that doubling input won't stress them. I want to get the energy off the hand-wringing, "oh we can't do this" nonsense and on to a more proactive, spit on the hands and grab a shovel, groundbreaking for the plants that can get rid of our garbage problem and provide energy at the same time.
Barbara Fitzpatrick