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October 25, 2005
Recommended Reading
Geologist Kenneth S. Deffeyes, who was among the first to warn of the coming oil crisis, turns his attention to the earth's supply of potential replacement fuels. In Beyond Oil, he traces their likely production futures using the analytic tools developed by pioneering petroleum-supply authority M. King Hubbert.
Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak
by Kenneth S. Deffeyes
ISBN: 0809029561
Format: Hardcover, 224pp
Pub. Date: March 2005
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Hardcover, March 2005
Barnes & Noble price: $19.20
FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Kenneth S. Deffeyes, a geologist who was among the first to warn of the coming oil crisis, now takes the next logical step and turns his attention to the earth's supply of potential replacement fuels. In Beyond Oil, he traces out their likely production futures, with special reference to that of oil, using the same analytic tools developed by his former colleague, the pioneering petroleum-supply authority M. King Hubbert." The book includes chapters on natural gas, coal, tar sands and heavy oil, oil shale, uranium, and (although not strictly an energy resource itself) hydrogen. A concluding chapter on the overall energy picture covers the likely mix of energy sources the world can rely on for the near-term future, and the special roles that will need to be played by conservation, high-mileage diesel automobiles, nuclear power plants, and wind-generated electricity.
FROM THE CRITICS
Kirkus Reviews
The world is running on empty, warns petroleum geologist Deffeyes (Hubbert's Peak, 2001), and yet Humvees continue to roll down the assembly lines, roads to be built, and economic models to be churned out. Hubbert's Peak refers not to an oil-implicated place along the lines of Kuwait or Teapot Dome, but to a statistical concept hatched in the 1950s by another geologist, M. King Hubbert: it posits that world oil production over time will follow the classic bell curve, the apex of which took place in the past. Tinkering with Hubbert's math just a little, Deffeyes projects that the end of 2005 will see total oil production at 2.013 trillion barrels, adding, "Wherever the peak, the view is not good." He adds, provocatively, that Thanksgiving of that year ought to be designated World Oil Peak Day and that we use the occasion to give thanks to the years 1901 to 2004, when oil was abundant and cheap. Stopgap measures will not help, he offers: drilling the five billion barrels locked up in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as the Bush administration has been thirsting to do for years, will only "postpone the world decline for two or three months." What, then, is to be done? Well, Deffeyes suggests, we can always try to capitalize by buying into an oil royalty trust. More to the point, governments can develop coal and nuclear energy generators in the short term, polluting and potentially hazardous though they may be, while looking for longer-term solutions with a sense of urgency behind them. And ordinary consumers can learn to turn off lights, eat foods that don't require tons of pesticides and shipping far distances out of season, and stop buying gas-guzzlers-or, as Deffeyes growls, departingfrom his friendly college-lecture style, "find some other way of publicizing your testosterone." A timely, compelling argument that should make owners of hybrid cars just a little bit happier, and everyone else very glum indeed.
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14 CommentsI still can not belive that even this man can write a book and not touch on Agro-fuels, such as Bio-Diesel (from soybeans) and Ethanol (from corn).
October 25, 2005 2:39 PMAs James Kunstler points out in his book "The Long Emergency,....." the problem with many so-called alternative fuel sources is that their production is very dependent on petroleum for their production. Think diesel fuel to run the tractor and natural gas to provide nitrogen fertilizers. There is a net loss of energy in most instances. The same can be said for solar and wind. The tools needed to produce and store these energy sources are very dependent on petroleum for their production. We may be closer to using technologies that were familiar to our ancestors than we care to think. There don't seem to be any large-scale efficient energy sources on the near horizon.
October 25, 2005 4:26 PMMy first introduction of this concept was in 1980. I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by a physicist from the Nobel Institute. His comments have never left my mind and the shadow of this approaching storm still haunts me.
The basic premise is the "doubling factor;" when will production, use, and demand double, and how many doubling periods lead to resource depletion. The key is the simplified equation [ 70/i ] where i = the growth factor as a percentage. For example, if energy consumption holds at an average increase of 7% each year the first doubling period would be [ 70/7 = 10 ]. Ten years for consumption to double from 2.013 trillion to 4.026 trillion. In 20 years poduction/consumption will reach 6.039 trillion.
Even if we drastically reduce our use, the rest of the world (about 5 billion persons) will still be coming up to minimum industrial usage just to get by with life. When looking at reserves, it is easy to see the coming collision with reality.
October 25, 2005 4:45 PMThe talk here has been about energy but what about the plastics and synthetic materials that make up our reality? A population based recycling process rather than land filling has to take place.
I envision 2 repositories: one for plastics and the like discards, labled "petroleum" and the other for food and wood type wastes labled "gas". The petroleum is refined and recycled into "new" products or energy and the gas is digested to produce gas for energy and other products. There is enogh waste to where the process energy would not be a problem. Mining landfills would be more difficult.
Jim is wrong. The energy payback time for a wind turbine is less than a year. See the American Wind-energy Association Website:
October 26, 2005 2:39 PMI beleve that organic fuel is a thing of the past. The future is nonorganic fuels by ie. atomic energy or hydrogen. With the consumtion of organic fuels expiring faster than they are being discovered. This is not counting the pollution that is being emmited into the enviorment.
October 27, 2005 2:33 AMNo Karl, Jim is right! If you believe the lies promulgated by those wind turbine developers, you are a fool who can't do the math. There was a story on NPR a few mornings ago about how the Germans are finding out that the wind mills are not any solution; they have something like 20,000 of them and they provide only 5% of the power requirements AND they're finding that the birds are gone from the wetlands. Then if it's a local windmill, batteries are required to store power when the wind isn't blowing. Batteries come from petroleum and pollute the environment, as well as rusty windmills that those developers will never go back to retrieve. The developers are lining their pockets with the grant money by brainwashing fools who can't do the math.
October 27, 2005 4:20 PM
