Oil and Gas: Equal But Not Really

In general, oil makes transportation fuels and natural gas makes electricity.  These two fossil fuels complement each other rather than compete.  Likewise, alternative energy technologies fall broadly into one of two categories:  transportation or power generation.

Coal is used principally for power generation and so competes directly with natural gas.   It's a big decision when building a new power plant whether it will be coal-fired or natural gas-fired.  More on this later.

Since both oil and gas are fossil fuels, they are both nonrenewable, and burning each discharges greenhouse gases.  So, there really isn't a substantial long-term incentive to substitute one for another.  This is the perhaps the biggest fallacy with electric cars:  the cars don't burn gasoline, but they do require burning natural gas.  Owners of electric cars mislead themselves that it's only "clean" energy coming from the electric outlet in their garages.

Still, oil and gas have substantial differences.  And, all things considered, natural gas is cleaner and has more potential staying power.  Natural gas is a legitimate medium-term solution to replacing crude oil.  It's not the final answer, but it is a great bridging step.

Fossil Fuels and Climate Change

I have never seen climate change discussed without the participants accusing someone either of lying or of destroying the planet.  Everyone gets emotional about climate change, even professionals who have a responsibility to remain impartial.  I think the reason for this is that the topic threatens so many people, because invariably the topic turns to changes that might be necessary in lifestyle, livelihood, and behavior.  Most people don't like change and view being asked to change anything as threatening.  People get emotional when they feel threatened; sometimes they get irrational.

But in the energy world today, addressing climate change is fair game.

Some Facts

Let's start by looking at some facts:

• Burning hydrocarbons releases carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapor.  (Depending upon the combustion conditions and impurities in the fuels, it can also release other chemicals, but let's not complicate things with that right now.)

• The earth has natural processes for balancing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.  These processes transfer billions of tonnes of CO2 between natural sources and sinks such as the oceans, the atmosphere, and the biosphere.

• Society has been burning hydrocarbons on an industrial scale since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, which started in the 1750s.

• The amount of CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels each year is small compared with the total amount of CO2 balanced by the earth's natural sources and sinks each year.

• Increased concentrations of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere work like a greenhouse, trapping heat that would otherwise be dispersed into space.  (No one disputes this anymore.)  If atmospheric CO2 concentrations increase enough, it stands to reason that temperatures throughout the world will increase too.

The Source of Doubts

In terms of the earth's history, burning fossil fuels on a massive scale and releasing the produced CO2 into the atmosphere is new.  It's only been about 250 years since the start of the Industrial Revolution, but the earth is millions of years old.  Since the Industrial Revolution, society's development has been driven by continually expanding heavy industry and more mechanical transportation, and CO2 emissions have increased steadily every year.

It's absolutely true that the earth has natural processes for balancing CO2 between the atmosphere, oceans, and biosphere.  What's not clear is how delicate these processes are.  It's a real question whether the earth's natural CO2-balancing processes can accommodate the sustained, steadily-increasing CO2 volumes generated by manmade industry and transportation.  If they can, then in the long-term there will be no problem; but if they can't, then the consequences are a wildcard.

This question of how much additional atmospheric CO2 the earth can tolerate is the root of the climate change debate and what actions should be taken, if any. 

How Much CO2 Are We Talking About?

Here's how much CO2 has been released from burning fossil fuels in the roughly 250 years since the Industrial Revolution began:

            1.396 trillion tonnes
                     (Source of data:  Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, www.cdiac.oml.gov)

Here's a way to put this into perspective.  If all this CO2 was collected as a single cube of dry ice, the cube would be 6 miles (9.6 km) on each side.  That's a cube 6 miles east-west, 6 miles north-south, and 6 miles straight up.  And every year the cube grows bigger.

The debate continues over whose fault this is and whether it's a real problem or a just a red herring created by special interest groups with their own agendas.  And while the debate continues, the accusations and hyperbole will undoubtedly continue too.

But I look at this this way:  we've put the equivalent of a 6-mile CO2 cube into the atmosphere.  Does it take a huge stretch of the imagination to think this might have affected something?

Details of calculations:

From 1751 - 2008:  346,758E6 tonnes of carbon emitted

From that data, the average rate of emissions from 2005-2008 = 8432E6 tonnes of carbon/year

Total carbon emitted from 1751-2012 = [346,758 + 4*(8432)]E6 tonnes of C

multiple C tonnes by 3.67 to get CO2 tonnes  (44 gCO2/12gC)(1 mole CO2)/(1moleC) *(g C)

Density of solid CO2 = 1562 kg/m3  --> cube of 9.6 km per side

Capitalism at its Strongest

At some point the world will have to stop depending upon fossil fuels for its dominant energy supply.  Society can choose whether to address the issue early or wait until events force it to act.  Right now,  not many things are driving markets or policymakers to change.  Because right now, the truth is that fossil fuels are abundant, cheap, and established.

However, there are reasons to transition away from fossil fuels.  Nations that deploy the next generations of power distribution infrastructure and transportation vehicles will create new industries and capture those employment opportunities.  They will also shield themselves from the effects of fluctuating crude oil prices and take the initiative in solving the climate change problem.

These reasons are largely political.  The free market system responds quickly to economic forces, but it is not strongly affected by political ones.  This means that politicians and governments must start the ball rolling.  Government-lead technological innovation is not new.  The US Space Program began as a government initiative, but it spawned many new technologies, private corporations, and other projects.

Converting the world from fossil fuels is going to take an effort on par with the Space Program.  Collaboration will be required among universities, research centers, the oil industry, the automobile industry, and government policymakers. The resources of large corporations and the quick-strike attitude of startups will both be necessary.  The conversion will take commitment, perseverance, and large investments.  It will demand long-term thinking, risk-taking, and cutting-edge science.

Above all, it will take leadership.

Along the way fortunes will be made.  The chance of making these fortunes will be vital to sustain the effort.  Political ideology and government grants will not draw-out the capitalist spirit that will win.  The global energy business is capitalism at its strongest, and this business is ruled by fossil fuels.  Successful alternative energy must be more competitive than fossil fuels.  It must beat them in abundance, cost, and return-on-investment.

We Need a Set of Solutions, Not Just One

The world's energy demand continues to grow, and fossil fuels continue to dominate that growing demand, but fossil fuels have real drawbacks.  This situation cannot continue indefinitely.  We can wait until it's a crisis, or we can be smart and tackle the problem before then.

A coordinated attack with three different time horizons is necessary:

Short Term (next 10 years): 

• Improve existing efficiencies - Small, incremental efficiency improvements often don't require technical breakthroughs, just a modernization of what's already in place.  Throughout the power generation infrastructure, old equipment needs to be replaced, losses need to be reduced, and waste needs to be elimated.  With automobiles, gas mileage needs to be improved, limits need to be set on vehicle sizes and weights, and vehicle inspection programs need to be more rigorous. 
• Move toward mass transit - Mass transit networks need building that are so fast, stylish, and service-oriented that people find them more attractive than driving.  North America especially needs high-speed trains that connect major cities, and many North American cities need greatly expanded mass transit systems.
• Improve cleanliness - Convert existing systems to fuels that burn cleaner and generate fewer emissions.
• Remove CO2 from emissions - Deploy methods that capture carbon dioxide from exhaust gases and vent stacks. 

Very little new technology is required to implement these short term solutions.  All that's needed are incentives throughout local, national, and global arenas.

Medium Term (next 20 years): 

• Develop and demonstrate non-fossil fuel alternatives for power generation and transportation - The key to this point is the word "demonstrate", and that means building  semiworks scale facilities and prototype vehicle fleets that repeatedly operate reliabily and safely for several continuous months.  To have any real chance for commercial deployment, these facilitites and prototypes must not only prove that the technologies work, but also that they work with operating costs equal to or cheaper than their fossil fuel competitors.
• Develop technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere that's deployable on a global scale.

Some technologies (wind turbines, solar grids) are already in the demonstration phase, but the operating cost challenges still need to be overcome.  Other technologies (nuclear) are already commercialized, but they lack strong enough champions to gain worldwide traction.  Still others (biofuels) are working toward commercilization but are too dependent upon government help.  For new technologies to be sustainable, government mandates and subsidies must be unnecessary.

Long Term (next 50 years):

• Establish new infrastructure to meet the world's energy needs without fossil fuels - Some of the things imaginable include high-speed train networks equal in scale to the Interstate Highway system; nationwide service stations for maintaining solar-charged, battery-powered automobiles; port facilities for docking and maintaining nuclear-powered cargo ships; networks for recycling spent nuclear fuel and batteries.
• Remove CO2 from the atmosphere until it's at pre-Industrial Revolution levels.  Imagine a future debate among politicians and scientists about when to stop depleting CO2 from the atmosphere.

There is not a single path away from fossil fuel dominance but a set of solutions.  There will not be a single point in time when fossil fuels become obsolete but a series of things over decades that relegates fossil fuels to an ever smaller piece of the energy mix.  As long as fossil fuels are available they will have a place in the world's energy supply.  The idea is to create more competitive alternatives until fossil fuels are phased out like the horse and carriage.

Fossil Fuels Dominate

The chart below shows how the world gets its energy.  This chart is for 2011, but it is typical of every year.

Fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal) account for 87.1% of the total energy consumed.  Clearly, fossil fuels dominate, but there are good reasons for it.

Benefits of fossil fuels:

• They are plentiful.  The world still has diverse and abundant supplies of crude oil, natural gas, and coal.  While there are certainly fewer reserves than there used to be, we are not imminently in danger of running out.
• They are economical.  The biggest reason that alternative fuels haven't displaced fossil fuels is that fossil fuels are cheaper. 
• They are well established.  Entire industries and infrastructures are built around fossil fuels.  It's going to take a lot of time, effort, and initiative to break out of this box.

Yet, fossil fuels also have drawbacks:

• They will run out.  Unless something changes, society will eventually deplete the world of its fossil fuels. 
• They are concentrated in certain parts of the world.  Vast amounts of oil, gas, and coal are controlled by a handful of countries.  These countries that have abundant fossil fuel resources are typically wealthy, and the countries that don't have them are dependent upon those that do.
• They contribute to climate change.  Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, and there is ample evidence that over a century of doing this has affected global climate patterns.  Although no one knows when, eventually there will be a reckoning.

The World's Energy Demand Is Growing Unchecked

The graph below shows the world's total energy consumption since 1965.

During this 46-year period, the global energy demand more than tripled, and there is no reason to believe this demand will stop growing.  A few simple-sounding questions emerge:

• How much can the world's energy demand continue to grow?
• Where will the energy to meet this increasing demand come from?
• What happens when demand outgrows supply?

Introduction

This blog will discuss current topics and trends in meeting the world's energy needs for the next 100 years.  It will cover business, technical, and political issues, but it will emphasize things that are clean, sustainable, and practical alternatives to fossil fuels.

I am a strong proponent of both energy conservation and alternative energy, which may surprise some people because I work for one of the world's largest oil companies and have spent 20 years in the petroleum industry.  However, when you see firsthand how much effort is required to find, produce, transport, and refine hydrocarbons, it breaks your heart to see them being wasted.