‘Energy Beyond Oil’ by Paul Mobbs – Could YOU Cut YOUR Energy by 60%?

I mentioned in my previous post about coal (and how the Tories haven’t got a clue about it!) Paul Mobbs and his excellent book Energy Beyond Oil. I highly recommend this book to everyone.

To those new to energy and ecological issues, it will arm you with facts and frankly scare you shitless about the prospects of peak oil, climate change and resource depletion if we fail to act; for seasoned eco-warriors, it will improve your arguments and reinforce the stark prospects we face if we fail to get our message across.

After first hearing Paul speak at Green Party Spring Conference 2006 in Scarborough, I invited him to LSE this year to hear his presentation on peak oil and energy. I was amazed at his encyclopedic knowledge and astounding insights – he answered questions in the most proficient and fluent way I have ever seen. I don’t just recommend his book – I recommend you hold a meeting with Paul and get other to hear him speak. And ask him anything – anything – and see if you can stump him. I’ll offer you £50 if you can make him even stutter.

Here is an extract from Energy Beyond Oil in the Introduction, which is about the most succinct explanation of the predicament we’re in that I’ve ever read or heard. It is set up as a recurring conversation between the author and other people (in italics), and is particularly relevant given recent rises in oil prices:

There is a fundamental physical law of the universe – The First Law of Thermodynamics. It states:

“In any closed system, the total amount of energy of all kinds is a constant”

The Earth is a closed system. It receives energy from the Sun, and the Moon pulls the oceans across the globe to make the tides. Apart from these two, almost constant, energy inputs from the outside the Earth has no other external energy sources. Any other energy source we use has to come from the Earth itself… and these sources are running out.

Oil is almost at peak production – after that, it’s on its way out. Within ten to twelve years, when the pumps can suck no greater volumes of oil from the ground, production will go into decline and it will never rise again. Oil deposits will be exhausted, in terms of oil being a bulk energy resource, around 2050.

So what’s the problem, it’s going to last another fifty years?

Market economics… When oil production reaches its peak, from that day on every state across the globe will be competing on price for the ever-dwindling level of production that remains. Result: between 2010 and 2015 the price of oil will start climbing higher and higher, doubling or tripling in price in just the first ten to fifteen years after the peak, and, from that point on, it will never fall in price again. We could shift to gas, but for many of the uses of oil – such as a fuel in cars or as the feed material for the production of plastics – natural gas just can’t provide as efficient a replacement.

So what?… all those renewable technologies will get comparatively cheaper?

Energy density… Oil and gas are actually very dense sources of energy – they contain a large amount of energy per unit of mass compared to other sources. Let’s compare motor fuel with its nearest renewable equivalent, biodiesel. It takes two hundred and fifty gallons of diesel per year to keep the average diesel car going the average distance travelled every year. Replace that with biodiesel, and you have to find a hectare (2.5 acres) of land to produce the three tonnes of oilseeds that biodiesel production requires. Want to make the twenty-odd million cars in the UK run on biodiesel? – sorry, but that would take five times more land than all the farm land currently in cultivation in the UK. Even if we turned over half the cultivated land in the UK to produce biofuels it would only keep just over two million cars (less than 10% of the current car fleet) on the road – and of course this figure doesn’t include lorries, trains, tractors, etc., which would also demand biodiesel to keep running.

But what about hydrogen, that wonder-fuel of the future?

You need energy to make it… The Earth is a closed system and we don’t have natural hydrogen reserves. We can’t magic it from the air, water, or any other source. Hydrogen itself is not a fuel. Like electricity it is a carrier of energy. We have to put the energy into processes that make hydrogen in order to produce a fuel that gives us back only 40% to 80% of the energy we invested in making it. Currently hydrogen production relies on the use of hydrocarbons like oil and gas. Of course, there is also the slight problem that large-scale hydrogen use could make a huge hole in the ozone layer every bit as bad as all those chlorofluorocarbons we banned fifteen years ago.

OK, if we’re desperate we can go nuclear can’t we?

There’s not enough uranium… Even if we ignored all the problems with nuclear power (for example, no one has yet found a fully reliable method for storing the highly radioactive wastes produced for a hundred thousand years) if the world switched most of its electrical requirements to nuclear, there’s only enough uranium to keep fission reactors burning for fifteen to twenty years. We could try and get the more risky fast breeder reactors work reliably (not an easy job) to make the uranium go further… in which case we might get fifty or sixty years of energy. The only longer-term nuclear option is fusion. But that’s perhaps a century away and, even then, it’s not clear that it could provide the current energy consumption of the globe for generations to come.

But I thought we could have more oil from Iraq now?

Iraq’s oil represents just 4 years global use… Iraq’s proven oil reserves are 112.5 billion barrels – global consumption in 2004 was 29 billion barrels, and that’s rising two to four percent per year driven by the industrialisation of India and China. New oil and gas finds are getting smaller, and are not replacing current consumption. So the total level of oil and gas resources is falling. Also, as existing oil fields reach about half of their viable production, the level of output begins to fall off because it’s harder to suck the oil out. Put this together, and Iraq really doesn’t make a lot of difference given the scale of global consumption.

Well, we’ve still got two hundred years worth of coal!

Climate change makes its use impossible… We might have had two hundred years worth in 1950, but at today’s level of electricity consumption the UK’s 1.5 billion tonnes of coal reserves will only last us nine years. Coal can be turned into oil and gas and all sorts of minerals. But coal isn’t as efficient to use to produce energy as oil and gas because it mainly consists of carbon, not hydrocarbons. Therefore you need to burn more of it to get the same energy output, and you’d still have problems making other products like fertilisers or plastics. Most significantly, if the world used coal to replace oil and gas the increase in carbon emissions would mean that climate change might wipe us out.

Expensive oil, renewables are not enough, no coal, no nukes… we’re in trouble!

Yes, and that starts in the next five to ten years when energy prices rocket – not in fifty years when oil is scarce.

It’s at this point that many participants begin to experience what could be described as metanoic shock. Old certainties don’t seem so certain any more. And the comfort of our Western lifestyle suddenly seems to represent a thin veneer over the twilight zone where cheap holidays and off-road vehicles are as fond a memory as steam trains.

… What’s heartening is that some people see this impending realignment of global energy quotas as a great opportunity. A chance to redefine the balance between humans and the planet in order to create a sustainable future…

… I hope that the message you take from this book is a positive one. That Western society is about to undergo a massive, collective shock, but, by applying basic principles of sustainable development we can live through this period… albeit without the ready-meals, cheap flights to Spain, 4×4s, Britney Spears videos, Formula One racing, plastic umbrellas…