Out of Gas

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. 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. 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?

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.

Comments

Re:Inflation.

[hattig]

Please come to the UK, where it is around $5.50+ a US gallon most of the time. Of course, because we are a smaller country and have had this fuel price thing going for many a year, we usually live closer to where we work than many people in the US [do to their place of work]. We aren't as reliant on personal transport.

Re:Inflation.

[br0ck]

Here's a two year chart of US gas prices from the Chicago affiliate of gasbuddy.com.

Re:Inflation.

[Carnildo]

3. OPEC fighting against us in Iraq with the one effective weapon they have.

The only OPEC country that isn't pumping at full capacity is Saudi Arabia. This shortage isn't a result of OPEC manipulation.

Re:In the land of empty tanks

[Aardpig]

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.

[Just Some Guy]

The other alternative is that your ignorant of what "octane" means in connection with gasoline. Basically, it's a measure of a fuel's resistance to pre-detonation. The higher the octane, the higher the compression ratio an engine can use without the gasoline fumes spontaneously exploding before the spark ignites them.

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.

The bigger picture -updated version

[amiable1]

There is a very clear online recent lecture on this topic by Nathan Lewis, a chem professor at Caltech who is active in this field. It is titled "The Future of Power and Energy in the World"

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_ no v.php

http://www.konarkatech.com/news_articles-solracs -h ybPV.php

http://www.st.com/stonline/press/news/year2003/t 13 55h.htm

http://www.nanosolar.com/advantages.htm

(this is an updated version of a previous post)

.

Excellent Timing to scare the masses...

[Orne]

Oil futures prices are down 2.7% today. The rumor on the Drudge Report is that Iraq is already pumping oil above expected output...

Meanwhile, the USA is filling its strategic oil reserves to the highest levels ever. 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 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.

Water, not Oil.

[umrgregg]

As a geoscientist I can attest to the leaps and bounds that are made monthly and yearly in the petroleum industry for exploiting, locating, and distributing hydrocarbons. The transition to alternative forms of energy for personal transportation will eventually come, but it will hardly spell the end for the petroleum industry. Movement to pure hydrogen energy will only happen when a methods for producing free hydrogen don't require more energy than the use of the hydrogen itself produces. It requires energy to make that hydrogen folks. Hopefully all of you proclaimed physicists realize that.

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.