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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?
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.
Cold Turkey by none other than great hero to the geek race Kurt Vonnegut. It compares America to a junkie who's having trouble finding that last fix.
A highly recommended read on what appears to be a similar topic. My favorite line:
There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
I travel around 400-600 miles every week (Usualy drive from LA to SD at least once). Living in Los Angeles, where the price is about .50 higher then what I remember a year ago I spend an average of $15 more each week or about $50 per month. While this sounds pretty bad, I have to add that my rent has increased by $200 in the past year, my insurance is up by at least $100 and my average living cost went up by at least another $100 for the same things I used to buy last year. The $50 doesnt faze me, the $500 does.
On the contrary: Petroleum use should be limited to producing plastics and other petrochemical products that are harder to replace than gasoline. Alternative energy sources are easier to come by than alternatives to plastics. (Environmental issues aside.)
Milk prices are up due to a reduction in dairy cows. I read a good article on that the other day. Basically farmers are going away from dairy to other things that are more profitable and causing milk to go way up.
I picked this volume up after researching the issue myself over the web. There is an excellent Scientific American article on this issue from 1998 that serves to provide a similar view from the perspective of another geologist. I highly recommend it.
After reading these materials in early January of this year, as I watched oil prices rise higher and higher, I couldn't help but think about what I read!
The other interesting thing about this book is that it points out how petroleum provides us with benefits far beyond keeping our cars running. Plastics? Herbicides? Fungicides? CD-Rs? Certain medicines? All are dependent on keeping the oil flowing.
Suburbia is the killer. If our lives could be structured such that cars were not *necessary*, we can do fine. Residential infill, cohousing, mixed use zoning are all steps in the right direction. Oddly enough, so are rising gas prices.
Eventually, something will click in someone's head, and they will start to seek alternatives. I started looking at hybrids when my gas pump cut me off at $50.00 without filling my tank ('92 ford bronco, 11 mpg, 32 gallon tank). About a year later, I bought a VW New Beetle with the TDI (diesel) engine. Now it's *possible* to run my car with *no* foreign oil (biodiesel), and to date, about 1/3 of the fuel I've used has been from renewable sources, grown by my local farmers. It costs me $3.00 per gallon at the pump, but thanks ot a rebate program, I'm only paying $1.50 per gallon, net. I'd rather pay $3.00 to the benefit of my local farmer, and local economy, than sending it overseas to support societies that *hate* us. If I get particularly motivated (or more likely, when my warrantee is getting closer to expiration), I can recycle used vegetable oil into fuel at an estimated cost of $0.40-0.50 per gallon.
Not to mention the added benefit of getting 45 mpg without even trying. =)
James Howard Kunstler is my personal favourite "end-of-the-oil-age" critic. He takes the time to posit potential *solutions* to the problem of a transportation-dependent society.
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
Hubbert's Peak by Kenneth Deffeyes. I read this book shortly after it came out. If I recall, Deffeyes was a colleague of M. King Hubbert. Estimates of when the peak will come vary (10 to 50+ years), but few doubt it will come (except those who buy into Thomas Gold's hypothesis that most hydrocarbons originate from primordial methane dating from the earth's formation rather than the breakdown of organic material). It will be interesting to see if OPEC is able to lower prices by increasing production. Until now, we've relied on Saudi Arabia to open the taps when prices get too high. If they can't, then that's a good sign the peak is near (or already here).
More generally (and more importantly) oil is underpriced, period. Look at the costs to society:
Another aspect that is overlooked is the proportion of petroleum-based products that are not gasoline.
Take a look around the room your in: --from here I have a desk, vinyl sided windows, two computers w/monitors, picture frames, book covers, folios, CDROMs, waste paper basket [and bag]. It seems that almost everything is made of petrol--people focus on the gas, but if it disappeared, lack of gas would not be the top problem on this list.
I'm curious to know how much petroleum goes to fuels vs products . . . anyone know?
Some related notes:
I believe that Chevron-Texaco posted its most profitable quarter EVER last month.
The process of petroleum use is so refined/efficient that it would be more efficient to simply burn the alternatives [e.g. corn-plastic] to heat the factories that petroleum-based products are fabricated in. [Or, this was the case a few years ago]. There's a long road of process engineering to hoe before we really even have the ability to replace petroleum in a serious manner [better start now!].
Rhetorical question: if the price of oil is not as high now as it was in 1981, why was the price of gas in 1981 about 1/3 of what is is now [adjusted, and from a US perspective]?
We've been led astray by believing the estimates of the OPEC nations with regards to their reserves. Well, the price they get, according to their agreement, is tied to how large their reserves are. There is zero incentive for any of the OPEC nations to provide an accurate estimate if it means lowering the number. In addition, many of the wells are pumping out large quantities of water that was pumped down into the oil fields to force out more oil. They are beginning to go "dry" so to speak.
Check out www.peakoil.net for more information.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
What this probably means is that we screwed up when the mergers were allowed. Then again, we also screwed up 25-odd years ago when we used the half-assed measure of CAFE regulations instead of just taxing fuel. We screwed up again when we allowed the California Air Resources Board to try to mandate use of ZEVs (in practice, battery-only electric cars) before the battery technology was remotely ready rather than far more achievable HEVs. If 30% of all new vehicles sold in California since 1990 had been hybrids, we'd be way beyond Toyota and Honda technologically and the reduced fuel demand would have eliminated the refinery capacity squeeze too.
Right now we need to aim at plug-in hybrids, so that our cars aren't totally dependent on petroleum for energy. Even if they didn't get radically better mileage than current vehicles, the flexibility in energy supply would add elasticity to fuel demand and moderate prices.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I love the excuses they come up with. A refinery closes right before the high demand summer driving season. Last year, the excuse was a shortage of the summer blend, never mind that summer doesn't exactly come by surprise. Do they really think people are stupid enough to not see the price gouging? If it were a competitive market, I would be more understanding, but since all oil companies buy oil through the same channels which are run by cartels, its definitely gouging. The oil companies' record profits seem to back this up.
Nuclear waste disposal isn't really a problem. It's a political football in the US, but that's a political problem, not a technical one. There are rock formations that have been stable for twenty million years. (Yucca Mountain isn't one of them, though.)
The problem is Chernoybl-sized disasters and air pollution from the coal. Everybody worries about the first, but the second is more dangerous.
Look, we can curtail consumption dramatically overnight if need be. In fact we could increase the car efficiency by a factor of 3 overnight. Not only the technology is already here, but you can drive it off the parking lot today!
Do you know that the average mile per gallon today in the US is lower than in the mid-80s?
What would be the reduction in gas consumption if we all dumped our SUVs and bought Honda Civics?
Now, what if we then switched to Hybrids?
What if we gave up the back seat for our one-person commute and we all switched to smart cars?
What if we equipped said smartcars with super-efficient bicycle-like wheels as California is suggesting we do?
Mark my words: in two years people won't be able to give away for free their gas guzzling SUV (people who are old enough will remember that in the late 70s you could not give away your LTD Crown Victoria).
"public transportation" DOESN'T produce, package, or deliver your food to the stores and restaurants you frequent. Nor does it in the US-or any place else. The goods you all buy at the stores, from clothes to Cds to various hardware to..whatever--inevitably is reflected cost wise with the price of petroleum-and it's availability.
You don't even need a book, a simple two line graph will suffice. One graph shows world wide demand-that is going UP. Another graph line shows production-that will be going down as fields leave their "peak" where it's the cheapest to extract in terms of BTU's --> in to get BTU's -- out. Those lines will cross, then go in opposite directions, and the result is quite literally madmax, the movie, in spades.
In most fields outside the middle east, it's passed peak, and even the big fields in the middle east it's getting closer.
Those lines more or less cross within 15 years most places, some places earlier, other places later, but short of them developing some extremely energy efficient extraction techniques, and especially something that doesn't require high pressure water injection, we will be enscrewed.
BUT, the hard choices will not be made until it's too late to do much about it. We should already be using a significant proportion of the worlds petroleum energy to mass produce alternative enrgy devices, instead, we are using only a tiny fraction, waiting for the Mr. Fusion back yard perpetual motion machine generator.
Nuts, but there ya go.
I also think the "proven reserve" numbers aren't accurate, I think it's less in the middle east than what they say, but slightly more in the arctic circle. And there's some more to be gained in the gulf of mexico, etc, currently off limits to drilling, but once fuel gets to be about 5$ a gallon in the US, you won't find many people who give a care where we drill, unlike now when it's still fatcity and cheap and no one really is hurting yet-easy to complain OR ignore the problem as long as you are well fed, comfy, and want for naught. Once that changes, we could see what are euphemistally called in history books "major social changes".
Stuff can happen FAST, too, I personally paid 10$ a gallon for two gallons max back in the OPEC embargo days. And it doesn't matter how much you whine about it when it happens, scam or no scam, you pay, or walk. And with the current middle east situation, chaos theory says-you don't know, the whole dang place over there could el kaboom any day. No one can say it won't, you can't say it will, but the posibility is there for major war to seriously disrupt supply, and that would effect everyone in any nuymber of ways, irregardless if they are an urban bicycle/mass transit rider or not.
We are just way too dependent on oil, our entire economies revolve around it.
Heck, I just came in for a breather, about to go back outside and climb onto a diesel powered tractor, without that diesel, I can't work. PERIOD. Multiple that by another billion guys around the planet, one way or the other everyone goes to work, and diesel and gas make it happen. We simply cannot replace it, even by a massive switch to coal, can't be done now.
Bully for you!
In the long run, of course, we are all dead, but also in the long run human cultures can and will adapt to a world of incredibly expensive, rare oil.
The question is whether that is a world that can sustain 8+ billion people at anything like the current astonishing consumption rate.
I'm given to understand that economists spend a lot of time measuring the theoretical epiphenomenon known as "productivity" within an "economy". I put it to you that a major input into measurements of productivity is in fact trapped solar energy in the form of fossil fuels.
The transition from a medieval society based on slaves/serfs and water/wind power to the consumption of fossil fuels on a vast, increasing scale over past few centuries is what has enabled us to move from agrarian to an urban societies. We no longer require vast armies of slaves and serfs to till our fields and shit in them - instead we burn fossil fuels to till the, and convert more fossil fuels into fertiliser. By burning 400 years worth of solar energy input every year, we have increased producitivty massively, freeing up hundreds of millions of bodies to work in urban manufacturing and service jobs. We have created our economies, literally, by burning fossil fuels.
Unlike economics, physics and geology doesn't work in a vacuum or a finely divisible continuum of graduated, switchable inputs. There is a finite limit to growth, dictated by several realities: total solar output, diameter of the earth, effectiveness of photosynthesis, energy conversion efficiencies, and so on. We could, as you say, transition our cultures to move from fossil fuels to other power sources, but what are the consequences?
Da Blog
Americans swill gasoline like petrol drunks. Not only do we buy huge automobiles as stupid status symbols but we worship anything that burns gas. Gas burning schooters, dirt carts, dune buggies etc. The american love affair with the car is constantly romanticised as well, we have developed a culture around it.
I say make gas more expensive, tax the shit out of it and get some better public transportation going (much of which already is running on Natural Gas or electricity). We need a kick in the ass to hopefully knock us out of such an extreme dependancy.
...and I don't mean just by buying huge SUVs and being generally glutonous. I mean by defeating Saddam!
See, when that crazy SOB was running loose in Iraq, Saudia Arabia and the other OPEC nations were scared. They needed their big buddy, the US, to keep him in line. Now that he is gone and Iraq has declined into a state of continuous *local* guerrilla war, the possibility of Kuwait or Saudia Arabia being invaded is zero. So now, things are a little different between the US and OPEC. Sure, we did them a huge favor by removing Saddam, but now, the US has nothing over them. So, if oil prices should drift up and up and up. So sorry. Pay me, sucker.
----------
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Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
What Hubbert, and so many of his followers fail to realize is the reason U.S. oil production peaked in the 70's. It had nothing to do with failing reserves, or empty oil fields. It had everything to do with rising costs for extracting oil in the U.S. My family has owned mineral rights in western Oklahoma for over 100 years (land rush in 1889). The first oil and gas wells were drilled on family land around 1940. From about 1978 untill 2002, those wells were pumping at "maintenance levels" only. This means they pumped just enough to keep the self lubrication working and fill the holding tanks as slowly as possible. This was because, the cost of maintenance and transport in the U.S. for that time meant that a barrel of oil cost the oil company $38 to deliver it to the refinery. During that same time avareage world oil prices were $20 - $35 per barrel. The royalty checks for the family, that used to run $4,000 a month or more during the 60's dropped to a couple hundred a month during the 80's and 90's. Most of the family sold thier share of the mineral rights during that time. Now, with higher oil prices those wells are being put back into pruduction and the royalty checks are looking better. Last estimate we received from the oil company surveyors was that we still have probably over 50 million barrels sitting under our land. But if the price per barrel drops again, our wells will be shut back down until they can be profitable.
"Unheard of means only it's undreamed of yet,
Impossible means not yet done." ~~ Julia Ecklar
No, but the experts who are paid a huge pile of money note the rate of discovery of new oil is far below the consumption rate of existing reserves.
That can be explained, as you are suggesting, by reserves being more difficult to find.
Unfortunately, that phenomenon can also be explained by simple economics. For the past few decades it has been (nearly) financial suicide to engage in oil exploration. Domestic (U.S.A.) exploration has continued to dwindle. The decline can largely be explained by price uncertainty.
It costs 6 or 7 figures to bring a single well online.
Will it produce? Dunno for sure until it is online.
How much will it produce? Dunno for sure until it is online.
How long will it produce? Dunno for sure until it is online.
How much water will need to be removed from the oil? Dunno for sure until it is online.
How much will it cost to extract the oil? Dunno for sure until it is online.
Here's the killer:
What will the spot price of oil be if and when I get my well online?
Dunno.
Will I ever get my money back from the well?
Dunno.
Exploration is risky. Right now there is plenty of known oil. Until the price volatility gets removed from crude prices, few will explore. Those (not well funded) groups that do explore will get killed the next time OPEC gluts the market and shakes out the weaker competitors.
None of this has anything to do with how much oil is underground.
Someone in the audience mentioned Goodstein and Lewis made kind of a scoffing noise. Lewis seemed very skeptical of Goodstein's estimates of how soon we will run out of coal.
The real problem, according to Lewis, as I understood it, is not that we will run out of oil, but that we will probably not be able to meet energy demands without putting significantly more carbon into the air than there has been in the last half million years.
Yes, however, when the oil is out, my 10 year old cannondale will still work. I don't need to buy a new one, because I take care of it. Yes, lubrication will be an issue, but presumably when the oil runs out new synthetics ( corn based? I don't know, I'm not a chemical engineer ) will take the place of oil for lubricative purposes.
The real problem here is not that cars will be fucked -- which they will be if they still run on petroleum -- it's that most people live WAY too far from work and from markets/shops/etc.
I walk to work and do most of my shopping on foot or bike. If worst comes to worst, I can do it all by foot: because I live *in* a city and the things I need are convenient.
If we don't have alternative fuel sources when the shit hits the fan, I predict the suburbs/exurbs will become 21st century ghost towns.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
No. You're wrong.
Taxing the shit out of petroleum in the U.S. would have consequences so dire you can't even begin to imagine. The United States is NOT Europe. Most people live 20 to 30 miles away from their place of work with some living even farther. Because of the lack of a usable and succesful form of mass transit in most U.S. cities, a massive gasoline tax would take a huge amount of money right out of the hands of the people keeping our economy alive. The U.S. rail system is not an option in many cases, and remember that most every consumer product you buy is shipped for the most part by diesel trucks. The United States isn't Europe, and a high tax is ABSOLUTLY NOT the first step to reducing dependence on the automobile.
1. Build and finance usable forms of mass transit
2. Make sure that the public transit is capable of sucessfully allowing wage workers to commute.
3. Gradually make cars less attractive.
I would like to point out a simple fact that while oil prices are as low as they are, there is little or no hard incentive for alternative sources of energy.
The US has a VERY large reserve of oil, and the world's oil fields are completely under produced. We have at least enough oil for 50-100 more years, unless everyone in China & India start to drive. US consumption can be supported for quite some time.
Either way, if you think that gas-powered cars are evil, you should be rooting for higher oil prices. Otherwise, no serious effort will be made for alternatives.
That said, a serious effort at an alternative has been found and it is called nuclear energy (pronounced "new-clear" -- i know these new fangled science terms are hard).
It harnesses the power of the atom and can be made small enough to power your small car or large enough to power your small country.
Too bad that people think it is unsafe. It is understandable though, given a total of ZERO deaths caused by meltdowns in the western world.
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We have plenty of corn ( and soy ) to make ethenol to drive our cars and trucks..
Much of this country's corn is wasted, or sent to other places as 'aid'. We dont need any of the gasoline we are using now.
Even most lubricant oil can be replaced with soy oil..
The only real reason we still have an oil industry is due to the $$ it generates for washington.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Coal is in the long run a better choice because we have so much of it--about four trillion tons in the US alone which translates roughly to 8 trillion barrels (global oil reserves are estimated at about 1 trillion barrels). One problem is that coal conversion plants are relatively expensive to build, and since there's little demand right now we don't have the capacity to start producing huge quantities immediately if there is a sudden spike in gas prices.
Methanol has about half the energy density of gas (so you'd have to refill more often) but it also has lower emissions. On the other hand the lower emissions are offset by the environmental damage from coal recovery, i.e. strip mining.
Interestingly enough, someone did. In 1997. If you do a WayBack search for the site in this thread, dieoff.org, you'll find this tidbit:
http://web.archive.org/web/19980113194457/dieoff.o rg/page128.htm
Jay Hanson predicted a war in Iraq in 1997, and he thought that it would coincide with a peak in oil prices that could occur around 2005. Search on that page for the word Iraq and you'll find this:
Rather chilling, I think. A conspiracy theory, yes. And I had to don my tinfoil hat while reading it. But the prediction is thought provoking. He was right about the war, but he was wrong in that he predicted the American people would throw their support behind a war for oil. In fact we didn't go to war for oil, we went to war to find weapons of mass destruction. Which we haven't found.
Tin foil had still on ...
Here is what ExxonMobil has to say about the matter. Hardly scaremongering.
Add to the mix the fact that some oil companies have been overestimating their oil reserves, and you have a looming problem that is notscaremongering. Are we adapting (using our oil resources more wisely/conserving)? Not really.
Unfrotunately, any debate on oil quickly degenerates into partisan bickerring. The fact remains tha gasoline is cheap and we are used to it. Adjusted for inflation, we should be paying almost twice of what we are used to. Like it or not, we are headed for sharply higher oil prices. This will likely provide a shock to the stock market and and a related price rise in other comodities we consume.BTW, none of theses views are from "liberal environmentalist caremongerers" (whoever the heck they are.)
Cheers- raga