The Speculist

Energy Punditry 101

I have two possible reactions to this:

The age of oil is ending[.] The supply will soon begin to decline, precipitating a global crisis. Even if we substitute coal and natural gas for some of the oil, we will start to run out of fossil fuels by the end of the century. ''And by the time we have burned up all that fuel,'' he writes, ''we may well have rendered the planet unfit for human life. Even if human life does go on, civilization as we know it will not survive.

The first reaction is to ask whether I haven't heard this before? About thirty years ago? I remember being taught in grade school (as well as junior high) that we were going to run out of oil by about...well, now, if my memory serves.

On the other hand, I must acknowledge that predictions of the exhaustion of a finite, non-renewable energy resource — assuming we keep using it. — must inevitably come true. Yes, we will run out of oil someday. But are the time frames given above correct? Beats me.

Let's say they are correct. What, then, are we going to to do about it?

We might finally learn to harness nuclear fusion, the energy that powers the sun, or to develop better nuclear reactors, or to improve the efficiency of the power grid. But those advances will require a ''massive, focused commitment to scientific and technological research. That is a commitment we have not yet made.'' Drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, and scouring the energy resources of national lands across the West might help the constituents of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska and Vice President Dick Cheney's friends in the energy industry, but it won't solve the problem.

Hmmm...sticky. But wait a minute. What about hydrogen? Isn't it supposed to be part of the solution to our energy woes?

President Bush has pointed to hydrogen as the ultimate answer to our need for transportation fuels, but Goodstein correctly points out that hydrogen is not a source of energy. It is a fuel produced by using energy. We can use coal to produce it, or solar power, or something else, but it is only a way of converting energy into a form that can be used in vehicles; it doesn't do anything to ease the transition away from oil.

Okay, hold it. How's that again? Something is bothering me about that logic. I think I'll take a shot at being an energy pundit:

Gasoline is not a source of energy. It is a fuel produced by using energy.

Right? You have to pump it out of the ground. You have to refine it. You have to truck it to my local Shell station. That all takes energy, ladies and gentlemen. The way I see it, anything you can burn so's you can plug in the blender and whip up a banana daiqiri is both a fuel and an energy source. (In fact, silly me, I would be inclined to think of those two terms as being pretty much synonymous.) The real problem with hydrogen, if I understand it correctly, is that we haven't yet found efficient ways to extract or store it. And I'm not saying that those problems are easy to solve, or that we're going to solve them any time soon. But if the issue is net energy expenditure, let's talk in terms of net energy expenditure.

And don't tell me that hydrogen isn't an energy source. Talk to the hand.

Better yet, talk to the sun.

Speaking of the sun, check out this piece in The Economist on the future of thermonuclear fusion which indicates that wrong-headedness abounds on all sides of discussions about energy.

Although visionaries have long been lured to the idea of fusion because the fuel, being a constituent of water, is unlikely ever to run out, the economics of the process are dubious.

Sceptics (including this newspaper) have pointed out that workable fusion power has seemed perpetually 30 years away since the first experiments were done in the 1950s. Even if the 30-year horizon were actually true on this occasion, the discount rate over three decades, and the opportunity cost of all those billions, would probably make it uneconomic. Nor is the world in obvious need of another way to generate electricity. [Emphasis added.]

Well, there you have it folks. Anything that's been difficult or expensive to do for the past 30 years is destined to remain so forever. If the history of technological development has taught us anything, it's that these kinds of problems can't be solved. Luckily, it turns out that that whole running-out-of-oil scenario is not "obvious," so I guess there's just nothing to worry about.

Well, what do you know? Energy punditry is easy!

That does it. I'm setting up a consulting business.

Linked articles via KurzweilAI.net and GeekPress, respectively.

Posted by Phil at February 9, 2004 10:31 AM | TrackBack