A Cubic Mile of Oil
Lance on Apr 25 2008 at 1:09 pm | Filed under: Domestic Politics, Environment
Over at Green Tech we get some figures that should be rather sobering for those who wish for alternative energy to be a significant source of energy in the near future:
Put another way, we’d need to equip 250,000 roofs a day with solar panels for the next 50 years to have enough photovoltaic infrastructure to provide the world with a CMO’s worth of solar-generated electricity for a year. We’re nowhere close to that pace.
But don’t blame the solar industry. You’d also have to erect a 900-megawatt nuclear power plant every week for 50 years to get enough plants (2,500) to produce the same energy in a year to equal a CMO. Wind power? You need 3 million for a CMO, or 1,200 a week planted in the ground over the next 50 years. Demand for power also continues to escalate with economic development in the emerging world.
“In 30 years we will need six CMOs, so where are we going to get that?” Malhotra said. “I’m trying to communicate the scale of the problem.”
What is a CMO? A cubic mile of oil:
The CMO is a figure you might begin to hear more as utilities and governments map out their renewable energy strategies. SRI’s Hew Crane came up with the term as a way to normalize all the different measurements (kilowatt-hours, BTUs, million barrels of oil equivalents, cubic feet of gas, etc.) in the energy business.
How much of a difference in energy use do some of the things we here about make?
One of the more compelling aspects of Malhotra’s research is how it highlights the amount of energy, particularly in the form of fossil fuels, that the world consumes. Oil provided about one-third of worldwide energy (1.06 CMO) in 2006 followed by coal (0.81) and natural gas (0.61). Together, the three fossil fuels accounted for 2.48 CMOs of the 3 CMOs consumed that year.
The figures drop quickly after that. The fourth largest source of energy is biomass, mostly in the form of burning wood. Biomass, however, only provide 0.19 CMOs, while hydroelectric and nuclear provided, respectively, 0.17 and .015 CMOs.
Wind and solar accounted for less than 0.005 CMOs.
[...]
The minuscule size of renewables, unfortunately, also means progress will come slowly. Some more comparisons: A large hydroelectric dam can generate about 18 gigawatts of power a year. To get an annual CMO from new hydroelectric dams, you’d need to build the equivalent of 200 Three Gorges Dams. There aren’t that many available rivers in the world left to dam up. Solar thermal? 7,700 plants, or 150 a year for 50 years, required for an annual CMO. One plant went up last year, and it was the first in over 15 years. In his calculations, Malhotra takes into account the fact that solar, wind, hydroelectric, and even nuclear plants don’t operate at optimal conditions 24-7; in other words, he has baked in real-world assumptions.
If consumers worldwide could replace 1 billion incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents, it would save only 0.01 CMOs in a year.
The upshot is that until major breakthroughs are made, followed by massive investments in infrastructure to utilize them, we will have to make do with fossil fuels. Things that might help with the problem, assuming there is one, of global warming, are carbon recapture and nuclear power.
Which gets back to something I have addressed before. Let us assume that the concerns over global warming are warranted. If that is true, none of the soultions put forward by the scientists, politicians and the environmental movement make any more than a miniscule impact. In fact, it is hard to see any way to justify doing anything at all given the actual effect of the changes being contemplated.
Instead of trying to solve a problem which we cannot, the real course should be to mitigate and manage it. A shift towards alternatives that are economically viable, removing the regulatory and political barriers to nuclear (helping us avoid alternatives such as hydroelectric which exacerbate other environmental challenges) cleaner technologies can help at the margin. Nuclear can actually make a significant difference, but altogether unless other things are done it will not make a significant difference on the end result. Then there is carbon recapture. That combined with nuclear and minor help from alternatives could at least delay the problems enough to be worthwhile. None of these solutions disrupts our economy a great deal, and fossil fuel use will still have gone up.
Why is not disrupting our economy important? Simple, without economic and technological progress we are unlikely to find something new which could make a large difference down the road. Crippling choices which don’t solve the problem based on a fantasy that the people of the world will accept massive cuts in living standards, especially those whose living standards are already very low and will not accept anything less than rapid growth, just puts off the real choices we do have and can make.
Then we should be doing whatever we can to manage the potential problem. Under any conceivable scenario global warming will occur, assuming that the IPCC is correct on the science. In fact, even the most optimistic and fantastic plans which would condemn the world to much lower living standards and the early deaths of millions would at best delay things by a few years.
If so, how do we manage it? This is where I would like to see our scientists spending their time. The massive amounts being spent to prove or disprove something we cannot avoid is interesting, but counterproductive. The research and funding should concentrate on potential solutions for reducing emissions, steps we can take to reduce stress on important crops and foodstuffs, protect habitats in a warming world and adapt ourselves to a potential change in the actual geography, especially coastlines.
Right now talking about such steps is hooted down as not being serious about the problem. That has it completely backwards. Calling for things which will not happen, and even if they did, will not make a long term difference, while ignoring dealing with the actual effects of the problem, tells me the problem is not being dealt with seriously, and is really more about having a supposed insight which allows you to look down on others. It is about making you feel superior morally and intellectually. What it is, is morally and intellectually unserious.
Update:The piece ends with this statement:
If there’s a bright spot here, it’s that the world has a lot of fossil fuel, he claimed, so we won’t be plunged into darkness yet. Oil reserves come to around 46 CMOs, while natural gas reserves total 42 CMOs. There are 121 CMOs of coal out there. These numbers all go up when difficult-to-extract energy such as tar sands are added.
“It’s been 30 years of (oil) reserves for the last 50 years,” he joked. “It’s like your pantry. Do you look at it and say ‘Oh, no. I’m going to run out of flour in two weeks’? You go out and buy more.”
I think he means things like this. HT: Instapundit
Sphere: Related Content
