THE NATION'S ENERGY FUTURE AT RISK

[Shawn Swanson]

If you take the time to just 'look' at the problems we face, things become clear.

Time to break out your pens and write your representatives....

swanson

reposted from -

http://thesurvivalpodcast.com/forum/index.php?topic=4339.0;topicseen

Write Your Representative

https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

Write your Representative and send the following quoted material. Without a research program reminiscent of a Manhattan Project to solving the nation’s energy future, as presented in these quotes/links, all other projects Washington proposes will fail.

About the IEA - http://www.iea.org/about/index.asp

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is an intergovernmental organization which acts as energy policy advisor to 28 member countries [includes the US] in their effort to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for their citizens. Founded during the oil crisis of 1973-74, the IEA’s initial role was to co-ordinate measures in times of oil supply emergencies. As energy markets have changed, so has the IEA. Its mandate has broadened to incorporate the “Three E’s” of balanced energy policy making: energy security, economic development and environmental protection.

Current work focuses on climate change policies, market reform, energy technology collaboration and outreach to the rest of the world, especially major consumers and producers of energy like China, India, Russia and the OPEC countries.

With a staff of around 190, mainly energy experts and statisticians from its 28 member countries, the IEA conducts a broad program of energy research, data compilation, publications and public dissemination of the latest energy policy analysis and recommendations on good practices.

IEA World Energy Outlook November 2008

The study focuses on global decline rates in oil supplies

Main text http://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/WEO2008SUM.pdf

The projected increase in global oil output hinges on adequate and timely
investment. Some 64 mb/d of additional gross capacity — the equivalent of almost
six times that of Saudi Arabia today — needs to be brought on stream between
2007 and 2030. Some 30 mb/d of new capacity is needed by 2015. There remains a
real risk that under-investment will cause an oil-supply crunch in that time frame. The
current wave of upstream investment looks set to boost net oil-production capacity in
the next two to three years, pushing up spare capacity modestly. However, capacity
additions from current projects tail off after 2010. This largely reflects the upstream
development cycle: many new projects will undoubtedly be sanctioned in the near
term as oil companies complete existing projects and move on to new ones. But the
gap now evident between what is currently being built and what will be needed to
keep pace with demand is set to widen sharply after 2010. Around 7 mb/d of additional
capacity (over and above that from all current projects) needs to be brought on stream
by 2015, most of which will need to be sanctioned within the next two years, to avoid
a fall in spare capacity towards the middle of the next decade.


Graphs http://www.iea.org/weo/key_graphs_08/WEO_2008_Key_Graphs.pdf
On page 8 of the graphs is the decline rates for conventional crude

Press Realeasehttp://www.iea.org/Textbase/press/pressdetail.asp?PRESS_REL_ID=275
The prospect of accelerating declines in production at individual oilfields is adding to these uncertainties. The findings of an unprecedented field-by-field analysis of the historical production trends of 800 oilfields indicate that decline rates are likely to rise significantly in the long term, from an average of 6.7% today to 8.6% in 2030. "Despite all the attention that is given to demand growth, decline rates are actually a far more important determinant of investment needs. Even if oil demand was to remain flat to 2030, 45 mb/d of gross capacity - roughly four times the current capacity of Saudi Arabia - would need to be built by 2030 just to offset the effect of oilfield decline", Mr. Tanaka added

Fort Worth Star Telegram

We Won’t Get Fooled Again… unless we believe in "energy independence"
http://www.star-telegram.com/ed_wallace/story/905148.html

What If We Outlawed Driving?

All of that brings us back to today and the new national cry for energy independence. The British Telegraph reported that, if elected, John McCain will put Governor Sarah Palin in charge of our oil and energy policy. After all, she’s a huge backer of drilling more oil in her state, although not for any reason as altruistic as improving our nation’s energy supply. No, Alaska gets over 80 percent of its state revenues from oil production, so the more oil that is produced out of Alaska, the more money Alaskans have to spend.

It’s even more interesting, at least as it concerns our being energy independent, that the official Republican platform now calls for an end to the nation’s ethanol mandate. Both parties once touted that net energy waste of our resources as being our energy salvation.

Again let me tell you a truth no politician will: Total energy independence for America is never going to happen in our lifetime, no matter what either party says.
Let’s assume that on her first day in office as our Vice President and new Energy Czar, Palin attempts to make us energy independent by outlawing all automobiles and trucks. No exceptions: Clear every last vehicle off every last highway. Guess what? With absolutely no need for gasoline or diesel, closing every gas station and truck stop — not to mention every new car dealership in the U.S. — America will still use more oil than we produce domestically. That’s how big the problem is.

It’s true. Around half of the oil we import, or somewhere around 10 million barrels of oil per day, goes into transportation fuel. That means the country uses 10 million barrels of oil without driving — yet we produce only 5.1 million barrels domestically.

Yes, take every motorized vehicle off our highways and we still need more oil than we currently produce. And that’s why the proposed "energy independence" is a political pipedream — not possible.

Ed Wallace is a recipient of the Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, given by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA, and is a member of the American Historical Society. He reviews new cars every Friday morning at 7:15 on Fox Four’s Good Day, contributes articles to BusinessWeek Online and hosts the talk show, Wheels, 8:00 to 1:00 Saturdays on 570 KLIF


Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123621221496034823.html

Let's Get Real About Renewable Energy

We can double the output of solar and wind, and double it again. We'll still depend on hydrocarbons.

By ROBERT BRYCE

During his address to Congress last week, President Barack Obama declared, "We will double this nation's supply of renewable energy in the next three years."

While that statement -- along with his pledge to impose a "cap on carbon pollution" -- drew applause, let's slow down for a moment and get realistic about this country's energy future. Consider two factors that are too-often overlooked: George W. Bush's record on renewables, and the problem of scale.

By promising to double our supply of renewables, Mr. Obama is only trying to keep pace with his predecessor. Yes, that's right: From 2005 to 2007, the former Texas oil man oversaw a near-doubling of the electrical output from solar and wind power. And between 2007 and 2008, output from those sources grew by another 30%.

Mr. Bush's record aside, the key problem facing Mr. Obama, and anyone else advocating a rapid transition away from the hydrocarbons that have dominated the world's energy mix since the dawn of the Industrial Age, is the same issue that dogs every alternative energy idea: scale.

Let's start by deciphering exactly what Mr. Obama includes in his definition of "renewable" energy. If he's including hydropower, which now provides about 2.4% of America's total primary energy needs, then the president clearly has no concept of what he is promising. Hydro now provides more than 16 times as much energy as wind and solar power combined. Yet more dams are being dismantled than built. Since 1999, more than 200 dams in the U.S. have been removed.

If Mr. Obama is only counting wind power and solar power as renewables, then his promise is clearly doable. But the unfortunate truth is that even if he matches Mr. Bush's effort by doubling wind and solar output by 2012, the contribution of those two sources to America's overall energy needs will still be almost inconsequential.

Here's why. The latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that total solar and wind output for 2008 will likely be about 45,493,000 megawatt-hours. That sounds significant until you consider this number: 4,118,198,000 megawatt-hours. That's the total amount of electricity generated during the rolling 12-month period that ended last November. Solar and wind, in other words, produce about 1.1% of America's total electricity consumption.

Of course, you might respond that renewables need to start somewhere. True enough -- and to be clear, I'm not opposed to renewables. I have solar panels on the roof of my house here in Texas that generate 3,200 watts. And those panels (which were heavily subsidized by Austin Energy, the city-owned utility) provide about one-third of the electricity my family of five consumes. Better still, solar panel producers like First Solar Inc. are lowering the cost of solar cells. On the day of Mr. Obama's speech, the company announced that it is now producing solar cells for $0.98 per watt, thereby breaking the important $1-per-watt price barrier.

And yet, while price reductions are important, the wind is intermittent, and so are sunny days. That means they cannot provide the baseload power, i.e., the amount of electricity required to meet minimum demand, that Americans want.

That issue aside, the scale problem persists. For the sake of convenience, let's convert the energy produced by U.S. wind and solar installations into oil equivalents.

The conversion of electricity into oil terms is straightforward: one barrel of oil contains the energy equivalent of 1.64 megawatt-hours of electricity. Thus, 45,493,000 megawatt-hours divided by 1.64 megawatt-hours per barrel of oil equals 27.7 million barrels of oil equivalent from solar and wind for all of 2008.

Now divide that 27.7 million barrels by 365 days and you find that solar and wind sources are providing the equivalent of 76,000 barrels of oil per day. America's total primary energy use is about 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Of that 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent, oil itself has the biggest share -- we consume about 19 million barrels per day. Natural gas is the second-biggest contributor, supplying the equivalent of 11.9 million barrels of oil, while coal provides the equivalent of 11.5 million barrels of oil per day. The balance comes from nuclear power (about 3.8 million barrels per day), and hydropower (about 1.1 million barrels), with smaller contributions coming from wind, solar, geothermal, wood waste, and other sources.

Here's another way to consider the 76,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day that come from solar and wind: It's approximately equal to the raw energy output of one average-sized coal mine.

During his address to Congress, Mr. Obama did not mention coal -- the fuel that provides nearly a quarter of total primary energy and about half of America's electricity -- except to say that the U.S. should develop "clean coal." He didn't mention nuclear power, only "nuclear proliferation," even though nuclear power is likely the best long-term solution to policy makers' desire to cut U.S. carbon emissions. He didn't mention natural gas, even though it provides about 25% of America's total primary energy needs. Furthermore, the U.S. has huge quantities of gas, and it's the only fuel source that can provide the stand-by generation capacity needed for wind and solar installations. Finally, he didn't mention oil, the backbone fuel of the world transportation sector, except to say that the U.S. imports too much of it.

Perhaps the president's omissions are understandable. America has an intense love-hate relationship with hydrocarbons in general, and with coal and oil in particular. And with increasing political pressure to cut carbon-dioxide emissions, that love-hate relationship has only gotten more complicated.

But the problem of scale means that these hydrocarbons just won't go away. Sure, Mr. Obama can double the output from solar and wind. And then double it again. And again. And again. But getting from 76,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day to something close to the 47.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day needed to keep the U.S. economy running is going to take a long, long time. It would be refreshing if the president or perhaps a few of the Democrats on Capitol Hill would admit that fact.


"A Very Unpleasant Truth... Peak Oil Production and its Global Consequences"

http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2008/Lyle.html

audios

http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2008-0830-2a.ram
http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2008-0830-2a.asx

Editorial Reviews

Product Description: A basic assumption underlying our economic system and our way of life is that cheap and plentiful amounts of oil will be available for the foreseeable future. In this book two retired oil company scientists present the case that this assumption regarding future oil supplies is dangerously flawed. They believe that a peak in worldwide oil production is imminent and that the ensuing decline in oil production will have devastating social consequences unless steps are taken immediately to lessen the impact of this event. Easy solutions to the problem of peak oil production such as replacing conventional oil with ethanol or relying on the Canadian and Venezuelan oil sands to solve the problem will prove to be only unrealistic partial solutions. Conservation of energy must be an essential feature of how we respond to the impending energy crisis. Development of a national mass transit system along with a massive increase in electrical power generation using nuclear power, wind power, and solar power will be required to avert disaster.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1419687611/financialsenseon

Barron's: What $300-a-Barrel Oil Will Mean for You

http://setup2.barrons.com/article/SB122065354946305325.html?mod=Barron

"Game Over: How You Can Prosper in a Shattered Economy"

http://www.financialsense.com/Experts/2009/Leeb.html
http://www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2009-0328-2.ram

German Energy Politician, Astrid Schneider, interview with IEA's Chief Economist, Fatih Birol

What follows is an English translation, from German, with Dr. Fatih Birol, Chief Economist of the IEA. April 2008
http://oildepletiondebate.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-follows-is-english-translation.html

Economic price/Supply/Demand model

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7vGDwGLU7s