PEAK OIL AND THE
FATE OF HUMANITY
Chapter 3A – Other Non-Renewable
Sources of Energy
By Robert Bériault
But there’s lots of oil
in Canada isn’t there?
For example, you have
the Queen Charlotte
oil fields. I’m sure
the moratorium will
be lifted.
You are likely correct about the
moratorium.
When the oil becomes
rare, environmental laws
will go by the wayside.
There’s about 10 billion
barrels of oil and about
25 trillion cu. ft. of
natural gas in the
Queen Charlottes on
the coast of BC…
Pacific
Ocean
http://www.oceanindustriesbc.ca/resources
A huge find …
… enough gas and
oil to supply the
world for 4
months*.
It’ll make some
folks very rich…
…but it won’t
delay the oil
peak by more
than a few
weeks
* http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/infosheets/natgasconsumption.htm
The Germans made
gasoline from coal
during WW2.
What’s wrong with
that?
Liquid fuels from coal
There’s an
interesting
analogy
here:
 The Germans were desperate for
liquid fuel to run their war
machine.
 When the oil decline starts we
will be desperate for liquid fuel to
run our economic machine
 There’s little doubt that we will
have to increase our reliance on
coal
Advantages of coal:
 Abundant
 Cheap
 Easy to transport
 Found in most parts of
the world
 Can be mined with
primitive methods
Advantages of coal:
 It is the main source
of energy used to
generate electricity in
many parts of the
world
Liquid fuels from coal
 Making liquid fuels from
coal requires energy
 It would take less
energy to replace some
of our oil-fired power
plants with coal than to
make gasoline from coal
Problems with coal - 1
Extremely polluting
 Produces much more greenhouse gas than oil or
natural gas
 Acid rain
 Mercury pollution
 Smog
 Particulate build-up
 Much of the coal resource will never be mined
because it contains too much sulphur
 Produces much solid waste (5 – 20% of its original
volume)
Problems with coal - 1
A great source of greenhouse gasses
For a given amount of
energy, burning of carbonrich coal produces much
more CO2 than burning oil.
After peak oil we will
burn a lot more coal,
thereby increasing our
greenhouse gas
emissions.
The hydrogen atoms in a
hydrocarbon molecule
contribute energy but not
greenhouse gasses. Coal is
mostly carbon.
Problems with coal - 2
Causes thousands of deaths every year
Mining accidents
Diseased
lungs
But in a world of diminishing energy sources
people will be ready to pay the price.
Problems with coal - 3
Not efficient:
Oil is needed to mine
coal, to transport it and
to build the mining
equipment
When coal is used in a
power plant, only 35%
of its energy is
converted to electrical
power
Obtained from “The Party’s Over”
Electrical
energy
35%
Waste heat
65%
Some
analysts
conclude
that:
COAL will continue to play a
major role in electricity
generation in spite of its
environmental drawbacks
– and in spite of the Ontario
Government’s pious pledge to
decommission all its coal plants.
But it is unlikely to contribute to
fuelling transportation.
Yeah, but they
say that the
Athabaska Tar
Sands have
enough oil for the
whole world
It’s a huge operation, no doubt…
Advantages of the Tar Sands
 Abundant
 Canadian
Problems with the Tar Sands - 1
Slow recovery:
Presently (2005) producing 1 million barrels a day
Will increase production to 2 million barrels a day by 2010
The world needs 85 million
barrels a day
(Jan. 2007)
Problems with the Tar Sands - 2
 It consists of very
thick goo mixed
with sand.
 Tar doesn’t spurt
out of the ground
the way oil does
 It has to be
dug out with
a shovel.
Problems with the Tar Sands - 3
The process uses
natural gas
TO EXTRACT ONE BARREL
OF OIL, YOU NEED:
To heat up 2 tons of sand
1000 cubic feet of natural gas
All told it takes ¼ barrel of oilequivalent in energy
Problems with the Tar Sands - 3
Therefore gasoline from tar
sands is responsible for
more greenhouse gasses
than gasoline from oil wells
Problems with the Tar Sands - 3
Other pollutants resulting from Tar Sands processing:
sulphur dioxide (SO2)
• nitrogen oxides (NOX)
• hydrogen sulphide (H2S)
• carbon monoxide (CO)
• volatile organic compounds (VOCs)
• ozone (O3)
• polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH)
• particulate matter (PM)
• others
Canada’s Oil Sands: Opportunities and Challenges to 2015, NEB
Problems with the Tar Sands - 4
The process uses
vast quantities of fresh
water
Competes with other water
users such as farmers, natives,
tourism, industry and
municipalities.
Problems with the Tar Sands - 5
The process uses more fresh water every
year
WASTE WATER GENERATED BY TAR SANDS
OPERATIONS
59.4
60
Cubic
kilometres
of water
50
40
28.7
30
20
10
0
4.1
1998
2001
Year
Adapted from data from the Suncor website
2002
Problems with the Tar Sands - 6
The process produces a lot of waste water
For every barrel of oil recovered:
2 1/2 barrels of liquid waste are pumped
into huge ponds.
The Syncrude pond measures
22 kilometres in circumference
It has six meters of murky
water on top of a 40-meterthick mixture of sand, silt, clay
and unrecovered oil.
Adapted from [ http://dieoff.com/page143.htm ]
Some
analysts
Some
analysts
concludethat:
conclude
that:
TAR SANDS will play an
essential but minor role
in the world energy
balance.
However, it has the
potential of producing
all the oil Canada needs
for a long time.
There’s lots of
Natural Gas in
the world.
Won’t that save
the day?
Advantages of Natural Gas
 Clean burning
 Produces less greenhouse gas than oil
 Easy to transport through pipelines
 Convenient for central heating, hot
water heating
 Has many petrochemical uses
 Used for making nitrogenous
agricultural fertilizers
 Could be used in transport if only there
were enough of it
Problems with Natural Gas - 1
Natural gas
will peak
too…
maybe a
decade later
than oil
Problems with Natural Gas - 2
It has already peaked in North America.
The Sable offshore gas deposits have
turned out to be a big disappointment
Photograph by Zoe Lucas
http://www.greenhorsesociety.com/
Problems with Natural Gas - 3
Whereas an oil well
can go on producing
for decades,
a gas well drains
very rapidly after it’s
reached peak.
It’s a little like letting
the air out of a
balloon.
United States Geological Survey
As a temporary measure for Canada and
the US:
The US is planning to
build LNG (liquid
natural gas)
terminals along the
coasts to unload LNG
from Russia.
This is a temporary
measure to tide us
over until Russia
peaks too.
And LNG might
present added
problems:
Because the gas is so
flammable, the ships
and the terminals
would be tempting
targets for terrorist.
Would you like to live
next to an LNG
terminal?
Some analysts
conclude that:
NATURAL GAS will play
less and less of a role in
the North American
energy balance.
What about
this gas-ice
I’ve heard
about?
We’re talking
about methane
hydrates,
or clathrates
What methane hydrates are:
A solid consisting of gas
molecules, each surrounded by a
cage of water molecules
Looks very much like water ice
Holds loose sediments together
in a surface layer several hundred
meters thick
There are very large stores of it
Where are they?
Very deep
ocean
Arctic
permafrost
Problems with Gas Hydrates - 1
Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas
Processing hydrates would
release methane into the
atmosphere
Impacts on the environment
are very poorly understood
Furthermore…
There's 400 gigatons of methane locked
in the frozen arctic tundra
A temperature increase of merely a few
degrees would cause these gases to
volatilize and "burp" into the
atmosphere
This would further raise temperatures.
Yet more methane would be released.
This would result in heating the Earth
further, and so on, resulting in mass
extinctions.
When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time”, Michael J. Benton
Problems with Gas Hydrates - 2
Very difficult to
reach
Located in water 2
to 3 kilometres deep
Beyond any known
technology
Problems with Gas Hydrates - 3
Controversy as to how much
there is –
estimates vary vastly from
one research group to
another
Could nuclear
power reduce
your dependence
on oil?
DEFINITELY!
Making electricity from
nuclear frees up oil
used in oil-fired
generating plants for
other uses.
Advantages of nuclear:
 Nuclear fuel is cheap
 Power plants can be placed close to
consumers
 Produce no smog
Problems with nuclear - 1
Nuclear plants very expensive to:
build
maintain
and decommission
Problems with nuclear - 2
Nuclear wastes last hundreds
of thousands of years.
We still haven’t devised a safe
way of disposing of them
For the past 50 years we’ve
been stockpiling them in pools
of water
We’re still conducting research
in permanent safe disposal
methods
Problems with nuclear - 3
 There is a serious
negative perception
on the part of the
public
Problems with nuclear - 4
Nuclear fuels will also
peak this century
Problems with nuclear - 5
Electricity produced
from nuclear energy
has a low
Energy Return On
Energy Invested:
“The Party’s Over”, Richard Heinberg
Canada is selfsufficient in oil and
you’re even exporting
a lot of it.
Why should you
worry about peak oil?
1) Even in Canada the amount of oil is
finite
2) We’re not alone in the world.
 Think of our big neighbour to
the south
We are obligated
under the NAFTA
agreement to sell
our oil to the US
at the same price
as Canadians pay
Okay, so
what?
You’ve got
lots.
Suppose the US
wanted to replace
its 3% annual oil
deficit with nuclear
energy…
Suppose the US…
– What would it
cost?
Remember that no nuclear plants have been ordered
since 1978 in the US and that they take 10 years to build.
Nowget
get your
Now
your
calculator out.
calculator out
 The US consumes 833,000 barrels of oil per hour
 The US consumes 833,000 barrels of oil per hour
 3% of 833,000 means that every year the US will
run short 25,000 barrels per hour (next year it
would be 50,000, etc.)
 The US consumes 833,000 barrels of oil per hour
 3% of 833,000 means that every year the US will
run short 25,000 barrels per hour (next year it
would be 50,000, etc.)
 There are 1.59 megawatthours (MWH) of energy
equivalent per barrel
 The US uses 833,000 barrels of oil per hour
 3% of 833,000 means that every year the US will
run short 25,000 barrels per hour (next year it
would be 50,000, etc.)
 There are 1.59 megawatthours (MWH) of energy
equivalent per barrel
 This comes to 40,000 MWH
One respectable nuclear plant runs 1000
MegaWatts (or 1 billion watts)
 This comes to 40,000 MWH
Now to calculate the number of power plants
required, simply divide 40,000 by 1000
And you get 40
So our friends would
be building 40
nuclear plants
…every year,
Year after
year
…just to keep up
with declining oil
And the cost?
$5 per watt
x 1,000,000,000 watts
x 40 plants
=$200 billion
$200
billion per year ,
year after year,
assuming oil
prices don’t go
up.
The moral of the story:
Building nuclear
plants requires
not only lots of
money but large
amounts of oil
…and the US would
pressure Canada for
more oil
The sun uses nuclear
fusion. Why not
mimic the sun on
Earth?
Nuclear fusion hasn’t been perfected yet.

And it won’t be before 50 years
according to the experts (ITER)

It requires having plasma et
millions of degrees Celcius play
around with magnets at –273°C

The intense neutron flux
generated by the plasma (from
which comes the energy) rapidly
destroys the confinement
container.

Just as regular fission, fusion
won’t contribute to transportation
Source http://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/
Tokamak
Confinement container
Nuclear fusion hasn’t been perfected yet.

Fusion has been known as the
energy of the future for the past 40
years.

It’ll probably still be the energy of
the future 40 years from now.
Source http://www.sortirdunucleaire.org/
Hybrid cars use half
as much gas as
regular cars. What
if we replaced all
cars with hybrids?
Wouldn’t that help?
Probably not…Here’s why:
Increasing efficiency
increases consumption.
(Google Jevon’s Paradox)
 People would respond by increasing the number of kilometres
they drive per year
 They would have extra money to spend and they would spend it
on things that are energy dependent (There are very few ways
of spending money without resulting in energy being used)
Building a car takes
energy. - Lots!
35 to 45 barrels
of oil equivalent
per car
…and there are
800 million cars
in the world
Data obtained from the film: “The End of Suburbia”
Supposing we replace the world fleet over 5
years, Okay?
 Then we would have to build 160 million cars per
year instead of the 40* million at present
 i.e.: we would have to find oil to build 120 million
more cars than at present
 Present world consumption of oil is 29 billion barrels
per year
 Oil needed 40(barrels) X 120,000,000 (cars)
 = 4.8 billion additional barrels per year
 Equivalent to 16% of actual world oil consumption
*Worldwatch Institute
There just isn’t
enough spare
capacity to
supply that
much oil
Wouldn’t
that kill the
economy?
It would hurt it for
sure.
The 1973 oil crisis took
place following a 6%
oil drop.
It wouldn’t be
unreasonable to think
that this situation
could repeat itself.
In this chapter we dealt with nonrenewables. Chapter 3B will deal with
“free energy” from wind and sun.
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