chris rhodes - what happens when the oil runs out

8/3/2019 Chris Rhodes - What Happens When The Oil Runs Out

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What Happens When the Oil

Runs Out?

Professor Chris Rhodes,

Fresh-Lands Environmental Actions,

Reading, U.K.

www.fresh-lands.com

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World Energy Consumption (TW) bySource.

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World Energy Use Over Time.

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HUMPHREY-JONESGIANT GUSHER,

KOSSE,TEXAS,AUGUST

18TH 1922 5


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Crude Oil (Petroleum).

Petroleum (from Greek , lit."rock oil") is a naturally occurring,flammable liquid found in rock formations

in the Earth, and is a complex mixture ofhydrocarbons plus other organiccompounds.

There are various theories as to its origin,both bioticand abiotic.

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Oil Production.

30 billion barrels of oil are recovered each year(84 million barrels per day).

The major producers are Saudi Arabia and

Russia at around 10 million bpd each. Oil comes as light or heavy; sweet or sour,

in reference to its viscosity and sulphur content,respectively.

Light, sweet oil is best for petrol and easiest torefine, and there are large quantities in Saudi,Iraq and Iran.

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Oil Samples (Different North Sea Fields).(Norsk Teknisk Museum, Oslo, February 2009).

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Oil Reserves.

Most of the oil left is high-sulphur (sour) andheavy (e.g. from Venezuela), needing morecostly processing.

Ultra-heavy oil is not liquid but is bitumen. Oil not only fuels transportation, but it is the raw

carbon chemical feedstock for plastics,

chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and most othermodern materials. Computers, cell phones etc.

Without oil and natural gas (fertilizers) we couldgrow no food.

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Peak Oil.

M.King Hubbert (Shell) in 1956 predictedmathematically that the peak in oil productionwould come 40 years after the year of peak

discovery. Proved spot-on for U.S. Production which

peaked in 1970. Now the U.S. imports 2/3 of itsoil.

World oil discovery peaked in 1965 and noelephant fields have been found since 1980.

Thus we should be close to world peak oil.

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The point at which peak oil is reachedcorresponds to when half the oil originally present

in the well has been used-up.

We have used around 1 trillion barrels since 1859,and it is thought there are 1 trillion barrels left,

which would also suggest that we are close topeak oil.

Thus oil supplies can now be expected to declineforever.

The EROEI for early oil (gushers) was around100, and now it is about 8, (or 3 for heavy oil).

Thus the oil left will be much harder to get out.

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We Need to Find Alternatives to Oil.

We are running out of cheap, light and easilyprocured oil, thus we need to find alternativefuels and carbon feedstocks.

Burning oil also contributes 3 billion tonnes ofcarbon to the atmosphere every year (40% of allcarbon emitted by mankind) which may affectthe climate.

Obviously as oil runs-out we will emit far lesscarbon, but civilization will collapse withoutalternative means for fuel to run it!

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HYDROGEN! Hailed as the perfect green fuel:

2H2

+ O2

2H2

O

You mix hydrogen with oxygen (air) in a

fuel-cell, which produces electricity to

run a green-car, and pure water

drips out of the exhaust pipe.

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Most of the worlds hydrogen is made by

steam reforming natural gas:

CH4 + 2H2O CO2 + 4H2

It can also be made by steam

reforming coal:C(s) + 2H2O CO2 + 2H2

Both are bad news on the climatechange front, especially coal,because they produce CO2. CapturingCO2 costs about 30% of the energy that

will be recovered from the hydrogen!14


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An alternative is water electrolysis:

2H2O 2H

2+ O

2

But how to make the required

electricity?

One recent analysis suggests that it

would take around one 1GW

(1,000MW) power station to produce

enough hydrogen for 30 filling stations

Hence we would need 100 new 1 GW

power stations to supply them (U.K.)!

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If they were coal or gas-fired, that would add

considerably to our CO2 emissions

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Nuclear power? Well yes, but it

means installing 100 new NPPs!

How many could you bring-on per

year? 5, say? That would take 20

years, by which time we are runningout of oil!

There is only one factory in the world

(in France) that can make the new-generation reactorsit makes two per

year! In total!

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What about renewables

Wind-power say? We would need theequivalent of 100 GW worth of generatingpower = 100,000 MW

If we used 2 MW wind-turbines X 0.2(capacity factor), so each actually delivers0.4 MW on average.Hence we would need 250,000 of them

The coast of the UK mainland is 2,560 km. Ifwe placed the turbines at the recommended0.5 km apart, a single band around theentire coast would take >5,000 turbines.

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Hence the band would need to be

250,000/5,000 = 50 turbines deep = 25 km!!

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Shortage of Rare-earth elements (REEs):Wind Turbines and Hybrid Cars?

Each MW of wind-power needs 1 tonne of REE magnet:contains 0.27 tonne neodymium [Nd2Fe14B ].

Requires 135,000 tonnes of newNd.

Need 5 x REE production to meet existing targetsfor

wind-powered electricity: still take 50 100 years,assuming manufacturing capacity and other energy OK.

Toyota Prius (hybrid),1 kg Nd, (plus 15 kg La, battery).

97% of REEs come from China.

Chinese now keeping REEs for their own renewablesuse.

U.K. wont be able to meet E.U. carbon emission targets.

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Sugar Beet

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Biofuels.

Bioethanol: grow sugar beet andferment

the sugar into ethanol.

However, we would need 125,000

square kilometres of arable land to

grow it, and there is only 65,000 km2

available in the UK

Biobutanol: about the same.

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Biodiesel:

Rapeseed, gives one tonne of biodiesel/hectare, but we need 40 million tonnes of it

(assuming all vehicles were converted to

more efficient Diesel engines, which get 40%

more tank-to wheel miles than spark-ignitionengines).

That would take 400,000 km2 of arable land

and we have only 65,000km2

hence, if westop growing crops for food, and just

rapeseed for biodiesel instead, we can still

only meet 16% (about one sixth) of our

annual fuel requirement. 23


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Energy Returned on Water Invested(EROWI, in analogy with EROEI).

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New hope!

Biodiesel from

algae.

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This can be grown in tanks at a yield of over 100tonnes per hectare. Hence just 4,000 km2

would suffice to produce 40 million tonnes ofbiofuel, which is only 1.5% of the total UK landarea.

No need to use crop-land, hence food-

production is unaffected. Grows well on saline water or wastewater, so no

demand on freshwater, unlike biofuel crops.

Can be fed nutrients from agricultural run-offwater and sewage water, avoiding the need formineral inputs of N/P fertilizers and cleaning thewater/effluent to prevent algal-blooms.

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Can be fed CO2 from power-plants, improving

algal growth and reducing carbon-emissions. Easier to process than other biomass, e.g. into

CH4 , biodiesel, ethanol or hydrocarbons.

Biodiesel is more biodegradable than petroleum

and fuel derived from it.

50% of algae can be oil (lipid) c.f. 5 10% forland-based crops (e.g. soya, rape-seed).

Reduces CO2 release by replacing oil-based fuelsand absorbs CO2 when it grows, through PS.

Can be used as a chemical feedstock; plastics.

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Further Advantages of Algae.

Algae (and other biomass) can be processed intoorganic chemicals, in a biorefinery, as a basisfor a new bio organic chemicals/industry.

ExxonMobil, Shell, Unilever and many privatecompanies are working on algae to make fuelsand other products.

Recent study shows that growing algae is mostefficient as integrated with cleaning CO2 frompower station smokestacks (or a cement plant)and N/P from sewage wastewaters.

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Integrated algae plant, power plant (CO2),sewage/wastewater treatment (N/P) plant.

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Regenerative Agriculture/

Permaculture. This is a means for producing food with

minimum inputs of oil and artificial nitrogen

(natural gas) and phosphorus (peakphosphate) fertilizers. Also freshwater.

Modern industrialized agriculture depends on

all of the above, so how can we feed the worldwhen they begin to run out? And all of them are.

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It seems extremely unlikely that we can

replace oil in the enormous quantitiesthat we have become used to using it in.

There are various technologies, biofuels maybe

(algae?), tar-sands, coal liquefaction which canproduce some levels of fuelbut tar and coal willnot last forever, and neither will the gas and waterused to process them.

The upshot is that transportation will be cut, maybe

by 80% in 10 - 15 years, and that means a return to a localised society from the global village. Local

farms will provide food. Electrical tram systemsmay provide local transportbut so will the foot andthe bicycle!

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We will need to work closer to home

No more cheap foreign holidays!

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The Likely Future


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The Likely Future Petroleum will become very expensive within 10

years and will be in short supply within 20.

We dont need to produce more energy, we need touse less.

Gas will become expensive. Just as more peopleare switching to gas, this too will begin to run shortaround 2030

Coal creates problems because of climate change,and nuclear has problems because the uraniumwont last long (at least in conventional reactors).

Renewables cant fill the gap wind needs back-up/storage, biomass needs massive land area sothat it would affect agriculture, and other optionshave a low power density.

IN SHORT, RENEWABLES MIGHT SUPPLY 30% TO40% OF THE UKS CURRENT ENERGY USE. THATMEANS CUTTING ENERGY USE BY 60% TO 70%.

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Some Quick Ideas


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Some Quick Ideas Get out of debt! Cutting energy use50% of domestic consumption

is space heating, and 25% water heating (lowenergy light bulbs wont solve the problem onlysaves about 4.5%!).

Energy reduction becomes more difficult to achievethe more you cut, so its actually easier to look aton-site energy production (micro-generation) to

offset consumption. Solar systems can reduce hot water demand by

50%, but for the larger savings youll need to dosome major engineering on the house and install asolar roof and heat storenote that a thermal

system is more productive (and cheaper) than PV You need to tackle your use of commoditiesthe

easiest way of doing this is gardening to producefood, and developing local networks to supply othergoods from within your area.

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When JFK was assassinated in

1963, there were fewer thanhalf as many humans on our

planet as there are today.

And today there are...? 7 billion


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A Happy Ending?

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Maybe. Transition to a resilient, more localised societywhich avoids the worst potential of climate change andpeak oil through building thriving, lower energycommunities teeming with satisfying lifestyles andfulfilled people. (Transition-Town statement).

Food and water. Population and demographics.Electricity and energy. Travel and transport. Health andmedicine.

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chiefrequirements of life, when all that we need to makeus really happy is something to be enthusiasticabout. Charles Kingsley (1819 1875).


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Do Universities Fit-in With the Future Plan?


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Do Universities Fit-in With the Future Plan?Black comedy: http://universityshambles.com

Nominated for Brit Writers' Awards PublishedWriter of the year.

My First Novel!

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http://universityshambles.com/http://universityshambles.com/

chris rhodes - what happens when the oil runs out

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