http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970830.html. april 3 thermodynamics april 5 no class april 10...
TRANSCRIPT
April 3Thermodynamics
April 5No Class
April 10Fossil Fuels
April 12Times Beach
Video
April 17Video Discussion
Alternative Energy
April 19Global Warming
April 24Your Oral Reports
April 26Your Oral Reports
Physics 6 Schedule
No Lab
Friday
Since about 1980, US energy policy, as mandated by the citizens of the US, is based on the assumption that there will be no shortage of oil for the
forseeable future.
Environmental Issues
I think I’ve returned all that were handed in before spring break.
I have several more that I got last week.
Friday of this week is the “absolute” deadline!
Did you notice some of the questions were based on fact or straightforward calculations, but others were very open ended, and the answer would depend on your opinions?That was intentional, of course. There were a couple of really loaded questions (intentionally) too.
Fossil Fuels
US Energy Budget, 2004 (USDOE, quadrillion BTU).
Fossil fuels account for over 80% of our energy input.
Imports account for about 30% of our energy input.
The impact of imported energy on our economy is (in my opinion) greater that it might appear at first glance:
Take away imported oil and our transportation and automobile industries collapse.
If these go, the rest of the economy goes.
We’d better “understand” fossil fuels!
Do you remember New Orleans, in the days after Katrina?
Exponential Growth
Before I talk any more about fossil fuels, I want you to see a crude simulation of exponential growth.
And a simulation of exponential growth in use rate.
What are fossil fuels?
I’ll focus on these:Oil
Natural GasCoal
Where do these fuels come from?
The ground! Duh.
OK, how did they get there?
From the Texas Railroad Commission’s web site*
*Used because I judge it to be a “neutral” site in this area. Yes, they mis-spelled “centuries.” Sorry, no time for fancy pictures.
“Before the age of the dinosaurs, steamy swamps filled with giant trees and large leafy plants covered many parts of the earth.”
“As the trees and plants died, they sank to the swamp bottom where they formed layers of soggy dense material called peat.”
“Over many centruies these beds of peat became buried by sand, clay and other mineral deposits forming sedimentary rock.”
“As the weight of the sedimentary rock grew, the water was squeezed out of the peat and the increased heat and pressure compacted the peat to form coal.”
“Most coal mined today is believed to have been formed about 300 million years ago.”
“The early stages of coal formation still continues today as trees and plants in swampy areas die and decay to form peat.”
However, the process of making this new coal will take millions of years.
A peat bog near Yorkshire, UK. You might be able to figure out where I found the picture.
This lecture is about fossil fuels. The last three slides describe coal formation. Oil is formed under similar conditions.
“Many factors, such as time, pressure, heat and plant material are involved in the formation of coal.”
“As these factors vary, the coal produced may have different characteristics.”
“Because coal is used as a fuel to produce heat, it is classified into four different types (ranks), based on the amount of heat it produces.”
“These four rankings of coal are called anthracite (most heat), bituminous, subbituminous and lignite (least heat). Most of the coal mined in Texas is ranked as lignite.”
“There’s no reason to worry about fossil fuel supply, because fossil fuels are being produced even as we speak.”
“This is disappointing. I thought when I burned coal (or gas), I was burning fossils. Like dinosaur fossils.”
True. Would you care to wait around 300 million years before you gas up your car again?
Nope, you’re burning hydro-carbons from lowly plant forms, or single-celled “animals.”
I never said this class would be devoid of disappointments.
Let’s focus on oil for a while.
You can find it under old sedimentary rocks (e.g., Pennsylvania, 1859).
What did “we” do for heat and light before oil?
coalwoodpeatwhale oiloil skimmed from surfaces of streams, lakes
If you see pictures of Rolla from around or just after the Civil War, you will notice there are no trees. Anywhere.Civil War armies used them for campfires.
Most of the trees you see now were planted during the early 19th century (or later).
The US has long been a leading producer of oil.
Oil was a critical issue in the events leading up to World War II, and in the conduct of the war.
In 1950, the US produced 50% of the world’s oil, dominated the market, and set prices.
19¢ a gallon gas was everywhere.
In the mid-60’s, my two best friends and I would each chip in a quarter for gas, and go cruising all weekend long.Gas prices today are criminal, aren’t they? At an all-time high. Don’t get me started on that...
I can’t help it…
This “Stuart” person has a web page with lots of interesting random useless information, including the inflation-adjusted cost of his gas since 1979:
If you still want to complain about the price of gas, read this, or this.
Until the 2006 hurricanes, gas prices fluctuated very little for 20 years.
In the 1950’s, geophysicist M. King Hubbert proposed the following rules about depletion of a finite resource:
production starts at zero
production then rises to a peak which can never be surpassed
once the peak has been passed, production declines until the resource is depleted
Based on these rules he predicted that US oil production would peak in the 1970’s and then decline… and was the target of ridicule by other geophysicists and economists.
End of gas price rant.
US Oil Production
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US oil production is documented by the Department of Energy:
Your thoughts on this graph?
The second “bump” in the production curve is a result of Alaskan oil coming on-line.
http://www.wri.org/cpi/pubs/oil-cni.html
US oil reserves:Texas 26%Alaska 26%California 16%Gulf Coast offshore 9%New Mexico 3%Spread out 20%
You may find different figures. That’s because the definition of “reserves” depends on who’s doing the talking.
Again, taking data from the DOE:
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fossil fuel consumption
oil production
The result is, perhaps, inevitable:
But you already know this part of the story… don’t you?
US Oil Importsthrough 2005
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We’d run out in 4 or 5 years!
A couple of “secondhand” sources of this information; I have no reason to believe they are wrong:
http://maps.unomaha.edu/Peterson/funda/Sidebar/OilConsumption.html http://www.hubbertpeak.com
The amount there depends on who you believe. DOE says 5 billion barrels. Heritage Foundation says 16 billion barrels. USGS says 10 billion barrels. If you take USGS figures, it would supply the US with oil for 15 months (at mid-2001 rates).
If it’s not good to import “foreign” oil, why don’t we just use “US” oil?
But there’s lots of Alaskan oil. The tree huggers won’t let us use it.
We’ve found the “easy” oil. We’ve scoured the country. We haven’t made any big discoveries since Alaska.Why do oil company commercials make it sound like there’s an abundance of oil waiting to be found?
It looks like we are going to be relying on imported oil for a long time.
But remember, world oil is a finite resource. Will world oil production go through a peak, just like US oil production?
Why don’t we just find more “US” oil?
Les Magoon and the Big Rollover
Les Magoon of the USGS has 35 years of experience as a petroleum geoscientist. He presents us with this data.
The volume of oil discovered worldwide peaked around 1965.
World oil production has lagged discovery by 40 years (find it now, “use” it four decades later).
“The Big Rollover” comes when we have pumped half the worlds oil, and start on the downward slope……just like M. King Hubbert predicted a half a century ago.When will “the Big Rollover” take place?
A lot depends on how much oil “we” really have.
I wonder why the “Hydrogen Now” people are so excited about the Big Rollover...
http://www.wri.org/cpi/pubs/oil-cni.html#trends
Two big questions:how much oil is there?when will we reach the midpoint?
Note switch in units from quadrillion BTU to billions of barrels.
“How much” depends on who you ask.
Two US government agencies—DOE and USGS—vary widely in their estimates.
My opinion, based on the hours of reading I have done, is that economists tend to believe there is more oil still to be produced than do geologists.
It depends on whether you count oil you know is there, or oil you think might be there, or oil you hope is there.
It depends on whether you count oil that is “useless” right now because it costs too much to extract and process.It depends on whether you count oil tied up in shale rocks. It takes twice as much energy to extract that oil as you get when you burn it.
Estimates of oil reserves vary from 1 GBarrels to 3 GBarrels.BP (world’s 3rd largest* oil company; recently merged with Amoco) says about 1 GBarrels at the end of 2002.
*Larger oil companies: ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch/Shell.
Shell (2nd largest oil company) took a big hit a few years ago (March 2004).
In January 2004 they revised their estimated oil reserves downward by 20%.
In March 2004 they revised their estimated oil reserves downward by another 20%.
So in March 2004 they had a bit over half the oil reserves everybody thought they had in January 2004.
Heads rolled.
More news links here and here. Many more available on Google.
Back to this slide—the Hubbert curve—which I showed earlier. The figures in red at the right represent estimates of the total amount of the world’s recoverable oil.
2000 GBarrels is probably reasonable (in line with BP). Even the optimistic (2600) and pessimistic (1800) scenarios differ by only a decade and a half in turnover year.
Before I pursue the scenarios suggested by the previous slide further, I want to address three important questions.
Isn’t there a lot more oil to be discovered?
Accurate figures on oil reserves are closely-held national and industrial secrets. The figures I have shown are reasonable estimates. But aren’t nations likely to be “hiding” the amount of oil they have?
Maybe not so important, but interesting anyway: what is the meaning of the “bumps” in the oil imports and oil production graphs?
Isn’t there a lot more oil to be discovered?
The optimistic view: there’s lots left to discover. (I’m from Missouri.)
The pessimistic view: we’ve found it all. Even reported reserves are exaggerated.
The in-between view: we’ll find some more, but probably no more giant discoveries.
As oil prices inevitably rise, harder-to-produce oil and alternative energy sources will become more “attractive.”
Aren’t nations likely to be “hiding” the amount of oil they have?
The next slide is a screen capture from http://www.hubbertpeak.com/summary.htm. On that web page they give the sources for the data.
DOE gives a chronology of world oil prices…
US Oil Importsthrough 2005
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One more thing—did you wonder about the “bumps” in this graph?
Skip to slide 50.
Not adjusted for inflation ($25 in 2003 buys much less than $25 in 1980).
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US Oil Imports
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Inflation???
If you adjusted for inflation…
Not adjusted for inflation ($25 in 2003 buys much less than $25 in 1980).
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Ok, end of digression on three questions.
Where is all this leading?
Oil is finite.
We’re rapidly using it (on the scale of a human lifetime).We’re not going to “use up” all the world’s oil. We’re going to consume the easily-recovered oil. The rest will be there, but very expensive. As cost goes up, consumption will go down.If someone says “we have 100 years worth of oil left,” they probably mean that world oil reserves will be depleted after 100 years.
Although I don’t see depletion happening like this, “100 years left” is a reasonable way to put supply and use in perspective.
Worst-case scenario…
If the US rate of oil consumption continues to increase……and if third world consumption rate doubles (because they aspire to be “like” us)…*
…we could “use up” all the oil within 2 decades.
To avoid the worst-case scenario, either the US needs to reduce its consumption of oil, or the third world needs to stay poor (or both).
*One effect of outsourcing???
Some “years left” estimates I found when preparing these notes for Physics 6 in Winter 2001. Unfortunately, I found these on the web, and the links very quickly disappeared:The American Petroleum Institute said we don’t need to worry about oil supplies, because there was 45 years’ worth at then-current consumption rates.
Don’t worry? Argh!
BP (British Petroleum, since merged with Amoco) said on their web site that there were 43 years worth of oil left.The author of your Environmental Issues book shows an estimate that suggests oil will “run out” around 2040.Three rather consistent estimates, two coming from oil industry sources.
Why this “no worry” attitude from industry?
Perhaps more reasonable is to estimate that we have 50-70 years to find replacements for all our uses of oil.
Given the fact that it often takes 50 years for fundamental research to find practical applications, we need to get to work on this problem now.
And by the way—it doesn’t matter what I believe or what you believe—or what the Republicans believe or what the Democrats believe—or what Greenpeace believes or what the Heritage Foundation believes—when you are consuming a finite resource, it will eventually run out.The important questions are: when? and will you be prepared?And why are we burning oil? (Ever heard of plastic?)
As you might imagine, not everybody would agree with the assessment above.
This web site stated in 2003 that “predictions that oil supplies will dry up within a few years have been common over the last 150 years.”
The idea being that if past predictions have all been wrong, then current ones probably are too.
I don’t quite understand how people could have been predicting 150 years ago that oil supplies would dry up, considering the Oil Age began with the Drake Well in Pennsylvania in 1859. According to my math, 2003-1859=144, so evidently predictions had been made that oil will dry up even before people started pumping it.
Here’s the text, for our detailed consideration and study.
“29-01-03 Predictions that oil supplies will dry up within a few years have been common over the last 150 years. The world had produced a total of 900 bn barrels of oil by 2000 -- yet estimates of the total amount of oil resources still in the ground grew throughout the 20th century.
For example: In May 1920, the US Geological Survey announced that the world's total endowment of oil amounted to 60 bn barrels. In 1950, geologists estimated the world's total oil endowment at around 600 bn barrels.
From 1970 through 1990, their estimates increased to between 1,500 and 2,000 bn barrels. In 1994, the US Geological Survey raised the estimate to 2,400 bn barrels, and their most recent estimate (2000) was of a 3,000-bn-barrel endowment.”
Where’s the discovery that caused USGS to raise their estimates in 1994 and 2000?
“This is possible because the world's oil endowment is much larger than its oil reserves -- which are identified resources that can be economically extracted and refined using current technology.
As new technologies increase the amount of recoverable oil, and market prices encourage new exploration and development, the world's total endowment goes up. But the world's oil endowment does not include unconventional oil resources. Oil shales, for example, could easily be as large as 14,000 bn barrels -- more than 500 years of oil supply at 2000 production rates. Nor do they include other fossil fuels, such as natural gas and coal.
Unconventional oil resources are more expensive to extract and produce, but we can expect production costs to drop with time as improved technologies increase efficiency.”
This is supposed to be a lecture on fossil fuels, but I’ve been focusing on oil.
Let’s look briefly at coal.
The US is fortunate to have abundant coal supplies.
Missouri is a major producer of coal.
Remember this energy budget, from the start of this lecture?
Data I found preparing this lecture in 2001 showed that the US currently has a 1500 year supply of coal, at the then-current usage rate.
Remember our growth and use simulations?
Let’s do a coal-use simulation.
Things to be aware of: coal depletes much faster if it replaces oil and natural gas the coal that we have in abundance is low grade and burns poorly the low-grade coal that we might try to gasify is in arid regions and requires enormous amounts of water for gasification oil shales are abundant too, and even more difficult to exploit burning coal produces lots of CO2
Do I have a message for you?
Start investigating all possible alternatives NOW.
Why aren’t “we” doing investigating alternatives already?
A few are.
But when has the great mass of humanity ever looked decades ahead and spent massive amounts of money to solve a possible problem 50 years in the future?
I’m worried that I’m starting to sound like a tree-hugger!