Security of Energy supply

The End of Cheap Energy

Week 5

The END of cheap ENERGY?

Why is this important?
What makes Oil so important?
What about alternatives?
The Future
- Sustainability
- When might transition start?

ONE VIEW:
"The technology at hand to tap the
planet's vast energy resources is
improving faster than ever.
We can economically dig, dam,
pump, and purify all the energy we
like."
January, 2006, Preface, The Bottomless Well, Huber and Mills

ANOTHER VIEW:
"Petroleum geologists have known for 50 years
that global oil production would "peak" and
begin its inevitable decline within a decade of
the year 2000.
Moreover, no renewable energy systems have
the potential to generate more than a tiny
fraction of the power now being generated by
fossil fuels."
Dieoff.com

Peak Oil
Hubberts Peak

Since I was born, the rate of oil production has increased ten-fold.

Will production drop soon? Has enough new oil been

discovered to keep up the supply?
When production begins to decline we will be at
peak oil.

Why is oil so important?

FACT: Oil supplies about 90% of the
energy we use in Cyprus, and about 97%
of the USAs transportation energy.
CLAIM: Survival of civilization, except
for the most primitive societies, now
depends on the availability of cheap
energy for our support systems.

Every American uses the energy equivalent

of about 150 "servants" working 24-7.
Everything is cheap today because oil is
cheap.
Human muscle supplies less than 0.2% of
the energy used in the economy.
We can't support ourselves without cheap
energy.

What makes me say that energy is cheap?

One person can perform useful work at
a rate of about 1 KWh per day - about
whats required to keep a 100 W light bulb
going for 10 hours.
We pay about 25 per KWh for electricity
on Oahu - so we get the equivalent
energy of a hard-working person for
25 per day.

Energy and Power

Power = energy per unit time
1 Watt= 1 kg m /s3 = 1 Joule/s
Energy = kW h (kiloWatt hour)
1 KWh/day is a good reference - one person

People Power has been

replaced by fossil power

Big deal!
We can ride bikes instead of cars,
change our lights to CFLs, turn
down the air conditioner, use
electric cars..
Not so fast Doing lots of little
things might end up doing very
little to solve the problem.

Soil is the catalyst used to

turn oil into food.

Modern agriculture requires more than ten units of fossil

fuel energy for every unit of energy eaten. Take away
fossil fuels, and productivity will decrease greatly.

 In the United States, 400 gallons of oil

equivalents are expended annually to feed each
American (as of data provided in 1994).7
Agricultural energy consumption is broken down
as follows:
31% for the manufacture of inorganic fertilizer
19% for the operation of field machinery
16% for transportation
13% for irrigation
08% for raising livestock (not including livestock feed)

Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy, Pimentel, David and Giampietro,
Mario. Carrying Capacity Network, 11/21/1994. http://www.dieoff.com/page55.htm

10 times the energy is used to grow the

food than is released by eating it.

http://www.eroei.com/the_chain/oil_gas.html

"Global food supplies must increase by an

estimated 50 percent to meet expected
demand in the next 20 years,"
reads the Global Food Security page on the
State Department website.

About 85% of our food and staples come to Cyprus on

ships that burn oil. The average North American meal
travels 1,500 miles before it gets to your plate.

Without oil,
Cyprus has no
electricity
NO LIGHTS
NO COMMUNICATION
NO GASOLINE
NO REFRIGERATION
NO ELEVATORS
NO FOOD
NO WATER
NO HOSPITALS
NO MONEY
NO SEWERS

Maintenance of
Infrastructure requires
energy

95% of Cypruss electricity is generated from Heavy fuel oil.

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A basic premise of this talk is that

petroleum will not be able to meet
our energy needs for long after we hit
peak oil.
After that time the supply will
DECREASE and will no longer be
able to meet the demand for energy.

Cyprus imports the energy equivalent

of about 20 million barrels of oil per
Year.
At 1,700 kWh/ barrel of oil, that's the
equivalent energy supplied by about
100,000,000 people working HARD.
AND we pay more than $1 BILLION/YR
for fossil fuels, about the cost of

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CAN WE REPLACE OIL?

Without oil or a large supply of
other cheap fuels, we will have
serious difficulties finding (or
affording) enough energy to
maintain our current lifestyle!

What alternatives are

there?

What are the qualities of a

GOOD energy resource?

Lots of it, widespread - solar

Renewable - like trees, OTEC
High energy density - like nuclear
Low price - like natural gas
Low cost-of-use - like oil
High net energy - ??
Easy to transport - like oil
Easy to store - like oil
Always available - like oil
Safe - like OTEC
Environmentally friendly - like geothermal
Secure - like solar

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Can unconventional sources

of fossil fuels satisfy our liquid
fuel needs?

Tar sands
Oil shale
Natural Gas Liquids
Oil from Coal

Mountain Topping to get at coal

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Over 700 miles of Appalachian streams

have been ruined already in coal mining.

Do we have enough coal?

Peak Coal: 2023

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DOE Estimate
of Global
COAL
Production
(2009)

Peak in
2011

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What about non-fossil

alternative sources of Energy?
At LEAST one "good" energy
resource is needed that has a large
NET ENERGY.

Do any alternatives have the

energy density, portability,
storability, convenience, and
profit margin of oil?

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What is Net Energy??

Every living thing must find more energy than
it consumes or perish.
Excess energy is used for growth or is stored.
Net energy is the energy available minus the
energy invested to get it.
Some people use ERoEI instead:
ERoEI=Energy obtained/Energy invested
Net Energy = EO - EI
= (EROEI - 1), if EI=1

What?.
Consider Your Budget:
Gross Income
Net Income= Gross - taxes
Fixed Costs
Luxuries
If your net income is greater than your
fixed costs, you can take that vacation to
Hawaii.

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Consider the Energy

Budget
Gross Income: Total energy in the fuel supply
Taxes: Energy needed to produce and deliver
Net Income= Net Energy: whats left to be used
Fixed Costs: Energy necessary to sustain civilization
Luxuries: Energy needed for economic growth

If energy net <= Fixed costs, NO GROWTH

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BASIC sources of energy:

SOLAR
all fossil fuels, PV, wind, passive solar, OTEC,
hydro, wave, .
GEOTHERMAL - heat in the earth
NUCLEAR - [solar], fission, fusion
PLANETARY MOTION - tides
Let's look at various sources and see how they
might satisfy the demand.

HYDROGEN
George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address:
"A simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and
oxygen generates energy which can be used to power a
car, producing only water, not exhaust fumes
"The first car driven by a child born today could be
powered by hydrogen and pollution-free."

but let's dig a bit deeper.

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Hydrogen fuel does not exist in nature.

All the hydrogen is tightly bound to other
elements - like oxygen (H2O).
Making hydrogen FUEL requires energy to
pull the hydrogen away from whatever it is
attached to.
About 80% of hydrogen fuel is generated
from natural gas by heating it.
Hydrogen fuel can be generated directly
from water by hydrolysis.

ENERGY
Invest ed
elect rolysis
combust ion
EROEI~0 .6

ENERGY
Ret urned

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Hydrogen fuel may be an excellent way

to store energy. It's equivalent to a
charged battery.
But, hydrogen is NOT an energy
source. The energy to produce
hydrogen - or any fuel - MUST come
from a source that has a net energy
much greater than 0.
Other alternatives?

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Cyprus Clean Energy Initiative

Target: using energy efficiency and
renewable resources to supply 70%
or more of Cyprus energy needs by
2030.

In THEORY, there is a large enough

renewable energy resource in
Cyprus to satisfy all of our electrical
needs.

The Sopogy Thermal Solar Array at Keahole generates 2 mW on 3.8

acres in the Mohave desert. It would take more than 800 of these to
generate Oahu's current electricity capacity on 3,200 acres, BUT the

sun doesn't always shine

STORAGE, EQUALIZATION

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Hot Oil Energy Storage

This PV array on
Kauai can generate
700,000 KWh anually.
Photovoltaic (PV)

Less than 2
KWh/panel /day

Can advances in direct solar energy devices make

them contenders in the energy picture?
Recent thin-film technology is very promising
and production could double today's total
generation capacity within two years.

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50@ 1.5 MW Wind Turbines are located on

the slopes of west Maui

Optimistic numbers suggest ~0.5

KWh/day /KW installed

Puna Geothermal produces 30 MegaWatts,

or 720 MWh/day, and its ALWAYS available.

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Can "biomass" schemes for using plants

to create liquid fuels be scaled up to the
level needed to make a difference?
These schemes use oil and gas "inputs"
(fertilizers, weed-killers, machines) to
grow the biomass crops to be converted
into ethanol or bio-diesel fuels.
Is there a net energy "profit"?

Biomass
for ethanol production

corn requires 29 percent more fossil

energy than the fuel produced;

switch grass requires 45 percent

more fossil energy than the fuel
produced;

wood biomass requires 57 percent

more fossil energy than the fuel
produced.

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for biodiesel production,

soybean plants requires 27
percent more fossil energy
than the fuel produced
sunflower plants requires 118
percent more fossil energy
than the fuel produced.
Algae?

Oil Palm Plantation

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10 MW
Ocean
Thermal
Energy
Conversion
(OTEC)
Pilot Plant
To be installed
2013

NUCLEAR ?

Using current
technology
(fission) we would
need 2 new 1
GWatt plants to
satisfy Cypruss
current electrical
and heating (oil
and gas) needs.
Nuclear may be
the only way to
keep the lights
on.

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FUSION?
Chuck Helsley, a former Director of
HIGP, is working hard on fusion.

IF they can get funding, and IF all

goes well, he thinks they can have
their first plant in 10 years.
But - not likely in the USA

Pelamis 750 KW

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Do Energy Conservation
and Improved Efficiency
Help?
Certainly they don't hurt, but they
can't solve the problem.

Jevons Paradox
In his 1865 book The Coal
Question.
William Stanley Jevons
argued that increases in
efficiency in the use of coal
would tend to increase the
use of coal.
Hence, it would tend to
increase, rather than reduce,
the rate at which Englands
deposits of coal were being
depleted.

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Mass
Transportation
can help, but it
requires a large
user base and
change in
mindset.

Examples of energy use How much energy do our

major users require?

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To supply 1,700 MW capacity would take:

2,100 acres of PV cells + storage
almost 15% the perimeter of Cyprus in wave
energy + storage
OTEC: 17 @ 100 mW plants
Geothermal: 68 @ 30 mW Geothermal plants
Nuclear: 2 @ 1 GW plant
1,133 @ 1.50 mW wind generators + storage
1,556,656 acres of sugar cane

There are more than 1,000,000 vehicles registered in

Cyprus.
Each uses about 40 KWh/day, that comes to a total of ~20M
KWh/day.

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Electric cars??

To switch from using gasoline to grid electricity

in our vehicles would demand that the
generating capacity on Oahu would need to
increase by ~50%. Batteries cost ~$30,000

To fly a 747 to Cyprus from London

would require the energy
equivalent of:
1 gallon/sec; (13,000 kWhr)/5.5 hr flight

5 1/2 days of one wind generator

energy at full capacity
25 minutes of an OTEC plant
energy
44 acres of sugar cane (ethanol)
468 acres of corn (ethanol)
25 acres of soy (biodiesel)

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BUT
Airplanes can't fly on electricity
(yet).
To store the energy needed to fly
a 747 for one hour in lithium ion
batteries would require batteries
weighing 5
the plane.

times the weight of

To fuel a container ship

from Piraeus to Cyprus
requires:

1 day of OTEC plant

71 days of Maui wind generator time
247 acres of sugar cane
468 acres of corn
157 acres of soy
4 days of geothermal energy

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Development of alternatives to oil will

require (among other things)
energy storage systems
- batteries
- fuel cells
distribution systems
infrastructure transition
new energy sources and technologies
construction of large plants
carbon sequestration if coal or natural gas used

This is a GLOBAL PROBLEM

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World Population and Oil Production

Millions of People, 10,000's of Barrels/day

8000
7000
6000
5000
4000

World Population,
millions
Oil Production, 10,000
barrels/day

3000
2000
1000
0
1750

1800

1850

1900

1950

2000

Year

Cheap energy has made the population explosion

possible. The expansion of human civilization is
strongly linked to access to cheap, high-quality energy
sources. World now uses ~13 trillionWatts, roughly
1,000 barrels of oil per second.

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How much time do we have?

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WHAT IS BEING DONE

TO REPLACE OIL?
We spend more money
every ten minutes buying
gasoline than we do on
alternative energy R&D
each year.

www.private-eye.co.uk

The NIH gets a yearly

budget increase greater
than the whole annual
budget of the Department
of Energy.

Governments the world over

provided around $45 billion to
renewable energy technologies in
2009.
BUT.

Fossil fuel subsidies got $557

billion in 2008, reported the
International Energy Agency.*

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