The decades ahead will
probably see an energy crisis so great that it dwarfs the financial
crisis that began in 2008.
The reason for the crisis
is that global energy demands are increasing, caused by population
growth and increased consumption in countries such as India and
China; but our production of fossil fuels will not increase enough to
keep up with this need. In fact, the global production of oil may
soon begin to fall, and the global production of coal may start to
decline between one and four decades in the future.
Global oil production rose
steadily between 1985 (when it was 60 million barrels a day) to 2005
(when it was about 85 million barrels a day). Since then there has
been hardly any increase. Many experts predict that global oil
production will soon begin to decline. The thesis that the global
demand for oil will soon exceed the supply is the Peak Oil thesis. We
know that in quite a few countries, oil production has peaked. For
example, the oil production of the United States peaked in the early
1970's, and has declined sharply since then.
In a country such as Saudi
Arabia, 60% of the oil comes from a giant field called the Ghawar
field. But the Saudis have resorted to injecting huge amounts of sea
water into the field (supposedly millions of gallons a day) to keep
it producing at a high rate. If the field follows the typical production history for oil fields (that of a bell-shaped curve), the field's
production will soon begin to steadily decline, as will many other
oil fields.
But what about coal? The
standard forecast for coal (repeated innumerable times) has been that
we have hundreds of years of coal. But quite a few recent estimates
have challenged this rosy prediction. A group called the Energy
Watch Group predicted in 2007 that global coal production could peak
by the year 2022. Dave Rutledge of the California Institute of
Technology estimates that by the year 2070 we will have used up 90%
of the coal that will be burnt.
If such an estimate is
correct, it would presumably be good for the environment, because it
would mean that the gloomier predictions of the IPCC regarding global
warming would probably not occur. Such predictions are based on the
assumption that man's production of fossil fuel will grow unabated.
But if we see both a peak
in oil production and a peak in coal production before the middle of
this century, there will be a gigantic energy crisis that may
include economic depression and possibly even mass starvation. With a
growing population and growing consumption, we will need for energy
supplies to keep rising steadily, but exactly the opposite may be in store. The shortfall may lead to a crisis which may in the short term be even worse than the global warming crisis.
What about renewable
energy? Won't that make up for the shortfall? Today the World Bank
issued a report noting that despite the fact that wind power has
grown at a rate of 25% per year since 1990, and solar power has grown
at a rate of 11 percent since 1990, renewable energy overall is only
growing at a very small rate. Renewable energy (most of which is
hydroelectric energy) only makes up about 18% of our energy, and that
percentage has hardly increased since 1990. If current growth rates
continue, we'll only have a fraction of the renewable energy we need
when our production of fossil fuels starts to sputter.
Here is a graph from the report:
Some optimists imagine
that nuclear power may fill the gap, but things don't look very
promising on that front. Scientists have been working for fifty years
or more to create nuclear fusion (a clean form of nuclear energy),
but we are still nowhere close to having a working nuclear fusion
reactor. As for fission reactors, their cause suffered a great
setback when the Fukushima reactor in Japan suffered a catastrophic
malfunction.
We can't wait until the
next energy crisis explodes in our face. We have to put the needed
renewable energy units in place years before we need them. China is
making heroic strides in this area, but the West (including America)
lags behind.
What can the average
person do? Reduce your energy use and slash your carbon footprint.
When you jump in a jet liner to go from New York City to see
mountains in some exotic country (when you could have enjoyed
mountains in your same state), or when you live in a house of 2500
square feet (when 1000 would have done fine), you are helping to use
up our dwindling reserves of fossil fuels. The end result in the
future may be a family shivering in a cold house or a family going
hungry.
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