With the new Barack Obama administration and the Democrats winning majority in the US Congress a little over a year ago, there has been a significant amounts of talk and money thrown at green technologies or environmentally friendly alternatives to current technologies. The main philosophical basis of the push comes from the concept that current energy and industrialization are damaging to the planet's ecosystem. Personally, many of the overarching ideas in the environmental movement are good: less pollution in the air and water, preservation of remaining natural areas and making the planet a livable place for our children and grandchildren are all good directives. The issues I have are with the environmental orthodoxy and their view of the world. We need to have open debates and discussion about these sensitive issues within all varieties of communities. It is not happening though. This blog is not about politics or religion, thus, I am going to talk about one of the environmental issues that is going to survive beyond the current zeitgeist due to necessity. The replacement of oil for transportation needs is a vital issue facing our modern industrialized society over the next couple of decades.
The rest of this post is going to discuss energy sources. Over the last few decades and especially within the last couple of years as commodity prices have risen, the call for fossil fuel replacements have grown. Fossil fuels are limited resources and one exhausted, they are gone forever. Our industrialized society is dependent upon fossil fuels for energy. In order of dirtiest to cleanest fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. We are going to look into the relative economic and societal value of each fuel.
Coal is an ancient fuel source used in the modern production of electricity. It is incinerated in a furnace. The generated heat converts water into high pressure steam. High pressure steam is then used to turn generators creating electricity. The down side to this process is creation of air pollution in the form of fly ash, soot, sulfur (creates acid rain) and various other radioactive contaminants into the air. When I was young living in Arizona, I lived next to a coal fired power plant (Navajo Generation Station) and yes it causes air pollution. Majority of these pollutants can be removed through emission controls known as scrubbers. Excessive amounts of carbon in the form of carbon dioxide will still be emitted though. (Carbon dioxide is often blamed for global warming. I take issue with this though thinking that the true cause of global warming is the urban heat island effect.) Second, the mining of coal also tends to pollute natural water sources. Ignoring this, the take home message here is the US has ~250 year supply of the black stuff in the ground. Using appropriate scrubber technology, the US could go centuries without the use of alternative electrical sources (solar or wind generation) while still having adequate electricity sources. The US does NOT have to develop solar or wind energy for the next two centuries. I am not a fan of the coal solution due to the pollution issues, but it does exist.
Natural gas is based upon smaller chained hydrocarbons in gaseous form. The main uses of natural gas are electricity production, heating and miscellaneous purposes such as cooking. Natural gas can also be used as a fuel for engines in cars or various transportation. Natural gas seems like the ideal fix. One problem exists though, the majority of natural gas reserves are not within the US with the US being ranked #5 in the world according to the CIA. The other top ten countries (Russia, Iran and etc) are or have the potential to be politically hostile to the US or unstable. Our reserves alone would last just a few years if this became our primary energy source. This does not bode well for natural gas. The uses also could easily be substituted with oil or natural gas.
Finally, we come to the most common fossil fuel, crude oil. Crude oil is found in various grades within the ground. Highest quality oil is light sweet crude or crude with low sulfur content and the hydrocarbons have smaller chains (light). Both of these oil characteristics are desirable for the simple fact they allow easy refining or processing into final products in comparison to lower quality heavy sour crude. The other factor that makes some oil more desirable is accessibility. If the oil is found within large pockets easily reachable with traditional drilling technology, extraction is simpler and cheaper. Oil that is found in inaccessible places like in deep ocean waters or in small pockets makes extraction significantly more expensive. Oil has several uses in our modern world, transportation is the main use with residential heating as a secondary use.
What makes oil such a valuable commodity for the US in comparison to natural gas and coal has to due with the fact our transportation system is fully dependent upon oil. Automobiles, trains, aircraft and watercraft all use fuels obtained from crude oil. Without our daily fix of oil, our cars and delivery trucks will stop running. The alternatives of trains, aircraft and watercraft would face the same fate. Commerce would cease. Basic needs like food would not get to the grocery store. Employees would not get to work. Everyday functions in our society would come to a grinding halt.
The amount of accessible oil reserves left in the world are limited. An unpleasant fact is the US oil reserves are mostly depleted. Exact amounts of oil reserves worldwide is another topic of hot debate. Pessimists argue the majority of oil is already exhausted and production will decline over the next couple of decades. The best description of this effect is peak oil. Optimists argue there are several decades of oil exist before we even need to worry about this effect as often touted by the US Energy Information Administration. In either case, both sides agree on the fact that we are quickly consuming all worldwide available light sweet crude sources that are easily available. Lower quality crude oil will not make up the energy difference over a long period of time. The fact is once oil reserves are consumed, we have have no infrastructure in place as an alternative to our current transportation. Serious societal disruptions will occur. This is the true energy crisis.
Future posts will cover potential alternative fuels to crude oil based technology.
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