Climate Wars by Gwynne Dyer

Profit from the Peak by Chris Nelder and Brian Hicks

PFTP is essential reading to get a realistic appreciation of the dire situation we have dug ourselves into

Climate Wars is just mindblowing; don,t read it after dark!!

You might find this reference useful in the future:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/coefficients.html

We can do a simple back of the envelope (BOE) calculation based on the heating value of the two fuels (data at link). Natural gas has a heating value of ~ 54 MJ/kg (megajoules per kilogram), coal is much more variable, with heating values ranging from 27 to 15 MJ/kg, the 15 representing burning dirt aka brown coal (Germany) and the 27 anthracite. At the lowest natural gas has about twice the heating value of coal, at the highest more than three times.

Coal is essentially carbon, so for every ~15-27 MJ we inject a kg of carbon into the atmosphere. Natural gas is pretty much methane, CH4. When we burn a kg of methane yielding 52 MJ, accounting for the masses of carbon and hydrogen atoms, we push 3/4 of a pound of carbon into the atmosphere. Putting that together coal produces ~2.7-4.8 times more carbon in the atmosphere than natural gas.

This does not include the other problems that are much more seriously associated with coal than natural gas including dead miners, sick miners, mercury emissions, sulfur emissions, environmental damage and more.

As John McCarthy says, he who does not do the arithmetic is doomed to failure. Do the math Ken. Replacing coal with natural gas, if it were possible would reduce emissions. Supply tells us that it is not possible unfortunately.

http://biopact.com/

although the site is no longer being updated. This one is:

http://www.icis.com/blogs/biofuels/

and Simon welcomes comments, questions, etc.

1) Thanks for the good work you are doing.

2) I suggest that a prime factor driving the demand for energy is world population growth, and that any attempt to mitigate peak oil or global warming/climate change must begin with a serious effort to stop world population growth, and roll it back to a sustainable 1-2 billion.

With BAU world population is projected to increase from the current 6.6 billion to 9 billion by 2050. That is a 50% increase. Essentially all arable land is currently under cultivation, we do not have 50% in reserve. Likewise, nearly all fresh water is currently being used, we do not have 50% excess water (and with the glaciers melting we may have even less at crop time). Finally, a 50% increase in the petrochemicals needed to support a 50% expansion in agricultural production appears to be out of the question. So much for feeding these additional people, what about their other needs? Can we increase our output of wood products, metals, plastics, etc. by 50% also? These considerations make me wonder what the future holds – mass malnutrician, disease, and death seem likely – it appears that the food riots have already begun.

3) You assume that peak oil will not occur for a decade. That seems entirely too optimistic to me. The many projections cited in the books by Paul Roberts and Richard Henberg, which utilize a variety of methodologies, usually predict peak oil will occur by 2010, if it has not already occurred. I don’t see oil company executives as credible authorities on this issue.

4) It appears to me that there will be major economic consequences resulting for peak oil, notably higher prices for everything since virtually everything we make or do depends on oil. This needs to be factored into the cost of the various mitigating wedges proposed, and may slow down their implimentation significantly. For example, there may be enormous political pressure to do what is cheapest rather than what is environmentally sound.

Because California is one of the most NG dependent states, the California Energy Commission tracks this sort of thing quite closely.

Click on the maps, and noticed how few green dots there are, and how many white ones.

I am not sure what you mean by safe. Safe as being an alternative to peak oil? No, because we would not convert our vehicle fleet to NG. Safe in a AGW sense? No, of course not. No fossil fuel is safe. NG is of course the least GHG-intensive fossil fuel, since it has the highest hydrogen to carbon ratio possible in a hydrocarbon (4:1, vs. 2.25:1 for octane, and about 0.7:1 for coal). Converting all US coal plants to NG would reduce those plants’ GHG emissions by 67% and cut total US GNG emissions from all sources by about 10%.

There is a perfectly sane alternative to gasoline and coal: wind and solar electricity powering plug-in vehicles. It would only take 5,000 square miles of the US desert southwest covered with CSP to power the 3.9 trillion vehicle miles US drivers will try to drive in 2050 (420 million people times 9300 vehicle miles per capita per year). It could be done with wind too (40,000 square miles of wind farms, but only 2,000 square miles of that is occupied by the turbines and service roads–the rest can have other uses). Plug ins even have lower total lifetime cost of ownership than gassers. Unfortunately they have higher up-front purchase cost. This could be solved by leasing the battery pack instead of buying it. Plug-ins are the perfect uses of wind, since they are parked 95% of the time, and take only 5% of the day to recharge (on average), so that 5% can occur whenever the wind blows during the 95%.

Being desirable and technically feasible doesn’t mean it will happen of course. I think it will, but I cannot be sure that stupidity won’t derail it (it has so far). The reason I think it will happen is plug-in hybrids will give enough buyers a taste of what is possible, and they will clamor for more, building momentum.