Bentley & Zittel on Limits to Global Energy Flows

At the recent ASPO 2013 conference, Roger Bentley and Werner Zittel gave a joint presentation on the limits to global energy flows mainly from oil, gas and coal.

Their findings are nothing new to those who have followed the PO debate for the past years, but bare repeating:

• Global conventional oil peak is now (will continue for some years)
• Global natural gas peak in c. 10-15 years
• Global (hard) coal peak perhaps within a few years
• Alternatives have much lower energy densities and returns
• Prices will keep going up, may go down in the short term (due to economic hiccups)
• Move to alternatives will put a stress in form of a  growth slowdown to the economy
• Official & Industry sources (IEA, EIA, BP, OPEC) have been systematically wrong in their oil production estimates
• We have plenty of reserves under ground, but we can't get to them fast
• If we consume everything, we will create a lot of environmental risks & damage

And oh yes, official policy is still mostly in denial about all this in most countries. Apparently people believed the fracking fairy tales and the future of 1:1 substitution of oil with natural gas (over night). 

Ah well.

Can Oil Production Meet Rising Global Demand?

You've heard it from the geologists, from the oil engineers and the people studying energy systems.

Now, it's time to hear it from (for) the policy wonks.

Can Oil Production Meet Rising Global Demand? 

The video, all one and a half hours of it, contains multiple testimonies on Capitol Hill about Peak Oil and the coming oil crunch.

Will this have an impact?

Hardly, as the Department of Energy and Military Peak Oil Reports show, people who need to know already know. People who don't know, this is too difficult a subject emotionally for them to grasp.

Also, if you view the audience in the Q&A session there are no congresspeople and certainly no senators.

If you only view one snippet, start at 00:45:00 with Bob Hirsch. Runs for about 10 minutes. Well worth the time as a good summary, if you are new to the subject.

World Energy Outlook 2009

The yearly report from the OECD energy watchdog International Energy Agency is out. It is called World Energy Outlook.

Here are some key points of interest from the exec summary (full report still under scrutiny):

Coal use expected to grow enormously - oil & gas as well

Problem is - we don't know where the oil & gas are!

Sine financial crisis investments in finding & developing oil are shrinking

So we will use LOTS more coal resulting in LOTS more CO2

So the only option is to go on a huge efficiency binge

So, if you are an investor and something like the above comes to pass (unlikely, but possible), keep on piling on oil till roughly 2015 as we'll get our next oil crunch by then, unless the economy goes south again. After 2015, start piling up on efficiency plays and lots more on coal. Biofuels will be a crutch, but will probably fail royally sometime before 2020-2025 due to thermodynamic stupidity.

More when the final report is out and fully analysed.