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Global Energy And Resources

By Peter Goodchild

19 January, 2012
Countercurrents.org

Modern industrial society is composed of a triad of fossil fuels, metals, and electricity. The three are intricately connected. Electricity, for example, can be generated on a global scale only with fossil fuels. The same dependence on fossil fuels is true of metals; in fact the better types of ore are now becoming depleted, while those that remain can be processed only with modern machinery and require more fossil fuels for smelting. In turn, without metals and electricity there will be no means of extracting and processing fossil fuels. Of the three members of the triad, electricity is the most fragile, and its failure will serve as an early warning of trouble with the other two (Duncan, 2000, November 13; 2005-06, Winter).

Often the interactions of this triad are hiding in plain sight. Global production of steel, for example, requires 420 million tonnes of coke (from coal) annually, as well as other fossil fuels adding up to an equivalent of another 100 million tonnes (Smil, 2009, September 17). To maintain industrial society, the production of steel cannot be curtailed: there are no “green” materials for the construction of skyscrapers, large bridges, automobiles, machinery, or tools.

But the interconnections among fossil fuels, metals, and electricity are innumerable. As each of the three members of the triad threatens to break down, we are looking at a society that is far more primitive than the one to which we have been accustomed.

Is it possible that fuels outside the range of conventional oil can make a significant difference? To what extent will enhanced production methods result in a “cliff” rather than a “slope”? How would a major financial recession (i.e. one not caused by oil scarcity), resulting in lowered demand, affect both production and prices? The biggest problem may be the synergism of fossil fuels, electricity, and metals: as one of the three declines, there is a decline of the other two, and the result is a chain reaction, a feedback mechanism, a tailspin, or whatever metaphor one chooses, so that industry in general comes to a sudden halt. Perhaps some of these unknowns will work out to be either irrelevant or identical in the long run, at least in the sense that (e.g.) a cliff and a slope both end at rock bottom.

Unconventional oil will make some difference to the final production numbers. By far the largest deposits of usable unconventional oil are the Canadian tar sands. But the popular belief that “there’s enough oil there to last a hundred years” is a good example of a modern half-truth. There are probably about 175 billion barrels of reserves (usable oil after processing), but there are two serious problems. The first is the rate of extraction: by the year 2020 it may be possible to increase production to 1.5 billion barrels a year; at such a slow rate of production, the reserves would indeed last a hundred years, but such figures are dwarfed by those for conventional oil, and by the annual demands for oil. The second problem is that processing the tar sands requires enormous quantities of water and natural gas: the environmental damage is unparalleled, and it might be impossible to supply such quantities anyway (Foucher, 2009, February; Hall, 2008, April 15).

From a broader perspective it can be said that, as oil declines, more energy and money must be devoted to getting the less-accessible and lower-quality oil out of the ground (Gever et al, 1991). In turn, as more energy and money are devoted to oil production, the production of metals and electricity becomes more difficult. One problem feeds on another.

It should also be remembered that the quest for the date of peak oil is in some respects a red herring. In terms of daily life, it is important to consider not only peak oil in the absolute sense, but peak oil per capita. The date of the latter was 1979, when there were 5.5 barrels of oil per person annually, as opposed to 4.3 in 2009 (BP, 2010).

The future of coal will resemble that of oil. The energy content of US coal has been going down since at least 1950, because the hard coal (anthracite and bituminous coal) is becoming depleted and must be replaced by subbituminous coal and lignite. Anthracite production in the US has been in decline since 1990. For those reasons, the actual energy output of all US coal has been flat since that same date. New technologies and mining methods cannot compete against the problems of lower-quality ore and more-difficult seams.

Actual production in the US might reach a plateau of 1400 Mt annually and stay there for the rest of the century. That will happen, however, only if there is massive development of the reserves in Montana, and if serious problems of transportation and the environment can be dealt with. Otherwise, US production will peak around 2030 (Höök & Aleklett, 2009, May 1).

The US has almost 30 percent of the world’s coal reserves, while China has only the third-largest reserves, totaling 14 percent, but China accounts for 43 percent of the world’s production (Höök, Zittel, Schindler, & Aleklett, 2010, June 8). With its enormous growth in consumption, it is unlikely that China’s coal supply will last until 2030 (Heinberg, 2009; 2010, May).

Worldwide, coal production is estimated to peak around 2020, to judge from historical production and proved reserves. Estimations based on a logistic (Hubbert) curve give almost the same result. Even if we assume, with great optimism, that ultimate reserves will be double the present proved reserves, such amounts would only delay the peak by a few years; even then, if extraction rates increase accordingly, the duration of the reserves will remain about the same (Höök, Zittel, Schindler, & Aleklett, 2010, June 8).

The first problem with hydroelectricity is that all the big rivers have been dammed already; also, the dams silt up and become useless after a few years (Youngquist, 2000, October). Decentralization, i.e. putting dams on smaller rivers, would solve nothing; on the contrary, decentralization leads to inefficiency — that is why the small hydro generators were closed down in the first place. The damage that the dams cause to wildlife and farmland is considerable. In addition, the end product is only electricity, which is not a practical substitute for the fossil fuels now used in transportation. The final problem is that as fossil fuels and metals disappear, there will be no means of making the parts to repair old generators or to build new ones.

Nuclear power presents significant environmental dangers, but the biggest constraints involve the addition of new reactor capacity and the supply of uranium. Peak production of uranium ore in the US was in 1980. Mainly because the US was the world’s largest producer, the peak of global production was at approximately the same date (Energy Watch Group, 2006, December; Storm van Leeuwen, 2008, February). Statements that uranium ore is abundant are based on the falsehood that all forms of uranium ore are usable. In reality, only high-quality ore serves any purpose, whereas low-quality ore presents the unsolvable problem of negative net energy: the mining and milling of such ore requires more energy than is derived from the actual use of the ore in a reactor. The world’s usable uranium ore will probably be finished by about 2030, and there is no evidence for the existence of large new deposits of rich ore. Claims of abundant uranium are generally made by industry spokespersons whose positions are far from neutral, who have in fact a vested interest in presenting nuclear energy as a viable option (Storm van Leeuwen, 2008, February). One must also beware, of course, of the myth that “higher prices” will make low-grade resources of any sort feasible: when net energy is negative, even an infinitely higher price will not change the balance. For all practical purposes, the nuclear industry will come to an end in a matter of decades, not centuries.

Global production of energy for the year 2005 was about 500 exajoules (EJ), most of which was supplied by fossil fuels. This annual production of energy can also be expressed in terms of billion barrels of oil equivalent (bboe) (BP, 2010; Duncan, 2000, November 13; 2005-06, Winter; EIA, 2008, December 31). In 1990 this was 59.3 bboe and in 2005 it was 79.3, an increase of 34 percent.

However, the use of electricity worldwide rose from 11,865.4 terawatt-hours in 1990 to 18,301.8 in 2005 (BP, 2010), an increase of 54 percent. Since the use of electricity is rising much more quickly than the production of energy, it is uncertain whether in the future there will be sufficient energy to meet the demand for electricity. If not, there could be widespread brownouts and rolling blackouts (Duncan, 2000, November 13; 2005-06, Winter). When electricity starts to go, so will everything else.

Solutions based on theories of alternative energy ignore, among other things, the infrastructure upon which a theoretical world of “alternative” energy would be based. To understand the problem of infrastructure entirely, we need to look at it as a loop, a matter of bootstrapping — the metaphors are numerous. To what extent, indeed, is it possible to raise oneself off the ground by pulling on one’s own bootlaces? The various answers to such a question can provide support either for or against the use of alternative sources of energy. The question of the “bootstrapping” of alternative energy may be either ontologically profound or utterly naïve, depending on how it is phrased, but actually it is rarely asked. At the risk of playing the devil’s advocate, however, I might point out two cases.

The first is somewhat general: many of the devices using advanced technology for alternative energy (e.g., solar-power devices, wind turbines) operate at their present levels of efficiency only because of the use of alloys that include rare-earth metals. Without fossil fuels, it would therefore be necessary to use (e.g.) solar-powered devices — or devices ultimately powered by other devices similarly powered — to roam the earth in search of these materials. Other solar-powered devices would then do the mining and milling. Further devices of a similar nature would be used to manufacture solar-powered equipment from these metals, and these last devices would then continue that technological cycle. All of this, of course, would have to be in place worldwide in the few years before fossil fuels have largely vanished. Although from what might be called a philosophical perspective there is nothing wrong with such a scenario, it seems obvious that one is leaving reality far behind.

A second, less bizarre example might be one mentioned earlier: Would it not be possible to solve the original problem of the “manufacture, transportation, maintenance, and repair” of equipment by establishing a worldwide grid annually carrying 500 EJ of electricity that could be delivered wherever it was needed? If so, then one might well imagine large trucks rolling along the highways, their wheels powered by large batteries. The answer, unfortunately, is that a battery for any large vehicle would have unsolvable problems of weight, longevity, temperature, and so on. There is also the much bigger question of where the 500 EJ would be coming from in the first place.

Global depletion of minerals other than petroleum and uranium is somewhat difficult to determine, partly because recycling complicates the issues, partly because trade goes on in all directions, and partly because one material can sometimes be replaced by another. All that is fairly certain is that there is not enough usable copper, zinc, and platinum on the planet Earth, even with improved recycling and better technology, for the world’s “developing countries” to use as much per capita as the US (Gordon, Bertram, & Graedel, 2006, January 31).

Figures from the US Geological Survey indicate that within the US most types of minerals are past their peak dates of production. Besides oil, these include bauxite (peaking in 1943), copper (1998), iron ore (1951), magnesium (1966), phosphate rock (1980), potash (1967), rare earth metals (1984), tin (1945), titanium (1964), and zinc (1969) (USGS, 2005). The depletion of all minerals in the US continues swiftly in spite of recycling.

Iron ore may seem infinitely abundant, but it is not. In the past it was ores such as natural hematite (Fe2O3) that were being mined. For thousands of years, also, tools were produced by smelting bog iron, mainly goethite, FeO(OH), in clay cylinders only a meter or so in height. Modern mining must rely more heavily on taconite, a flint-like ore containing less than 30 percent magnetite and hematite (Gever et al, 1991). Iron ore of the sort that can be processed with primitive equipment is becoming scarce, in other words, and only the less-tractable forms such as taconite will be available when the oil-powered machinery has disappeared. With the types of iron ore used in the past, it would have been possible to reproduce at least the medieval level of blacksmithing in future ages. With taconite it will not.

Annual world production of grain per capita peaked in 1984 at 342 kg (Brown, 2006, June 15). For years production has not met demand, so carryover stocks must fill the gap, now leaving less than two months’ supply as a buffer. Rising temperatures and falling water tables are causing havoc in grain harvests everywhere, but the biggest dent is caused by the bio-fuel industry, which is growing at over 20 percent per year. In 2007, 88 million tons of US corn, a quarter of the entire US harvest, were turned into automotive fuel.

The world catch of wild fish per capita peaked in 1988 at 17 kg; by 2005 it was down to 14 kg (Larsen, 2005, June 22). The fishing industry sends out 4 million vessels to catch wild fish, but stocks of the larger species are falling rapidly, so the industry works its way steadily down the food chain. Larsen notes in particular that “over the past 50 years, the number of large predatory fish in the oceans has dropped by a startling 90 percent. Catches of many popular food fish such as cod, tuna, flounder, and hake have been cut in half despite a tripling in fishing effort” (2005, June 22, p. 1).

The losses in the production of wild fish are made up by aquaculture (fish farming), but aquaculture causes its own problems: inshore fish farms entail the destruction of wetlands, spread diseases, and deplete oxygen. Although her study is otherwise excellent, Larsen omits the fact that millions of tonnes of other fish must be turned into food every year for use in aquaculture. The FAO dismisses these as “low-value/trash fish” (2006).

Land may be unsuitable for agriculture for many reasons (Bot et al., 2000). The climate may be too dry, too wet (not well drained), too hot, or too cold. There may be too much rain or too much snow. The terrain may be too mountainous. The soil may be nutrient-poor or polluted.

Soils may be naturally infertile for several reasons. They may have a low organic content; generally these are very sandy soils. There may be toxic levels of naturally occurring aluminum, resulting in acidity. There may be a deficiency in available phosphorus if it is bound to ferric oxides (Fe2O3). Soils may be vertic (consisting of cracking clays), saline, sodic, or just too shallow.

The rest constitutes the world’s “potential arable land.” To judge from the FAO Soil Map of the World, it would appear that the potential arable land is 38,488,090 km2, less than a third of the world’s total land area. This figure refers both to the land now being utilized for agriculture, and to the remaining land (net potential arable) that might be used in the future. The utilized arable land constitutes about 15,000,000 km2. (Bot et al. [2000] estimate 14,633,840 km2. The CIA [2010] estimates 10.57 percent of a total land surface of 149,000,000 km2, therefore presumably about 15,749,300 km2.) It would appear, then, that only about 38 percent of the world’s potential arable land is actually being used, and that there is a “land balance” (the cultivable but non-cultivated land) of 62 percent. (All of this is based on the assumption that any increase in cultivated land will happen without irrigation, since water is already in short supply.)

Bot et al., however, point out that for several reasons the figures from this map may be unrealistic. In the first place, a great deal of the land now being used is degraded, although the extent and degree of degradation of arable land is not entirely certain. The UNEP Global Assessment of Soil Degradation does not distinguish arable from non-arable land, but 41 countries have over 60 percent of their land (both arable and non-arable) severely degraded. Degradation is caused by deforestation, by overgrazing, by over-exploitation of vegetation (e.g., for firewood or timber), and by industrial activities (pollution). Agricultural activities themselves lead to soil degradation. Secondly, the unused arable land in developing countries is more than half forest. Cutting down forest would cause its own problems: the forest is in itself a valuable resource, and cutting it down would lead to wind and water erosion. Thirdly, much arable land is already being used for grazing. A more realistic estimate may be that the “land balance” is only somewhere between 3 and 25 percent.

What, then, constitutes the extent of “potential arable land”? On the positive side, there are parts of the world where the area of cultivated land might be increased. To do so, however, it would be necessary to destroy forests or other wilderness. Also on the negative side is the problem of soil degradation in the land that is now being cultivated. But that is not a straightforward matter: some land is very degraded, some is not so degraded, and the amount of land in each degree of severity varies from one country to another. At what point is land so degraded that it should no longer be labeled “arable land”? And the next question is: What is the net result of the positive and the negative? It would seem that the two roughly balance each other out.

Fresh water is declining in many countries around the world, particularly Mexico, the western US, North Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, India, China, and Australia. If there is no population crash in the next few years, by the year 2025 about 2 billion people will be living with extreme water scarcity, and about two-thirds of the world will be facing water shortages to some extent (UN Environment Program, 2007). In Saudi Arabia and the adjacent countries from Syria to Oman, the annual water supply per capita fell from 1,700 m3 to 907 m3 between 1985 and 2005. In the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, most fresh water is supplied by desalination plants (UN Environment Program, 2007).

The diversion of water for agriculture and municipal use is causing rivers to run dry. The Colorado, the Ganges, the Nile, and the Indus are now all dry for at least part of the year before they reach the sea. In previous years, this was also true of China’s Yellow River; whether better management will prevail remains to be seen. The Amu Darya, once the largest river flowing into the Aral Sea, now runs dry as its water is diverted for the cultivation of cotton (Mygatt, 2006, July 26).

Most countries with water shortages are pumping at rates that cannot be maintained. The shallower aquifers could be replenished if pumping were reduced, but the deeper “fossil” aquifers cannot be rejuvenated when their levels are allowed to fall. Among the latter are the US Ogallala aquifer, the Saudi aquifer, and the deeper aquifer of the North China Plain (Brown, 2008).

Agriculture uses more than 70 percent of the world’s fresh water and is mainly responsible for the depletion of aquifers of both types (UN Environment Program, 2007). World grain harvests tripled between 1950 and 2000, but only with increases in irrigation. The US depends on irrigation for a fifth of its grain production; in parts of the grain-producing states of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas the water table has fallen more than 30 meters, and thousands of wells have gone dry (Brown, 2008). The situation is worse in China, where four-fifths of the grain harvest depends on irrigation. The fossil aquifer of the North China Plain maintains half of China’s wheat production and a third of its corn. As a result of the depletion of water, Chinese annual grain production has been in decline since 1998.

All this excess use of water is leading to political strife. While the seas have long been generally subject to international laws, it is only in recent decades that there have been major international problems with the world’s fresh water. Because of falling water levels, new wells are drilled to greater depths than the old, with the result that the owners of the old wells are left without water. The result is a cycle of competition in which no one wins.

A similar competition exists with the world’s rivers. Sixty percent of the world’s 227 largest rivers have numerous dams and canals, and there are not many other rivers that are entirely free from such obstructions (UN Environment Program, 2007). Most countries sharing a large river with others are in the midst of violent struggle or about to become so. For example, India’s Farakka Barrage, completed in 1975, diverts water from the Ganges into its Indian tributary, thereby depriving Bangladesh of water (Smith & Vivekananda, 2007, November). Egypt and Sudan signed a treaty in 1959 allocating 75 percent of the Nile’s water to the former and the remainder to Sudan, with no provisions for the other countries through which the river flows, and Egypt has threatened military action against any of those countries if their irrigation projects reduce the flow (Elhadj, 2008, September).

It is not only military strength that settles issues of water distribution: countries with more water can produce more grain and thus influence the economies of less fortunate countries. It takes a thousand tonnes of water to produce a tonne of grain. In the short term it may therefore seem more sensible for water-poor countries to stop depleting their water by producing grain, and instead buying it from water-rich countries (Brown, 2008; UN Environment Program, 2007). Between 1984 and 2000, at a cost of about $100 billion, Saudi Arabia foolishly tried to produce its own grain but then gave up and switched to importing it. Buying grain has its own negative side-effects, however, in terms of national security, foreign exchange, and lost local employment (Elhadj, 2008, September). The biggest question of national security, however, may be: What will happen when the grain-exporting countries themselves start running out of both grain and water?

REFERENCES

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Peter Goodchild is the author of Survival Skills of the North American Indians, published by Chicago Review Press. His email address is prjgoodchild[at]gmail.com


 

 



 


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