Sustainable Civilization: The Energy Picture

Consider the U.S. 2006 energy picture:

2006 Data BBL/Equal 10 5.75 5.75 1.5 2 Oil Natural Gas Coal Renewables Nuclear 25 BBL Total 40.00% 23.00% 23.00% 6.00% 8.00% 100.00% Residential Commercial 11.00% 4.400% 2.530% 2.530% 0.660% 0.880% 11.00% Electric Power 39.00% 15.600% 8.970% 8.970% 2.340% 3.120% 39.00%

Overall

Transportation 28.00% 11.200% 6.440% 6.440% 1.680% 2.240% 28.00%

Industrial 22.00% 8.800% 5.060% 5.060% 1.320% 1.760% 22.00%

What if we had to generate all of our power from solar photovoltaics? To put it in electrical terms 1 Barrel = 42 gallons. 1 gallon (roughly) = 144,000 BTU or 36,700 watthour. 25 billion barrels is roughly the electrical equivalent of 38,535,000,000,000,000 watthour. Readily available (limited quantity) photovoltaic panels are 10% efficient in converting sunlight to electricity, such that for every hour that a square yard of such panels are in direct sunlight, 100 watthour of electricity is generated. We can guess its going to take a large array. Lets say the average daily solar exposure of our array is six hours of sun, with a further adjustment of 50% of the array being in shade, dirty, undergoing work, etc. Also assume an optimistic total loss of only 5 days of sun per year. (Thinking of the authors residence state of Arizona) How large does such an array need to be to generate 38,535,000,000,000,000 watthour? 38,535,000,000,000,000 Divided by six (hours per day) 6,422,500,000,000,000.00 Divided by 360 (days operation per year) 17,840,277,777,777.80

Divided by 50% (adjust for various blockages and partial downtime) 35,680,555,555,555.60 Divided by 100 (watts generated per square yard) 356,805,555,555.56 number of square yards of collector Divided by 3,097,600 (square yards in a square mile) 115,187.74 square miles of photovoltaic panels, or an area say 340 miles on a side Then the hydrogen economy arguments want to use the electrical power to electrolyze water to replace 10 billion barrels of portable fuel. If we really want to do so, what is the efficiency LOSS in splitting water? In labs it is 50%. In the 2005 Department of Energy "Solar Decathlon" competition the New York Institute of Technology found their hydrogen fuel cell power storage approach didn't reach the 25% efficiency they hoped, vs 80% for lead-acid batteries. If you really wanted to use the array to split hydrogen from water, 40% of the array would need to be at least four times the size. An obvious point must be the engineering challenge of constructing over 100,000 square miles of photovoltaic material, and the applicable mounting frames. If such is to be a stand-alone array, envision the response from environmentalists regardless of where you wanted to place it. At the moment, the bulk of the energy being used in the United States is being purchased and used by the private sector. The cumulative cost of the array, if say each 100 watt unit costs only $500, is

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$178,402,777,777,778.00. (With a T).

That is $178 TRILLION

Putting photovoltaic panels where the demand is does not necessarily work. In higher latitudes, in overcast climates, etc., the power generated would not be worth the effort or cost. There may not be a lot of time left to implement some functional alternative.

DOE indicates the U.S. only pumps 8% of our own use. Emergency measures might increase the pumping rate significantly, but it is doubtful it could even reach 50% of present use. U.S. TIMELINE - WORST CASE Posit that there is a 10 day supply of oil and fuels "in the pipeline" at any given time. Oil production (pumping rate) in the U.S. passed peak production in the early 1970s, and has been in decline since then. If the U.S. gets cut off from foreign fuel supplies, in 10 days the commercial supply drops to about 8% of expected demand. With a slow decline we might have something like that for perhaps 20 years final exhaustion. Food alone may represent 20%+ of the U.S. annual use. In a United States cut off from foreign oil, using present industrial farming, we might be able to feed 40% of the current population, which would preclude any internal use of oil to expand domestic production, or rework infrastructure for a solar economy. The U.S. is reported to have 4% of the remaining global supply. This number would put the global supply at around 800 BBL. (Its probably as good an estimate as any, the data from most oil nations is seen as highly suspect.) We need to act to eliminate this dependency before an emergency is upon us. GLOBAL DEPLETION Recent (2004) global oil use approached 30 billion barrels (BBL) per year. 800/30 = 26 years (2030). Using more optimistic estimates of remaining useable supply, at recent consumption rates global oil supplies still may be exhausted before 2040. Even if you completely eliminated the U.S., the time for global depletion is only delayed by around 30%. But of course, demand is not stable. In fact it rises every year. Perhaps the most significant factor is the expanding use in China. In 2004 China burned around 2.4 BBL, or about 8% of the annual global use. This was a 14% increase from 2003. If every other nation on the Earth held their use to 2004 levels, and China increased yearly at their recent rates, depletion would occur around 2024. But long before depletion, we encounter the challenge of Peak Oil (demand exceeding pumping rate). PEAK OIL

SCOPE OF THE OIL SITUATION UNITED STATES EXAMPLED For the moment the U.S. is the largest single nation oil consumer (China is rapidly catching up), with the highest average per person oil use. Let's look at the basic oil facts for the United States to try and start to put the situation in perspective. The United States Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that in 2004 the continental U.S. remaining traditional oil supply was somewhat less than 22 billion barrels (BBL). The widely debated (whether to drill or not) Alaskan wilderness fields represent probably another 10 BBL. DOE also estimates that U.S. 2004 use was 7.5 BBL more recently estimated at 10 BBL/Year. Where do you imagine1 we could possibly get annual energy income from renewable resources equal to the fuel equivalent of 10 billion barrels of oil? The remaining domestic fossil fuel bank account represents less than 3 years of present demand, but of course the remaining wells CANNOT be pumped fast enough to meet that demand. U.S. defense use is (2005) was estimated at around 123 million barrels per year (1% to 2% of total U.S. use), with 72% of such being in the form of jet fuel. The 2006 Annual Energy Management Report indicated the Pentagon used 116,800,000 barrels of petroleum, which is 1.1% of U.S. annual use. If we just had to keep our military machines in operation, our (2006) remaining internal supplies could meet current military fuel needs for well over 100 years, but the supplies CANNOT operate any significant portion of the economy, including weapons construction, or even current food.

To example, an estimate of the best wood yield is 2 cord per acre per year, or 40,960,000 BTU per acre per year. 10 billion barrels of oil is 60,480 trillion BTU, essentially equal to the annual firewood growth of 2.3 million square miles, or an area just over 1,500 miles on a side.
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"Peak Oil", which is the point where the wells simply cannot be pumped as fast as demand, may soon be reached. Some say it already has. Sometime before exhaustion, as wells dry up, oil will no longer be cheap, or abundant, and the present infrastructure will have to be progressively shut down. And the information on remaining supplies is not necessarily reliable. In early 2006, Kuwait announced it had mis-represented its remaining supply of oil to be twice the true amount. In late 2006 Mexico announced that its giant Cantrell oil field which at its peak produced around 730 million barrels per year has fallen to 650 million with progressive decline expected. This one field represents 2% of the world capacity. BIG PICTURE BEST CASE TIMELINE The known available & remaining "fossil" alternatives, if energy is not used at any rate greater than 2005, put humanity in a timeframe that is essentially: 2030 - Pick you own year for effective depletion of traditional oil. +5 - Time gained from tar sands +22 - Time gained from shale oil +20 - Time gained from coal to oil +30 - Time gained from easy uranium 2107 - Most optimistic fossil options end The author believes the above timeline is far too optimistic, but it can at least be argued using known data, and assuming no increase in demand, no increase in population, and global peace is enforced. At the end of course, the population must somehow plummet. THE ROOT PROBLEM 2006 - Global population around 6.6 Billion. It can be argued that a sustainable global population can not exceed 1.2 billion, essentially what it was before the oil party started. Population demographics1 are such that if a one child per couple guideline was rigorously followed, we might expect natural attrition to lower the population to 1.2 billion by 2087. The real-world situation of course is that overall the population continues to grow. Despite the "bad press" absent immigration and pro-population growth government programs, the population in the United States would be stable or maybe in a slow decline, EXACTLY WHAT IS REQUIRED.

In contract China requires a new city the size of Philadelphia EVERY 30 DAYS. HIDDEN RESOURCE DEPENDENCE FOSSIL ENERGY EMBEDDED IN FOOD In peak oil discussions it is frequently presented that food production using hybrid / green revolution crops requires 10 calories2 of input (in the form of pesticides and fertilizers) for every calorie of food produced. The Columbia University "Vertical Farm" project raises this estimate to 20:1. (Transportation or cooking of the food NOT included in this estimate.) What does this translate to in real world terms? In general, a human needs 2000 calories of energy per day. Although they are normally spelled the same, a food calorie is in fact 1,000 "heat" calories. Posit therefore that a gallon of gasoline contains 144,000 BTU, which equals around 36,000 food calories. If the peak oil commentators are right then to produce 2,000 calories of food requires2 the use of 20,000 calories of oil. (55% of a gallon) For a projected U.S. population of 300 million, annually it is around 60 BILLION gallons, or between 15% and 20% of U.S. annual fossil fuel use as oil. As an example, if you eat commercially produced food, you daily meals represent a dependency3 on oil equal to a 30 mpg vehicle driving 16 miles. Absent this un-sustainable input, the food production miracle of the green revolution crops, in use worldwide, and upon which the majority of the 6+ billion population depends, ends. WAKE UP CALL The flow of stored energy needed to operate our infrastructure is ending. Belief in or dedication to a particular ideology may alter individual perceptions, but not physical facts. We need to re-think our civilization from the grass roots up, not bumble blindly on. We need to set aside the rigid mindset that separates and sees our infrastructure as distinct aspects of biological, structures and other engineering, and information and intellect. It all needs to work together with minimal loss of energy in such transformations as are necessary.
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Please note, all energy transformation calculations presented in this treatise are rough, and do not take into account energy loss in the transformations. Your real world mileage may vary.
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SUSTAINABLE CIVILIZATION: The Energy Picture

LIMITS As we enter a new millennium, human civilization faces numerous challenges. Much of our present infrastructure and processes are not sustainable. Close your eyes for a moment, and imagine you are traveling on a multi-generation spacecraft, powered by energy radiated from a fusion reactor. You have only the biological diversity and resources put on board by the builders. Awhile back people found accumulations of long-stored complex molecular feedstock that work as convenient fuel, and can help certain crops grow more abundant. The burning strains the air recycling system, but people love the extra food, products and services it allows. The dramatic but obviously temporarily increase in the growth of food is met by expanded numbers until even these sources are strained, and continue to increase the population even in the face of facts that the food surplus cannot last the natural lifespan of the present population. It's where we are today. For the moment, our farms still grow sufficient food to feed everyone. But each new belly to fill, and each gallon of fertilizer and pesticide used, moves us closer to peak food. From that point on, the food infrastructure becomes less and less productive. Without reliable food, such veneer of civilization as holds back the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" could easily crumble. The world may appear large, but it is finite. We can calculate the available land, water, and other resources, and even our day to day allowance of incoming solar energy. We know the minimum calorie energy and nutrition required per person, and can calculate the area to grow food based on plant selection and growing conditions. We are facing not any government created arbitrary currency or policy limit to human achievement, but the factors of physical resources, and centrally available energy. With enough energy, resources can be reworked. Without it we may leave much of the Earth a high-tech desert.

We can calculate the area required for solar energy to grow industrial materials and fuel, and the tradeoff in food area. We have calculated that we are already diverting to human use one-half of the productive life of the Earth. When you have estimated some basic footprint area per person, multiplying by 6 billion provides a sobering comparison to the available renewable resources of the Earth. The concept of determining the "footprint", or area of naturally recycled resources required to provide for the uses of a person, city, nation, or the global population shows that in almost every defined area whether political or physical, we are beyond a sustainable population3. Eliminate all human resource use that is not "life-support" for a fixed population, and you still find sustainability is at best questionable. The present infrastructure is producing food beyond that which is calculable for the sustainable input. In general, it would take several additional planets to provide for humanities present resource use rate. How is this possible? How are we providing for 6+ billion people? Our infrastructure is dependent on the non-renewable withdrawal of the energy valued stored in fossil fuels. The timeframe when the first nonrenewable yet essential input fails to meet demand is the lifespan of our present civilized infrastructure. Since the fossil fuel era really began, the global human population has increased six fold, now standing at more than six billion. We have a deadline and the clock is ticking. Business as usual is suicide. But those who see the problem and speak of it are maligned. Nevertheless those who can be awoken must be. To make the best decisions and implement the best courses of action we need the best minds at work. It will take time and significant effort to implement change. Regarding the "peak oil" situation, those who run government and businesses appear determined to run full speed for as long as possible. They have been advised repeatedly of the problems we face. The rational conclusion is they do not see any solution from the top down. (Would you really want such anyway?) FRAMING THE PICTURE

This energy excerpt is from a larger treatise on Sustainable Civilization. Everything remains a "work in progress", and if anyone has an interest in this "Sustainable Civilization" or any of the appendices, just send an email request to: unno_2002@yahoo.com

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When humanity started its 100+ year oil party most of the 1 billion or so individuals lived primarily in small, essentially self-sufficient communities. Like spendthrift heirs, we have squandered most of the incredible resource oil represented not in long term improvements, but on devices, uses, and life support for an expanding population, which demands ever-faster destruction of the remaining stored energy. Nations such as the United States, with a per person energy and resource use that is probably greater than that of any other definable group on the planet, rightfully deserve the "blame" of their increased throughput. But there is more to the story. To those who consider the concept of long term sustainability, the challenges of the coming "peak oil", and the realization of how dependent we are on the destruction of non-renewable resources You have the choice offered by Morpheus, in "The Matrix": Take the blue pill, wake up and believe whatever you like, or: Take the red pill, but " you may not like how deep the rabbit hole goes" To achieve sustainability is going to present large challenges, and you may not like what is necessary. But first and foremost, think. "Sustainability" must become part of every decision. It's not that driving a gas-guzzling vehicle is "wrong". It's a waste of a finite resource, yes, but it's the personal decision of the driver. The "problem" comes when the same destruction of a finite resource is the sole means to provide an essential aspect of life, society, or civilization, where the need is known to be long-term and far outlasting the finite resource. The fossil energy embedded in food shows that the peak in oil availability is a concern not only for those who drive a huge SUV, but everyone dependent on green-revolution crops. This scientific miracle, feeding an expanding population, has been a spiraling shortsighted mistake. We do not need to reach the point where we are out of oil, for significant problems to arise. Whether you are picking garden plants, planning for your healthcare, deciding on your vote for Propositions or politicians, LOOK TO THE LONG TERM, or if not

acknowledge you don't care about your children's future. Essentially the entire global socio-economic-industrial system, all of the jobs, and the government tax revenue dependent on such, evolved and developed under a paradigm of continued growth in population, expanding food supply, and in particular expanding energy supplies. As fossil fuels are depleted, this all stops. All of the fossil fuel powered machines, stop. All of the crops dependent on fossil fuel derived pesticides and fertilizers, stop. The businesses, and tax revenues, stop. The government programs, stop. The federal government will have difficulty keeping national defense in operation, let alone having any useful funding for anything else. Yes, the federal government can pay out any amount it likes: It can print money. It can go into debt: For money that it eventually, somehow, repays (not likely), or; It can go into debt for money it never intends to repay. Expanding "money" in these manners4 is a source of inflation. Expanding demand though, whether per person, or in the number of people, is a source of "actual" price increases. Do NOT believe that any federally funded program is "sustainable". The situation with the government of a state is further limited. The state cannot print money, it can only hold a gun to the head of the state residents and demand a percentage of the value the residents have produced. It is the same the rest of the way down the government chain.

In what has become traditional inflation, the supply and demand for goods and services remains fairly stable, while the money supply is increased. This leads to overall price and wage increases, but little to no net change in spending decisions.
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SUSTAINABLE CIVILIZATION: The Energy Picture

We are entering a new paradigm, which requires essentially a steady-state population. Life support, clean air, safe water, and nutritious food, must again be local. Resources and energy must be accumulated, and used and invested wisely. The economy, at least whatever aspects you rely on, must be local. If the excesses in production end, so do the excessive tax revenue that funds growing programs. Are we going to have a society of free individuals working together voluntarily, or a complete take over by governments controlling every aspect of life? Virtually anything inbetween is an inherent conflict. If you believe that business as usual can continue, whether for individuals, private sector businesses, or the government, ask yourself, how? CO2 & GLOBAL WARMING

absent a scientific miracle, prompt a return to "King Coal" and the associated greater pollution, and the short term benefit (long term danger) of fission reactors. This allows a short-term continuation of the status quo, followed by collapse if we've not used the time and resources to shift to a sustainable infrastructure and balanced population. If the global warming sentinels such as Vice President Gore are correct4, if we continue fossil fuel use, our "best case" scenario could be the global warming presented in his book and movie "An Inconvenient Truth", with the same need for a sustainable infrastructure and balanced population, but with an ecosphere more polluted and with lessened life-support capability. Whether voluntarily now, or from exhaustion a few more polluted decades from now, the central theme is the end of the fossil fuel era, and all of infrastructure and aspects of civilization that are dependent on such. ARE YOU PREPARED? CONSERVATION

Whether you believe the global temperature is rising, or that human activity is a cause, the CO2 level in the atmosphere is increasing. Glaciers and the polar ice caps are melting. For relevant background, one gallon of gasoline weighs about 6.25 pounds. When burned the hydrocarbons combine with oxygen from the air. The result per gallon is exhaust with a CO2 aspect of 19.3 pounds and around 8 pounds (1 gallon in liquid form) of water vapor, both greenhouse gases which would not naturally have been in the atmosphere. You also get carbon monoxide and other nasty stuff. Every gallon of gasoline burned releases CO2 equal to nine people breathing a full day. (Est. at 2.2 pounds of CO2 per person per day.) To use plants to remove the CO2, for each gallon of gasoline burned you would need to use organic methods to grow around 1/2 acre of lush vegetation, gather it all, and seal it away "forever" such that it is never eaten or rotted5. If the peak oil and fossil fuel depletion folks are anywhere near right, within a decade rising demand (i.e. China at around 14% per year) and falling supply (i.e. the losses in the Cantrell field in Mexico) WILL,
5

Minor conservation efforts such as driving a hybrid (I drive a Prius) may reduce your personal costs and allow you to divert the savings for greater personal changes, but they have virtually NO significance in the overall picture. The oil I don't burn is bought and used by someone else, perhaps as farm chemicals. Virtually nothing we do today has any meaning if your goal is our children living as adults in a world still powered by oil. In a manner of speaking, we are living in a theme park, what we experience as our life support infrastructure is no more real for the long-term than the experiences of an amusement park visit. No fossil fuel use is sustainable. No function based on such is sustainable. No economy based on fossil fuels is sustainable. No government program based on the economy of a fossil fueled society is sustainable. Conservation does not remove the conundrum of embedded fossil fuels in our food, without which the industrial food infrastructure that feeds the present population fails. In the big picture, we need to end all dependence on non-sustainable factors, STARTING with fossil fuels. As an example, if this country gets cut-off from foreign oil, in a matter of weeks virtually everything we see and experience as modern society will shut down. Is your

The author heard a presentation by a lawn-care firm that growing a lush lawn was good for the environment removing CO2 that was then good for creating compost. The presenter did not get, or refused to admit, that as the grass composted, the CO2 was re-released to the atmosphere.
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personal "life support" and "security" arrangements ready for this? No conservation measure for oil is going to make anything "better" unless it is linked to a program to end our addiction in the time the conservation programs allows. Absent such a link, conservation that merely provides "more of the same" prompts a larger and more dependent population, and portends a greater "hangover" to our oil party. Unless you are, as Heinberg comments, "Waiting for the magic elixir", your children need to understand the scope of the situation and know how to obtain the essentials of life in a sustainable manner, and how to avoid the worst of the collapse that he and other peak oil advocates present. Even if global population was in decline, draconian conservation methods may not allow for remaining fossil fuel use to continue long enough for global population to lower to sustainable levels. The transition period to a post-oil paradigm promises to be an unpleasant, dangerous time, during which individual survival may be difficult, and with a significant risk that civilization itself may be lost. Fossil fuels represent an essentially nonrenewable resource of untold millions of years accumulation of energy, which our use destroys in a comparative blink of the eye.. In the manner we use much of it, we destroy other aspects of the environment. Burning it for energy is silly, but at least when we are forced to stop, the impact is not directly life threatening. Perhaps our greatest insanity is our use of fossil fuels as fertilizer, pesticides, and powering machines to greatly expand food production, and the population that has grown far beyond levels that can be sustained in an environmentally favorable manner on renewable resources. In the big picture, the world is NOT going to sustain 6+ billion people absent the green revolution crops (dependent on fossil fuel derived fertilizers and pesticides), the engines and machines that pump the groundwater (beyond renewal rate), plow the fields, process the food, etc. No matter how bad we may think things could become, we must keep our heads, and teach our children to do the same. Hopefully, we will not reach a point where our government intrudes on family decisions. But short of affirmative limits being imposed, we can at least "lobby" for elimination of misguided incentive to expansion.

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United Nations 2005 demographic data used Oil / food - 10:1 is by David Pimentel, Cornell University ecologist.

At $2.92 per gallon, your food represents $1.61 of gasoline. Use the formula Food Item Calories times ten, divided by 36,000, times price per gallon equals estimate of cost of embedded fuel used to grow the food item (Processing, shipping, sales costs not included) 4 A SELF-EVIDENT TRUTH - If any fraction of the observed global warming can be attributed to the activities of humans, then this constitutes positive proof that the human population, living as we do, has exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth.
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THIS SITUATION IS NOT SUSTAINABLE! As a consequence, it is AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH that all proposals or efforts to slow global warming or to move toward sustainability are serious intellectual frauds if they do not advocate reducing population to a sustainable level at the local, national and global scales. OBSERVATIONS by Professor ALBERT A. BARTLETT