The Coming Energy Crisis
(Originally Published November-December,
2000 In Infinite Energy Magazine Issue #34)
by Dohn Riley
Two hundred years ago, the world experienced
an energy revolution that launched the Industrial Age. The catalyst
to this epochal shift was ordinary black coal, an energy-rich hydrocarbon
that supplanted wood as the primary fuel. The energy stored in coal
gave inventors and industrialists the power they needed to process
steel, propel steamships, and energize machines. A century later,
the industrialized world's thirst for energy had increased tremendously.
Petroleum and natural gas were exploited as versatile and high quality
energy products, and soon joined coal as principal fuels. Fifty
years later, scientists tapped uranium to fuel nuclear reactors
and provide atomic energy.
Today, cheap energy is the lifeblood of American society.
But there is a dangerous dark side to relying on non-renewable resources
like coal, oil, natural gas, or uranium to supply our growing energy
demands. The supply of these fuels is physically limited, and their
use threatens our health and environment. Fears of global warming
aside, burning fossil fuel releases chemicals and particulates that
can cause cancer, brain and nerve damage, birth defects, lung injury,
and breathing problems. The toxic stew released by combusting hydrocarbons
pollutes the air and water, and causes acid rain and smog. Nuclear
energy, once touted as "too cheap to meter," has never been economically
successful when all costs are factored in, and fear of disasters
like the Chernobyl reactor melt-down have virtually shut the industry
down in the U.S. and Europe. Inexpensive and seemingly abundant
nonrenewable energy fueled the twentieth century economy, but geologists,
climatologists, environmentalists, and many others are warning that
the honeymoon may soon be over.
Coal is the most abundant of the carbon-based fossil
fuels, but it is also a leading threat to human health and the environment.
Coal currently provides 24% of the world's primary energy requirements
and, in 1999, generated 57% of all the electricity used in the U.S.
Existing coal reserves may be large, but they won't last forever,
and health and environmental costs limit its potential as an acceptable
fuel in the future. Burning coal currently accounts for 43% of all
annual global carbon emissions, about 2.7 billion tons.
The top ten most air-polluted cities in the world-nine
in China, one in India-all use coal as a primary energy source.
Atmospheric scientists have tracked large dust clouds of particulates
and sulfur from Asia to the United States' west coast. In the U.S.,
coal reserves surpass those of oil and natural gas by about two
hundred years and can be mined domestically, but using coal simply
because there is plenty of it would be a serious mistake. Air pollution,
acid rain, greenhouse gas emissions, and other health dangers associated
with processing coal into electricity take their toll on countless
people around the world. Western governments rarely discuss "coal"
and the "future" in the same sentence anymore, but burning coal
has become a global problem that respects no international boundaries.
Cheap and abundant oil is an intoxicating elixir that
the world's industrial nations have guzzled down as if there is
no tomorrow. Petroleum currently accounts for 40% of the world's
energy, but many geologists anticipate an oil supply crisis sometime
within the next two decades when global demand will exceed supply.
While some argue that huge deposits of oil may lie undetected in
far-off locations of the globe, experts point out that there is
only so much crude in the world, and industry has found about 90%
of it. The world's burgeoning population is dependent on food grown
with petroleum-based fertilizers, cultivated by machines running
on cheap fuel.
In 1950, the U.S. was producing half the world's oil.
Fifty years later, we don't produce half our own oil. Domestic production
peaked in 1970. Originally, America was blessed with about 260 billion
barrels; only one country, Saudi Arabia, had more. Although the
U.S. is now the world's third largest producer, about 65% of our
known oil has been burned. It's downhill from here. The U.S. has
4% of the world's people but slurps down 25% of the world's oil.
If the Chinese annually consumed oil at the same per capita rate
as Americans, there would be none available for anyone else.
Natural gas (methane) is being touted by energy providers
as an abundant clean fuel for the twenty-first century. It is forecast
to be the fastest growing primary energy source, because it burns
cleaner than coal or oil. But this resource is also nonrenewable,
and the Department of Energy states that the U.S. has only 3.5%
of the world's total natural gas reserves-enough to last about sixty-five
years. More than 70% of the world's proven natural gas reserves
are located in the politically risky Persian Gulf and former Soviet
Union. After 2020, the bulk of the world's remaining supplies of
both oil and natural gas will be centered there.
According to the Energy Information Administration,
natural gas provides 27% of the energy used today. Similar to their
consumption of oil, Americans consume more than their share of natural
gas; in 1997, the U.S. used 28% of the world's total production.
Consumption in the U.S. and Canada is expected to grow 50% by 2020,
enforced in part by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which
are designed to curb acid rain, toxic emissions, and urban air pollution.
Compared to the combustion of oil and coal, natural gas combustion
is relatively benign as a contributor to air pollution. American
troops have already shed blood in the Middle East protecting our
oil interests; relying on natural gas for a primary energy source
has similar costs and risks.
Nuclear energy presents similar problems to those
associated with non-renewable fossil fuels. The planet's supply
of uranium is limited, and mining the ore is hazardous to human
health. Worse, the radioactive waste byproducts are a lethal long-term
danger to the environment. In 1999, nuclear energy provided about
17% of the world's electricity, but splitting the atom to boil water
is like using a chainsaw to cut butter. The health and environmental
costs of using atomic energy have become serious obstacles to the
industry. Disposal of radioactive waste has proven to be a much
greater problem than originally estimated. Nuclear power does not
contribute to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, but a
good solution to safely storing tons and tons of radioactive waste,
a nuclear byproduct that remains dangerous to all life-forms for
thousands of years, remains elusive.
In the 1950s and 1960s, atomic energy was hailed as
an unlimited panacea to the pollution problems generated by fossil
fuels, and destined to be so cheap that electric companies wouldn't
even put meters on houses. Today, there is little support among
Americans and Europeans for fission nuclear energy. Nobody wants
a nuclear reactor in their backyard, and frightening publicity regarding
reactor meltdowns at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island has only reinforced
these fears. Health officials estimate that at least 4,365 people
who took part in the Chernobyl cleanup have died in the Ukraine.
[Editor's note: These high figures are disputed by some experts.-EFM]
The risk from nuclear power plants and nuclear-waste disposal sites
demands a vigilance and longevity of our social institutions that
Coal, natural gas, and uranium are alternative non-renewable
energy resources to cheap oil, but each has advantages and limitations,
and none is as versatile as petroleum. The replacement of oil will
require a mix of energy sources, including clean renewable energy
such as solar and wind power. This adjustment will involve substantial
reorganization of the world's economic structure and significant
lifestyle changes in the industrialized countries.
Economists like to point out that the world contains
enormous caches of unconventional oil that can substitute for crude
oil as soon as the price becomes competitive. It is true that resources
of heavy oil, tar sands, and shale deposits exist in large quantities.
But the industry will be hard-pressed for the time and money needed
to ramp up production of unconventional oil quickly enough to forestall
an economic crisis. Experts who point out the approaching end of
Hydrocarbon Man are not pessimists or alarmists; they are simply
saying now is the time to plan, lest the end of cheap fossil fuels
be an unprecedented disaster in human history.
Renewable energy will play a major role in the energy
industry of the twenty-first century and beyond. British Petroleum,
Royal Dutch/Shell, and other companies are investing heavily in
renewable sources of energy. Industry experts realize that these
alternative energy systems not only help reduce greenhouse gas emissions,
but they predict that over the next half century, renewables may
grow to supply half the world's energy. Successfully generating
electricity by harnessing the perpetual power of the Sun and wind
is not only technologically feasible, it is already a reality. Solar
power relies on the energy produced by nuclear fusion in the Sun.
This energy can be collected and converted in different ways, such
as simple water heating for domestic use or by the direct conversion
of sunlight to electrical energy using mirrors, boilers, or photovoltaic
cells. The technology is improving and the economics are getting
more competitive. Photovoltaic panels don't generate electricity
at night, but they can be used to produce hydrogen in the daytime,
which can then be stored.
Scientists and engineers are continually improving
the efficiency of renewable energy systems. Humans have been harnessing
the wind for thousands of years, and are now cleanly producing electricity
with it. Air flowing through turbines or spinning blades generates
power that can be used to pump water or generate electricity. Wind
energy is now the world's fastest growing energy source and has
become one of the most rapidly expanding industries.
Wind power has some drawbacks; a "wind farm" requires
extensive areal coverage to produce significant amounts of energy,
and bird fatalities have been a concern. The wind industry is modifying
equipment to address this issue but also points out that countless
wild creatures are killed every year as part of the acquisition
and distribution of conventional energy sources.
Hydroelectric power is another source of renewable
energy. Hydroelectric dams, however, are no longer considered environmentally
benign sources of power. Fisheries and other wildlife habitat have
been severely impacted on many dammed rivers. Most of the world's
hydroelectric dams are historically recent, but all reservoirs eventually
fill up and require very expensive excavation to become useful again.
At this time, most of the available locations for hydroelectric
dams in the U.S. are already developed.
Humans have been burning biomass materials since the
dawn of time, and it is still the principal fuel used in many parts
of the world. Incredibly, just 120 years ago, wood was the chief
energy source in the U.S. But today's economy runs on oil, and despite
significant government support, converting wood to alcohol, or corn
to ethanol has proven neither economical nor energy efficient. Researchers
have recently discovered how to produce clean combustible gas from
waste products such as sewage and crop residue, but biomass gas
will not soon replace petroleum as the fuel of choice.
Hydrogen has been touted as the fuel of the future.
It is the most abundant element known in the universe and can be
burned cleanly as a fuel for vehicles with water as the main combustion
byproduct. Hydrogen can also be fed into a fuel cell, a battery-like
device that generates heat and electricity. Using hydrogen instead
of gasoline or diesel will significantly reduce the health hazards
and medical costs associated with the exhaust from conventional
internal combustion engines. But the large-scale extraction of hydrogen
from terrestrial resources such as water, coal, or natural gas requires
a lot of energy, which is currently produced by burning fossil fuels.
Commercial hydrogen production is expensive and only shifts the
pollution from vehicles back to the power plants. Producing hydrogen
with solar power is the dream of environmentalists and renewable
energy proponents. If done successfully, hydrogen and electricity
will eventually become society's primary energy carriers in the
Geothermal energy left over from the original accretion
radioactive decay seeps out slowly everywhere, everyday. In certain
areas, the geothermal gradient (increase in temperature with depth)
is high enough to exploit for the generation of electricity. Another
form of geothermal energy can be tapped from the planet's surface.
Soil maintains a relatively constant temperature throughout the
year and can be used with heat pumps to warm a building in winter
or cool a dwelling in summer. This form of energy can lessen
the need for other power to maintain comfortable temperatures in
buildings, but it cannot be used to produce electricity.
Tides, waves, and the heat differential within the
world's tropical oceans are potent sources of clean energy. Various
countries around the world are investing time and money into the
technologies that may tap these renewable power producers, but overcoming
the obstacles inherent in these systems will be difficult. The media
and industry claim that renewable energies are not yet economically
competitive with fossil fuels. Perhaps not, but when one considers
the health and environmental costs associated with burning coal
and oil, the price of renewable energy becomes more attractive.
No renewable energy system will single-handedly replace oil, but
together they will become a very important part of the energy mix
of the future. Traditional renewable systems are a logical step
in the transition to advanced alternative energy sources such as
cold fusion. Although scientists and engineers are working feverishly
to overcome the various obstacles associated with "new energy" technologies,
society should not stand by quietly while researchers wait for a
breakthrough. Burning petroleum is polluting our air and water,
and the bulk of the world's reserves of cheap oil are concentrated
in the politically volatile Persian Gulf. Getting that oil will
likely cost billions of dollars and possibly the lives of American
Every year American's consume 25% of all the energy
produced in the world, but that conspicuous consumption can't last
forever. To that end, the U.S. Department of Energy established
the Renewable Energy Production Incentive (REPI) as part of an integrated
strategy in the Energy Policy Act of 1992. This act promotes increases
in the generation and utilization of electricity from renewable
energy sources and furthers the advances of renewable energy technologies.
In 1996, the Renewable Energy Policy Project released "The Environmental
Imperative," a plan for the energy market to draw on renewable energy
to avoid the severe environmental impacts of the fossil fuel cycle.
This plan outlines the environmental imperative for accelerating
the use of renewable resources. It is important to realize that
it usually takes thirty to forty years to significantly shift fuel
patterns and that using electricity as an alternative to oil will
require a major adjustment by the American public. The window of
opportunity to make this energy transition without a major economic
disruption will not be open for long.