Today, I witnessed probably the most depressing presentation I have ever seen. It had nothing to do with children starving in Africa, or the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. It was a presentation on the future of the World’s energy. Most people are well aware that the large majority of our energy is derived from non-renewable resources such as oil, natural gas, and coal. But does it ever cross our mind while we are filling up our cars at the pump that the resource is finite? I admit that I rarely think about it and when I do, I usually imagine it well into the future with hovercrafts and floating cities. It’s not going to happen in our lifetime, right? The world’s scientists always seem to find new oil reserves or develop new technology to extract more or produce more to meet our ever expanding appetite for energy.
Climate change has been a main feature in the news as of late, with our non-existent winter during December and January, David Suzuki’s cross-Canada tour talking about Global Warming, and of course the recent Academy Award for Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”. I admit that I haven’t seen “An Inconvenient Truth” yet. For some reason, seeing a movie about Al Gore’s Power Point presentation isn’t high on my list of things to do. And, I think I have a pretty good handle on Global Warming – why it’s happening, Kyoto (why some people like and others don’t), what we can do, and what the best guesses for the future are.
But, I never really had a grasp on the world’s energy resources. I knew that energy supply was going to be a big issue in the coming decades, but I never knew the gravity of the situation until today.
The presentation, titled “Energy Supply/Demand Trends and Forecasts: Implications for a Sustainable Energy Future for Canada and the World” was given by J. David Hughes of the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC). He is a geologist with more than 30 years experience studying the energy resources of Canada for the GSC and the private sector. He has made presentations across Canada and the United States to Federal, Provincial, and municipal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Potential Gas Committee, U.S. National Petroleum Council, Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada and Industry Canada; and a slew of other policy forums, conferences, etc. All this to say - he knows what he’s talking about.
I wish it would be possible for everyone to see the presentation. In fact I wish everyone had to see it. I can’t explain the overall mood of the audience. You had to be there to see the looks on people’s faces. The most depressing part was seeing slide after slide of statistics and charts of our historical and predicted consumption, with forecasts on production limits and overall supply. I won’t be able to do the presentation justice, nor cover all the material here, but I’ll give you some highlights. If you want to take a look at the complete presentation, you can download a similar presentation he made in early February
here. It’s a PDF document around 5MB in size, so be patient and you’ll need Adobe Acrobat to view it.
Here are some of the highlights (or lowlights):
- hydrocarbons (oil, natural gas, coal, etc.) provided 88% of the world’s primary energy in 2005
- forecasts suggest that by 2030, 86% of our greatly expanded energy demand will continue to be provided by hydrocarbons
- 56% of the world’s energy is currently consumed by developed countries, making up approximately 18% of the world’s population
- energy demand in the developing world is projected to more than double by 2030
- as of 2005, China was importing 48% of its oil, and India was importing almost 70%, meaning that with the projected increases in demand and the fact that India and China produce very little of their own oil, there is going to be much more competition for oil on the world market
- 90% of the oil consumed by the human race has been used since 1958, 50% since 1984, 10% since 2002
- production of oil has exceeded discoveries since 1984, and as of 2005, we’re consuming approximately 4 barrels of oil for every 1 barrel we discover
- OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) is made up of 12 countries – (Algeria, Angola, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela), has three quarters of the remaining reserves, and 6 of those countries (Libya, Venezuala, Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, and Indonesia) reached their peak production capacity in the 1970s. Not the friendliest list of countries either, so the geo-political ramifications are quite obvious
- World oil production could peak in the 2008-2012 timeframe
- Even with four- or five-fold expansion of production from the Oil Sands, Canada will only produce about 3% of the world’s forecasted energy supply in 2025.
- 90% of the natural gas consumed by the human race has been used since 1963, 50% since 1988, and 10% since 2002.
- Three-quarters of the remaining natural gas reserves are located in the Former Soviet Union and the Middle East, which is a problem for North America since liquefying natural gas for international transport, is expensive, and entails approximately 15% to 30% energy loss.
- Canada has consumed 63% of our discovered natural gas resources. At current production rates, the remaining reserves will be gone in 15 years. It is HOPED that undiscovered resources will account for another 45 years of natural gas supply at 2005 production rates.
Again, that is just sampling. I didn’t even extract info about coal or electricity.
Another neat little tidbit is, as most of you have likely heard, Canada is one of the largest, if not the largest, per capita consumers of energy in the world. We consume almost twice as much as the average European citizen and 10% more than the U.S. But, why are North Americans such huge consumers? Mainly because the large majority of our infrastructure was built after we started drilling oil (1859), meaning oil was cheap and we built based on that premise, while Europe was built before oil. Hence European cities are much friendlier to bicycle and foot traffic and have much better public transit, while here in North America we continue to build subdivisions without sidewalks because why do we need to accommodate alternative modes of transportation when oil is cheap?
So, what does this all mean? Well, in the next 10-20 years, energy prices are likely going to increase a lot and we’re all going to feel the impact. The impact on my generation and future generations will be profound unless we do something about it. Mother Nature has a way of balancing things out.
So, what do we do? There is no magic solution in the future. Technological developments aren’t going to produce a silver bullet. The fact of the matter is gasoline and diesel fuels have two of the highest energy densities in comparison with other energy carriers. Hydrogen isn’t going to solve anything because it takes energy to create hydrogen. If you’re going to consume hydrocarbons to produce hydrogen, then why not just burn the hydrocarbons directly and avoid the energy loss? Hybrid vehicles aren’t the answer either. They’ll definitely help, but remember it requires energy to build a hybrid vehicle. It’s estimated that a hybrid car has to be driven 65000 miles before it saves more energy than it took to build it.
Again, what do we do? In Mr. Hughes presentation, he gives a lot of different solutions which all should be pursued. However, the main answer is conservation. Consume less. It’s really our only choice. If we don’t consume less then increased efficiencies, technological advancements, and renewable energy use aren’t going to mean anything.
So, the question is – do we want control over the solution or should we let Mother Nature take care of it??
-Steve
