The Climate-Energy Problem : A Response

Engineers Ireland yesterday published a fairly in-depth article that caught my attention. There are some points I do agree with, for example, on the conservation of oil and the contribution of fossil fuels and Industrial Revolution to people's lives. I have done a short rebuttal of some of the other points made --

It goes without saying that the second stage of the Industrial Revolution is irreversible and must be sustained by new energy sources because the vast majority of people now reside in cities and earn their living in economic sectors which did not exist before 1900. These people cannot now return to their great grandparents’ employment in agriculture which has been mechanised.

1) Developed world people are not reproducing at rates like before when  huge families were the norm. Only poorer regions like Bangladesh and India have sustainable birth rates (higher than average IQ populations tend to have lower birth rates - see Japan and Hong Kong for example). If people in these poorer regions are using 35 times less oil per person than in the developed world (as stated later in article), then they can return much easier to an agricultural society as before. The Industrial Revolution in the developed world is therefore sustainable if there were low levels of immigration.

The problem is that this transition is unsustainable without the enormous mechanical energy output of more than a billion newly-invented oil, coal and gas-fuelled machines which have caused atmospheric carbon dioxide to reach 400 parts per million.

2) Co2 levels of 400 parts per million are low historically speaking and has helped greening of the planet.

An oil-burning heater does not increase anybody’s productivity. It has an HPM of zero hence heating oil is wasted oil, yet over 30% of global oil production is used for heating. Moreover the 700 litres of diesel emits almost 2 tonnes of carbon dioxide, yet biomass is an alternative which is both carbon-neutral and cheaper than oil.

3) For biomass to be sustainable you would have to cut down trees with a handsaw and transport it with a horse or wheelbarrow so you're back to pre-Industrial Revolution times.

It could and should initiate reforestation, dedesertification and carbon capture.

4) Renewables are often built on forested land displacing green spaces which should be left as forest areas (see Coillte) . Extra CO2 in atmosphere is leading to de-desertification in regions like the Sahara.

During the recent financial crisis in the US, the pragmatic Ben Bernanke pronounced, “Quantitive Easing is wrong in theory but it works in practise, and the Fed will drop money from helicopters if required.”

If something is wrong in theory but works in practise then query the theory. In the situation Bernanke found himself conventional economic theory had become obsolete and by dropping money from helicopters he averted an unnecessary decline in demand in the US economy which is now consumer-driven since the cost of production is so low.

Today an increase in the money in circulation causes an increase in demand which causes an increase in the quantity of products coming down existing, paid-for, automated mass-production lines (and from China, Korea etc.) This benefits manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and consumers.

In fact the exact opposite is true and the following chapter makes the irrefutable case that the free-market has within itself the seeds of its own destruction. 

5) Printing of the money supply, welfare state, government debt, mass immigration are all unsustainable.  Want to reduce CO2 ? Then you need to tackle all of these. These factors are not the fault of the free market - they are the caused by Government policy.

Why should any highly profitable oil company be serious about developing an alternative-to-oil which is less profitable than oil?

6) Oil has a high Energy Return on Investment (EROI). That is, the energy emitted through consumption is many times that of energy required to extract it. The same is not true for alternatives at the moment. It is interesting that as wind energy has increased in Ireland, offsite diesel generation has also done so. There are now nearly 400MW of demand side units.

It is interesting that all talk of Peak Oil has stopped or is not taken seriously anymore.

At any rate, why should it be up to Oil companies to develop a serious alternative ? Were motor cars developed by the horse industry ?

By Owen Martin