Hooked on Cheap Energy

In medieval times, King Henry VIII (1491–1547) was already concerned about an energy shortage. He worried that England could not produce enough wood for heating, cooking and building houses and urged citizens to conserve. Coal mining in the 1700s lifted this concern, as an abundant new energy source was made available. Coal soon became the nucleus of the Industrial Revolution. It powered the steam engine and provided heat for homes. Soon, burning large amounts of coal began to darken the skies over cities and cause health problems.

In 1859, explorers discovered oil, first in Pennsylvania and then in Texas. In 1900, the Middle East became a key supplier of oil. By World War I, Mexico, Venezuela and Iran began pumping the liquid energy as well. Oil was cheap, plentiful, easy to transport, safe to use and relatively clean to burn. It soon became the preferred energy resource. Figure 1 illustrates the first US oil well in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Figure 1: First US oil well Searching for an alternative to scarce whale oil, Edwin L. Drake erected a derrick and started drilling for oil using an old steam engine. To prevent the shaft from collapsing, he lowered the drill inside an iron pipe. In 1859, Drake found oil but his fortune was short-lived; he did not patent the drilling invention. Within months, oil fields sprung up across northwestern Pennsylvania, the oil price dropped, and Drake lost his family savings on speculative oil stock investments. Drake Well, Titusville, Pennsylvania, August 27, 1859

Although seemingly endless in supply, oil is non-renewable and will eventually run out. Having had liberal consumption for over 100 years, no one wants to be reminded that we might have to do with less, or even go without it. We are in denial and cannot fathom life without this cheap energy source. Cars run on an oil product, roads connecting cities are paved with tar made from oil, and plastics for our everyday products are made from oil derivatives. Oil-based fertilizers enrich food yields, and oil-fed farm machinery harvests produce cheaply and transports it to our dinner tables. As of 2002, each calorie eaten in the USA required roughly 10 calories of fossil fuels to produce — we practically eat oil!

Heating our homes is a matter of setting the thermostat. Gathering wood for the stove is a thing of the past. Oil has elevated us to live like kings. We eat rich food and wear fine clothes. Motorized wheels have replaced the need to walk — we could not have it better.

But what will we do when the oil gets too expensive or runs out? Go back to the olden days? Many would rather die than think about it. As slave labor elevated the standard of living in the 1700s and 1800s, so too has oil boosted our prosperity today. We got accustomed to our comfortable existence and claim it as our heritage, not realizing that this lifestyle is not sustainable, nor can it be adopted for the global population. Even a 30 percent reduction in our oil supply could cause an economic collapse. We are hooked on oil and everyone knows this.

As wood led to coal and coal to oil, scientists count on hydrogen as the next energy miracle. It’s unlimited in supply and clean to burn. Cars powered by the hydrogen fuel cell run so clean that the hot water from the tailpipe could be used to serve tea. But hydrogen is expensive to produce and it takes as much energy to create as it delivers. In addition, an affordable fuel cell for cars might still be 20 years away. Not to worry… we’ll still have enough oil until then, so let our grandchildren fret.

We remember the biblical story of multiplying bread and fish to feed the hungry, a miracle that reproduced food without labor. What strikes me is the crafty mind of a few clever businessmen at that time who wanted to harness this free bonanza for the good of the land and their own pocketbook. Their plan backfired; Jesus knew about their craftiness and withdrew.

As multiplying bread and fish fed the multitude for only one day and the crowd soon got hungry again, so also will the bounty of oil be consumed one day. An endless supply of this precious natural gift would corrupt mankind and bring eventual disintegration. Wars over oil, past and present, are a clear sign of our vulnerability and of the growing greed over a resource that took Nature millions of years to create. Mankind survived before oil and will continue to do so after.

Table A2 shows how our forefathers used energy sources before oil. It compares the kinetic power of an ox in prehistoric times with newer energy sources of the Industrial Revolution and today’s super engines, with seemingly unlimited power.
 

Since	Type of power source	Generated power
3000 BC	Ox pulling a load	0.5hp	370W
350 BC	Vertical waterwheel	3hp	2,230W
1800	Watt's steam engine	40hp	30kW
1837	Marine steam engine	750hp	560kW
1900	Rail steam engine	12,000hp	8,950kW
1936	Queen Mary ocean liner	160,000hp	120,000kW
1949	Cadillac car	160hp	120kW
1969	Boeing 747 jet airplane	100,000hp*	74,600kW
1974	Nuclear power plant	1,520,000hp	1,133,000kW

Table A2: Ancient and modern power sources
The energy of our forefathers was sufficient and sustainable.

*   The power of an engine is measured in (hp or kW) and a jet in thrust (lbs, kN). A cruising Boeing 747 requires 55,145 lb (245 295 N) of thrust. This relates to 87,325hp or 65,000kW. At takeoff, the plane produces full thrust at 219,000 lb (973kN) with a power requirement of 105 000hp or 78,300kW.

Energy Units: 1 J (joule) = 1 watt/seconds = 0.238 calories/second; 1,000J = 0.277Wh

                   1 kWh (kilowatt hour) = 3,600,000 Joule

                   1 toe (ton oil equivalent)

                   = 7.4 barrels of crude oil in primary energy

                   = 7.8 barrels in total final consumption

                   = 1270m³ of natural gas

                   = 2.3 metric tons of coal

Power Units:    1 kW = 1.359hp

Peaking of Oil

Oil is cheap. When considering that one barrel of oil has the same amount of energy as up to 25,000 hours of hard human labor, we begin to understand the term “virtually free.” At a moderate $10 per hour, a barrel of oil would amount to $250,000 of labor. John Meyers, author of The Crude Awakening,warns us of the eventual end of oil. Meyers reminds us that oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s and that global oil reserves have not increased since 1990. Meyers further explains that oil exploration is producing fewer high-yield oil fields.

According to Chevron Oil, the world consumes two barrels of oil for every barrel discovered. As this cheap resource is becoming more difficult to find, oil companies are reverting to more complex extraction methods that raise environmental concerns. Removing a barrel of oil from tar sands and oil shale devours about one-third of the energy it yields and consumes 10 times the amount of water it produces in oil, writes Andrew Nikiforuk in Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent (Greystone Books, 2008).

Figure A3 shows the oil consumption from 1900 to 2000 and estimates the decline towards the year 2100. The graph also reminds us of the growing debt that governments and citizens have accrued during the time of plenty. This debt will be difficult to pay back once the oil runs out. Rather than perceiving oil as a permanent commodity, we must look at this resource as a momentary blip lasting for a mere 200 years in the history of mankind. 

Figure A3: Oil consumption from 1900 to 2000 and the predicted decline to year 2100
While drawing from this valuable resource, governments and citizens amassed record debt.

Courtesy of Hubbert's Peak. Shell geologist Marion King. Hubbert predicted that global production would peak at around 2016 with a 2 percent net annual decline thereafter.