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Lets Start at The Ending

So, if existing reserves of oil are on the wane, which they are, what will take their place?

I’m going to spoil this and tell you how this ends now.

Nuclear Power.

Why? Well, “because we can” rather sums it up.

• No uncertaintity as to whether it works - we know for a fact it works.
• The technology is well understood and infrastructure already in situ.
• Its scaleable to the levels we might require.
• It converts readily to an efficient form of energy for which we also have infrastructure, namely electricity.
• There are no CO2 concerns.
• Its (comparatively) cost effective.

Admittedly it comes with its own set of drawbacks

• Toxic.
• Explosive.
• Hangs around like herpes.
• Terrorist magnet.
• Politically as hot as it is radioactively hot.

Anyone who ever owned a ban-the-bomb sticker absolutely hates it with a visceral passion. The idea that nuclear power might yet avert rather than herald Apocalypse is heresy of the first order. But moving on…

The time will soon be upon us though when not moving wholesale to nuclear will be politically a whole lot worse than pissing off the Green Vote.

Lets pick though the other alternatives…

Problem? What Problem

The first being that old favourite - denial. No problem; no alternatives required.

This cheery approach rests on the belief that existing fossil fuel reserves are not past their peak capacity, and even if they are there is more to found elsewhere (preferably somewhere un-Islamic).

This is wishful thinking. The well established theory of Peak Oil clearly tells us that we have now used about half of all the oil believed to exist on the planet. And because we have been guzzling it at ever increasing rates, what is left is unlikely to last as long as the previous 50% did.

Futhermore, what remains is more difficult and expensive to extract. Try a Google search for EOR (Enhanced Oil Recovery) to get some idea of the technology now in use to squeeze the last drops out. The oil industry puts a positive spin on this - a means to extract more than was previously thought possible.

But think about it boys and girls. Under what circumstances would it become commonplace to deploy costly and complicated “enhanced” recovery techniques?

This is without getting into the issue of OPEC members a) fabricating their estimated reserves (the more oil you claim to have, the more you are allowed to export - a fairly powerful incentive to exaggerate) and b) increasing production to full capacity specifically to keep the price down (for political reasons i.e. keeping the US sweet).

Undeveloped Resources

Then we have the “there are fresh deposits yet to be discovered” line.

No, there aren’t.

There are oil fields that for one reason or another have not yet been developed, but that’s not the same thing.

These fields usually fall into the EOR category - tar sands, shale, “stranded” light oil - which gives a pretty good clue as to why so far no-one has bothered with them.

But what’s actually wrong with EOR, coal-to-gas conversion and so-forth?

First, by even considering this route you are implicitly admitting that “the problem” exists.

Second, they are crappy solutions in terms of cost, product quality, CO2 emissions and other forms of pollution. But crucially, you have to put significant (primary) energy in to get low grade (secondary) energy out.

The same drawback dogs the idea of using Hydrogen fuel. Yes, its clean, but its not convenient to transport or store and it doesn’t actually exist as a “resource”. You need to manufacture Hydrogen, typically from water, which requires a lot of energy.

All you end up doing with these solutions is effectively converting one form of energy into another with significant loss along the way. You might as well just use the original energy source and be done with it.

Renewable Energy

So, how about bio-fuels, solar, water, wind and other renewables?

These on the whole do as they say on the tin. They just don’t scale (yet).

If all the corn grown in the USA were turned into ethanol it would run barely 7% of the country’s vehicles. Still, the accompanying starvation would at least draw the spotlight off the issue of energy.

Wind turbines, hydro-electric dams and solar panels similarly fall short and, being somewhat expensive items, the costs (money and energy expenditure) to scale up swiftly outweigh the gains. Not to mention the environmental cost to the landscape.

There are most certainly good arguments to install renewable energy sources wherever possible, but in the UK for example it costs about £2,500 to install a solar thermal (hot water) system and £12,000 for a photovoltaic system to provide about 40% of the electricity needs for an average house.

To recoup the initial investment would take 15-20 years. Few are going to volunteer for this until both installation costs come down and electricity costs go up. By a lot.

As it happens I currently believe that if governments can be persuaded to encourage/subsidise solar power (as has been happening in Germany and Japan) or at the very least stay out of it and let the free market figure this out, we could quite quickly see significant benefits as a result of widespread adoption of this technology by private individuals.

Energy - Who Needs It?

There is of course the truly alternative alternative. Namely, stop trying to source all this energy to run the world as it now is, just change how the world runs and use a whole lot less. Have you considered commuting by bike just by way of a simple example?

It sounds not altogether unattractive. A lot of energy is indeed wasted on unnecessary and sometimes outright stupid activity (not watching TV Soaps for instance could save 4.36% on the average electricity bill and encourage more people to enjoy their own all-too-brief lives instead of vegetating on the mundane trivia of made-up vacuous non-entities).

But although there are minor developments along these lines, with some small communities seriously trying it out, again we have a scalability problem.

Many so-called “sustainable” methods are only sustainable for very small populations.

If all 60,000,000 inhabitants of the UK installed wood burners, took to self-sufficient food production and crapped in a ditch it would take less than a week to totally deforest the place, and malnutrition and disease would be rife well before the first month was out.

Living In Electric Dreams

As oustandingly bad ideas go, attempting to replace oil with third rate substitutes is fairly pushing the envelope of stupidity.

What most of the other (non-ersatz oil) alternatives have in common is that the energy they directly produce is in the form of electricity.

Which is Good Thing^TM since electricity is a highly efficient energy source, and we already have infrastructure to transport and make use of it. The notable exception at present being automobiles.

However, while mobile phones, laptops and all manner of electrically powered devices have been proclaiming the Electronic Revolution, the unsung hero behind the whole shebang has been battery technology.

And already, vehicle manufacturers are starting to turn out hybrid rechargeable electric cars - and people are buying them. It is not be unreasonable to expect that after a decade of technology-pull and petrol-price-push, most cars on the road will be electrically powered.

So What Is To Be Done?

Logically then, the focus has to be on energy sources that a) produce electricity and b) don’t belch CO2. So… oil, gas, coal, wood, dung, anything else flammable, all off the menu.

This focus does indeed encompass most forms of renewable energy, but for now the only thing that can possibly deliver the goods is nuclear. Clearly, its no long term solution (there’s only so much uranium ore in the ground, so it’s going to hit the buffers in the same way as oil) but it buys time to develop and deploy better answers.

Personally I favour the idea that individuals should become far more responsible for cutting down on waste (simple things like Attic Insulation and energy saving light bulbs for two obvious examples) and for their own energy provision (via solar powered lighting and where possible installing wood burners to utilise existing sustainable and renewable biofuels).

This is largely because it strikes me as the most viable ongoing solution, but mainly because it keeps this absolutely crucial issue out of the hands of those who would presume to govern us.

There’s a reason the collective term for Baboons is a Congress. Coming real soon to a government near you - politicians gibbering “Something must be done. This looks like something, lets do it!”

The “something” they’ll have in mind? That’ll be nuclear power.

End of discussion, I’m afraid.