OIL & GAS:RETURN TO THE DARK AGES ?

[Anonymous]

Energy Consumption: Return of the Dark Ages?
The future of Oil Production
The presentation, by
Martin Sereno, of the UCSD Cognitive Science Department, is a series of
charts and analysis that clearly point out future declining oil
production – and its consequences.

Obviously, the accelerating pace of fossil fuel use by an expanding and
increasingly industrialized global population is a disturbing factor.
Professor Sereno, and science in general, see fossil fuels as a finite
resource. One day we will run short, then, perhaps, run out.
Environmental concerns aside, the economic impact has the potential to
be devastating to energy-dependent nations like the U.S. Sereno’s
presentation details the supplies available, a likely time frame for
their exhaustion, and possible courses of action to mitigate the
consequenses.

Basic Energy Facts Everybody Should Know
• oil and gasoline are extremely energy-dense & convenient
• a car is a 100,000 watt device (accelerating a 100 hp car
is like turning on 1,000 one hundred watt light bulbs)
• manufacturing a car uses almost as much oil as the car
uses in its entire lifetime (also: 100,000 gallons of water)
• one gallon of gas (2.84 kg) contains 36 kW-hours of energy
(before losses), enough to power a small house for a week
• batteries have low energy-density (Prius NiMH battery is
! 0.07 kW-hours/kg – 1/45 that of 25%-efficiency-gasoline)
• solar radiation is ubiquitous but has very low energy density
• a “one kilowatt” photocell covers 100 sq feet and generates
3-4 kW-hours of usable power per day (=about 1/10 gal.
gasoline); must be used as generated or stored with loss
• the deployed military is 70% fossil fuel by weight
• current per capita US energy use: 250 kWh/day

Summary of the Main Difficulties
• total oil used since 1850 – about 1000 billion barrels (Gb)
• total world reserves remaining – about 1000 billion barrels
• percent oil currently in use discovered before 1973 – 70%
• time left, current world usage (29 billion/year) – 33 years
• time left, US uses only oil still left in US fields – 3 years
• time left, US grabs/uses all of Iraq’s oil for itself – 15 years
• time left, whole world uses oil at US’s current rate – 6 years
• percent US oil used in food production (not including
packaging, refrigeration, trucking, cooking) – 25%
• physical human work equivalent of energy used to generate
US diet for 1 person, 1 day – 3 weeks
• oil in US strategic reserves (0.66 billion) – 1 month US use
• percent world oil used by non-US-ians – 75% and growing

[Author]

August 31, 2005 at 10:14 AM