Pond Scum  

You may be thinking I'm going to start complaining about Bush and his cronies, but you'd be wrong - instead this is another article in the "hydrogen from algae" genre. It's mildly cornucopian but finishes on a realistic note. I think algae derived biofuels are going to be one (of several) replacements for oil over the coming years (with the GreenFuels process for capturing emissions from power plants and using the CO2 to grow algae for conversion to biodiesel remaining a particular favourite).

Presently, we generate nearly ten million tons of hydrogen by other means, through reforming natural gas, says Seibert. But that still leaves us tied to fossil fuels. If we can produce hydrogen by using renewable resources, like algae, it might liberate us. Here's how: Imagine increasing hydrogen production from today's levels to ten times that amount, or 100 million tons. Seibert says we'll have enough hydrogen to power our light vehicle fleet, about 236 million passenger vehicles, assuming we drive fuel cell cars that run on hydrogen — they're already in development. Special bioreactors with rooftops that allow sun to enter would span 10,000 square miles, a space the size of Massachusetts, most likely in the desert southwest where light is plentiful. Pipes would catch the hydrogen and channel it to a pipeline similar to what already exists to transport natural gas, then it's onto your local filling station. Jules Verne would certainly appreciate this kind of imagination.

Back in real time, as storms like Katrina push gas prices up, we're reminded that relying on fossil fuels is to our peril. Says Seibert: "There's not an infinite amount of fossil fuel down there and utilization of fossil fuels produces pollutants, as well as carbon dioxide, which have long-term global change effects. If we were to convert to using hydrogen from a renewable source there would be no pollutants produced. The byproduct of burning hydrogen or using hydrogen in a fuel cell is water."

The U.S. government is inching towards giving more funding to researchers like Seibert. In 2003 the Bush administration earmarked $1.2 billion for hydrogen-fuel research. But for now, the science simply isn't there yet. Seibert admits that in his approach, "we have to improve the efficiencies by at least a factor of ten and perhaps even by a factor of a hundred before a commercially viable system might be considered." That's assuming a few lucky breaks, he says, predicting a different picture in ten to 20 years.

In the meantime, he asks that you consider this plea, "We all have to do our best to conserve what fuels and resources that we have now so that the scientific community has the lead-time to produce these new processes." So until the promise of the green gunk in pond scum is realized, your greenbacks are likely to keep disappearing at the pump.

The Rodent is in New York on a junket (presumably supporting John Bolton's war on the UN) and is resisting calls for a national petrol price gabfest (which is probably fair enough, given that I doubt any of the attendees will be discussing treatment for the disease, rather than the symptoms) - unfortunately his response is basically "What me worry ?". There is a gaping hole waiting to be filled by some ambitious politician who is willing to address peak oil as the underlying problem - and as more and more people out in the burbs and the regions get restive about rising fuel costs they will eventually find a attentive audience.

Prime Minister John Howard dismissed a summit into spiralling petrol prices as little more than a talkfest as motoring groups accused oil companies of profiteering. Mr Howard, in the United States for a summit on global poverty, said it was international events and nothing domestic that was forcing motorists to pay more than $1.30 a litre for petrol.

According to the prime minister, a summit to examine the reasons for the high prices, to be held by NSW-based motoring group the NRMA, was nothing more than a waste of time because it would achieve nothing.

"If there's some outcome, some merit in those sorts of things (I would support the summit), but if it is just a talkfest, and I fear that such a gathering would be precisely that, with no practical outcome, then there's no point in having it," he said. "If there was some magic wand that could've been waved, I'm sure the American and Japanese and European governments would have done so, I would've done so."

"Koppelaar's Oil Peak" model (which is slightly less pessimistic than the ASPO's model) is getting quite a bit of attention around the traps. PeakOil.com and The Oil Drum have some commentary.

Rembrandt Koppelaar at the Netherlands Foundation for Peak Oil has just produced an interesting analysis of future production. It's a bottom up analysis in the style of CERA or Chris Skrebowski's ODAC analysis. But here's his bottom line: about 2% annual growth in total liquids supply to a peak in 2013 at around 95mbpd and moderate depletion afterwards (rising to 6% annually).

Worries are beginning to surface about the poor freezing due to high heating oil prices in the US this winter. The same problem affects Canada as well obviously, though as life is a little less Darwinian north of the border they are discussing how to help the needy.

Accusations of the oil companies intentionally limiting supply (in a repeat of the early 1970's) are now appearing. Obviously if you believe we are near the peak these appear a little unfair (as supply shortages are geological and atmospheric - via carbon dioxide emissions - in nature, and therefore only a fool would be building new refineries), but I guess it means that any peak oil deniers out there are effectively declaring that the massive run up in oil prices over the past 5 years is due to a conspiracy by the oil majors. Admittedly thats exactly what some subsections of the professional conspiracy theory community are saying but I wonder if Daniel Yergin and Michael Lynch would be happy to be described as a member of this camp ?

Amory Lovins has another enthusiastic assessment (pdf) of the possibilities for continued economic growth and eradication of our dependence on oil in Scientific American (via Energy Bulletin).

The benefits of phasing out oil would go far beyond the estimated $70 billion saved every year. The transition would lower U.S. carbon emissions by 26 percent and eliminate all the social and political costs of getting and burning petroleum—military conflict, price volatility, fiscal and diplomatic distortions, pollution and so on. If the country becomes oil-free, then petroleum will no longer be worth fighting over. The Pentagon would also reap immediate rewards from raising energy efficiency because it badly needs to reduce the costs and risks of supplying fuel to its troops.

Just as the U.S. Departmentof Defense’s research efforts transformed civilian industry by creating the Internet and the Global Positioning System, it should now spearhead the development of advanced ultralight materials.The switch to an oil-free economy would happen even faster than RMI projected if policymakers stopped encouraging the perverse development patterns that make people drive so much. If federal, state and local governments did not mandate and subsidize suburban sprawl, more of us could live in neighborhoods where almost everything we want is within a five-minute walk. Besides saving fuel, this New Urbanist design builds stronger communities, earns more money for developers and is much less disruptive than other methods of limiting vehicle traffic (such as the draconian fuel and car taxes that Singapore uses to avoid Bangkok-like traffic jams).

Jeff Vail has yet another interesting post up, this one dissing the glassy eyed economists at Freakonomics then moving on to consider the impact of Katrina.

On another note, what will the long-term impact of Hurricane Katrina be on oil demand? Traditional "wisdom" tells us that it will cause a decrease in GDP growth--perhaps even a full-blown global recession--and therefore a decrease in global oil demand. Let's look at this another way: IF you accept the government provided inflation numbers, we produce about twice as much GDP per barrel of oil consumed today than we did in the '70s. That's largely because we now have a much more service and information orriented economy than we did 30 years ago. Here's the catch: in the aftermath of Katrina, there will be 100's of billions of dollars from government and private sources (largely credit-based) spent on manufacturing and construction--new homes, infrastrcuture, durable goods, etc. I contend that the aftermath of Katrina will result in an increase in economic spending, and that this spending will be on a 1970's level of GDP/barrel of oil. Katrina will increase short and mid-term oil demand just at the time that global supplies may begin to decrease... this really may be THE trigger event.

There are reports that the militants who battled Saudi security forces for 3 days last week were trying to damage oil facilities (more echoes of Oil Storm / Oil Shockwave).

The SF Chronicle has a more detailed look at the friction between China and Japan over hydrocarbons in the east china sea than the links I posted yesterday (via Energy Bulletin).

For those keeping an eye on the theory that we're steadily slipping into totalitarian states as governments position themselves for turbulent times post-peak, the proposed introduction of what I'd characterise as "Patriot Act Lite", which includes such unAustralian things as detaining people without charges, here isn't encouraging. Neither is the arrest of an American peace activist for what seems to be politically motivated reasons at the behest of Dick Cheney. On the positive side, at least our streets aren't being patrolled by mercenaries (yet).