Energy Constrained Learning: Part 2

Note: This post is part 2 of 6 in a serialization of Energy Constrained Learning.
Part 1: Introduction
 

 

Peak Oil and Climate Change

Peak oil is intuitively simple even if the details can be fractious.[1] Oil is a non-renewable resource subject to depletion. Peak production occurs when roughly one-half the recoverable total has been extracted.[2] This concept can be applied at various levels of aggregation including the individual well, oil field, nation, or globally. The world is now perched at or near the peak for crude oil.

This last statement requires some background explanation. We’ll start with the International Energy Agency (IEA), which is an autonomous body within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). IEA includes 28 participating member nations, most of them European but also including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States, Turkey, Korea and Japan.

The IEA produces an annual report called the World Energy Outlook (WEO), published most recently in November 2010. This volume is a 736-page compendium of trends, market outlooks, projections, and discussion of special issues, all expressed in figures, tables and associated text. A single PDF copy costs €120. The WEO publication has its own web site. There is an 80 minute video of the 2010 publication launch in London. Executive summaries of WEO2010 exist in 12 languages. Also available on the web site are a press presentation, a factsheet, and key graphics. All emblematic of a moneyed, complex endeavor.

In WEO210, the IEA considered three future energy scenarios. The scenarios differ in their assumptions about the degree of national commitment to the non-binding accord reached by countries participating in the UN conference on climate change in Copenhagen during December 2009. This Accord would limit the rise in average global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times.[3]

IEA’s central scenario, called the New Policies Scenario, assumes “cautious implementation of the policy commitments and plans announced by countries around the world, including the national pledges to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and plans to phase out fossil-fuel subsidies.”[4] A comparison Current Policies Scenario assumes no commitments beyond those policies already adopted. A second comparison, the 450 Scenario, assumes “vigorous implementation of current commitments in the period to 2020 and much stronger action thereafter.”[5] This scenario would provide a “reasonable chance” of reaching the 2°C goal by limiting the concentration of greenhouse gas emissions to 450 parts per million (ppm) CO2-equivalents.

The figure belows shows peak oil under the New Policies Scenario.[6] Crude oil from fields currently producing oil has already peaked. Including crude oil from known fields not yet developed moves the peak to approximately 2015. Including assumed growth in crude oil from fields not yet discovered would, some say suspiciously,[7] plateau oil production at about current levels until the end of the projection period in 2035. Oil from other sources such as natural gas liquids, tar sands, and heavy oil is expected to increase throughout the projection period.
 

 
The consequences from the New Policies scenario are unsettling. According to the authors of the WEO2010, this scenario would make “it all but impossible to achieve the 2°C goal” in climate change:[8]

These trends are in line with stabilising the concentration of greenhouse gases (GHG) at over 650 parts per million (ppm) of CO2-equivalent, resulting in a likely temperature rise of more than 3.5°C in the long term.
…
Cutting emissions sufficiently to meet the 2°C goal would require a far-reaching transformation of the global energy system.
…
The timidity of current commitments has undoubtedly made it less likely that the 2°C goal will be achieved. Reaching that goal would require a phenomenal policy push by governments worldwide … The technology exists today to enable such a change, but such a rate of technological transformation would be unprecedented.

 

 

Notes

  1. ^ Fractious doesn’t begin to describe the garrulous viewpoints about peak oil, which range from the apocalyptic to a minor speed bump. The noise level is oppressive. I listened intently to identify trustworthy voices, but even the trustworthy do not speak with a single voice.
  2. ^ This is an easily digestible definition. The more precise definition uses extraction rates. See the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (APSO) or the asymmetrical production curve in the peak oil entry at Wikipedia.
  3. ^ The Accord recognizes “the scientific view that the increase in global temperature should be below 2 degrees Celsius”, in a context of sustainable development, to combat climate change. See the Wikipedia entry on the Copenhagen Accord.
  4. ^ International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2010 Factsheet (PDF), p2.
  5. ^ Ibid. p6.
  6. ^ International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2010 Key Graphs (PDF), p7.
  7. ^ Delores Garcia, An alternative version for three of the “key graphs” in IEA’s 2010 World Energy Outlook, 07-July-2011.
  8. ^ International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2010 Factsheet (PDF), p6.

 

categories Context of Education Change | Gary Lewis, September 28, 2011 6:00 am