No, it’s not the title of a new and cheesy monster movie epoch, though these twin new horses of the Apocalypse are apt to bring in a new epoch or two, and there will be little that is not affected in this country by these events. Like a slow motion avalanche, it’s best to step out of the path where possible, and definitely “go with the flow” if avoidance is not possible. No time to be obstinate and dissipate appalling displays of (lack of) intelligence into local and national media markets; after all, those approaches have been tried for decades, and there is only so much “dumping on” or “robbing from” the future to pay for the present good times for some before the tab has to be paid.

Global Warming Meets Peak Oil

Summary
In this paper, a 50 x 50 approach is described that will significantly cut foreign imports of crude oil/transportation fuels while still allowing some degree of automobile usage and truck transportation. The 50 x 50 plan envisions a doubling of fuel efficiency in cars (to the present European levels), which will allow a 50% reduction in gasoline usage. Next, another 50% reduction in gasoline usage is achieved by cutting the car miles traveled per year in half through a variety of methods – more mass transit, closer proximity of residences and workplaces, more telecommunication, technology improvements such as more electric cars, plug-in hybrid vehicles and especially more electrically powered mass transit for urban and inner ring suburban populations. The combination of 50% reduction of a 50% reduction would lower U.S. automobile fuel consumption by 75%. In conjunction with a doubling of current biofuels production, the 50 x 50 approach would drop crude oil derived auto fuel by almost 84%. While such an approach will still not result in cheap auto fuels, it will result in the ability to use SOME fuels, with essentially no need to import hydrocarbons for auto fuels. After all, having some is better than having none, at least from a transportation fuel perspective.

Introduction
First, a couple of definitions are in order. Global warming (GW) is caused when the amount of energy coming from the sun onto the earth for a year is greater than the longer wave radiation that gets radiated out into space from the earth. It’s a simple energy balance; accumulation is equal to the difference between incoming and outgoing energy. Peak Oil (PO) can be defined many ways, but the simplest is when the demand exceeds the available supply for an extended period, and it tends to happen when about half of the readily recoverable oil has been removed from the world’s oil fields. Once demand exceeds the supply, the price rises until some part of that demand is “extinguished”. This process is known as demand destruction and the result is that supply and demand are brought into balance. This balancing does not have to be fair or equitable, since this is a macro economic process, but it does appear to be how scarce resources are rationed by our society, at least in the energy field. Fairness and equitability in this process can be arranged, but that must be done by political means – otherwise, the default is a ruthless economic outcome, where those least able to deal with the consequences of the GW + PO combination will be most severely impacted.

In general, GW results when the composition of certain components in our atmosphere change; most notably carbon dioxide and to a generally lesser extent, methane concentrations are the main variables in this balance. In some instances, ash and other compounds can block solar radiation from reaching the earth’s surface (this happened when the Krakatoa volcano exploded in the late 19th century). Humans have been causing this GW at a detectable level since the invention of the steam engines and widespread coal usage occurred in the late 18th century, but the pace has accelerated drastically in the latter part of the 20th century. As of the beginnings of the 21st century, it’s a runaway train. Partly this is a result of more people on earth, and more importantly more people consuming greater per capita quantities of fossil fuel energy, and dumping the by-product CO2 into the air at a rate faster than the oceans can absorb it. A significant amount of the GW effect has arisen by the combustion of those ultra-convenient fossil fuels – oil, diesel, fuel oils and natural gas. But, those “good times” are about to become very expensive really fast. As for the substitution of coal derived fuels for oil and natural gas – that will just make a bad situation worse, and faster, too.

PO and the related Peak Natural Gas (PNG) can be described from the mathematics of exponential growth in the consumption of finite resources. A modification of the “growth equation” (exponential growth – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_growth) is called the Logistic equation (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logistic_function), and this has been verified as valid in a number of fields, and most oil fields, for some time. In summary, when the amount of oil initially consumed is a very small faction of the available resource, things behave like the growth equation. However, as larger amounts are cumulatively consumed, the rate of production eventually begins to decline; the maximum rate of consumption/production tends to occur when about half of the resource has been consumed, and then the rate of production of this resource begins to decline. Before this peak era, the price for this depleting finite resource (such as oil) is somewhat a function of the costs of production, purification and distribution. Near and/or after this peak, the economics of scarce resources become dominant, since greater rates of production become increasingly difficult and then impossible to maintain. Prices tend to be no longer a function of the cost of production, purification and distribution, but more a function of what customers either can and/or are willing to pay for this valuable product. And at this point, customers tend to assume the characteristics of desperate gambling addicts. Their only recourse is to either go without or to find alternatives, or else cease to either consume as much and eventually, any. After all, the down side of addiction does not have to be attractive; in theory, the pain of this downside is supposed to discourage the addiction in the first place. In theory……

Some Solutions
The solution to the global warming problem is quite simple. This mostly involves lowering rate of CO2 pollution (combustion of fossil fuels and dumping the CO2 into the atmosphere) to the point where the oceans can absorb more of this than is dumped into the air by human activities. Odds are, we will actually need to reduce the CO2 concentration from 385 ppm to near 350 ppm, which requires a sustained period when CO2 consumption by the ocean is greater than the amount emanated into the air (see http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080526/mckibben). Of course, stating the solution and actually doing the solution are two different things…

The solution to PO and PNG is also quite simple….consume less of them, and do this at an increasing pace to at least match the decline of oil and natural gas production. While some of this lower oil and gas consumption can occur via substitution of renewable fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol, most of the substitution will involve greater efficiency and the replacement of the need to consume liquid and gaseous fuels. It turns out that the direct substitution of biofuels for our current rate of gasoline and diesel fuels consumption would be highly improbable – we just don’t have enough arable land. And some of this can be accomplished by the replacement of liquid fuel usage in transportation with electricity made via non-polluting techniques, such as wind turbines, tidal and run-of-river systems. Again, such solutions are easier said than done.

Furthermore, much of the GW and PO problem is not necessarily of a technological nature so much as it is a behavior problem. And the U.S. is the poster child of bad energy behavior, since we use about 25% of the world’s energy consumption with only 4% of the world’s population. One of the by-products of the export of the U.S. way of life is greater imitation of the American lifestyle (suburbs, cars, high energy consumption, high food/meat consumption) by countries such as India and China, which have over 8 times the population of this country. Thus, the current situation cannot continue with respect to oil and natural gas, and also for the climate control system of the world.

The replacement of electricity made via polluting approaches seems to be fairly straightforward, and somewhat particular to a given locality. In the U.S., the combination of a larger and more integrated electricity grid, widely distributed wind turbines and storage approaches such as pumped hydro has several times the capacity of the current U.S. consumption (potential of over 3000 GW supply, current demand/consumpton of about 450 GW), and all at prices similar to what are now being paid for electricity. However, the transportation energy issue probably will be an order of magnitude more difficult than the electricity production, and again, technical issues are not the major constraint – it is largely a behavior based problem.

One way to envision a solution to the current transportation involves what can be called the 50% times 50% approach. That is, a 50% reduction in gasoline consumption due to a doubling of the mileage of our automobiles, and a 50% reduction in the number of miles traveled in a given year. This will reduce our gasoline consumption to 25% of current levels. For the diesel situation (mostly associated with trucks, trains and airplanes), the basic solution will be increasing use of trains, and the concurrent electrification of train lines. For example, trains can haul about nine times the mass of trucks for the same quantity of diesel fuel. Freight trains were once often electrified in NY State, and that could also happen again. Passenger rail is significantly more fuel efficient than are airplanes, and such systems are widely used in advanced countries such as the European Union and Japan.

The current U.S. gasoline consumption is about 9.6 million barrels/day (mbd), of which about 0.5 mbpd is ethanol (EtOH), or about 5.2% of current gasoline usage. Most of the hydrocarbons are imported, and significant amounts of monies are now being exported to pay for this consumption of imported goods. U.S. average car mileage is nothing short of pathetic, and about 50% of Western Europe’s. And due to the recent devaluation of the dollar, Western Europe now has a higher standard of living than does the U.S. The efficient transportation is undoubtedly an important part of that equation. Thus, the first item of business should to replicate the car fuel efficiency of the European Union. Further improvements, such as the use of plug-in hybrids and electric cars, would obviously help this process along, but currently employed technology can achieve a doubling of average car mileage. Lowering of speed limits on interstates to 55 mph will also help with fuel efficiency (exclusively a behavior problem). Lowering consumption of gasoline to 4.8 mbd would raise the EtOH percentage to over 10.4% (for 0.5 mbd production), and lower gasoline imports (either as gasoline or as crude converted to gasoline) by 4.8 mpbd. That has a value of $655 million PER DAY, or almost $239 Billion/year, and that is just at current prices. If prices double by next year from today’s values (crude oil doubled from May of 2007 to May of 2008), that money export will be about $480 billion/year, all for something consumed with nothing left to show for it. Obviously, the impact of home grown fuels rises as the fuel efficiency rises. Even if 1 mpd of EtOH is produced, it has a negligible effect at an overall consumption of 9.6 mppd, and much more effect at reducing imported requirements at 4.8 mpd overall auto fuel usage rates.

The next 50% reduction would lower the U.S. net auto fuel consumption to 2.4 mppd. At this level, the combination of renewable fuels and domestically produced (or U.S./Canadian produced) hydrocarbons could eliminate almost all gasoline imports. As EtOH production rises to nearly 1 mbd, the net need obtain hydrocarbons for automotive use would be about 1.5 mpbd, a significant drop from the current value of 9.1 mbd, or a net (hydrocarbon) gasoline reduction of 7.6 mbd. Thus, a combination of some biofuels production and significant efficiency improvements can result in ending the dependence upon most foreign fuel imports. This will also be an enormous economic blessing with respect to the balance of payments issue, even if domestic fuel prices are higher than current levels. Much of the monies spent on domestically manufactured biofuels will translate into new job creation, also a desirable outcome. After all, jobs are good things to have.

This second 50% incremental reduction would come from a combination of efforts. A primary one would be mass transit, and especially rapid rail/light rail, which could be electrically powered. Another would be the net abandonment of “distant burbs”, such as outer ring suburbs and “ex-urbs”, in favor of higher density living which makes rapid rail/mass transit more economical and logical. Another would be to encourage people to live near where they work, and to discourage distantly located low density developments. Still another approach would be to encourage telecommuting, and video conferencing. Properly costing sprawl, and ceasing to invest in sprawl, as well as taxing it to discourage more sprawl from ruining our country further also would be important, and probably a very convenient way to finance some of the required mass transit infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt or built up. Finally, a huge investment in electrically powered mass transit and “short haul” rail (for example, Buffalo to Albany, with stops at Rochester, Syracuse and Utica, running down the I-90 tollway) would be needed, as well as decisions to not build any more roads in any significant manner. The previously mentioned electric cars (and examples such as electrical U.S. Postal vehicles)/plug in hybrids will also help achieve the second 50% reduction. Higher density living also will allow more use of walking and biking to replace what was formerly accomplished by cars in the ‘burbs.

On the supply side, increasing the amounts of biofuels used will have consequences – but these would certainly be significantly less dreadful than the alternative of continuing importation of crude oil and refined oil materials. The biofules and related agricultural/rural developments would also be a source of significant regional economic and employment growth. The increasing coupling of food and energy prices will need to be broken via the use of higher sales taxes on fossil fuels. This not only raises revenues for governments but it denies revenues to oil companies and especially oil countries (often both). However, this will require “profiles in courage” for politicians, and few of them seem to be prepared to be honest with their constituents, who probably don’t want to hear honesty or truth with respect to oil supplies, and oil prices from their political leaders, anyway. The other effect would be to stimulate the rural economy, since farmers could now sell their crops for both food AND energy (generally both, and only energy in certain circumstances) and do so profitably. Two common examples of this are when corn is converted into equal amounts of EtOH and DDGS, or soybeans are converted into soybean oil and soybean meal. This food and fuel option will result in somewhat higher bulk raw food prices, which tend to be a very small fraction of purchased food prices. This will also result in a transfer of money from urban to rural America, which would probably be a good thing, on balance. As a result, there will actually be a market for more crop outputs, and more farms can be profitably operated. For example, Erie County has seen a significant degradation of its farm economy, so this biofuels route offers the route to revive the farm economy. However, if crop prices are kept as low as possible, farming communities in the county will continue to dwindle, even if these crops are used exclusively for food. Thus, expansion of rural economic prospects seems predicated on raising prices for these products, and the energy or food plus energy options seems to be the only way that this can occur.

Another sort of crop – energy only crops – such as wood or shrubs/fiber crops could be grown, either as a solid boiler fuel (wood chips, for example) or as a feed for pyrolysis/Syn-gas facilities. Cellulose crops can be readily converted into synthesis gas (a mix of carbon oxides, hydrogen and water), which can be converted into methanol, EtOH, butanols, or hydrocarbon fuels. Finally, any carbon dioxide made from biofuels production, especially ethanol fermentations, can be reduced with hydrogen into fuels such as methanol, EtOH or hydrocarbons, such as gasoline or diesel components. The hydrogen could be derived from renewable electricity (especially wind turbines) and water, and this would increase the yield of fuels from crop fermentations by 50%, with no net CO2 pollution. There has also been the possibility of cellulose derived EtOH (or butanols), but this requires EtOH prices that are well in excess of $6/gallon (or $ 7.50/gal hydrocarbon gasoline) before such operations are economically feasible. That break-even point appears to be coming soon.

Additional biofuel production from locally grown sources will require more crop feedstocks, which will require greater crop production. Inevitably, this will require greater usage of ammonia derived fertilizers, whether for energy only, food only or food-energy crops. Synthetic ammonia production involves the reaction of hydrogen with nitrogen, while “natural ammonia is made by a symbiotic arrangement of bacteria with certain plant roots, and where the plants exchange energy (as sugars) in return for ammonia (from the bacteria). For the local perspective, currently about 2 tons/hr of H2 is used as boiler fuel in Niagara Falls (a by-product of chloralkali production). This is a dreadful waste of a valuable local resource, one which could be used to magnify local economic activity by significant amounts – this quantity of H2 could be used to produce 1 million acres of corn, or 156 million bushels, or 408 million gallons of EtOH/year (or 26,600 barrels/day). This ammonia could also be produced in a “no CO2 pollution mode”, presently very unique in the world – most ammonia fertilizer is made with H2 made from fossil fuels, with by-product CO2 pollution. However, both Olin and Oxychem, the current producers of the electrolytic H2 in Niagara Falls, would undoubtedly want some kind of energy trade to make up for the H2 that would not get burned if it were made into ammonia instead. At present, ammonia prices are somewhat coupled to natural gas prices (actually, higher priced than a direct ammonia-natural gas relationship would predict), and ammonia prices are also rising, while world wide capacity seems to be stagnant. Ammonia represents a potential growth industry for those regions with abundant electricity and large demand for fertilizer, and if we are to grow crops, we need NH3.

Conclusion
The recent price spikes for crude oil and its major products – gasoline and diesel fuel – have gotten the attention of the public, which we are told is “surprised” by this price increases. However, this situation has been predicted – for just one example of this, see http://www.energybulletin.net/41167.html. Odds are, the doubling of prices from May 2007 to May 2008 is just the beginning of the demand destruction process, and especially the “peak exportable oil” situation. Once the initial whining and complaining process has passed, the solutions to ever decreasing quantities and availabilities of crude oil and refined oil products need to be undertaken. And the “we can drill our way out of it” or “we can use other fossil fuels” need to be avoided, as they are, in general a foolish, short-sighted and economically ruinous route to proceed upon. We need to realize that a lifestyle, economy and society built upon the inefficient use of finite and depleting quantities of liquid fuels for transportation arrangement is now obsolete, and becoming ever more untenable as the world’s petroleum reserves get used up.

One way around this disaster in the making is a 50 x 50 strategy, which can transition American society to a more efficient arrangement using already existing technology. The initial 50% drop in auto fuel usage can be accomplished just by raising current American car fleet fuel efficiency to current European levels. The next 50% reduction in auto fuel usage can be accomplished by reducing the number of vehicle miles traveled per year by up to 50% in conjunction with electric car, plug-in hybrid vehicles, mass transit and higher density living arrangements for the vast majority of this country’s population, which lives in urban areas. The lowered transportation fuel usage will allow existing domestically produced petroleum to be supplemented with biofuels and renewable electricity produced fuels to satisfy the domestic market. And while this won’t be cheap, it will be a bargain compared to the alternatives, which range from societal decomposition to oil wars to a world where the climate is ruined by global warming.

Happy Motoring.....