I see that John Ralston Saul is in Wellington for a couple of days this week. I’d love to be there* to hear what he has to say to our local Government Managers and the Wellington City Council.
Saul’s books are some of the best and most important I’ve ever read. They take commitment and time to devour but your brain will thank you later.
In my opinion we need more commentators like Saul who can hold a mirror up to our foibles and come up with some articulate reflections that can make us look better if we listen well.
Back in February of this year, Saul had an Op Ed piece published in the Vancouver Sun on immigration, Canada and the importance of intention. Much of what he had to say about Canada could be also be said of New Zealand.
My favourite quote from that piece is
“Civilizations are intentional. Highly original civilizations like ours require a consciously applied intentionality which we as a country have not yet embraced.”
Here a few more snips from that article
“People everywhere are fascinated by our non-derivative experiment: 250,000 new citizens sworn in every year; people chosen from the widest possible range of countries; our expectation that these immigrants will become citizens within about four years; our assumption that new Canadians will take up the full range of citizen duties as fast as possible.
By every international per capita measurement of immigration and citizenship, we are No. 1 in the world. We are not a few percentage points ahead, but two, three, four times further out on the cutting edge than anyone else.
And it is all going reasonably well. There is a national consensus in favour. People from around the world come to look; some to learn, some convinced that they will find signs of imminent catastrophe.
Meanwhile, we roll on, scarcely conscious of the originality of our civilization, apparently not curious about how we do it, about why it works, about whether it could go wrong, about what we must do to ensure it goes ever more right.
Two conclusions come to mind.
First, our easy self-confidence is an illustration of how old and stable this society is. In spite of our periodic errors and horrors along the way — our residential schools, head taxes, expulsions, exclusions, seizures — we have been able to build a non-monolithic society because we began as a non-monolithic society.
For centuries we have been making our way from the original complexity of our aboriginal, francophone, anglophone foundations, step by complicated step to something which is the precise opposite of the Anglo-European-American model of monolithic citizenship. And that is original and fascinating.
The second conclusion — which doesn’t contradict the first — is that we are intellectually lazy, with little curiosity about how our talent for cultural experimentation works.”
If you are going please send us a comment on Johns presentations please.
“I wish I was in Wellington, the weather’s not so good
The wind it cuts right through you and
it rains more than it should
But I’d be there tomorrow, if I only could”…
This is Saul’s 4th trip to New Zealand and it would seem that many significant and useful discussions are going on unreported in the backrooms of the capital. For some reason local media haven’t spoken with Saul with the exception of student radio interview provided below (so far.)
Will try to find some more links if/when they get published.
Update: BFM’s Mikey spoke with John earlier this week
MP3, 14m19s, 3.3MB, first broadcast 29 August 2007 -
“Acclaimed Canadian author and philosopher John Ralston Saul talks to Mikey about what it means to be a true citizen. He is in the country to speak at a Council managers conference in Wellington.”
Here is a quote from Saul in 2005 in discussion with Brian Easton of the Listener. In a nutshell - this is why it is worth checking out the man and his writing.
The most interesting conversation that is not taking place is that almost all of our economic theory was based on the civilisation of scarcity of production. Today, we are in surplus in almost every way. And that is at the heart of what is not functioning.”
The other day my daughter (just turned 6) said that she wanted to be a scientist because she liked mixing things up and watching the colours change. That comment reminded me of the time she turned almost half the kitchen blue playing with blue food colouring. Cool! I can see the attraction.
Most interesting to me, was that she equated science with a practical, and physical use rather than some technical definition that an adult might come up with.
“Carl Sagan once said, ‘We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.’
If he meant that we are unfamiliar with the principles on which the technology around us works, he was right—there’s an enormous gap between the knowledge of makers and the knowledge of users—but this is exactly as it should be.
As users, we typically want our technology to be a black box; we don’t want to be bothered with adjusting it, monitoring it, repairing it, or knowing about its inner workings. A sure sign of the success of a technology is that we scarcely think of it as technology at all.”
And later on….
“Knowing about technology is not the same thing as understanding the scientific theories involved.
Just as innovators commonly understand the fundamentals of a technology better than subsequent users, so users can acquire knowledge that would never have occurred to the innovators.”
And thank goodness for that. Many innovations have a serendipitous accident somewhere in their product history. The famous 3m Post-it notes apparently came about when the product team were trying to make a different kind of glue - among many other innovations.
The Shapin piece is actually a book review called “The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900” (Oxford; $26), David Edgerton who makes a strong case for technology evolving through use rather than design however I think it doesn’t matter either way.
“He thinks that traditional ways of understanding technology, technological change, and the role of technology in our lives, have been severely distorted by what he calls “the innovation-centric account” of technology”.
Technology in Education?
Some time back in Creativity & Innovation Linked I looked more closely at the work of Sir Ken Robinson on reshaping the education architecture. Hopefully, current and future generations of students will be better prepared for the type of world they are going to be working in. We live in a world where technology of all kinds is driving change, regardless of design intent and Robinsons creativity boosting seems like the right approach.
One of the wonderful things about being a parent is seeing the world through your children’s eyes. There seems to be so many possibilities for them to discover ways of working and engaging with the future - most probably in jobs we haven’t thought of yet.
Consequently the Edgerton book sounds like it is a bit stuck in the past to me; I hasten to add I have only read this essay about it. I do support the idea of learning from history but the impact of technology is far greater than it was a few decades ago; and I’m not so convinced that an opinion on whether use or innovation drives technology is even a useful question.
We only have to go back 10 years when the public internet was just starting for most people to see how ideas on the role of technology in society have changed dramatically.
Here is an book review of ‘Technolopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology‘ by Neil Postman as reviewed by Glen Engel-Cox in 1996. I also remember Postman’s most famous book called ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’ in 1985 which he broadly said that anything on TV had to be entertainment because that was the nature of the medium to reduce everything down to that level. Postman died in 2003 and was a media theorist and a conservative on many levels.
“Postman proposes a goal for American education — no longer, he says, can we simply train people for employment (the current state of education), but we must instill in people a purpose. His proposed goal is the betterment of humanity.
To achieve this goal, he suggests that we get back to the basics in our schools, but by this he means the study of the underlying assumptions of our culture rather than just basic skills. That is, he posits a curriculum that includes the history of every subject as part of that subject, including the history (or ideology) of history itself.
Only by understanding how we came to be in the place we stand now, will we be able to move forward.”.
So far so good - but the general thesis of the book exaggerates the negative impacts of technology on society while missing many of the benefits.
Sometimes people wonder why I blog on so may different areas of interest when much of my work time, is spent on sales and marketing activities usually connected with some new software project or s/w application.
Well, I even wonder about that myself (the topic range) but in essence some of my key skills are in research and analysis and lateral thinking is almost a hobby. On a good day I am happy to work on applied research for clients. Delighted would be a better word for it. However much of the time, clients are more interested in other services.
One of my most enjoyable jobs ever was as Research & Analysis Director of a small merchant banking company I helped to start-up back in the early 90’s. It is one thing to enjoy learning and thinking but quite a different matter to get paid for it. Being paid for research was my dream role and still is.
My daughter sometimes asks me about my work and I do find it hard to explain how lots of thinking, talking and listening with other people is work but it is. Knowledge based work is the new reality for us and the next generations as well.
I’d like to think (sorry bout the pun) that one of the benefits I can bring to work projects is the creative generalist focus wrapped around some very specialised and focused subject matter skills and wide ranging experience. That includes extended musical performance experience and a keen interest in fractals and other patterns to really get the neurons jiving.
Maybe, just maybe, Edgerton and Postman were both missing the refractive highlights of that “most beautiful obsession” - music as described in a new book below.
“I began to wonder why some musicians become household names while others languish in obscurity. I also wondered why music seemed to come so easily to some and not others. Where does creativity come from? Why do some songs move us so and others leave us cold? And what about the role of perception in all of this, the uncanny ability of great musicians and engineers to hear nuances that most of us don’t?
These questions led me back to school for some answers. While still working as a record producer, I drove down to Stanford University twice a week with Sandy Pearlman to sit in on neuropsychology lectures by Karl Pribram. I saw that psychology was the field that held the answers to some of my questions - questions about memory, perception, creativity, and the common instrument underlying all of these: the human brain. But instead of coming away with answers to my questions, I came away with more questions - as is often the case in science. Each new question opened my mind to an appreciation for the complexity of music, of the world, and of the human experience.”
and later in the same Chapter
“The mind has been opened up in the last few years by the exploding field of neuroscience and the new approaches in psychology due to new brain imaging technologies, drugs able to manipulate neurotransmitters such as dopamine and serotonin, and plain old scientific pursuit.
Less well known are the extraordinary advances we have been able to make in modeling how our neurons network thanks to the continuing revolution in computer technology. We are coming to understand computational systems in our head like never before.
Language now seems to be substantially hardwired into our brains. Even consciousness itself is no longer hopelessly shrouded in a mystical fog, but is rather something that emerges from observable physical systems. But no-one until now has taken all this new work together and used it to elucidate what is for me the most beautiful human obsession.
Your brain on music is a way to understand the deepest mysteries of human nature. That is why I wrote this book.”
(Note: If you enjoyed ‘My Brain on Music’ you may also enjoy this video by Jeff Hawkins on How Brain Science Will Change Computing from TED. Hawkins believes that the human neocortex doesn’t work like a processor; rather, it relies on a memory system that stores and plays back experiences to help us predict, intelligently, what will happen next.
or Mike McCready and Malcolm Gladwell discuss how technology that analyzes the mathematical patterns in songs can help the music business identify potential hits.
or
The Stanford Medical “research team showed that music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating the event in memory. Peak brain activity occurred during a short period of silence between musical movements—when seemingly nothing was happening.” includes a 20 sec video of an MRI scan and other details - Daniel Levittin was a co-author of the study.)
Understanding the deepest mysteries of human nature sounds way more interesting; here is a video link to close out the post. Comments are from the 37 Signals blog post.
“The singer/songwriter/artist/author discusses music, science, memory, and more with the producer/neuroscientist. Fascinating discussion. Some idea I liked were ecological validity - looking at the whole experience in the real world.”
“I loved reading that listening to music coordinates more disparate parts of the brain than almost anything else–and playing music uses even more! Despite illuminating a lot of what goes on this book doesn’t “spoil” enjoyment- it only deepens the beautiful mystery that is music.”
And Salon Magazine, September 2006
“Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin’s wonderful new book explains why music is a critical step in human evolution and why the songs we loved as teens remain stuck on ‘play’ in our heads.. . ‘This Is Your Brain on Music’ is delightful. Levitin explains the intricacies of two difficult subjects — neuroscience and music theory — without ever losing the reader.”
and the Cincinnati Public Library
“Some scientists have the gift of writing so clearly that it’s like being taken backstage by a magician and shown all the tricks-oh, that’s how it’s done. Daniel J. Levitin writes lucidly and humorously. . . absolutely fascinating.”
and by Mark Coleman is the author of “Playback: From the Victrola to MP3, 100 Years of Music, Machines, and Money.”
“In the absence of a unifying theory as in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point” or a conceptual hook as in “Freakonomics” by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Levitin’s book demands a reasonable level of reader interest in the subject. (Frankly, the author is better at breezing through Music Theory 101 or Brain Chemistry for Dummies than at keeping a personal anecdote on the leash.)” (all reviews of Your Brain on Music)
Does use drive technology more than innovation design and does it even matter?
As always let me know what you think.
Science is looking far more interesting these days especially when a dash of technology and a dash of music has been added. Who knows what uses our children will make of our experiences and our technologies.
I’m looking forward to more adventures in the science of food colouring! as my daughter continues defining and redefining her view of the world whichever way it happens.
Over the past few weeks I have tried to summarize the peak oil debate as best as I can given that it is complex and highly pertinent. Never before have we faced such a large impact on so many sectors of the economy on such a global scale. (This is Part 4)
The Last Oil Shock book by David Strahan prompted this series of posts is still an excellent book and a great place to start as it is moderate, considered and well researched.
While there is still considerable debate about when oil might peak there appears to be a consensus that even if we were able to produce more oil from unconventional sources that prices for oil are still going to shock many economies into recession or worse. With the continued growth in demand for oil alternative energy sources can’t keep up either.
In simple terms our reliance on oil is so extensive that almost every aspect of civilisation as we know it will be changed in some way. The latest prices for oil are here As I write this the exchange rates in N.Z against the $US have dropped $NZ1=.80 US down to .69 cents in a little over 2 weeks. See this series of charts. This is great for exporters but means more pain at the petrol pump almost immediately.
We have seen before in 1973 and 1979/80 and again in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina damaged or destroyed 30 oil platforms and caused the closure of nine refineries what relatively small shocks can do to oil prices. By my calculations prices jumped $US13 after Katrina and as refinery capacity was severely squeezed we have all been paying those higher prices and due to other factors have pretty much carried on increasing since then. And right now is the Hurricane season with a Catergory 4 Hurricane heading through the Gulf of Mexico.
By way of comparison prices in 1980 reached the equivalent of US$90 per barrel (Source:Worldbank) when adjusted for inflation.
What is different about oil prices now compared to say in 1980 is that we know a whole lot more about the limits of supply than we ever did and the news is not good. As we can see from the various oil reports available - the market is extremely volatile and close to a tipping point.
Also in the last 5-10 years the significant catch -up use of cars in India and China has fuelled enormous demand for oil worldwide. I did hear one commentator mention a figure of 3b new oil consumers that we just didn’t factor in before. Thankfully not all of them have cars but that is changing fast and not surprisingly they want the same access to oil that developed nations have.
Clearly the U.S with 5% of the worlds population can no longer continue to use 25% of global oil production and 40% of the world’s gasoline. Still with a price of $6/gallon in the UK and still only $3/gallon in the US it is no surprise that many Americans don’t quite understand the pain or the urgency that other nations are experiencing.
What Happens Next
Much of the writing about peak oil and energy futures seems to fall into two extremes.
Scenario one is that somehow we will get through even though prices will go much higher and cause extreme pain in many economies. In this scenario technology comes to the rescue with alternative energy sources helping with many of our current energy needs. Non conventional oil extraction needs to be achived much faster and more easily than we have seem so far. Despite positive signs it is clear that such a wide-scale transition especially in transport of not just people but goods and services (global trade) we need decades to make this a smooth transition and we don’t have that much time.
Scenario two seems to be very bleak with the extreme pessimists hiding in the countryside and hoping to grow their own food while defending themselves from hungry people who are desperate. I really don’t like that scenario but the volatility of human nature would suggest that in some places there will be wars and severe effects.
I’m personally hoping that there is a more moderate scenario possible. It goes like this. Responsible governments step in with a real energy strategy that reinforces market signals and favours renewables. At the same time efficiency and conservation is also improved as a short term transition strategy. Hopefully the government in NZ and the UK and Europe where petrol taxes are very high (about half the pump price or more) will be able to reduce some of those taxes to smooth the shock to individual consumers.
See the Draft New Zealand Energy Strategy final version still to be presented in September. I hope the final version is much better than biofuels and electric vehicles. This paragraph from page 26 seems to understate the challenges of finding new transport sources. Download the PDF version of NZ draft Energy Strategy. Also this PDF printable chart on Energy flows based on 2005 use is a good summary of the overall energy situation in New Zealand.
“The second renewable substitute for oil in transport is electricity, provided it is generated from renewable sources. Plug-in hybrid vehicles are already being produced, and the government expects them to become widely available within a decade. Electricity in New Zealand is cheaper than oil, and electric motors are more efficient than petrol or diesel motors. As a result, the cost to run electric cars is expected to be much lower than conventional fossil fuels.”
This might explain why government owned utility Meridian Energy has announced plans to trial electric cars. Hope they include these in the trial from Th!nk in Norway. See also this summary from page 30 of the Draft NZ Energy Strategy. What is your country doing? Now would be a good time to find out and work on a personal action plan.
From vision to action
* Public consultation on a minimum biofuels sales obligation with decisions and announcements in late 2006.
* Consider establishing a group of experts to advance planning for a higher percentage of biofuels post 2012 and the introduction of new technologies such as plug-in electric (hybrid) vehicles.
* Consult on mandatory point-of-sale labelling of fuel efficiency for vehicles.
* Consider a sales-weighted fuel economy standard for vehicle imports and pricing mechanisms to influence purchase decisions.
* Consider restricting the importation of second-hand vehicles in conjunction with air quality control measures, including considering restrictions based on age.
* Consider restricting the importation of vehicles unable to accept a minimum level of biofuels.
* Consider economic incentives to influence fuel efficiency through consumer purchasing.
* Investigate ways to improve driver behaviour to maximise fuel economy.
* Increase support for public transport and non-motorised forms of transport.
* Investigate options for encouraging the use of different ways to move freight, and develop a New Zealand Shipping Strategy.
* Continue to monitor and develop emerging transport fuels.
* Restore oil reserves to 90 days and develop an updated emergency response strategy to respond to international and national disruptions in oil supply.
Alternatively those governments could divert their massive windfalls from petrol taxes to fund massive renewables projects. I suspect a mix of both tax reduction and renewables subsidies would work. The key objective should be to ease the transition as much as possible. Even so the expected price rise to say $100 could still tip some economies into depression and temporarily reduce demand.
Finally for those of you who haven’t got the time to read a book or spend hours at the Energy Bulletin or Oil Drum there is a also some video that you can watch.
There is very good Australian 4 corners documentary on Peak Oil is and what the future of less oil means. It runs for 45 minutes and there are also 4 supplementary interviews covering an additional 40 minutes.
Featured experts include Dr Colin Campbell who founded ASPO - who talks about the full significance of the end of cheap oil. Much of the peak oil debate is because the numbers are political and especially with regard to Opec we just don’t know what the real numbers are. He believe the future will be highly volatile with severe price shocks. He see the peak as an event “without historical precedent.”
Also featured are Dr Sadad-Al Husseini speaking about Saudi Arabia who still seems to think we will believe the story about Saudi reserves still being 260b barrels after 20 years and 100b barrels have already been extracted. Husseini does concede that reserves are finite and that it is harder to maintain production levels. As Dr Robert Hirsch says - just trust us is not good enough from the Saudis and Opec generally. The Saudi views are still worth listening to though given they sit on 25% of the current usable supply.
Hirsch reinforces the view that we are in decline because the geology is known and oil is a finite resource. He argues that government intervention is absolutely needed. The market is too slow and the problem is too urgent. Many of the things we need to do will take 15-20 years at least and we need urgent action now.
The last interview is with Dr Peter Jackson of CERA who believes there is a problem but peak oil isn’t one of them. He seems to think that unconventional sources will rescue us and that there will be no peak despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Background to the 4 Corners programme contains many links see here for details.
This story is growing in urgency and won’t go away so denial doesn’t work. In New Zealand ASPO is a useful place to keep an eye on. As always let me know your thoughts.
What happens next depends on all of us. It is business as unusual. There will also be new business opportunities flowing on from the renewables sector and other alternatives so the news is not all bleak. See also What Should We Do Now? - PDF Version
This post is Part 4 in a series see also the 3 earlier posts.
A key benefit of the book, The Last Oil Shock book by David Strahan, is found in the last two chapters in which he recommends a series of local and personal actions for urgent changes needed to survive this major threat.
In a chapter called “Pass-notes for Policy Makers” the book makes a broad recommendation to prepare as much as possible for the coming crunch by changing our consumption behaviours and managing our exposure to the main risk factors.
He also notes (quoting Thierry Desmarest - CEO of Total in 2006) that voluntarily reducing consumption by half could delay the expected peak by up to 10 years; however- we all know that this is highly unlikely without a massive epiphany.
Global warming* and the need for carbon management has now widely entered the public consciousness - peak oil needs to do the same.
Reduce your own personal exposure to oil and energy shocks by reducing use of such resources. (Use more public transport, drive less, become a town planner and stop those idiot developers building carpark based shopping malls in the middle of nowhere - you get the idea.) More examples here try reducing by 3% each year.
Use renewable energy sources where you can.
Pressure politicians by finding out what their energy policies are and what they plan to do about the impacts of peak oil.
Support public transport changes such as changing from diesel powered trains to electric in Auckland for example.
Pressure for policy changes on roading and transport projects.
What we need to do now to to move from general actions towards specific actions in each country. As I live in New Zealand I am particularly interested in what can be done here at both the political level and the personal one.
What Is Your Local Energy Profile?
The New Zealand Energy Data File is available online website at MED.
Total primary energy supply decreased from 747 PJ (petajoules) in 2005 to 741 PJ in 2006, a 0.8% decrease;
Coal production increased 9.7%, from 139 PJ in 2005 to 153 PJ in 2006. Coal consumption for electricity generation decreased 4.8% to 52PJ from 2005 to 2006 and remained about the same for other sectors;
Total electricity generation increased 0.9% to 42,056 GWh (gigawatt hours) in 2006. Renewable electricity generation accounted for 66% of total electricity generation;
Natural gas production increased by 2.0% in 2006 to 163 PJ;
Total national consumption of petrol and diesel remained relatively constant around 221 PJ. During this period:
Premium petrol was 24 PJ, up 5.9%
Regular petrol was 89 PJ, down 1.4%
Diesel was 108 PJ, up 0.7%
“What economic and fiscal strategies is he developing to prepare New Zealand for the impact of an “extremely tight” oil market within 5 years where oil production may not be able to keep up with demand, as predicted by the International Energy Agency’s Medium-Term Oil Market Report earlier this month?”
Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) : “Low debt and projected surpluses give New Zealanders as much fiscal flexibility to respond to changing circumstances as almost any other developed country has. The development of an emissions trading system, and measures to support energy efficiency, to support biofuels, and to support passenger transport will help directly. Of course, as oil prices rise, individuals also react, by, in fact, adjusting to more efficient vehicles.”
Jeanette Fitzsimons: Will he discuss with his colleague the Minister of Energy the need to amend this statement in the draft New Zealand *Energy Strategy: “It is unclear whether conventional oil production will peak in the next decade, or a decade or two later.” so that it reflects a greater sense of urgency, given that the Government has always relied on the *International Energy Agency’s fool’s paradise view that we still have around three decades until peak oil, despite all the other views to the contrary?
Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: “I do not propose to do that at this stage, at all. I am old enough to remember the report from the **Club of Rome in, I think, 1975, stating that we would have run out of oil by this point. In fact, proven commercial oil reserves now are still larger than they were 20 years ago.”
Later in this exchange Cullen notes that
Petrol prices at the pump now are significantly lower in real terms than they were, for example, in the early 1980s. It is not as though we have not been through these kinds of variables before. It is important to remember that other countries are going through the same experience…..
Jeanette Fitzsimons: Can the Minister place on record, then, that he expects the current rise in oil prices to be a temporary phenomenon, just as the oil price rises in the 1970s were, and that it does not signal a long-term depletion of oil supply?
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN: I thought it was very clear from what I said that that was not what I was saying, at all—in fact, rather the opposite. I said that I expect that there are long-term pricing signals here that will lead to significant change in behaviour and practices by individuals, by business, and by others.
Jeanette Fitzsimons: I seek leave to table an article quoting *Goldman Sachs Group headed: “$100 oil price may be months away says..”
Frankly - it doesn’t seem that reassuring to me. Latest prices for oil are here
A comprehensive view to 2030 of global oil and natural gas - Working Draft US
This is from the National Petroleum Council in the U.S and is a major report called “Facing the Hard Truths About Energy,” which involved 350 participants and was led by former Exxon Mobil chairman Lee Raymond. (Exec Summary pdf.) July 18, 2007.
These 5 key recommendations are also referred to as “5 core U.S Strategies” :
Moderate the growing demand for energy by increasing efficiency of transportation, residential, commercial, and industrial uses.
Expand and diversify production from clean coal, nuclear, biomass, other renewables, and unconventional oil and natural gas; moderate the decline of conventional domestic oil and gas production; and increase access for development of new resources.
Integrate energy policy into trade, economic, environmental, security, and foreign policies; strengthen global energy trade and investment; and broaden dialogue with both producing and consuming nations to improve global energy security.
Enhance science and engineering capabilities and create long-term opportunities for research and development in all phases of the energy supply and demand-system.
Develop the legal and regulatory framework to enable carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). In addition, as policymakers consider options to reduce CO2 emissions, provide an effective, global framework for carbon management, including establishment of a transparent, predictable, economy-wide cost for CO2 emissions
The Council identified these strategies by drawing upon more than 350 expert participants with wide-ranging backgrounds to provide analysis, information, and insight. Additionally, extensive outreach efforts involved more than 1,000 people actively involved in energy. Task Groups for this study reviewed a broad range of public and aggregated proprietary studies in order to understand and evaluate the many assumptions and forces behind recent global energy projections.
Given the massive scale of the global energy system and the long lead times necessary to make significant changes, concerted actions are needed now to promote U.S. competitiveness by balancing economic, security, and environmental goals. (Slide show version here.)
More International Research
Here are 80 global Energy Reports from UK based Energy Pointers including a A 218-page Australian Senate Standing Committee report examining Australia’s future oil supply and alternative transport fuels. There is plenty of reading so you can write your own action plans.
A solar policy success story in Germany
In a promising example of how to encourage alternative energy use Germany has managed to mobilise thousands of people to take part in generating electricity via solar in a massive public policy
“Even though millions of Germans flee their damp, dark homeland for holidays in the Mediterranean sun, 55 percent of the world’s photovoltaic (PV) power is generated on solar panels set up between the Baltic Sea and the Black Forest.
So far just 3 percent of Germany’s electricity comes from the sun, but the government wants to raise the share of renewables to 27 percent of all energy by 2020 from 13 percent.”
“There are now 250,000 jobs in Germany in the renewables energy sector. Asbeck expects the number of jobs in solar power alone to double to 90,000 over the next five years and hit 200,000 in 2020.”
They passed a law (EEG) which has helped change behaviour immensely. This is the most interesting part of the story. Perhaps we can learn from Germany on what the best mix of public policies and practical logistics is so that we change global energy behaviours. The incredible thing is that solar energy is not that suited to the German weather patterns and so other countries with more sunshine could do even better.
“Construction on a 40 megawatt (MW) solar generation power plant is under way at a former military base in the Saxon region of Germany. The total surface area of the planned photovoltaic (PV) installation? It’s comparable to about 200 soccer fields, said Matthias Willenbacher, cofounder and CEO of the juwi group.”
Germany takes second place only to Japan in the world in photovoltaic power generation.
Japan leads the world in solar innovation for example spherical-shaped solar cells which is well worth exploring in a later piece.
In Melbourne, Australia a company called Solar Systems has received government funding to proceed with construction of a 154-megawatt solar power station in Victoria. It will be the bigest if the world if completed. There are also major solar projects (150Mw) in Algeria that have been announced recently although the lead times are very long.
Useful links for Tracking Oil related Topics in New Zealand
The new Tui oil field doesn’t figure in the Energyfiles data as it is new, offshore and although estimates are promising - relatively unproven. Production started on 30th of July 2008. It is expected to produce 50,000 barrels a day and 10m barrels in the first year. The exploration company last year capped a gas find in Canterbury as it wasn’t viable. Tui is part of a group of fields in the Taranaki basin that could be promising although other commentators are not so hopeful. The latest information on these finds is released to the ASX as noted here. Tui shipped its first 300,000 barrels to refineries in Australia just this week. The Great South Basin has a few people excited. ExxonMobil and OMV have committed up to $1.2b in exploration resources.
*Global warming now has major recognition now and there is even a book on the NZ effects called Hot Topic by Gareth Renowden. Using the latest evidence from the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report, Gareth Renowden puts climate change into its New Zealand context.
And an audio interview podcast between David Strahan and George Kenney at Electric Politics
And get informed read up on The Oil Depletion Protocol Project which is an initiative undertaken by Post Carbon Institute, in association with Richard Heinberg, to lay the groundwork for and facilitate the successful adoption and implementation of the Protocol.
This is Part 3 of a 4 part series. See these related posts in the series.
One of the standard responses from Government and Oil companies when faced with the peak oil scenarios is to say that alternative energy sources will make up the gap and we shouldn’t worry. Wrong!
This is Part 2 in a series on Energy futures and this post looks more closely at Chapter 4 of The Last Oil Shock, where author David Strahan goes through many of the alternative supply solutions and checks the math and underlying assumptions. In each case the alternative is too little and too late to really help much at all.
There are also some organisations concerned about climate change who believe the demise of big oil will somehow help reduce the damage from global warming. Oil accounts for less than 40% of total C02 emissions with the balance coming from coal and gas and so with a greater reliance on coal and gas it is extremely unlikely that the oil reduction will be that helpful.
As Strahan discusses most of these ideas are not well thought out and plain wrong.
For example 95% of oil uses are for transport where coal can’t help much and gas could help some (in transport) but gas supplies are highly linked to oil in most cases. Because we want the alternative sources to be “clean” this suggests that the two most feasible options would be hydrogen and biofuels.
Hydrogen - Not a Real Option The most attractive idea from using hydrogen as an energy source for transport is that a hydrogen fuel cell is much more efficient than a conventional internal combustion engine. A figure of 18% is the useful energy to the wheels with a standard engine, whereas hydrogen offers the potential of 50% due to its much higher efficiency and the lower number of moving parts which reduces friction loss etc. however it is not that easy.
On the minus side the expense of hydrogen technology means it could be 10 years before cars could be below $100k in price which means that won’t help most of us. Safety and the need of plenty of storage space are also issues. Ultimately (fuller details in the book) Hydrogen needs to be super cooled as a gas at -240 ‘C however the trade off is that uses 30% of the energy value and this means that the energy efficiency is back down at 25% while a Toyota Prius is as high as 32%.
There are other ways of producing hydrogen but the short answer is hybrids* and even the new generation of diesels are better at the present time. We could use electricity to generate Hydrogen but the amount needed is prohibitive.
Strahan continues with the math and concludes that 81 gigawatts would be needed to replace current transport energy needs in the UK. As this is more than the current generating capacity in the U.K that is not an option.
Solar and Wind Check pages 92 and 93 in the book for the math which includes calculations for wind, solar and nuclear with numbers that I haven’t personally checked but you are welcome to try. The short version is that using current technologies even if we could do it the amount of land area needed and the time it would take to get setup in measured in decades and we don’t have that long.
Strahan concludes
“hydrogen as a transport fuel seems to be utterly incapable of mitigating either global warming or the last oil shock…it might work in Iceland, where they have limitless hydro -electricity… but for the rest of the world its back to the drawing board”
Biofuels including Ethanol We don’t eat enough fish and chips for this one to really help much. 300m litres of cooking oil is just too small compared to 25b litres of diesel needed in the U.K. The NZ numbers would be similar proportions but I’m all in favour of recycling that used frying oil. Alternative versions of biofuel such as biodiesel or bioethanol both generally require large amounts of land at the expense of food production.
A feature at Worldchanging suggests that bio-diesel from algae might be the best bet
“A single acre of algae ponds can produce 15,000gallons of biodiesel — in comparison, an acre of soybeans produces up to 50 gallons of biodiesel per acre, an acre of jatropha produces up to 200 gallons per acre, coconuts produce just under 300 gallons per acre, and palm oil — currently the best non-algal source — produces up to 650 gallons of biodiesel per acre. That is to say, algae is 25 times better a source for biodiesel than palm oil, and 300 times better than soy.”
Cellulosic ethanol might be the bright hope here as it is based on using waste byproducts and not so land hungry. However the amount of “waste” product is not as great as needed. Elsewhere in the book the Fischer-Tropsch process is discounted as a method of supply as well.
In New Zealand bio-ethanol blended petrol just launched comes as a byproduct of milk production from Fonterra via Gullso while it is not cellulosic ethanol it might succeed to some extent in delaying the full shock of oil prices at the pump.
See here for Consumer information from Energywise for NZ motorists.
Note from Dr David Haywood(Thanks David) - It seems likely that NZ *is* one of the few countries where biofuels for transport could be economical, thanks to our massive resource of dodgy-quality wood. See: here for more.
Brazil and Ethanol The availability of sugar cane and 30 years of experience means that it has been a great success in Brazil but hard to scale up much further although the theoretical numbers are surprisingly high. After 30 years Brazil has replaced up to 30% of its transport needs from Ethanol which show how difficult a goal this is.
Strahan calculates would take 320m hectares to replace 2003 petrol consumption, which is more than 15 times the total area of land in cultivation for sugar cane in 2004. Given that petrol consumption is still growing and even if goals are more modest like a % of the total in countries like Brazil and where that makes sense it could help soothe the transition at least in part.
Consequently environmental, land use and social issues preclude sustainable ethanol production on a large scale for most countries. Bio-diesel from Jatropha is promising but the conclusion is similar. 359m hectares of land planted in that crop just isn’t feasible.
Ultimately with all of these alternatives we can’t come even close in the short term to replacing a significant level of energy for transport regardless of the methodology. We still need massive conservation to be part of any transition plan.
There is much more detail in the book , but you’ll need to buy it now. Hopefully you get a clearer idea of how rigorous the research has been and that arguments like hydrogen or bio-fuels saving the day are simply not correct.
However exploring alternative energy sources is good for business. This note is out of date now but even so the numbers are large and positive motivators for business.
Another Book Review This comes from Mick Winter see here for more
“Strahan is first of all a superb journalist. He is objective in his facts, backs up his statements, and offers both breadth and depth in his account of Peak Oil. But Strahan also has a position; one which enhances, rather than obscures, his objectivity. His wry, even biting, sense of humor and his observation of the energy predicament’s ironies and, alas, frequent hypocrisies, come through in a manner that allows his facts to be enjoyable digested all the way through the book.
I highly recommend reading The Last Oil Shock.”
Mini Summary of the Books Key arguments From this profile piece here is the shortest summary of the book I have found. Most of this post has just barely covered number 1.
1. Biofuels and hydrogen are utterly inadequate to make good the looming transport fuel deficit
2. How ‘running out’ of oil paradoxically will not help but worsen climate change
3. How traditional economics critically underestimates the importance of energy, and therefore the severity of the last oil shock.
4. Why governments, oil companies, and environmentalists oppose the idea, and why they are wrong
5. How the oil reserves of Middle East OPEC countries are almost certainly far smaller than claimed, meaning the global peak will come sooner rather than later
6. How the actions of oil companies belie their predicament, despite their publicly confident positions
7. How the invasion of Iraq was not ‘all about oil’, but all about peak oil.
*Note on Hybrids (Not in the book) It seems to me that hybrids are great in theory but the cost differential is so high that in New Zealand at least you are still better to buy a much cheaper car and use the balance to pay for fuel. It may be different elsewhere but the going rate for a used hybrid like the Prius is around $25k. My calculations are very rough - in some places tax incentives make the deal better. See here for some more NZ background. To do the calculations properly you need to look at payments over 3-5 years and factor in fuel savings and price rises over that time. It may be for some people who commute larger distances that the payback from a hybrid would make sense.
A similar car could be obtained for $10k and even if/when fuel costs triple you can still buy a whole lot of petrol for the $15k difference. So although I would love a hybrid - suspect that the higher the price of petrol the higher the price (including resale value) of the hybrid goes.
Perhaps there are other technology advances like the pivotal engine which improves on two stroke technology for example. Now a 3 wheeledVespa equivalent with a pivotal engine - that could be something.
John Ralston Saul
Video: 
“Your Brain on Music”
“last oil shock”
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