Chapter 7 Oil and Natural Gas.
It is currently estimated that there is sufficient oil in the world to last for another 40 years, based on the present known supplies and the current rate of consumption. Up until the year 2000 more oil was being discovered each year than was being used and the reserve was therefore increasing. This helped to generate the idea that we did not have to worry about the life of the oil supply, after all we could always find more oil somewhere. However in the year 2000 the discoveries of new oil peaked and have been steadily declining. This means that ever since the year 2000 we have been using more oil each year than is being found and the world supply is beginning to be depleted. This has caused the oil companies to revise their estimate of the life of the worlds oil supplies downwards to not more than 40 years. This figure does not take into account the growing demand from this country and the developing third world especially India and China. Because this is so obviously a strictly limited supply, it is inevitable that it will eventually be totally consumed. The cost of oil and oil products will therefore continue to rise. In the next 5 years we may well be paying $5 a gallon for gasoline, in another 20 years $10 or even more. The shortage of gasoline will probably become one of the first clear warnings to most of the people in the industrial nations, that we are depleting our non-replaceable resources. Here in the USA it will demand a complete change in every aspect of our daily life. To many of the third world countries where the use of the motor car is less common, the impact will be much less. In some places it will have almost no effect at all. In Europe many of the villages and towns were built long before the development of the automobile and can still support a pedestrian life style, or function effectively using some form of public transport. Property development here on the USA has been designed around the motor car for over sixty years. In many of our towns and cities life will be extremely difficult without the automobile, in most country and suburban districts it will be impossible and as a consequence we may well see the value of property in these areas plunge to unforeseeable levels.
We have seen test vehicles being developed using electrical power, generated from fuel cells or stored in rechargeable batteries but then we have to ask ourselves if there is enough of the specific metals available to make the somewhat exotic systems that have been proposed for storing the electrical energy. The battery powered vehicles also have to recharge their storage systems at regular intervals and this will consume power produced from other resources. Solar powered test vehicles have been produced, but have shown such poor performance compared to an ordinary automobile as to be impractical, even when operated in the sunshine of Australia. Fuel cells have been suggested as an alternative source of power for personal transport, but here again they consume energy and materials, and have not yet proved an economical alternative. Similarly the use of hydrogen as a fuel is certainly possible but the enormous amount of electrical energy that would be required to produce, liquefy, store and distribute hydrogen raises even more problems. We have to face the hard fact that once the world’s oil reserves are depleted, it is unlikely that there will be adequate fuel of any kind to enable us to own any form of personal vehicle. Indeed the past 100 years may well go down in history as the century of personal transport.
We have been, and still are, extremely wasteful of our reserves of oil and used them as if they were limitless. During the past years there has been little attempt to use oil economically or to try and stretch the supply as far as possible. A few years ago automobiles began to be more fuel efficient until the onset of the SUVs, but since then we have seen the consumption increase. The automobile industry, reacting to its customer demands, has given much more attention to styling, speed and power than to fuel efficiency. In Europe, where taxes push the cost of gasoline to more than double that in the USA, cars generally have much smaller engines and consequently achieve much higher MPG figures.
It appears unlikely that any alternative fuel for our automobiles will be found that can be manufactured in sufficient volume to satisfy the demand. We have seen the possible use of alcohol distilled from corn and other vegetable sources, but this immediately raises the question of where the basic materials can be grown, and will there be land available after we have provided enough food to supply our ever growing world population. This is one area where it is very obvious that the number of people in the world will have a very dramatic effect on the life-style of us all. When all our resources are stretched to the limit to provide food, water and housing, there will be little available for the unnecessary aspects of life.
The use of gasoline or diesel fuel for the transport of goods is the common method of shipping products and materials around the country. When these sources of energy are depleted it is difficult to see what alternatives can take their place. Natural gas can be used but that too is a limited and non-replaceable resource and will ultimately come to an end. Rail offers an alternative transport method using electrical power, but although electricity can be obtained from renewable resources, the question remains as to whether we can produce enough from these sources for all our needs. This is where we will surely see an impressive growth in atomic power. The objections to the use of atomic energy will disappear when it becomes the main source of electricity.
Another major transport user of oil products is the airplane. In less than a century this has developed from a rather impractical invention into a major form of travel. Millions of people and hundreds of tons of goods are carried each year by the airlines, in a fast, safe, system. In doing so the planes consume millions of gallons of fuel. There is no suggestion that any alternative fuel supply can be provided when the oil resources are depleted. Hydrogen has been briefly mentioned, but that demands a great deal of electrical power to generate and store. We must begin to recognize that as the oil supply becomes reduced we will first see a steady increase in the cost of flying until eventually it will be out of the reach of the ordinary man. This will finally lead to the almost total cessation of air travel.
With no gasoline for the automobile and no fuel for the airplanes, we will have to turn to other forms of transport that do not rely on the world’s oil supply. There will without doubt be a resurgence of the steam train, fueled by the limited but more plentiful supply of coal, but this will inevitably also eventually become depleted and also raise questions regarding pollution, and the steps required to comply with environmental requirements that may then eat into other resources. Unless it is possible to find sources of energy that today are totally unknown, it appears likely that we will have to revert to some very fundamental means of transport. Here again the number of people in this world will determine exactly what can be done.
Oil is also the source of the fuel for the many ships that move the millions of tons of goods safely and cheaply across the oceans of the world, and there is no alternative that can be obtained from our renewable resources in the quantities required. This problem is rarely mentioned when the depletion of the oil supply is discussed. Coal was used for many years to fuel the steam boilers in the early ships and could possible still be used for this purpose. Of course the coal supply will eventually become exhausted and can only be considered as a temporary measure. It seems that we may well have to return to wind as our primary source of power at sea. A very more advanced method of using the wind than the old square rigged ships, but essentially we will be back to the era of sail. Atomic power can be used to power the larger vessels, but this will be much more costly and will hardly be practical for the smaller ships. The lack of oil for this work will probably become one of the most critical fields and the results will spread into almost every aspect of life.
The chemical industry is also one of the major consumers of oil and products derived from oil. We therefore have to accept the fact that in the future we may see the end of many of the plastics, solvents and other items derived from this source. In some cases alternatives may become available. We can all use paper bags once again rather than the commonly used plastic bags to haul our groceries, we can return to the plantations for our source of rubber rather than the synthetic rubber produced from oil. But there are many materials, such as most of the plastics, that will be difficult to obtain from our replaceable resources. For example no more vinyl siding for our homes, it will have to be replaced with wood, which then eats into another resource. So once again there is no simple or easy answer and if the world’s population is not controlled we will be totally unable to provide the resources necessary to maintain our current way of life.
The ramifications here are enormous and "life without plastics" seems almost impossible. However a less sophisticated life style was possible before the days of the automobile and before the use of plastics from oil became common place. It appears very likely that we will have to return to these simpler days, at least until industry and science has develop alternative materials made from our replaceable resources. However it is now very clearly obvious that these resources are limited and food, shelter and the necessities of life will without doubt have to take first place. Whether we will have any resources left over for such items as personal transport and other non-essential items will depend totally on the number of people in the world. The present world population is already stressing our resources to and producing more pollution than nature can handle.
Another major use of oil is for the generation of power. Early power stations used coal as their source of energy, but the demand for the reduction of smokestack emissions coupled with a simpler delivery system, made many change over to oil as an alternative. Some could probably return to coal, but for many power stations there is no alternative and they will be forced to shut down during the coming fifty years. Similarly we have to realize that natural gas is a limited resource, and the power systems that rely on this as a source of energy are also slated to grind to a halt in the not too distant future. Atomic energy will doubtless fill the void until other systems are developed, but it is extremely unlikely that anything can replace oil for cost and ease of use.
Millions of homes, offices and factories are heated with oil or natural gas. We have already seen the steady increase in the costs of these fuels, which will undoubtedly continue. Unfortunately there seems little possibility of developing any alternatives. Certainly electrical heating can be installed but unless the world’s population can be drastically reduced it is unlikely that sufficient power can be generated from our replaceable resources. Wood was used for years when the world population was very much smaller and is still a viable method of heating, but this would very quickly decimate our forests. We now see corn being used as a fuel, but here again when we have to make the choice between food and fuel, it is unlikely that heating will be found to be the most important function. The shortage of heating fuel may ultimately cause a population shift towards the warmer climates of the south, with only those people necessary to grow the crops remaining in the colder northern areas. Here again there are many areas of research into efficient thermal building design that may eventually make this move unnecessary
Eventually all our non-replaceable resources will come to an end. Many can be extended far into the future by the effective use of recycling. For example if our supply of iron ore was depleted today, we could find enough scrap iron and steel to maintain industry for many years. Oil however cannot be recycled. The exhaust gasses from a car cannot be recombined to provide more gasoline, the effluent from a chemical plant cannot be returned in the form of oil. One of the more important tasks ahead of us is to develop an action program that will review every possible use of our oil supplies and ask what we can do to extend their life. We also have to ask if there is an alternative material we can use when the oil supply is finally exhausted. If none can be found, then we must understand how we will continue to function without the service or material that it provided.