Towards A New Energy Future: Oil and Gas To Grow Even With Clean Renewable Energy Sources
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 04:10PM Singapore, 17 November 2009. Have we reached the oil peak? Is there a finite amount of fossil fuel energy on the planet, and so, are companies like Shell rushing ahead to replace traditional oil and gas with alternative sources of energy production? What is the future of energy? These were among the questions raised at the Shell – Energy Studies Institute Energy Dialogue today during the 2009 Singapore International Energy Week.
The response will come as a surprise to those who were hoping to see the last of grease. According to 
Dr Hooman Peimani: Consumption ain't helping.Dr Hooman Peimani, Head, Energy Security of the Energy Studies Institute (ESI) based in Singapore, the situation looks bleak (if you are looking at a glass that’s half empty). Dr Peimani believes that oil will remain as the main source of energy to fuel the world’s hunger for energy. “A new phenomenon is the discovery of new oil and gas reserves and the extraction of previously inaccessible resources.”
He said that the previous erroneous predictions made in the 1980s about the world reaching the oil peak was based on information available at that point in time. Today, with new information available, more fields are being discovered, even in places like non-oil producing countries like Cambodia and Israel. In Cambodia, there can be 400-700 million barrels of recoverable oil and in Israel, offshore gas fields of the size of 5.7 cubic feet. No wonder Shell has sales volume of two million barrels of oil per day with businesses buzzing in 80 countries.
Going further and deeper with the help of technology has made it possible to extract liquid gold from Perdido deep sea oilfield in the Gulf of Mexico at a depth of two and half kilometers.
Dr Sergio Kapusta: Get closer.At the helm of technology and innovations was Dr Sergio Kapusta, a material chief scientist with Shell. An oil field is not a lake or pool of oily liquid below the ground, but rock, he says and as such it is matter of getting to the core better than before. Traditionally in oil drilling, only 30% of oil is extracted, leaving behind nearly two thirds of inaccessible oil. Today this is no longer the case. “The world will not run out of molecules, it’ll just be harder to get to them,” he said.
New methods of extraction include using skinnier pumps to reach well into the deep without breaking or collapsing, flexible pipe (plastic wrapped with metal for uber deep exploration) and even nanotechnology to “spy” on rock components.
Why The Low Uptake of Renewables?
The ESI predicts that the generation of global energy from dirty coal will increase by 3% in 2007 to 29% in 2030 while gas would remain the same at 21%. For oil, there will be a dip of 4% from 2007 to 30% in 2050, and the contribution of biomass to the energy diversification would be a paltry 1 % to make it to a total of 2%.
There are reasons for the nature of things to remain status quo, said Dr Peimani. “Practically there is no pressure for the reduction of fossil fuel energy consumption because of its availability,” he said. He added that the environment is not yet a major factor “to effect change in consumption pattern” that will coerce oil producers recalculate their moves.
Political leaders arriving at binding commitments through new policy and regulations at December’s Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen will be crucial to effect a change. This was reiterated by Dr Michael Quah, principal fellow with ESI. “Businesses operating within the right policy and prices will make a natural transition (towards cleaner energy sources).”
Dr Michael Quah: More efficiency, now!
Dr Quah stressed the importance of the role of efficiency and conservation towards significantly reducing the harmful effects of energy use. The US for example makes up just 5% of the world population, but consumes 25% of world energy produced. So the focus on savings and recovery will be crucial. According to him, 20% of waste heat recovered in 2007 was far greater than all renewable energy output equivalent.
He also said that technology is “absolutely necessary but totally insufficient”, pointing at a paradigm shift needed. Systems to systems integration is required to help in the transition of fossil fuel energy sources (high energy density) to renewable energy (low energy density), involving change in infrastructure, mechanics that are potentially huge and expensive. Because of the enormity of this task, this “physics of energy density” needs regional cooperation for security and sustainability.
This systems to systems thinking will take place within the near term, or the next ten years, along with managing carbon emissions in fossil fuel development and conservation. The next 50 years will still see fossil fuels still very much at large, but there will be regional cooperation on nuclear technology and transition to “low energy density” sources.
The age of renewables will be in the long term, said Dr Quah, beyond 50 years from now. Now that's a long time before we get to see the end of grease.
Reader Comments (1)
Blowing Smoke
While your report on Peak Oil by the Energy Studies Institute
Energy Dialogues suggests that things on the energy scene
here in Singapore and elsewhere globally are all rosy, I beg
to differ and consider the responses reported as nothing more
than what we could call smoke blowing.
Of course these gentlemen have their orders, to maintain a
controllable scenario, not to cause panic in the population.
But isn’t it time they (the powers that be) stopped treating
us like kids and started telling the truth? Anyone over the
age of 45-50 reading this will probably live a reasonably
untroubled life, but what about your children? And their
children? And their children’s children? Your great-
grandchildren? We are leading a ‘Me first’ type of lifestyle.
Our consumption of fossil fuels is untenable. We cannot
continue the way we’re going. Once they are finished, they
are finished. So what are your great-grandchildren going to
use? Saying that new technology, new discoveries will provide
for us well into the future and that in any case, we have
alternatives fuels is blowing smoke.
The problem lies in the fact that the so-called alternative
energy sources are not. They’re not alternatives. They are
supplementary. They ‘add to’ the energy available, they do
not replace the hydrocarbons - oil, gas and coal - that we
are consuming in such vast amounts. Wave power, solar power,
wind power, hydroelectric power, nuclear power - all produce
one thing, electricity.
But we use the vast majority of produced oil & gas for
transportation. Close to 90% would be a reasonable guess. And
what does transportation do for us? Apart from taking the kids
to the zoo, or going for a drive up the coast? It carries the
products of commerce around the globe. You’re probably driving
a Japanese made car. How did it get here? Your farm-fresh eggs
you had for breakfast, where did they come from? In Singapore,
unless I’m mistaken, they were trucked down from Malaysia day
before yesterday. When we run out of oil & gas, we will run
out of diesel. (Forget kitchen cooking oil, biodiesel and such
like, on a global scale, they’re toys). When we run out of
diesel, the trucks stop rolling we cannot import food, the
farmers can’t get their produce moving.
I don’t see trucks powered by solar panels exactly charging
off the assembly lines any time in the near future and I’ve
yet to see a 747 that will fly on a bank of Energizer
batteries.
The global economic collapse that happened in 2008/2009 is
only a precursor to what will eventually happen - total
collapse of the world’s economy. Without transportation
commerce will die. How many businesses collapsed this time
around? How many people were made redundant because there was
no work? It is a domino effect. The manufacturer of widgets
can’t meet his export orders because the chemical he needs
cannot be trucked in from some remote source. As a result,
another company that relies on his products can’t manufacture
their bits and pieces which are used to make up the major
component of another manufacturer - who produces elements for
virtually every gadget maker in the world. Just figure how
many people are out of work because a truck can’t drive
without diesel. Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?
Anyone wanting to find out the truth about future energy
supplies is invited to read my book, ‘The Energy Trail - where
it is leading’.
It is published by World Scientific Publishing
(www.worldscientific.com) under ISBN-13 978-981-281-857-7.