Ithaca 37
New member
Here's an interesting opinion. I think it makes sense.:
"In his Reader's View titled "U.S. must open up its oil, gas reserves to ensure adequate supplies (Nov. 30)," John Bennion's advocacy of sacrificing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is based upon a misreading of both geophysics and socioeconomics.
The Natural Gas Supply Association reports that the most optimistic estimates — those of the National Petroleum Council — suggest that the United States has nearly 1,800 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Even were we to consume only at the current rate of 23 tcf a year, domestic production of natural gas will cease altogether in 2083. More realistic estimates suggest that reserves total less than 1,200 tcf — at the current rate of consumption, this takes us to 2057.
Even these more conservative estimates count as potential reserves deposits that will require a massive energy input to extract (such as deep sea reserves or ANWR itself), will rely on unproven, environmentally destructive and energy-intensive technologies (like "shale gas"), or count resources unlikely to be developed for political reasons (like shallow water reserves off the coasts of electoral vote-rich California and Florida).
These may seem like "adequate supplies" to those of us unlikely to be alive at that point, but to our children they probably won't. They won't forgive our short-sightedness. They won't forgive our self-indulgence. They won't forgive our greed. And we shouldn't expect them to.
If we assume that reserves are as abundant as projected by the corporations that stand to profit from their extraction, by Bennion's numbers, opening up ANWR buys us about another year at best. This assumes exploiting ANWR will require zero energy-input.
Importing more natural gas sounds good on paper, but overseas shipping of a pressurized, liquefied, volatile gas isn't cheap. Moreover, most of the folks living on top of fossil fuel reserves don't like us much at this point. But the use of military power more quickly exhausts nonrenewable energy, and makes targets of refineries and pipelines.
Soon we will be unable to increase the extraction of these finite resources year after year. As supply is reduced, prices will continue to rise. As the emerging industrial economies of China and India increase world demand, prices will continue to rise.
Without a question, global demand for oil and gas will soon outpace supply. How soon is debated. Some suggest we have until mid-century to make a transition to renewable energy sources. Many suggest sometime around 2010 will be the high water mark for oil production. It does seem clear that we're already starting to see the effects of peak oil.
We don't have much time to kick the petro-habit and develop an alternative energy infrastructure, and begin to use energy more efficiently and more conservatively.
Nuclear is not among these alternatives, since it takes more energy to extract the raw materials, build the plant, run the plant, decommission the plant, and deal with the waste than the reactor will ever produce.
Ironically, given the well-documented effects of climate change upon the Arctic, by 2025 there won't be much tundra left to argue over. Rather than squabbling about the remaining corners of our nest we haven't yet despoiled, we need to address the more fundamental issue.
The age of cheap fossil fuel energy is over. Now what?"
Martin Orr, Ph.D., is an associate professor of sociology at BSU.
"In his Reader's View titled "U.S. must open up its oil, gas reserves to ensure adequate supplies (Nov. 30)," John Bennion's advocacy of sacrificing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is based upon a misreading of both geophysics and socioeconomics.
The Natural Gas Supply Association reports that the most optimistic estimates — those of the National Petroleum Council — suggest that the United States has nearly 1,800 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
Even were we to consume only at the current rate of 23 tcf a year, domestic production of natural gas will cease altogether in 2083. More realistic estimates suggest that reserves total less than 1,200 tcf — at the current rate of consumption, this takes us to 2057.
Even these more conservative estimates count as potential reserves deposits that will require a massive energy input to extract (such as deep sea reserves or ANWR itself), will rely on unproven, environmentally destructive and energy-intensive technologies (like "shale gas"), or count resources unlikely to be developed for political reasons (like shallow water reserves off the coasts of electoral vote-rich California and Florida).
These may seem like "adequate supplies" to those of us unlikely to be alive at that point, but to our children they probably won't. They won't forgive our short-sightedness. They won't forgive our self-indulgence. They won't forgive our greed. And we shouldn't expect them to.
If we assume that reserves are as abundant as projected by the corporations that stand to profit from their extraction, by Bennion's numbers, opening up ANWR buys us about another year at best. This assumes exploiting ANWR will require zero energy-input.
Importing more natural gas sounds good on paper, but overseas shipping of a pressurized, liquefied, volatile gas isn't cheap. Moreover, most of the folks living on top of fossil fuel reserves don't like us much at this point. But the use of military power more quickly exhausts nonrenewable energy, and makes targets of refineries and pipelines.
Soon we will be unable to increase the extraction of these finite resources year after year. As supply is reduced, prices will continue to rise. As the emerging industrial economies of China and India increase world demand, prices will continue to rise.
Without a question, global demand for oil and gas will soon outpace supply. How soon is debated. Some suggest we have until mid-century to make a transition to renewable energy sources. Many suggest sometime around 2010 will be the high water mark for oil production. It does seem clear that we're already starting to see the effects of peak oil.
We don't have much time to kick the petro-habit and develop an alternative energy infrastructure, and begin to use energy more efficiently and more conservatively.
Nuclear is not among these alternatives, since it takes more energy to extract the raw materials, build the plant, run the plant, decommission the plant, and deal with the waste than the reactor will ever produce.
Ironically, given the well-documented effects of climate change upon the Arctic, by 2025 there won't be much tundra left to argue over. Rather than squabbling about the remaining corners of our nest we haven't yet despoiled, we need to address the more fundamental issue.
The age of cheap fossil fuel energy is over. Now what?"
Martin Orr, Ph.D., is an associate professor of sociology at BSU.
