Energy Requirements

Sometimes the "majority" only means that all the fools are of the same opinion.

his page will point an accusing finger at our incredible misuse of the world´s oil resources. It will deal with two very relevant issues: The world´s dwindling oil supplies which are consumed at an accelerating rate. The wastefullness of today´s motor vehicles, compared to the efficiency of beamcarried transports. And while wasting the World´s oil resources, we are also creating environmental problems. It does not have to be like this; we have the necessary technology to handle our available energy sources in a much more sensible manner!

Our energy sources Production of oil The end of cheap oil? Fuel cells for tomorrow´s motorcars? A sustainable development? Energy comparisons between road traffic and beam traffic. The inefficiency of using motorcars.

1. Our Energy Sources

2. Production of oil

" In the early 1970s, oil accounted for about one-half of total world primary energy demand. By 1994, oil's contribution had declined to about 40 percent. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that the share of oil in the world's energy mix will remain relatively stable at around the 40 percent level to the year 2010. However, since world energy demand is expected to increase, IEA projects that oil demand will rise from the current 68 million b/d (barrels a day) to around 76 million b/d in year 2000 and 94 million b/d in 2010. If an oil production increase of this magnitude should occur and unexpected reserves are not found, the 94 million b/d rate could be sustained for only an additional 20 to 25 years before a depleting world oil resource base would force production down." It is to be noted here that rising oil prices would bring marginally profitable oilfields into production, and thus, steadily increasing oil prices could conceivably make production keep pace with demand even after the year 2006. But unless alternatives to our petrol-burning automobiles are brought into wide use, demand will inevitably outstrip oilproduction sooner or later.

Further details about this could be read in, for instance, an article in Science Magazine of 21 August, 1998). The Mars, 1998, issue of Scientific American had an article, titled "The End of Cheap Oil". According to this article, a reduction in oil production might come in the year 2005. Subsequently, as price increases will make it worthwhile to bring marginally profitable oilfields into production, oil production will nevertheless steadily taper off, to reach a fifth of the 1998 production level in the year 2050.

World Oil Forecasting Program Software for forecasting world oil is available for free from the Institute on Energy and Man. They write: "We assume that the peak of World oil production will be a watershed in human history. Our goal is to predict the year that production will reach its all-time peak. The World Oil Forecasting Program is designed to accomplish that goal. Our strategy is to build up a series of forecasts which, taken together, will inevitably converge on the peak. This website contains the latest models and forecasts in this ongoing project. You can use the World Oil Forecasting Program in two ways. First, you can simply observe and study the “base-line” forecasts, as contained in the downloaded files. Second, you can make your own forecasts and print out your own graphs and tables. The program includes a step-by-step instructions file.

Table 5: Daily Production of Oil for the 11 OPEC Countries in March 2004

(The "trend" compares production for years 2000 through 2003 and March 2004) Country thousands of barrels trend Algeria 1.150 Increasing Indonesia 970 Falling Iran 3.950 Increasing Iraq 2.400 Increasing Kuwait 1.950 Steady Libya 1.480 Increasing "Neutral Zone" 600 Steady Nigeria 2.330 Increasing Qatar 760 Increasing Saudi Arabia 8.150 Steady U.Arab Emirates 2.290 Steady Venezuela 2.180 Falling Total, OPEC 32.240 Increasing Note: 1 barrel is 159 litres. Estimated average daily oil production for year 2004 is: OPEC Countries: 32 million barrels Non-OECD-Countries: 26 million barrels OECD-Countries: 22 million barrels. One can thus see that OPEC alone cannot set world oil prices. But they are a strong force.

The term "oil production" is really a misnomer. We don´t produce anything, we just pump up from the ground what´s already there. While it last, we will have a pretty good time. Once easily accessible oil sources are depleted, however, the party might be over. Current theories hold that oil is the end product of millions of years of decomposing of biological matter, without the access of air. There is no actual proof that that process has actually occured. Other theories have been put forward, and the most advanced of these come from Immanuel Velikovsky. Velikovsky has written a few entertaining books about what really might have transpired in ancient times, on the basis of old documentary sources. According to Velikovsky, oil is not endemic to Earth. The planet Venus was 3000 years ago a comet, which passed close to Earth, and drenched our atmosphere in petroleum gases from its tail. There are actually old documents that in various ways support this scenario. If this were true, the atmosphere of Venus would today have a rich content of hydrocarbons, and Velikovsky predicted in the 1950-ies that this would be the findings, once the atmosphere of Venus were analyzed. That was indeed also the case, showing, at least, that hydrocarbons can form without the presence of photosyntesis. Recommended reading for those interested: "Velikovsky Reconsidered" by the editors of "Pensée (Abacus, 1978) and, of course, Velikovsky´s own books.

3. The End of Cheap Oil?

f you think oil prices are high at $40 a barrel then wait till they are four times that much. How will you pay to run your car? How will you get the children to school? How will you heat your house? How much will transported food go up in price? How will we pay for plastics, metals, rubber, cheap flights, Simpson's DVDs, 3G phones and everlasting economic growth? The basic answer is, we won't. This is the message from the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO). The group of oil executives, geologists, investment bankers, academics and others has been warning the world of high oil prices, and the ensuing fallout, for some years now. People like Ali Bakhtiari, head of strategic planning at Iran's National Oil Company (NOIC), Dr Colin Campbell, a former executive vice president of Total-Fina, and Matthew Simmons, an energy investment banker and adviser to the controversial Bush-Cheney energy plan. They are united by one idea, that global oil production is about to peak, which in turn will signal the permanent end of cheap oil. And they warn that this is the foundation of the current rise in oil prices.

"If we price oil correctly," Mr Simmons says, "it could give us time to find bridge fuels, fuels to fill the gap between an oil economy and a renewable economy. But I don't see that happening." The adherents of the peak oil theory warn the decline of world oil output will force oil prices higher for good, and that the knock on effects could be catastrophic. "In my opinion, unfortunately, there will be no linear change," says Iran's Ali Bakhtiari. "There will only be sudden explosive change." Who hurts when oil prices go up? "The people who will be least affected will be the super poor, who already have no access to energy, and the super rich who do not care if oil is $100 a barrel." "It is everyone who is in the middle who will be hurt the most," says Mr Bakhtiari. "When the crisis comes there will be enormous changes." Much of ASPO's predictions stem from the calculations of Dr Campbell. His work on oil reserves has long suggested that many official oil data are either flawed estimates or at worst downright lies. Scandals like the 23% of 'lost' reserves at Royal Dutch Shell have helped to boost interest in his work. False reserves threaten the security of energy supply, just as do bombs under pipelines. At ASPO's conference in Berlin in june, 2004, companies such as BP and Exxon and men such as Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency, began to talk to the proponents of the peak oil theory.

Whilst they may not agree with Dr Campbell's theories, their attendance highlighted ASPO's emerging importance in the oil debate. In public, Mr Birol denied that supply would not be able to meet rising demand, especially from the buoyant economies in the USA, China and India. But after his speech he seemed to change his tune. "If Saudi does not increase supply by 3 million barrels a day by the end of the year we will face, how can I say this, it will be very difficult. We will have difficult times. They must invest." Can Saudi Arabia deliver that much? Asking other delegates - admittedly supporters of the peak oil theory - whether such a steep increase was feasible, the answers were unambiguous: "absolutely out of the question," "completely impossible," and "3 million barrels - never, not even 300,000." North Sea oil production is declining at an increasing rate, having peaked in 1999. Not at the predicted flat rate of decline of 7%, but gradually accelerating from 7% to 8.5% to 11%. And the number of major new oil fields discovered around the world fell to zero for the first time in 2003, despite an obvious increase in technological expertise. And Dr Campbell has a dire warning: "If the real figures were to come out there would be panic on the stock markets, in the end that would suit no one."

Figure 3:3	Figure 3:4
he Swedish Energy Authority keep track on energy production and consumption in Sweden as well as in the world as a whole. From their tables, we have produced two graphs. Figure 3:3 shows the yearly, worldwide production of crude oil (the "squiggly" curve). This curve can be approximated by a trend-curve (the blue line) which clearly indicates that oil production will likely peak around year 2010.	Figure 3:4 shows the real price on crude oil in US $ per barrel, on a yearly basis (the "squiggly" curve). This curve can also be approximated by a trend-curve (the blue line) which clearly indicates that oil prices will increase dramatically in the years ahead. There is, of course, an inter-connection between production and prices. As demand exceeds production, the price on crude oil will increase, stimulating increased production by causing marginally profitable oil wells to start pumping again.

4. Fuel Cells for Tomorrow´s Motorcars?

Figure 4:1 he illustration above (figure 4:1) shows a likely scenario regarding fuel consumption for the time after the year 2010, when rising oil prices will force production and consumption down. At some point it will be economically viable to start mass-producing vehicles with alternative fuel technology. Mass production will force prices on vehicles down, so that people in general can afford to buy them. As can be seen, fuel cells are generally deemed to be the best alternative fuel technology. They will after a while totally dominate the market for private road vehicles. That technology would have to be further developed, though. It is still too expensive, and tricky to maintain, to be usefull in today´s motorcars.

Figure 4:2 The fuel cell is a lot older than the combustion engine. It was invented as early as 1839 by the British scientist William Grove. It has been too expensive to be able to compete with the combustion engine, but NASA made use of it in the 1960-ies for their spacecrafts. The principle for its function is not that complicated. It joind hydrogen with oxygen, and the products are water, heath and electricity. the type of cell that would be best adapted to the motorcar consists of a plastic membrane that is covered by graphite. Hydrogen, in the form of H2, is fed to the positivively-charged anode, where the atoms lose their electrons and become positive ions. Attracted by the negative cathode, they will cross the membrane, which only allows positive ions to pass. There, they will join up with oxygen atoms, contained in the air that is let in at the cathode. This process produces H2O+ -ions and some heath. This heath could perhaps be put to useful work, or to keep the vehicle warm. The electrons at the anode want to join up with the positive ions at the cathode. On their way, they will have to perform useful work, as shown above. Reaching the cathode, they will neutralise the H2O+ -ions, producing water.

Project "Cute"	Stockholm´s Metropolitan Public Transport (SL) will get 3 of the 27 fuelcell-powered buses which will be tested in 9 EU-countries for a duration of 2 years. The project name is "cute", and SL is having test runs in Stockholm as of this writing (January 2004).	The fuel cell itself will be mounted on the roof, together with the hydrogen container. The speed will provide the necessary oxygen to sustain the process. In addition to electricity to power the engine, some heat will also be produced, albeit not sufficient to heat the bus on chilly mornings. That´s a drawback with power generation which is as efficient as the fuel cell.

5. A Sustainable Development?

The industrial countries have now set up as an official goal to achieve a sustainable energy policy: we should not steal more from nature than we give back. At the same time, there is a redistribution of the fossil burning as regards its use. Today, 40 % of the oil in Sweden is used for various kinds of traffic and about 30 % each for heating of houses and for industrial production. In 10 - 20 years time, 60 % of all oil in Sweden will be devoted to keeping the traffic running.	Off-shore oil platform for shallow waters.	The second World War would have dragged on for a bit longer, had it not been for the fact that Germany, Italy and Japan were cut off from their sources of oil. In the industrialized countries (notably the USA and Russia) the indigenous oil is quickly running out. The oil around the Persian Gulf will, at the look of it, last the longest, maybe another 60 years. About 3.5 billion tons of oil is transported every year over the oceans and over land. This is roughly 230 000 times more in tonnage than the yearly transportation of nuclear fuel (about 15 000 tons). As the oil is burned and is united with nitrogen and oxygen from the air, the amount of rest products is four times as much, or 14 billion tons.

Prognostications from United Nations indicates that, despite the "Green Revolution", the World will face a food crisis around the year 2020 (Calculations from FAO). The main reason for this is the rising prices on oil, that will make it expensive to run farm machinery, process food and produce fertilizer. The biomass in the world will never be sufficient to run all the cars in the world, that's how dependent on oil we have become!	Mobile off-shore oil platform for deeper waters.	The energy that the surface of the earth receives from the sun in direct radiation is 13 000 times as large as the world's energy consumption. The problem is that it is unevenly distributed and expensive to make use of with today's technology. It cannot economically compete with other energy sources. That's why we have the energy situation we have today.

6. Energy Comparisons between Road Traffic and Beam Traffic

The 2 diagrams above and below speak for themselves. The one below shows how much fuel a typical inner-city bus and a typical, modern motorcar consumes on the average, under ordinary driving conditions, for one kilometer of driving. The fuel consumption is converted to its energy contents equivalent in kiloWatt-Hours. The PRT-car (= Personal Rapid Transit) is a 4-person, electrically propelled vehicle. The diagram above is figured per person, assuming then that the bus has a capacity of about 50 passengers (seated) and the other vehicles 4 passengers each. These figures, energy consumption per person and traveled kilometer, are figured from an actual average usage of 1.2 passengers per PRT, 1.5 per private car and 12 passengers per bus.

Off-shore oil platform with vertically adjustible legs, down to a depth of 100 meters. This platform can capsize in hard weather.

Granted, one could also figure out energy consumption for the case that all the available seats were occupied. And one could also take into account that the bus could take on additional standing passengers and thus become more effective, but that has to somehow be counteracted by the discomfort of these additional standing passengers. Or, in other words, it would be an unfair comparison with the other vehicles to assume that the bus carries 80 passengers. These calculations are based on Scandinavian weather conditions. Thus, the car loses some efficiency if started on a cold day ((indicated by green), while the PRT has to be heated (indicated by blue), something that the excess heat of the other vehicles provides for at no extra cost.

These measurements of the number of people in private motorcars in Canberra, Australia, during an ordinary week, show that those persons that commute by car usually travel alone. There are rarely more than one person in a motorcar.

An illustrative comparison of energy consumption for road traffic and beam-carried traffic, respectively for a given amount of transport work can be made if we start in the harbor where the oiltankers unload their oil, and make the assumption that the beam traffic is operated on electricity generated in an oilburning electricity generating plant. This is not something to recommend, but it serves our present purpose of illustrating the disparity between the two systems.

Mobile floating off-shore oil platform for depths of more than 100 meters. This rugged platform can withstand tornadoes with wind velocities of up to 15 meters/sec.

In an 8-step process, in the next section of this page, we will discuss the relationship (r) between the efficiency levels when performing this transportation work. r should here be regarded as an efficiency factor. If for instance (as in point 2 below) the electrical engine is 4 times as efficient as the combustion engine, then the factor r2 = 4,0 (The reason that we have put this to 3.5 is because conditions are rarely ideal, and more efficient combustion engines than those that are mostly in use do in fact exist.

	Drilling on the high seas are made from ships. The propellers are computer-controlled, to keep the ship in position. These drillings can reach depths of more than 3000 meters below the water surface.

7. The Inefficiency of using Motorcars

Let´s take an illustrative look at how wasteful our present handling of oil really is!

1.	The oil is brought from the harbor to the refinery, where the gasoline is produced. Then it is transported to gas stations all around, where it is stored in underground tanks. The private cars often have to make extra trips to the gas station to fill up on gas, then they travel around with this extra load of 30 - 50 kg of gasoline. In the case of supplying the beam traffic, the oil is taken directly to the oil-burning plant. No refining needed. Electricity is produced and sent in power wires to where it is needed. The energy losses during transport with oil trucks or railroad cars are assumed here to be equal in both cases. r1 = 1.0
2.	The electrical engine of the beam car has an efficiency about 4 times that of motorcar r2 = 3.5	( 80 %, as compared to the gasoline engine's 20 %). If one uses frequency-regulated electrical engines, the efficiency could reach 90 %.
3.	The effectiveness when considering how much of the propulsion energy applied to the motor shaft that is converted into motion energy to propel the vehicle, is higher with the beam vehicles than with the motorcar. This is because the motorcars' gear change system, cardan shaft, shock absorbers and tires steal a lot of energy by friction. Energy which is used to cause wear and tear, and ends up as heat. The beamcars have a more direct transmission system. Their engines, if frequency regulated, always rotate at optimum speed and with a speed that is proportional to the car's. r3 = 1.1	Note: Steel wheels would actually be more efficient than rubber wheels. When constructing the H-bahn in Germany, Siemens compiled a table of effectiveness on a percentage basis. If steel-on-steel is 100 %, one gets: Steel wheels on steel rails: 100 % Rubber tires on steel rails: 134 % Rubber tires on concrete: 176 % The beamcars travel on smooth steel guideways and use thin rubber wheels, compared to the bumpy, sometimes wet and slippery pavements of the road traffic.
4.	The beam-carried vehicles rarely use their mechanical brakes to reduce speed. Traffic lights, intersecting traffic queueing and other similar impediments do not exist. The vehicles only reduce speed when they: a) are about to berth b) when approaching a convergence node c) when approaching beam sections with lower speed restrictions, such as curves, etc. When braking, the excess energy is fed back into the electrical conduits, by temporarily making the engines function like electrical generators. r4 = 1.2
5.	The line of travel between start and goal should also be straighter, since the roadtraffic rarely can make bee-lines to their destinations to the same extent as the beamcars. r5 = 1.15	Streets have to take account of existing buildings more than the beams. But the main reason for any differences are that private car drivers often have to look arond for the address of their destination, then search for a parking place or travel to a nearby parking garage to deposit their car.
6.	As private cars are gradually replaced by beamcars, it is reasonable to expect that a lone traveler mostly would choose a 1-person vehicle, two people who want to travel together would choose a 2-person vehicle, etc., in order not to have to pay more than necessary. The percentage of used seats would then be near 100 %. As there would also be some empty vehicles travelling along the beams to pick up passengers, one could calculate with an average occupancy of about 60 %, to be compared to an occupancy of 30 % in most private cars. The larger of the beamcars could be removed from traffic (as opposed to a bus) at times when number of travelers have decreased to maybe 60 % of available seats. r6 = 1.7	By contrast, buses in regular traffic have to keep running at regular intervals, and the buses are always the same size, they are difficult to vary in size with passenger flow. A bus' average occupancy rate on a weekly and 24-hour basis is typically about 30 % in countries like Sweden and the USA. The relation of transportation energy to number of travelers and length of travel is therefore almost twice as big, i.e. r6 should be close to 2. A lot of energy is wasted in the road traffic transporting empty seats.
7.	In the long run, cities could be more compact as the spreading effect caused by widespread car ownership is counteracted when beam networks are constructed and put to use. r7 = 1.2	A rough estimate would be that average length of travel could be reduced by about 20 %.
8.	When exhaust fumes from private cars have disappeared, one suburb at a time, from the streets (and other toxious fumes have been eliminated), the streets could be covered in glass or overdecked. r8 = 1.2	The beam traffic moves silently and exhaust-free through the buildings. Pedestrians and bikers can then move about all around the year, without needing winter clothes and save transport work by leaving their cars at home. Energy is saved in cold climates by thus reducing the heat losses from these buildings.

	In conclusion,multiplying these factors, we get 1,0 * 3,5 * 1,1 * 1,2 * 1,15 * 1,7 * 1,2 * 1,2 = a saving of energy of about 13 times. All these savings won't come at the same rate as transportation work is transferred from road vehicles to beam-carried vehicles. The effects from points 7) and 8) above are the result of long-range changes of the city landscape. Uncalculated factors, such as more efficient road vehicles in the future, motivate a lower estimate such as maybe 7 times to start with. On the other hand, our estimate of the superiority of the electrical engine against the gasoline engine is at present very conservative. The effects of points 2), 3) and 4) are supported by practical experiences from the SIPEM system in Dortmund, Germany, and by research regarding energy consumption for SkyCab conducted by VTI (The Institute for Road- and Traffic Research in Sweden).	The conclusion is that if we were to use oil to provide the energy to run the beamcars (an environmentally insane alternative) we still would require only 1/7 of the oil that is presently used for the same purpose (Sweden presently imports oil corresponding to 15 GWh per year). One is immediately struck på the incredible waste from an energy point of view that today's handling of oil really is! But the mathematical exercise presented above was just for comparison purposes. A better method would be to replace 2/3 of all electrical energy that is presently used to heat or cool buildings with electricity generated from locally placed solar panels and heating pumps, and use the electrical energy thus saved to run the beam traffic.