U.S. can cut oil imports to zero by 2040, oil use to zero by 2050

[jpak]

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0329-lovins.html

The United States could dramatically cut oil usage over the next 20-30 years at low to no net cost, said Amory B. Lovins, cofounder and CEO of the Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Institute, speaking at Stanford University Wednesday night for a week-long evening series of lectures sponsored by Mineral Acquisition Partners, Inc.

Lovins opened by comparing the current position of the oil industry to that of the whaling industry in America in 1850, when it was the fifth largest industry in the country. At the time, most buildings were lit with whale oil, but increasing scarcity of whales drove up the cost of the resource, spurring competition and innovation. Within a decade of peak oil prices, whale oils lost two-thirds of their total market share.

"Whalers ran out of customers well before they ran out of whales, even before Edwin Drake struck oil in 1859 in Pennsylvania and made kerosene ubiquitous," he remarked. "Whalers in the late 1850s were begging for federal subsidies on national security grounds."

"Whales were saved by technology and profit-maximizing capitalists."

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[Iwasthere]

1. Yep

Not that we save the oil in the ground (like the whales), but it wouldn't hurt to leave a little down there. We don't HAVE to use up every last drop do we?

[TheWraith]

10. We couldn't use all the oil even if we wanted to.

The technology we currently use for oil collection is incredibly inefficient. Even after we've "drained" an oil field, there's still lots of oil down there--sometimes up to three times what we were able to pump out. We just can't get at it, at least with the old tech.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. The kerosene lamp was invented in 1857, and...

gaslight was even earlier than that. Actually, Persia had "oil wells" of a sort back in the 1200's and Poland was using seep oil for light in the 1500's. All of this was because whale oil was too expensive or nonexistent at the time. And vegetable oil was used for other things.

But, although he's right that we could replace all oil use, the question is-- with what?

I've been saying for years that technology got us into thhis fix and technology will get us out of it, but what forms will it take? There are emerging technologies that will at some point be cheaper than refining oil, and it will be interestnig to see how it all turns out.

[The2ndWheel]

7. There is no perfect state

Not sure where we came from to get into the fix, and not sure where we would go to get out of it. We're at where we're at, we haven't moved. The only thing technology has done is to make the "problems"(what we call problems is really just general existence) bigger and more complex. It hasn't solved anything, at best it has pushed the problems off into the future. The "solutions" to the "problems" require increasing amounts of energy to keep things together. That is what technology has done, and that's what technology will continue to do. It's not going to get us out of anything, it's not going to save us from anything. It will create bigger and more complex problems that we will either have to deal with today or tomorrow.

[GliderGuider]

9. Have you read Joseph Tainter?

In his classic book "The Collapse of Complex Societies" he lays out the thesis that complex societies eventually collapse due to decreasing marginal return on complexity. The premise is that as societies get bigger and more complex, they face larger problems which they overcome by further increasing their complexity. As some point it takes more energy to increase the complexity than you get back from solving the problems, and society becomes increasingly vulnerable to collapse. Essentially the complexity that was developed to solve problems becomes a problem in its own right.

It sounds very much like what you're saying.

[The2ndWheel]

15. Not the book, but I've read excerpts and such

Even without reading the book, just take the human body. It goes through the same process. If we don't continuously feed it, it will die. As we age, and age and age and age, more health problems arise. We need more surgery, or checkups, or medicine, or pills, etc, etc. At some point the human body is just done. It's all the same reason the sun will burn out eventually.

But yes, I think the point Tainter makes is a good one. We may end up with an energy source that puts oil to shame, it won't solve anything though. It'll just create new problems or enhance the same problems we had before. Even if we cure death(as in no dying) and are one day able to dance around actual stars in our underwear(or at that point, maybe we will have created something better than underwear), we're still going to have problems that will require increasing amounts of energy to solve.

I'm not saying don't try. I wouldn't have the energy for it, but if someone else wants to, go nuts. Just don't be surprised when nothing fundamentally changes.

[depakid]

19. The frightening thing is

That all of the factors that Tainter (and others) mention in their analysis and their case studies are present in 21st Century America.

If you haven't checked it out yet- you might like another book he co-authored called Supply Side Sustainability - where he carries his thesis further

What I see in the literature points (at the very least) to a process (orderly or disorderly) of relocalization (regional integration) and economically de-linking from globalization.

[GliderGuider]

21. Relocalization

This is the single crucial idea for getting through what's coming. The science of complex adaptive systems and Resilience Theory support this as well. Reducing the overall level of system integration, localizing production of all kinds, distributing and disconnecting nodes of agricultural, energy and goods production, and getting as much activity as possible off the global transportation web are critical for long term survival. The higher the level of integration, the more likely it is that failure cascades will rip through multiple regions or subsystems before they are stopped.

At this point I don't think we'll be able to avoid the decline and some degree of disintegration of our global industrial civilization. However, relocalizing and disconnecting will maximize the chances of smaller groups making it through relatively intact. The more groups like that there are, the greater the probability that civilization as a whole may not collapse completely.

[Vulture]

22. Umm...

"The only thing technology has done is to make the "problems"(what we call problems is really just general existence) bigger and more complex. It hasn't solved anything, at best it has pushed the problems off into the future. The "solutions" to the "problems" require increasing amounts of energy to keep things together. That is what technology has done, and that's what technology will continue to do. It's not going to get us out of anything, it's not going to save us from anything. It will create bigger and more complex problems that we will either have to deal with today or tomorrow."


Per capita energy consumption has been in constant and substantial decline since the 1970s, due almost entirely to new technologies increasing efficiency, reliability, durability, and reducing power requirements. You are making assumptions that are not in evidence.

That said, the population has been increasing faster than per capita energy consumption has been declining, creating the net increase in total energy consumption that you see today. Don't blame technology; total energy usage today would be far higher without it and it has mitigated much of the negative impact of population growth (though apparently not enough).

[The2ndWheel]

26. How would it be far higher?

"Don't blame technology; total energy usage today would be far higher without it"

If...

"Per capita energy consumption has been in constant and substantial decline since the 1970s, due almost entirely to new technologies increasing efficiency, reliability, durability, and reducing power requirements."

is true, then the amount of people today that have access to the energy wouldn't have that access to it without the technology. The technology hasn't saved us from anything, it is the reason we use so much energy.

"and it has mitigated much of the negative impact of population growth (though apparently not enough)."

Exactly, it didn't solve the impact of population growth. It pushed it off into the future. If we have an energy source better than oil, we can push it off even further. If we don't, then we're going to find out the negative impact of population growth, which has been made possible by advancements in technology.

We're completely dependent on technology, and the increasing efficiency, reliability, durability, and reduction in power requirements. We have to keep going that way. It doesn't matter what some jackass says on a message board. I'm not going to change anything that happens. The only thing that can stop it is if we don't have the energy required to keep this whole thing running. I can blame the technology all I want, it ain't going anywhere. You don't have to worry about that.

[Vulture]

27. For the life of me...

...I cannot follow your reasoning. Not a flame, it just doesn't make sense to me.

People today use a lot less energy than they did thirty years ago. Most of that energy use reduction came from improvements in technology. Technology isn't a "thing", it is a progression. Older technology is less efficient and more resource intensive. You could roll human technology way back to when we used less energy, but then you lose all the efficiency that came with newer technology and therefore it does not scale; it would require the vast majority of the population to die, and then you would be stuck without a lot of extremely beneficial technology that most people would be reluctant to live without (like modern medical technology).

There are only two solutions to very substantially reducing total energy consumption: massively reduce the population (good luck with that) or continuing to rapidly improve technology to increase efficiency and to continue to reduce energy consumption (which is happening on its own). Population is already starting to level off on its own, so arguably the nicest solution is to aggressively develop technologies that further improve efficiency and reduce energy usage so that when the rate of population growth falls off enough there actually will be a reduction in total energy usage.

[GliderGuider]

29. I think the underlying point is:

Humanity uses all the energy available to it at any time. We always use it all and do what we can with it given the technology available for turning energy into work. If efficiency increases we simply do more, in aggregate, with the same total amount of energy.

The observation of historically declining per capita consumption reflects the fact that the rising population has been able to use the available energy efficiently enough to support themselves and reproduce at a fairly rapid rate.

The only solution to reducing total energy use is for the total energy available to diminish. Decreasing population will allow the remaining population to do more things per capita with the increased per capita energy that results. Increasing efficiency will have the same effect - more people will do more things with the same amount of energy.

There is no scenario under which excess available energy does not get used. We're not wired like that, and our economic system doesn't support it.

[bananas]

30. That's not true at all

"Humanity uses all the energy available to it at any time."

During the 70s energy crisis, there was plenty of energy available, but people didn't want to pay so much for it, so they used less.
At the same time, they decided they didn't want all that "cheap, clean, inexhaustible" energy from nuclear power, so plants already under construction were boarded up.

The supermarket sells ten pound bags of sugar. Do people swallow the whole bag as soon as they leave the store? No, there are limits to how much energy people will use, even if it is available.

[GliderGuider]

33. What were the high prices in the '70s caused by?

They were caused by supply restrictions - remember the OPEC embargo? The West responded by improving the efficiency of oil use. That's when the energy intensity of the US economy improved dramatically. There were some short-term reductions is individual use, but overall no oil remained on the market unused. If it had, prices would have gone back down - as they finally did when the embargo ended and supply increased again. The same thing happened when the Iran/Iraq war took oil off the market. This is Economics 101. Take a look at the link to Jevons Paradox I posted below - it speaks directly to what happened in the '70.

The situation with nuclear energy was a bit different. The rejection of that power source was driven by a combination of consumer fear and an almost subliminal recognition that the cost of the technology's externalities (security and waste disposal) was too high and the industry had sold us a bill of goods.

[bananas]

34. The oil was available, it disproves your point

The oil was certainly available to the Saudis and the other OPEC countries.
They didn't use it all.
That directly disproves your point.
The energy was available, they didn't use it.

Nuclear energy was available to the U.S.
We didn't use it all.
That directly disproves your point.
The energy was available, we didn't use it.

I gave two examples which directly disprove your point.
You said we always use all the available energy.
That's incorrect.

[GliderGuider]

35. I would dispute that the oil was available in the '70's.

OPEC was making a political point. Once that point had been made, supply reverted to normal. During the embargo period, the oil was certainly not available to consumers. In fact, if you look at global oil supply performance over the entire decade, the embargo shows up as merely a one-year dip. In 1974, supply shot right back to above what it had been in 1972. What this really shows is the power of our drive to consume energy. Even a concerted action by a significant number of oil producers couldn't restrict supply for long. Once the Arab-Israeli issues showed signs of resolution, market forces reasserted themselves and the situation returned to status quo ante bellum.

I think the mistake you're making is in identifying the oil producers as "users". They decided to forgo profits by not producing oil for export, but their domestic oil consumption was not affected. The final consumers of the oil still consumed all that was made available. Even the massive price spike brought on by the supply restrictions of the Iran/Iraq war did not result in oil being left on the market.

Yes, more nuclear capacity could have been built in the US, just as more coal could be mined today. I'll admit that the situation is somewhat more complex than just "we use it all". There are market forces that come into play through consumer responses (e.g. fear of radiation), the costs and relative utility of different various forms of energy. It was probably unwise of me to use the inclusive term "energy" when I really meant "oil". However, history has shown that we will indeed use all the available supply of the most useful, convenient and cheapest form of energy available at the time before we move on to less amenable forms. This was behind the deforestation and then the depletion of coal in Europe. This process was only stopped with the discovery of oil.

The real point is that mankind has shown no willingness to leave a useful resource untapped so long as there is no other resource available to do the work better and cheaper. Given that oil is currently on top of the cost/benefit pile, and there is no urge on the part of consumers to leave any of it for later, there is little hope that we will stop short of the full consumption of the resource. Politics may interfere for brief periods, but I don't see that overall trend being interrupted by altruism or Global Warming.

[The2ndWheel]

31. No problem

"I cannot follow your reasoning"

It's always made more sense in my head than what ended up on the page/screen. You're not alone. Poor teachers.

"People today use a lot less energy than they did thirty years ago."

A person does. People use more.

"Most of that energy use reduction came from improvements in technology. Technology isn't a "thing", it is a progression. Older technology is less efficient and more resource intensive."

Exactly. Fewer people also had access to the older technology because it was more expensive. That's the whole point of the middle class; to allow the rabble access to everything the elite have, since they have as much right to it as the top class.

"You could roll human technology way back to when we used less energy, but then you lose all the efficiency that came with newer technology and therefore it does not scale; it would require the vast majority of the population to die, and then you would be stuck without a lot of extremely beneficial technology that most people would be reluctant to live without (like modern medical technology)."

We're agreeing a lot. That's why I said we can't do anything other than keep doing what we're doing. To do otherwise in 2007 would mean the voluntary murder of billions, putting all 20th century dictators to shame. Obviously we can't do that. The more efficient you make the technology, the more people will use it, the cheaper you make the technology, the more people will use it more often.

"There are only two solutions to very substantially reducing total energy consumption: massively reduce the population (good luck with that) or continuing to rapidly improve technology to increase efficiency and to continue to reduce energy consumption (which is happening on its own)."

I agree with that, except the consumption part. We're not reducing consumption, not voluntarily anyway(on a large scale, individuals can reduce all they want). The more efficienct we made cars, did we drive less? The more efficienct we made the process of extracting the energy, did we used less? Don't we drive more, and consume more energy?

"Population is already starting to level off on its own, so arguably the nicest solution is to aggressively develop technologies that further improve efficiency and reduce energy usage so that when the rate of population growth falls off enough there actually will be a reduction in total energy usage."

So at some point in the future we're going to say we're using enough energy, and we're not going to demand more? Our entire way of life is based on endless growth. That would mean we will no longer agressively develop technologies that further improve efficiency, since it wouldn't make any sense to do so. It wouldn't be worth the effort. The only reason to develop those technologies would be to use more overall energy.

You're talking about population growth falling, but how many people today, with a 6.5 billion person population, and growing, don't have efficient access to energy? Before we get to that point in the future, we'll make more efficient technologies so that all those people have a chance to use it(since they have as much right to it as anyone else). So the total amount of energy will be going up, since millions, if not billions, more people will have more access to it.

Believe me, it makes sense in my head. The cheaper something is, the more we'll use it. The more efficienct something is, the more we'll use it. The more people that have access to cheaper and more efficient technologies, the more people will use more of them more often. The more people that use more, the higher the overall total used.

[GliderGuider]

32. You're talking about Jevons Paradox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

In economics, the Jevons Paradox is an observation made by William Stanley Jevons who stated that as technological improvements increase the efficiency with which a resource is used, total consumption of that resource may increase, rather than decrease. It is historically called the Jevons Paradox since it ran counter to Jevons's intuition, but it is well understood by modern economic theory which shows that improved resource efficiency may trigger a change in the overall consumption of that resource. The direction of that change depends on other economic variables.

[GliderGuider]

3. I don't know who is worse, Amory Lovins of RMI or Daniel Yergin of CERA

Both of them are unrepentant cornucopians, but on opposite sides of the fence. Jerkin' Yergin says, "Don't worry, there's lots and lots and lots of oil!" Amoral Lovins says, "Don't worry, there's lots and lots and lots of replacements for oil!"

They are both wrong, and to follow the advice of either is to walk briskly through the gates of Hell wearing a cheerful smile. A pox on both their houses.

[jpak]

5. Doom and gloom and *yawn*

According to the naysayers *nothing* can be done - and if they have their way, *nothing* will be done.

Yankee ingenuity and American "can do" spirit trumps them all...

[GliderGuider]

6. A can do spirit may yet triumph

But I don't see how constant messages of "There is no problem" from both ends of the spectrum will whip up the requisite sense of urgency. Is the problem urgent? I sure think so, and I also think a bit of fire and brimstone on that topic is more salutary than these soothing bromides.

[jpak]

11. Amory Lovins has been proposing solutions to The Problem since the 1970's

To propose solutions, one must recognize that a Problem exists.

Lovins fully understands The Problem and has for many years.

How one can ignore this is very strange indeed...

[GliderGuider]

14. That's not quite the problem I was referring to.

I know that Lovins understands that we will run short of oil. When I say that his message is "There is no problem" I mean it a little more colloquially. What he seems to be telling us is that we already have solutions in hand that are self-evident, sufficient and relatively cost-free. In large measure I disagree. There's no doubt that RMI's proposals would help over the short and medium term. However, I think his approach, which I believe amounts to streamlining Business as Usual (as exemplified by the Hypercar), is fundamentally wrong-headed. If there is a problem that Lovins doesn't understand, it is in my opinion the implications of human history with regard to growth and consumption patterns, and how intractable human behaviour is when considered en masse.

I also don't think he really gets the probability and consequences of rapid large-scale oil depletion, which is what we're facing. That reality will overtake a lot of fundamentally well-meaning people, and I think Amory Lovins and Al Gore will be among them.

[jpak]

17. Now that's funny

What "reality" doesn't Al Gore and Amory Lovins understand????

Is Peak Oil a "Big Secret" and too difficult for their puny "well-meaning" minds to comprehend???

I don't think so...

[GliderGuider]

18. Peak oil is no secret.

What's not well understood yet is the probability and consequences of the loss of 30% of global oil production within the next 15 years. The reason I don't think they get it is because if they did the emphasis of their messages would be significantly different. The consequences of that decline will drastically outweigh the effects of Global Warming over that time frame, and probably out to 2040. The decline of oil will also modify significantly the options available to us to mitigate GW. I don't see any of this in Gore's message, and only a passing nod to it in Lovins'.

You should really ease up on that jeering tone. It is possible to disagree respectfully.

[jpak]

24. Yes, I promise to park the Hyperbole Car - my bad

:evilgrin:

[4dsc]

25. Its already too late,

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2364

check out this interview!! We have yet to start any mitigation to another energy source and peak oil is here!!

You mentioned that you stopped publishing after your retirement in 1999 because "it's too late." Was there a specific moment or incident that prompted you to say "enough"?

Because development of large-volume, economical substitutes for oil is likely to require many years if not decades, and because I think that global oil production rate is likely to start declining around the year 2010, it seemed to me that, by 1999, when I retired, we probably no longer had enough time to develop substitutes for petroleum adequate to compensate for the coming decline in oil production rate. Also, on a more personal note, retirement meant that I no longer had to teach courses or direct master's theses, which in turn meant that it was no longer necessary to keep up with all the diverse and voluminous literature on petroleum geology and other energy matters. I eagerly anticipated this release but also realized that abandoning the current literature on energy would soon render me incompetent to write about oil supply problems. Besides, by 1999 I was in my mid-sixties and had been writing about long-term fuel supply problems for twenty years without discernible beneficial effect. This was discouraging; I was tired, and my wife and I were looking forward to permanent vacation, travel, play, and no alarm clocks.

[TheWraith]

8. Amen. Some people just won't be happy until we're all living in mud huts. NT

[Kolesar]

12. Lovin's analogy to the end of whale oil is so pedantic it is embarassing...

Whale oil was replaced by a superior resource (petroleum). We don't have any more superior resources that we can exploit.

I am extremely skeptical about productizing a carbon-fiber "Hypercar" I think that any carbon-fiber automobile is going to be too expensive except for those who "have to" drive a lot (for business). (hyperbole car?)

[GliderGuider]

16. "Hyperbole Car" - that's priceless!

[jaksavage]

4. What will we burn next

If we just treated it like the precious resource it is
It would last a very long time

Tax it more and solve our problems

There is no magic fix for
overpopulation and excessive consumption

[hunter]

13. Hah, hah, and I'll bet we do too, and a lot sooner!

If you can't afford gasoline, you walk, ride a bike, or take the bus... if there is a bus.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybus

[Dissenting_Prole]

20. This means nothing

"U.S. can cut oil imports to zero by 2040, oil use to zero by 2050"

Hilarious. There won't be any oil left to extract by 2050 at the rate we're going - at least not much of any quality that is worth chasing.

[4dsc]

23. Who will exporting oil in 2040??

The US will cut its imports of oil by 2040 because nobody should be exporting it in that year unless for a very high price.. Exporting countries will soon learn, if they don't know already, that oil will be their lifeline and exporting to the USA is not worth it!!

So its already too late..

[GliderGuider]

28. That's a good point. The headline should have read:

"U.S. oil imports will be cut to zero by 2040, oil use will be zero by 2050."

Then all I'd find to take issue with is that predicting the year 2040 for zero imports is too optimistic.

One thing to keep in mind is that while gross oil production will be asymptotic to zero, oil exports can and probably will fall to zero, producer by producer. This has just happened to the UK, after all, going from being a net exporter to a let importer in 2005. The price competition for the last gasps of export capacity will be be ferocious. Any country that can't outbid someone for oil will eventually be left without any, while oil producing nations will still have at least some.