Renewable Revolution

Quote from: Palloy2 on March 06, 2018, 02:36:32 am

The thing to panic about is Peak Oil because its impact is just about to crash the world economy and prevent any kind of industrial reboot.

You're right about the impact of Peak Oil, but Biosphere Disruption (aka Climate Change) can cause the extinction of most complex lifeforms on Earth, so it is a far bigger problem.

Also, Peak Oil is completely unavoidable, all we can do it change the timing a little one way or the other, and brace ourselves for the impact.  While Biosphere Disruption has already begun, we still have at least in theory the ability to avoid the worst effects.

Really, though, it is a false dilemma.  The good solutions for Peak Oil also happen to be the good solutions for Biosphere Disruption.  They just are bad for continuing a BAU consumerist lifestyle.

Thank you for your serious and well reasoned comment. I understand that you see this as six of one and half a dozen of the other, but there is a key issue here that negates the "peak oil will save us" meme as an excuse to keep buring fossi lfuels until they are all used up.

I cede the floor to Ugo Bardi:



Thursday, October 8, 2015

The idea that peak oil will save us from climate change has been occasionally popping up in the debate, but it never really gained traction for a number of good reasons. One is that, in many cases, the proponents were also climate science deniers and that made them scarcely credible. Indeed, if climate change does not exist (or if it is not caused by human activities), then how is it that you are telling us that peak oil will save us from it? Add to this that many hard line climate science deniers are also peak oil deniers (since, as well known, both concepts are part of the great conspiracy), then, it is no surprise that the meme of "peak oil will save us" never went viral.

That doesn't mean that we shouldn't ask the question of whether we have sufficient amounts of fossil fuel to generate a truly disastrous climate change. The debate on this point goes back to the early 2000s. At the beginning, the data were uncertain and it was correctly noted that some of the IPCC scenarios overestimated what we are likely to burn in the future. But, by now, I think the fog has cleared.  It is becoming increasingly clear that fossil fuel depletion is not enough, by far, to save us from climate change.

Nevertheless, some people still cling to the old "peak oil will save us" meme. In a recent post on "Energy Matters", Roger Andrews argues that:

All of the oil and gas reserves plus about 20% of the coal reserves could be consumed without exceeding the IPCC’s trillion-tonne carbon emissions limit. 

Now, that sounds reassuring and surely many people would understand it in the sense that we shouldn't worry at all about burning oil and gas. Unfortunately, that's just not true and Andrews' statement is both overoptimistic and misleading.

One problem is that the "2 degrees limit" is a last ditch attempt to limit the damage created by climate change, but there is no certainty that staying beyond it will be enough to prevent disaster.

 
Then, there is a problem with Andrew's use of the term "reserves," to be understood as "proven reserves". Proven reserves include only those resources that are known to exist and to be extractable at present; and that's surely much less than all what could be extracted in the future. The parameter that takes into account also probably existing resources is called "Ultimate Recoverable Resources" or URRs

So, let's consider a world fossil URR estimate that many people would consider as "pessimistic," the one by Jean Laherrere that I already discussed in a previous post.

It turns out that we have enough oil and gas that, together, they can produce enough CO2 to reach the 2 degrees limit; even though, maybe, not more. There follows that, if we really wanted to burn all the oil and gas known to be extractable, to stay withing the limit we would need to stop burning coal - zero burning, zilch -  starting from tomorrow! Not an easy thing to do, considering that coal produces more than 40% of the energy that powers the world's electrical grid and, in some countries, much more than that. It is true that coal is the dirtiest of the three fossil fuels and must be phased out faster than oil and gas, but the consumption of all three must go down together, otherwise it will be impossible to remain under the limit.

In the end, we have here one more of the many illusions that surround the climate issue; one that could be dangerous it were to spread. However, in addition to the other problems described here, Andrew's post falls into the same trap of many previous attempts: it uses the data produced by climate science to try to demonstrate its main thesis, but only after having defined climate science as "Vodoo Science." No way: this is not a meme that will go viral.

http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.it/2015/04/climate-change-can-seneca-collapse-save.html

JD, if you haven't perused this detailed study by David Wasdell, I recommend it. It clearly shows the climate sensitivity (radiative forcing) is much higher than the low balled IPCC scenario model math.


Here are the facts.

Climate Dynamics:

Facing the Harsh Realities of Now

Climate Sensitivity, Target Temperature & the Carbon Budget
Guidelines for Strategic Action

Apollo-Gaia Project

Director: David Wasdell

It is with the utmost concern that we draw your attention to the fundamental methodological flaw in the determination of the value of Climate Sensitivity that is embedded in the Summary for Policymakers of the Scientific Workgroup of the 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC. The error was replicated in the Reports of Workgroups 2 and 3 and carried forward into the Synthesis Report. It has been used as the given basis for every subsequent publication. Our radical analysis of Climate Dynamics has generated a new and robust value of "Earth System Sensitivity" which has profound implications for:

֍ The relationship between temperature change and cumulative carbon emissions.

֍ The calculation of "available carbon budget".

֍ The evaluation of the INDCs.

֍ The terms of reference of COP21 in Paris (30 November - 11 December 2015).

֍ The future global strategy for climate stabilisation.
 
Our analysis is published in dual media (triple-screen video and fully illustrated PDF). These can be used separately or in combination.

Video of the above and Table of Contents at link below.



http://www.apollo-gaia.org/harsh-realities-of-now.html