Book Notes: The End of Oil
Review of The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World
Paul Roberts, 2004
Read September 2006
The best book on energy that I’ve read yet, by far. It’s a good survey of the current energy situation – oil, natural gas, alternatives, conservation, the forces of the market economy, global warming, the energy rise of China and India. Well-written; well-balanced, and reasonably dispassionate. As I’ve read other books, at times I would think, well, they didn’t cover some such topic. Roberts does cover most of those topics.
I won’t try to summarize the book; if you’re interested in this stuff you might as well just read it.
A few selected notes.
As oil demand nears production, we can expect prices to rise. That’s to be expected. But we also need to be aware that volatility will increase even more, and we will be more vulnerable to shocks in the system, major or minor. Such shocks could be wars, political events, hurricanes, breakages, etc.
The “efficiency dividend”. As civilizations mature, their energy needs go down. Products become more efficient. However, Americans have collectively not chosen to “spend” these efficiency gains by reducing consumption. Instead, the efficiency dividend has in a sense been plowed back into buying more energy. For example, building materials have greatly reduced the amount of energy you need to heat or cool a home. Think double-pane windows, improved furnaces, etc. But overall energy consumption for housing has not gone down in this country, because we are building larger and larger houses that more than compensate for the efficiency gains. Likewise, automobiles are much more efficient now than twenty years ago – better engines, materials, body design. But mileage hasn’t changed – a Honda Civic gets about the same mileage now as it did then. The dividend here has been plowed back into engine power.
3rd world energy consumption. China aspires to a first-world standard of living for its citizens. Nothing wrong with that, although it would make the rest of us share more. But what’s scary is if they take the normal path of technical progression, starting with lower-efficiency, higher-polluting mechanization. Especially in view of global warming, that could be disastrous.
Another comment on the 3rd world. Much of the world’s population does not have regular access to electricity. 2.5 billion people rely on biomass (wood, manure, etc) for their cooking, heating, and lighting. Think about reading at night. Candlelight isn’t really sufficient. Think of how this constrains education. Think about what cheap solar power could mean to the third world. Unfortunately, there is little profit and high risk in providing electricity to developing nations, so we can’t expect much from the marketplace.
On efficiency: “Power plants in the United States discard more energy in ‘waste’ heat than is needed to run the entire Japanese economy – and half the electricity generated in the United States isn’t needed to begin with. Barely 15 percent of the energy in a gallon of gasoline ever reaches the wheels of a car.” [Carrying this further, given that most of weight being propelled by the car’s engine is that of the car, and not the ‘payload’, i.e. passengers plus cargo, only a few percent of the energy from gasoline is used to actually propel you to where you need to go.]
Dick Cheney: “[the Bush energy plan] will recognize that the present crisis does not represent a failing of the American people.” It’s our misfortune that Cheney is in a key position of leadership at this time – we can’t trust him to make good decisions where oil is involved – but he is right here in some ways, and this is an important statement to reckon with. I hope to discuss it sometime.
Drilling in ANWR. Roberts claims that the administration is using ANWR cynically; basically they offer giving up drilling there as a compromise in order to win bigger battles. Members of Congress can vote against drilling to get environmental merit points, and then proceed to vote against the environment on more destructive policies. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but certainly, ANWR is small fry, both in the amount of oil it contains and the amount of environmental harm that will be caused by drilling it. As Roberts points out, raising mileage standards would be much more meaningful to the environment and energy situation.
Speaking of mileage standards, Roberts makes the point that increasing standards will deal American carmakers a serious blow, as they have concentrated their efforts on low-mileage high-margin SUV’s, pickups, and larger sedans. It’s a good point, and one that makes me none too happy at Detroit, if it means we have to pursue poor long-term policy decisions because of their short-term profit decisions.
On a related note, the political power of large companies (oil, cars, power) make it hard to change our policies. That’s natural; for example, increasing pollution standards will hurt the average power company executive more than it will help any single American. So those executives have much more incentive to fight such standards; ditto they have more power than any of us individuals. One benefit of growing alternative energy industries is that we get more counterbalancing forces that can help us navigate a better course. This is already happening in Europe, with the rise of the wind industry.
It’s a good book. Read it, if you’re into this sort of thing.
Paul Roberts, 2004
Read September 2006
The best book on energy that I’ve read yet, by far. It’s a good survey of the current energy situation – oil, natural gas, alternatives, conservation, the forces of the market economy, global warming, the energy rise of China and India. Well-written; well-balanced, and reasonably dispassionate. As I’ve read other books, at times I would think, well, they didn’t cover some such topic. Roberts does cover most of those topics.
I won’t try to summarize the book; if you’re interested in this stuff you might as well just read it.
A few selected notes.
As oil demand nears production, we can expect prices to rise. That’s to be expected. But we also need to be aware that volatility will increase even more, and we will be more vulnerable to shocks in the system, major or minor. Such shocks could be wars, political events, hurricanes, breakages, etc.
The “efficiency dividend”. As civilizations mature, their energy needs go down. Products become more efficient. However, Americans have collectively not chosen to “spend” these efficiency gains by reducing consumption. Instead, the efficiency dividend has in a sense been plowed back into buying more energy. For example, building materials have greatly reduced the amount of energy you need to heat or cool a home. Think double-pane windows, improved furnaces, etc. But overall energy consumption for housing has not gone down in this country, because we are building larger and larger houses that more than compensate for the efficiency gains. Likewise, automobiles are much more efficient now than twenty years ago – better engines, materials, body design. But mileage hasn’t changed – a Honda Civic gets about the same mileage now as it did then. The dividend here has been plowed back into engine power.
3rd world energy consumption. China aspires to a first-world standard of living for its citizens. Nothing wrong with that, although it would make the rest of us share more. But what’s scary is if they take the normal path of technical progression, starting with lower-efficiency, higher-polluting mechanization. Especially in view of global warming, that could be disastrous.
Another comment on the 3rd world. Much of the world’s population does not have regular access to electricity. 2.5 billion people rely on biomass (wood, manure, etc) for their cooking, heating, and lighting. Think about reading at night. Candlelight isn’t really sufficient. Think of how this constrains education. Think about what cheap solar power could mean to the third world. Unfortunately, there is little profit and high risk in providing electricity to developing nations, so we can’t expect much from the marketplace.
On efficiency: “Power plants in the United States discard more energy in ‘waste’ heat than is needed to run the entire Japanese economy – and half the electricity generated in the United States isn’t needed to begin with. Barely 15 percent of the energy in a gallon of gasoline ever reaches the wheels of a car.” [Carrying this further, given that most of weight being propelled by the car’s engine is that of the car, and not the ‘payload’, i.e. passengers plus cargo, only a few percent of the energy from gasoline is used to actually propel you to where you need to go.]
Dick Cheney: “[the Bush energy plan] will recognize that the present crisis does not represent a failing of the American people.” It’s our misfortune that Cheney is in a key position of leadership at this time – we can’t trust him to make good decisions where oil is involved – but he is right here in some ways, and this is an important statement to reckon with. I hope to discuss it sometime.
Drilling in ANWR. Roberts claims that the administration is using ANWR cynically; basically they offer giving up drilling there as a compromise in order to win bigger battles. Members of Congress can vote against drilling to get environmental merit points, and then proceed to vote against the environment on more destructive policies. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but certainly, ANWR is small fry, both in the amount of oil it contains and the amount of environmental harm that will be caused by drilling it. As Roberts points out, raising mileage standards would be much more meaningful to the environment and energy situation.
Speaking of mileage standards, Roberts makes the point that increasing standards will deal American carmakers a serious blow, as they have concentrated their efforts on low-mileage high-margin SUV’s, pickups, and larger sedans. It’s a good point, and one that makes me none too happy at Detroit, if it means we have to pursue poor long-term policy decisions because of their short-term profit decisions.
On a related note, the political power of large companies (oil, cars, power) make it hard to change our policies. That’s natural; for example, increasing pollution standards will hurt the average power company executive more than it will help any single American. So those executives have much more incentive to fight such standards; ditto they have more power than any of us individuals. One benefit of growing alternative energy industries is that we get more counterbalancing forces that can help us navigate a better course. This is already happening in Europe, with the rise of the wind industry.
It’s a good book. Read it, if you’re into this sort of thing.
posted by Jim at
3:43 PM
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