Energy: The Common Denominator of Life

[Sapiens]

The unit of measure of this project is the BTU (British Thermal Unit).

[Sapiens]

the watt: The Two Most Important Graphs in the Energy Biz

http://thewatt.com/node/168

The Two Most Important Graphs in the Energy Biz
Submitted by ben on Sun, 02/17/2008 - 05:33.
If you listen to theWatt Podcast, you might have heard me say from time-to-time something along the lines of “Energy is the most important factor influencing the quality of our lives” (actually, I say this almost every show). This is one of the inspirations for starting theWatt. So today I’m going to back that statement up, and post what I consider to be the most important graph in the energy biz.

The link between GDP and energy consumption
I’m sure almost everybody knows the link between GDP and energy consumption. Typically, as GDP increases, a country needs to use more energy to maintain the growth. Growth from the influx of industry which attracts people (or vice versa) who buy homes in the suburbs and need to drive to work everyday. Not to mention the resources required to maintain roads and build all of the new services that people typically require (hospitals, grocery stores, hockey rinks, yadda yadda yadda). As GDP goes up, so does energy consumption, they’re closely linked.

If you look hard enough though, you can find some instances where the link between GDP and energy consumption is broken. A commonly cited example of this phenomenon is during the second U.S. oil shock, between 1977-1985, when GDP in the U.S. increased by 27% while oil consumption fell by 17%. This is encouraging and shows how far efficiency and a 55mph speed limit can actually take us in only a short period of time. For the record, total energy consumption during this time fell by 2% with coal consumption increasing by 26%, natural gas consumption falling by 11% and healthy growth from cleaner energy sources (which started from a low base) of 27% for hydroelectric, 51% for nuclear energy and 65% from other sources (such as biomass, wind). Breaking the link between energy consumption and GDP are very rare though because they require investment in efficiency and thought rather than the a brute force approach of simply consuming more.

The ineffectiveness of GDP
The thing about GDP though is – well - it’s basically a load of BS at gauging the development of a country. To learn why, I highly recommend the book “Confessions of an economic hitman”, which clearly explains how the rich get richer and the poor stay poor, especially in developing countries.

The ineffectiveness of using GDP per capita to gauge a persons well being is recognized by some, which is why the Human Development Index (HDI) was invented. The HDI incorporates factors such as life-expectancy, education, income inequality, poverty rates, GDP per capita and the environment into a normalized measure on a scale of 0-1. Countries with an HDI of 1 have a very high standard of living (currently Norway is in the lead at 0.968) and countries with an HDI close to 0 are have a very bad standard of living (Sierra Leone is at the bottom with an HDI of 0.336).

The plateau of energy consumption and CO2 emissions
So, to backup my claim that “Energy is the most important factor influencing the quality of lives”, I present the plateau of the energy consumption curve, as well as the plateau of the CO2 emissions curve, which I think are the most important graphs in the energy business.







The plateau of the energy consumption curve and the plateau of the CO2 emissions curve. Data from United Nations Development Programme from 2003. Raw data available here.




These are busy graphs, so let me explain them a bit. Every data point represents a country, I’ve marked off a few of them. Although there are a couple of outliers, there’s a clear trend. Countries with higher human development indices consume more energy and as a result, produce more CO2. Note that there is not necessarily a direct link between CO2 emissions and HDI, more appropriately, there’s a direct link between energy consumption and CO2 emissions. I should also mention that I did cut out a few countries such as Qatar, which has a per capita energy consumption of 21395 kg oil equivalent per person, and an HDI of 0.875.

These graphs also indicate how efficient a country is. On the microscale, Norway has the highest HDI at 0.968 but Norwegians consume 1.4 times less energy than Canadians and 1.3 times less energy than Americans. Many people can come up with excuses for North Americans being so energy inefficient, but I don’t buy most of them. On these graphs I’ve also taken the liberty of marking off the plateau. This is roughly the point where any additional energy consumption produces relatively insignificant improvements in quality of life. I think the plateau in energy consumption is roughly 2400 kg of oil equivalent per person, or the same energy consumption of Hong Kong (this data is from 2003 by the way) which results in a CO2 plateau of 5.5 tonnes CO2/person.

Some difficult questions
Pitting quality of life versus energy consumption in this way brings up some difficult questions, such as: 1) Is it possible to increase the standard of living of everybody in the world to around the 0.9 HDI range given that energy resources are limited? 2) If question 1 is not possible, what levels of HDI might be possible?

Question 1: Can we all live at an HDI of 0.9?
Assuming today’s world population, our target energy consumption of 2400 kg oil equivalent per person, which would theoretically raise everybody’s HDI up to the 0.9 range, is equivalent to a total world energy consumption of 628 quadrillion Btu’s (at this point it’s easier to talk about energy in terms of quadrillion Btu’s, or quads). In 2004, the world’s total energy consumption was 447 Quads. So, if we want everybody in the world to have an HDI of around 0.9, then we would need to find an additional 181 Quads of energy (and all the rich countries would have to be much more reasonable in their energy consumption). This amount of energy is roughly equivalent to 6700 nuclear reactors, but there’s also plenty of room for increasing efficiency, so 6700 nukes probably will not be required. This situation is likely doable if the world takes a “Manhattan project approach” to energy, the type that Barack Obama has spoken about. The trouble is, this situation is not sustainable because: 1) it would still require us to use fossil fuels 2) population growth is nowhere close to being stagnant. That being said, the prospect of having the technology to improve almost everybody’s standard of life to the 0.9 HDI range is encouraging.

Question 2: Without oil, what HDI levels might be possible?
Oil will become too expensive, even for the west, within the next 50 years, and more likely within the next 20 years. Out of the world’s total 2004 energy consumption of 447 Quads, oil contributed roughly 175 quads, 40%. So, if we want to live in an equitable world where everybody has the same standard of living, but at the same time we recognize that we are limited in our energy resources, we would have to consume less energy. Cut oil out of our energy supply, and we’re left with the world using at most 1038 kg oil equivalent. Looking purely at the numbers, this level of energy consumption corresponds to an HDI of around 0.8, or, the same quality of life as the average person living in Brazil. But, unfortunately, having the world live like the average Brazilian isn’t really possible because not everybody would be able to make extensive use of efficient sugar cane ethanol in the same way that Brazil is able to do, and in this scenario, the world’s HDI would be slightly lower than 0.8. Still good on average though.

Other possibilities
There are some major assumptions in the quick analysis above. Mostly that population is stagnant and that fossil fuels other than oil will remain relatively available. Also, I haven’t addressed the CO2 issue adequately. It doesn’t need to be said, but a major challenge of this century is figuring out how to live in an equitable and more sustainable way. Cutting the link between quality of life and energy consumption as well as energy consumption and CO2 emissions, is the key, and this can only be done through increased efficiency. With a combination of increased fossil fuel efficiency and more extensive use of wind/solar/nuclear power, I think we can crack this.

[Sapiens]

Energy Units and Conversions

http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/units.html

Energy Units and Conversions
by Dennis Silverman
U. C. Irvine, Physics and Astronomy

Energy Units and Conversions
1 Joule (J) is the MKS unit of energy, equal to the force of one Newton acting through one meter.
1 Watt is the power of a Joule of energy per second

Power = Current x Voltage (P = I V)
1 Watt is the power from a current of 1 Ampere flowing through 1 Volt.
1 kilowatt is a thousand Watts.
1 kilowatt-hour is the energy of one kilowatt power flowing for one hour. (E = P t).
1 kilowatt-hour (kWh) = 3.6 x 106 J = 3.6 million Joules

1 calorie of heat is the amount needed to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Centigrade.
1 calorie (cal) = 4.184 J
(The Calories in food ratings are actually kilocalories.)

A BTU (British Thermal Unit) is the amount of heat necessary to raise one pound of water by 1 degree Farenheit (F).
1 British Thermal Unit (BTU) = 1055 J (The Mechanical Equivalent of Heat Relation)
1 BTU = 252 cal = 1.055 kJ
1 Quad = 1015 BTU (World energy usage is about 300 Quads/year, US is about 100 Quads/year in 1996.)
1 therm = 100,000 BTU
1,000 kWh = 3.41 million BTU

Power Conversion
1 horsepower (hp) = 745.7 watts
Gas Volume to Energy Conversion
One thousand cubic feet of gas (Mcf) -> 1.027 million BTU = 1.083 billion J = 301 kWh
One therm = 100,000 BTU = 105.5 MJ = 29.3 kWh
1 Mcf -> 10.27 therms
Energy Content of Fuels
Coal 25 million BTU/ton
Crude Oil 5.6 million BTU/barrel
Oil 5.78 million BTU/barrel = 1700 kWh / barrel
Gasoline 5.6 million BTU/barrel (a barrel is 42 gallons) = 1.33 therms / gallon
Natural gas liquids 4.2 million BTU/barrel
Natural gas 1030 BTU/cubic foot
Wood 20 million BTU/cord


CO2 Pollution of Fossil Fuels
Pounds of CO2 per billion BTU of energy::
Coal 208,000 pounds
Oil 164,000 pounds
Natural Gas 117,000 pounds

Ratios of CO2 pollution:
Oil / Natural Gas = 1.40
Coal / Natural Gas = 1.78

Pounds of CO2 per 1,000 kWh, at 100% efficiency:
Coal 709 pounds
Oil 559 pounds
Natural Gas 399 pounds

[Sapiens]

Rocky Mountain Institute: Winning the Oil Endgame

http://nc.rmi.org/NETCOMMUNITY/page....cid=192&erid=0

http://www.oilendgame.com/ReadTheBook.html

Abstract:
This independent, peer-reviewed synthesis for American business and military leaders charts a roadmap for getting the United States completely, attractively, and profitably off oil. Our strategy integrates four technological ways to displace oil: using oil twice as efficiently, then substituting biofuels, saved natural gas, and, optionally, hydrogen. Fully applying today’s best efficiency technologies in a doubled-GDP 2025 economy would save half the projected U.S. oil use at half its forecast cost per barrel. Non-oil substitutes for the remaining consumption would also cost less than oil. These comparisons conservatively assign zero value to avoiding oil’s many “externalized” costs, including the costs incurred by military insecurity, rivalry with developing countries, pollution, and depletion. The vehicle improvements and other savings required needn’t be as fast as those achieved after the 1979 oil shock.

The route we suggest for the transition beyond oil will expand customer choice and wealth, and will be led by business for profit. We propose novel public policies to accelerate this transition that are market-oriented without taxes and innovationdriven without mandates. A $180-billion investment over the next decade will yield $130-billion annual savings by 2025; revitalize the automotive, truck, aviation, and hydrocarbon industries; create a million jobs in both industrial and rural areas; rebalance trade; make the United States more secure, prosperous, equitable, and environmentally healthy; encourage other countries to get off oil too; and make the world more developed, fair, and peaceful.

[Sapiens]

Energy input-output ratios are indeed good indicators of an energy source’s viability

http://majorityrights.com/index.php/...htmare/#c54555

...

The overwhelming majority of Internet sites claim that a gallon of gasoline yields 125,000 btus, give or a take a few thousand. This figure represents the upper boundary of high-end outputs and is disseminated in the United States – the largest gasoline consumer in the world – for propaganda purposes. The following contradicts the propaganda:

“Through the course of a year, gasoline energy content can range from 108,500 British thermal units (btu) per gallon to 117,000 btu/gal.” - Changes in Gasoline & The Classic Auto (DAI Informational Document # 960501, May 1996)
http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/ert/new-fuel...501classic.pdf

“The energy content of MTBE is approximately 93,500 British Thermal Units per gallon (Btu/gal) while that of gasoline is approximately 109,000 Btu/gal.” - Interagency Assessment of Oxygenated Fuels; National Science and Technology, Committee on Environment and Natural Resources; June, 1997.
http://www.epa.gov/OMS/regs/fuels/ostpfin.pdf

“…while that of gasoline is approximately 109,000 Btu/gal.” - Starkman, E.S., H.K. Newhall, and R.D. Sutton, “Comparative Performance of Alcohol and Hydrocarbon Fuels,” Society of Automotive Engineers Paper Number SP-254, p. 5.

There is a noticeable difference between 108,500 and 125,000 btus. The conversion factors and ratios are not as good as you’ve been led to believe.

Posted by GT on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 at 12:46 AM | #

[Sapiens]

Ethanol Nightmare: Stuart Staniford: Fermenting the Food Supply-

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2431#more

I will use a mixture of existing data, analysis of biofuel profitability, and simple modeling of biofuel production as an infection or diffusion process affecting the food supply, to demonstrate that there are reasonably plausible scenarios for biofuel production growth to cause mass starvation of the global poor, and that this could happen fairly quickly - quite possibly within five years, and certainly well within the life of the existing policy regimes.

[Sapiens]

How Much Oil Can Your Labor Replace?

How Much Oil Can Your Labor Replace?

How Much Oil Can Your Labor Replace?

For most today, "oil" translates to "complaining about the high price of fuel." After all, you only have "X" number of dollars to last until the next paycheck, but the pump price is killing you. But that’s too simplistic: What oil really does is nothing but replace other forms of labor.

Consider this: You live six miles from work and drive a car that gets 18 miles to the gallon, and gasoline costs $3.80; you would use .66 gallons to go to work and home, for a gas cost of $2.51. You can immediately end your $2.51 substitute labor expense if you are willing to replace oil’s labor value with your own labor. You can ride a bike: no oil labor used. Or walk to work, again replacing oil with your own labor. Oil is, simply put, a fuel to replace other forms of less efficient labor.

Another way to look at oil as replacing labor is to study long-distance truckers. Let’s say a trucker picks up a 33,000-pound load in LA headed for Fort Worth — 1,450 miles away. The semi gets 6 mpg, using 241.7 gallons of diesel fuel, meaning it delivers 136.6 pounds of goods for every gallon of diesel used. So the cost of delivering 136.6 pounds is whatever that day’s gallon price for diesel might be; today it would be $4.60. Notice that paying $4.60 a gallon for diesel sounds horrible, but delivering 136.6 pounds of goods for $4.60 sounds cheap.

Now, the other side of this equation: If diesel big rigs didn’t exist, how many horses and wagons would it take to deliver that same 136.6 pounds of goods, and how long? Obviously, the cost of using other forms of labor to move just 136.6 pounds of goods — much less the whole load — from LA to Fort Worth would be astronomical. Not to mention the cost inefficiency of lost time.

That’s the battle over oil pricing one never hears. All you and I care about is the price of the fuel. But those who truly own the oil fields understand its true intrinsic value: It’s a concentrated liquid that replaces other forms of more expensive and less efficient labor.

So, the big secret that’s out there in the open, obvious as can be? The correlation between oil prices and our nation’s economy (incomes) is what statisticians call definite and negative: Historically, when oil and fuel prices are down, incomes rise, and high-priced oil is accompanied by declining incomes.

The correlation is almost absolute in energy-intensive industries. Going back to long-distance trucking: Back in the nineties when diesel cost less than $1.50 a gallon, the net cost of moving 136.6 pounds of goods was $3 less for the 1,450-mile run. Moving the entire 33,000-pound load that distance, the total savings on fuel then was $966.70. Truckers could be paid more for guiding their rigs and goods to markets.

Cheap Chinese Labor

You have to start thinking of oil in a new way. In America, Europe or Asia, there is only "X" number of dollars allocated as reimbursement for labor costs in any given year. If you understand that oil or gasoline is a "labor cost", just like your wages, you understand that incomes rise in decades with low, low costs for oil, and decline when the reverse obtains. Remember, gasoline sold for around the same price in 1969 as it did in some years during the early 1920s. Therefore, as measured against inflation, oil and gasoline declined substantially in price for 40 years — the exact same period in which the entire American middle class was born and grew dynamically.

Now, adjusted for inflation, oil prices have been wildly erratic over the past 35 years; but personal family incomes today, again adjusted for inflation, are about the same as they were in 1973 — the year of the First Oil Crisis. Economists love to point out that American incomes grew like crazy in the nineties, which was when we hit the all-time historical low for oil prices. Likewise, American incomes have declined against inflation in this decade — while oil costs have ballooned.

Never thought of it that way, did you?

This explains why China can afford to buy oil at today’s high prices, yet is growing by leaps and bounds: China’s offset and low cost of human labor is nothing compared to our country’s. Now, to be fair, China subsidizes oil costs to consumers and business, knowing that this helps China increase personal incomes — but that situation cannot last forever. When China finally changes that policy its oil demand growth will likely fall; incomes might then rise naturally; and China’s economic growth as measured by GDP might not remain over 10%.

Only One Answer Right Now

What we need to do is quit debating things that don’t matter, because that keeps us from implementing easy solutions to oil realities. It’s not the Middle East’s fault that they were blessed with all the easy-to-reach oil. Although they do understand that oil is a labor replacement and therefore is worth even more than we are willing to pay for it now, Middle Eastern leaders show great restraint in oil pricing; we just don’t see it that way.

The Middle East’s biggest mistake was dropping the ball: Hundreds of years ago Islamic inventors gave us the piston and valve, while further back in history the Assyrians had given us the wheel and chariot. Yet it was people of European descent that turned these incredible Middle Eastern inventions into the automobile. Yeah, the Middle East could have had all of the world’s great inventions and owned all the cheap oil. It just didn’t work out that way.

So, if oil prices and the monies being allocated for labor costs in America (or anywhere else) are connected, the only way to boost incomes and spending power when oil prices are rising is to find new ways to create more value on less oil energy. Period, end of sentence and nothing more complicated than that.

Do More With Less …

Creating more commercial value using less crude energy forces down the price of oil, which in turn allows incomes to rise. If someone could create a big truck that got 12 instead of 6 mpg, that would immediately free up 50 percent more money to pay the trucker. If you could create a vehicle that uses no oil or gasoline at all, you’d have freed up its owners’ personal income for other consumer goods — forcing up their prices and in turn the incomes of those involved in making and selling them. All the while reducing the demand for oil, thereby reducing pricing pressures on crude.

This is the direction we took in the mid-seventies, and it paid off handsomely for all Americans for decades. To me, smart conservation is not an environmental debate as much as a reallocation of labor costs away from oil to the benefit of the average American family.

So, you can keep dreaming that we’re going to screen algae out of the oceans and turn it into a cheap fuel — enough to power our 220 million vehicles. Or you can debate the problems of the Middle East or Venezuela or China’s rise if you want. But it won’t change anything, and it distracts us from doing smart things that directly help you, your family, our transportation industries, our economy and so on.

The problem with most debates in America today is that they are driven by ideology, either of left or right origins. Ignored are science, engineering and logic, which historically were the foundations of what made this country great. We have an incredible talent for re-engineering what is not working; and the very second that we end the nonsensical debates over things that will never change and use that talent to get on with the logic of what needs to be done, watch America grow again.

[World Traveler]

Re: How Much Oil Can Your Labor Replace?

This is a very worthwhile thread and points out a basic truth. Oil is a substitute for human labor. "Energy" is what civilization needs to thrive. We have been very fortunate for last 150 years to have an extremely efficient source of energy called petroleum available to our civilization.

How did civlizations before ours manage to thrive? Rome 2000 years ago ran a wealthy, relatively peaceful empire for several hundred years using primarily human labor, much of it slave labor. Same is true for the Greeks and many other ancient civlizations. The Egyptians, Mayans, and Aztecs built huge pyramids that still fascinate us today, using human labor and some basic engineering techniques.

The end of the oil age need not send us back to using human labor as our basic unit of energy, although it's always an option.

Until 60,000 years ago, all humans lived in Africa. Prior to the end of the last Ice Age, roughly 13,000 years ago, all humans had always lived as hunter-gatherers. We've made tremendous progress since then, in our current inter-glacial period, due to ingenuity and intelligence.

The natural Climate Cycles of the earth and various regions within the earth have influenced human history far more than any other single factor, in terms of where we lived and how we lived. Short term, our challenge is the potential end of the Age of Petroleum, which I believe we will ultimately manage successfuly (after painful bouts of adjustment). Longer term, learning to navigate earth's climate cycles, whether natural or man-made, will be our biggest challenge.