William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882) was one of the first to make the observation that, not only was the population of Britain increasing exponentially, but the consumption of energy per capita (person), was also increasing as an exponential function - in other words, real consumption of energy was increasing as an exponential function of an exponential function.
In his time, coal was the energy source of choice. Based upon his findings, Jevon predicted the eventual doom of perpetual growth in Britain, due to the eventual exhaustion of economically viable coal. He never tried to determine the approximate amount of available coal (though he did make educated guesses), but simply based his forecast based upon the idea that, sometimes the exact limit of a resource was not as important as the rate of growth of consumption of it (particularly when something is growing as an exponential of an exponential).
Jevon's predictions never came true (pessimism is a tough business to be in). Partly, this was because because his 'educated guesses' dramatically underestimated the technological limits of detecting mineral wealth underground. However, more importantly, we were saved from Jevon's prognosis by the "Drake well", and the discovery of petroleum as a source of energy.
Hubbert's Pimple
M King Hubbert (1903-1989) was a petroleum geologist employed by the Shell Oil company. He pionered the idea of tracking the amount of effort expended per barrel of petroleum extracted. More importantly, Hubbert noted, in 1948, that 'the barrels of oil produced per unit effort required for the discovery of the reserves had been decreasing regularly for a long time' (law of diminishing returns).
Unconvinced? The gulf of mexico BP Deepwater Horizon disaster is the news story of today. Do you know why they call it Deepwater Horizon? The rig was designed to drill miles below the ocean floor, which itself is miles below the ocean surface. Why were they doing this? Because the shallower regions of the Gulf had already been exhausted, for the most part. Translation? Economics forced them to expend more effort to discover & extract more petroleum, than was previously required of them.
Hubert's, like all great thinkers, was not afraid to make his own prognosis. He believed that a graph of the rate of use of each fossil energy source would yield a bell-shaped curve known as Hubbert's Peak, or affectionately Hubbert's pimple. He made the prediction, in 1956, that by the early 1970's, oil production in the U.S. would peak - see Oil Shock of 1973 (it also explains why we have an 'idiotic' 55MPH speed limit) and the below graph.
US oil production did in fact peak around 1970. This graph (created in 2004), also seems to suggest that world production will peak around 2010 (maybe a bit later now, due to economic downturn). Notice that 'deepwater' sources will be one of the last to be produced (due to difficulty of exploration).
Interesting information. Another new place of energy is shale. The WSJ did a good article recently on how shale is becoming more important now that it is an economically justifiable energy source. I don't really think people should worry about energy so much since the universe is full of it and economics will always fund a way to use it. Instead people should look at how they are hurting the environment through their actions/waste.
ReplyDeletehttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303491304575187880596301668.html?mod=WSJ_hp_editorsPicks