How many years later - and human civilization is still searching for better ways to create energy. Yet looking at our present sources of energy creation - humanity is robbing Peter to pay Paul. After all - Mass can neither be created nor destroyed - only altered in form.

Thus, when considering E=mc2 - the resulting byproducts from energy creation may either benefit or harm humanity. - Energy is naturally occuring on earth - yet the present knowledge to utlize for human capacity is limited. Therefore humanity creates its own energy without much regard for byproduct (altered forms of mass) effects. Even some of the mentioned renewable energy sources have byproduct in the form of waste. Another issue is present limited knowlege for building capacity with the known sources that have relatively little harmful byproducts.

Where does the solution for meeting humanity energy needs come from - if the solution is twofold - meeting capacity AND preventing harmful byproducts? -

Since I’m not the scientist I can’t begin to elaborate on the present known potential souces - believing in entrepreneurship I will quote Einstein:

“A new idea comes suddenly and in a rather intuitive way. That means it is not reached by conscious logical conclusions. But, thinking it through afterwards, you can always discover the reasons which have led you unconsciously to your guess and you will find a logical way to justify it. Intuition is nothing but the outcome of earlier intellectual experience.”

It is my belief that our government should continue to support various research programs as these are the most likely sources for discovery. If the government becomes complacent and only drives energy policy for savings and innovation on present energy sources - meaning the most used sources today - innovation for new sources will be reduced and harmful byproducts of energy creation will continue to accumulate.

The world is dependent upon energy - not oil, not coal, not natural gas - these are just the present sources for human creation of energy. With government policies supporting research - our present scientists will develop a positive self-efficacy towards finding solutions - and the younger generations will be more likely to choose science for careers - thus opening the door for more intuitive thoughts on energy and sources of creation.

1. The time at which the rate of production & consumption (assuming they are roughly comparable in a naturally functioning market) begins to exceed the replenishment of reserves from new discoveries.

2. The time at which absolute production (i.e. extraction/recovery) begins a perpetual decline due to the exhaustion of reserves.

Most peak oil definitions I see are aligned with #2 above. However this is very hard to predict because nobody knows when we will stop discovering new reserves. It seems that each time a new report declares we have reached a decline in reserve replacements, a new major reserve discovery is soon reported. BP announced a major new discovery in the Gulf of Mexico only ~2 weeks ago (see: http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7055818)

I think #1 (rate of production/consumption vs. reserves replenishment) is the more useful metric to discuss, however this is also tricky because it depends on market economics (and indirectly on the geo-political climate) and therefore is equally difficult to predict. The price of crude has oscillated > /- 300% over the last 3 years which induces similar oscillations in production, capital invested in new exploration, and consumption (or conservation). But these induced oscillations in response to crude oil prices have a hysteresis lag because of the time it takes for consumers to modify their consumption behavior, and time it takes for oil producers to deploy new capital for drilling, production and new exploration.

Yet another complexity is that the distribution of fossil fuels produced varies with crude oil prices. For example the shale oil and oil sands that you described in the “unconventional liquids” category are generally not produced/extracted at all when crude prices are low because they are dis-economic to produce. But when crude prices escalate these otherwise non-viable fossil fuels suddenly become viable to produce.

The other side of this equation that is important to include is the environmental cost of consuming more fossil fuels. Even if we had an infinite supply of fossil fuels we could not continue to consume it at the ever escalating rate that we and our rapidly industrializing neighbors in Asia are consuming. The cost associated with green house gas mitigation becomes a material added cost to the consumption of fossil fuels (I think Ron Knecht suggested the depletion of potable water supplies as one example on your blog). You itemized the contribution of coal consumption as ~23% of our total active consumption, but we actually have sufficient coal reserves to power the US for >300 years. However we could never achieve these coal consumption rates without incurring unacceptable environmental damage and cost.

While it seems I may be over-complicating this, my point is that no matter how you analyze peak oil, all logic paths lead back to validation of your starting thesis… which I will restate as “independent of whatever happens with the supply of fossil fuels, in order to support continued industrialization and economic growth the world has no choice but to reduce the fraction of fossil fuel consumption and increase the fraction of renewable sources in the overall energy mix.”

Thanks for the enlightening comments and I look forward to reading your future installments on this topic.

Jordan Becker

Biofuels from crops (corn, switchgrass, etc.) produce very small, or perhaps even negative net energy and most serious energy analysts have already dismissed this source. The algae source, however, still seems to be a viable alternative.