Technology not enough to end dependence on foreign oil

OK, this is kinda long. I've already got mine own critique ready, but leave your thoughts cause I definitely want to read them!

With the high fuel prices motorists face today there has been a lot of talk into finally embracing a new mode and culture of personal transportation. There are many alternatives to gas powered vehicles that are still quite new to the market and consumer’s tastes. In the past these alternatives have only had strong demand with environmentalists, people who realize that traditional motoring is not a sustainable habit and people with the lack of desire for a typical American automobile. The American lower and middle classes along with the rest of the world population can only endure for so long gasoline, oil, natural gas and diesel price increases of over 65% annually. At some point market forces will make the Auto industry realize that something has to change. This change has come in the vision of hybrid, ethanol, ethanol hybrid, pure electric, diesel hybrid and of course the long awaited hydrogen fuel economy. However this vision is not currently held the Big 3 and numerous other world manufacturers. General Motors plans to increase its production of large SUV’s because of an apparent surge in demand. Never mind the employee pricing deal taking place for the remainder of its fiscal year. This vision is held by people thinking more than two or three years into the future. This vision is ultimately supposed to lead to some goal, that being how we will no longer depend on countries such as Canada, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria and other major oil producing countries to satisfy our growing energy needs. Most of these countries have unstable economies and governments and as consumers of 25% of the world’s energy we take on a lot of risk essentially basing and fueling our own economy off these other countries’ oil output. Oil independence is a worthy goal and the government should pursue a policy that will move the country in that direction but in reality it is not ever going to happen; at least with new technology alone it won’t.

There are a number of problems with alternative fuels themselves, along with logical flaws in thinking that these alternatives will “save” us from the end of cheap oil and provide a smooth and problem free transition into the future of transportation. There were several articles recently published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune about the pressures of high fuel prices and new technologies that can help offset those high prices. One author talked about combining electric engines with ethanol. Either one of these alternatives themselves is not quite viable. The electrical grid does not have the capacity to withstand the transition from nearly 100% oil to nearly 100% electric transportation. The rolling blackouts in California and the massive power failures on the East coast are evidence that the electrical grid can barely support current power needs, and would completely collapse if the nation attempted to convert all or even a significant portion of its oil based transportation into new electric demand. Enter the “renewable fuels” ethanol, biodiesel and the like. The idea is that with both technologies mated together, we will use just enough electricity so as not to over load our power grids and renewable biofuels will fill in the gap. The gap is the difference between energy supplied and available to consumers at a price they are willing to pay and the amount of energy required for one to go about his or her daily life according to year 2005 standards. This will be brought up later on.

So we have found our path to foreign oil independence: new technology will enable us to use crops grown in our Minnesotan backyard along with our electrical infrastructure to carry on our current way of life while cutting off (or at least greatly reducing) our dependence on foreign oil. Not so fast! There are a number of variables and facts that stand in opposition to this path to independence. First of all the United States’ crude oil production peaked 35 years ago between 10 and 11 million barrels per day; we now produce just over half that amount and domestic crude oil production shrinks every year. Let this scenario play out: our energy requirements stay constant and we continue to use the same technology (modes of transportation, sources of electricity generation and other commercial uses of oil) to process the fuels into things we use, we will become ever more dependent on foreign oil. Basic math tells us this, one does not need an economist, investment banker, foreign policy advisor or oil industry expert to explain it, yet most of the country is clueless as to the status of domestic and foreign oil supply. Chalk that up to the 85 year run of cheap and easy oil, ingrained into the entire West’s mind, attitude, culture, way of living and economic basis. As our domestic production declines, we have to import more foreign oil to meet demand. Demand is not going to stay constant. We have seen that over the last year gas prices have increased dramatically, especially in the wake of the hurricanes damaging oil rigs and refineries throughout all the Gulf of Mexico – prices have increased more than 30% year-to-date and closer to 100% over the last two years. One reason prices change is to curb demand. When prices go up, consumers buy less. This has not been the case with gasoline; demand was up between 2% and 3% over the summer. So either oil and its derived products do not obey standard economic rules of supply and demand, or the country is so dependent on oil products that it will pay any price (and so far it has, how high it will go is another question) because we simply cannot continue the daily grind without gas. There is a term for a person or group so fixated on something that if they do not have it, its entire system of being begins to collapse: addict. The former seems to become more and more true every day: when an increase in price causes an increase in demand, energy policy, economics and analysis becomes tricky business. What this really comes down to is that U.S. production is declining, yet the people who are promoting technological alternatives are not taking this into account. Their idea is that U.S. domestic supply will remain constant and all energy savings will be directed at reducing foreign oil independence when in reality most of it will go to offset domestic oil field depletion.

Another problem with these homegrown fuels is that, currently, the market for ethanol and the future markets for biodiesel are subsidized and propped up by government price mechanisms. This is probably why there has been none to a very small amount of private enterprise moving into the market; it is not profitable. On top of being unprofitable on a self-sustaining and self-reliant basis, these fuels are net energy losers. Imagine you have two selections of fuel to put in your vehicle. The first is a unit of gasoline. You can take this and use it to power your car, or you could take this gasoline (or for arguments sake any oil product) and use it to create a unit of ethanol, a renewable energy source. Most would opt for the ethanol selection, assuming their car allows its use as it is seen as less of a polluter and less harmful to environment. Here is the problem though: from what I have read on ethanol use and production, creating and using that ethanol will result in 40 percent less total energy for the end user and one would have been better off using the gasoline. The energy loss comes from using natural gas and petroleum based fertilizers to grow the corn, using large diesel powered farm equipment to harvest the crop, using energy in converting the corn into usable ethanol and then the fact that ethanol contains less energy – as measured by BTUs – than gasoline. Essentially what happens is that you take perhaps 1.5 gallons of fuel and use it in a way that yields 1 gallon of fuel. This is why current ethanol standards and practices should not be subsidized and pursued. Instead we should be developing methods and searching for a way to create ethanol that is not an energy loser (if that is even possible). I do not know if the soybean powered biodiesel is a net energy loser as well but if so, then the same logic applies. I recently went to hear Richard Heinberg speak on peak oil and when the topic of ethanol as a gasoline replacement came up, most nodded their heads in approval as there is great pride that Minnesota is the biggest ethanol enthusiast in the country. When Heinberg dismissed current ethanol practices with the same net energy loser argument as above, the same people were all in disagreement. Let’s not let our State pride blind us into a destructive approach of overproducing the land- land that should be used for food production, so we can continue our driving (or NASCAR culture as a friend of mine likes to say) habits while depleting our non-renewable energy sources at an even more alarming rate. It will take an immense amount of oil and its refined products to create enough ethanol to make the transition from gas/diesel/hybrid to ethanol/bio/hybrid and continue current driving and transportation trends.

Ethanol and biofuel based technologies will not free is from foreign oil independence even when mated with electric hybrid technologies. If we use ethanol for a small percentage of our current driving needs and use electricity for the majority of it, new power plants would be needed because of the reasons mentioned above. There are a few choices when it comes to electricity generation: coal, nuclear and oil based fuels. Coal has been historically dirty and new “clean coal” plants are expensive. The United States does have a great coal resource to draw upon though so this option has some potential. Nuclear power is quite the conundrum. There was the Three Mile Island incident years ago, which caused a major scare and created suspicion as to the safety of nuclear plants, especially when coupled with the Chernobyl disaster. We are currently facing a major problem over where to store nuclear waste, and this is without a massive new demand for electric cars. Imagine the crisis the country would be in when the amount of spent nuclear fuel rods exceeds the handling capacity of their power plants. So instead of using gasoline refined from foreign oil to directly power the nation’s auto fleet, we would use foreign oil to generate electricity to charge the batteries in our new electric hybrids. Something just does not sound right about this. This is the perfect example illustrating that technology is not a replacement for oil. The energy transfer and conversion process is simply being reorganized in a different way. We are not freeing ourselves from foreign oil independence with this reorganisation.

Nearly every article responding to high energy prices has one thing in common: the authors are all suggesting ideas so that we can continue our driving habits well into the future, but we will do it in a different way. Very few people have realized and made the call for a change in our culture and curbing our driving habits. This is exactly what will have to change, not the fuels that power our vehicles, but the attitudes that influence our decisions. We probably will no longer be able to live in suburbs and commute 20-60 miles one way to work and back on a sustainable basis. How strong will the shock have to be to shake us from our current way of life? My guess is that it will have to be many volts. Americans have had an extremely comfortable living arrangement, primarily due to cheap fossil fuels, which in turn have conditioned our attitudes, mindset and lifestyle.