Nostalgia for 2012? Methane, Optimism, Pessimism, Low Tech and the Engineers

 

Nostalgia for 2012? Sounds a bit odd, but old age is like that it seems.

I am glad to see that my tour of the methane horizon from 2012 is still hosted by Resilience.

https://www.resilience.org/resilience-author/phil-harris/   Nice picture they put up, by the way ...

If the methane gas released each year is not destroyed at a fast enough rate by the atmosphere, it accumulates.  Prompted by Ugo Bardi it was a chance in 2012 to make an appraisal of the effects of likely upper and lower estimates of the combination of fossil fuel emissions and 'positive feedback' in the  natural environment, and to contemplate that key context for life ''The Carbon Cycle'. 'Pessimism' and 'Optimism', if you like. There was a lull in the CH4 accumulation when I was writing back then.

In 2012 despite the 'Kilda Conjecture' as a possible cause of the PETM carbon-cycle collapse about 55 million years ago, I judged that industrial civilisation's version of the  'methane bomb' was not likely to trigger a similar collapse within the human future.  The accumulation of atmospheric methane had stabilised during 2000 - 2006. Since then there has been a 9% increase but I still do not think this presages a 'new PETM'. There remains of course within the limits of present knowledge an unknown risk  of a seriously de-stablised cabon cycle over the next centuries. Nevertheless, for now environmental 'positive feedback' seems a lesser part of the yearly CH4 release. Quote: “The [decadal] increase was primarily fueled by human activities—especially agriculture and fossil fuels,”  https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146978/methane-emissions-continue-to-rise   

The reality of Climate Change is ongoing, but there is more, much more, going on in the  immediate future it seems, that is also mostly promoted by industrial growth. There is a present enthusiasm in richer countries for the 'next big thing'; the electrification of transport along with substitution for all fossil fuels via solar energy, which could perhaps enable the hydrogen economy and all the Hi-Tech to go with it. This vision is in my view arguably the most dangerous utopian fantasy yet! Net zero carbon enthusiasts please note.

Listen to the engineers! A recent key-note text is published in the anglophone world. It needed to be translated from the French. Many thanks go to Professor Chris McMahon for seeing the need and for doing it. http://www.transformingsociety.co.uk/2020/10/21/toward-an-age-of-low-tech-for-a-more-resilient-and-sustainable-society/  There is an interesting review at the publisher's site under 'Media', with the link http://www.zprod.org/zwp/thoughts/the-age-of-low-tech/  

I hope to extend an archive of links to less well known studies such as those by Philippe Bihouix and Chris McMahon, and to sites created or read by members of a private discussion group. The site was started in response to the formation of this eclectic discussion group in what is still known as The British Isles. The site was called 'Ecosophic Isles' by the group. I don't think the group do much in the way of 'prediction', and mostly take the reference to 'Eco Wisdom' with a pinch of salt!😉 There is also currently archived therea copy of a letter from some other  engineers to the UK Statutory Committee on Climate Change on the constraints surrounding electrification, which some of us found instructive.

 https://wordpress.com/comments/all/ecosophic-isles.org  

best

Phil H

SAUDI PEAK EXPORTS OIL & GAS

Net exports oil & gas from exporter nation Saudi GRAPHS on TOD 2012 December 3^rd TOD drumbeat

clifman on December 3, 2012 - 6:26pm

A good spot to point out the very good info that lives at mazamascience. Both the energy export databrowser, and population databrowser. Spending some time there looking at graphs should open anyone's eyes, I'd think. Egypt is a poster child for problems. Growing pop and shrinking oil exports- what would one expect to happen? And KSA - at the time of the 'first energy crisis', they had about 6 million people. Now 4x that. Ya think they're gonna be using more of their own juice? Population - up. Energy demand - up. Food needed - up. Soil - not up. Water - not up. Net energy - not up. Net exports - not up. This is not a difficult to see problem...

Luke H on December 4, 2012 - 1:36am

Saudi Arabia is forecasting that domestic power demand will be triple in the next twenty years (old article April 2011).

I've yet to see any definite numbers on just how much solar and nuclear KSA is planning to bring on line in the next decade--it seems stay tuned has been the message on that for a couple years now.

The above levelling isn't quite as benign as it looks. Saudi Arabia's population is still increasing at near 600,000 a year as the line exits the chart.

Pollux on December 3, 2012 - 7:36pm

According to EIA, oil consumption in Saudi Arabia rose by 26% (or 615,000 b/d) in 2011 from 2010:

http://www.eia.gov/countries/country-data.cfm?fips=SA&trk=m#pet

...and gas consumption rose by 13%:

 

http://www.eia.gov/countries/country-data.cfm?fips=SA&trk=m#ng

 

Darwinian on December 3, 2012 - 8:

Yeah, and though their crude only production was up by over 1 million barrels per day 2010 to 2011, from 8,211,000 bp/d to 9,273,000 bp/d, their net exports hardly moved at all. They went from 8,149,709 to 8,167,020 bp/d. So while crude only production was up 1,062,000 barrels per day their exports (net all liquids) were up a mere 17,311 barrels per day.

 

And incidentally total net exports are down almost 1 million barrels per day since they peaked in 2005. To be exact net exports are down 965,644 barrels per day since they peaked at 9,132,664 barrels per day in 2005. Well that is their peak in this century. Their net exports peaked, for all time, in 1980 at 9,675,000 barrels per day.

Peak oil, for all importing nations, was in 2005.

Ron P.