fuel consumption

BP, a company that would like to be known as Beyond Petroleum, published its statistical review of world energy recently. According to the WSJ, the BP report has the best data of any energy company report. You can download the report and the statistics from BP's website. If anything, the report makes it clear that we are a long way from being "beyond" petroleum. So much for advertising.

But there is some good news. Fuel consumption in the US in 2008 declined compared to 2007. Which goes to show you that there is nothing better for the environment than a good recession. US fuel consumption in million tonnes of oil equivalent declined from 2,359.6 to 2,299.0. It is not a stunning decline, but it is a start, you could say.

South and Central America did not "participate" in this decline and their consumption rose from 563.5 to 579.6. Note that the US alone uses almost 4 times as much fuel as all of Central and South America combined.

Europe and Eurasia also saw a small rise in consumption from 2,956.9 to 2,964.6. So did the Middle East, going from 577.6 to 613.5. Africa's consumption rose from 341 to 356, and Asia-Pacific went from 3,816 to 3,981.9. The latter gain was almost exclusively due to increased fuel use in China. Unfortunately, most of China's energy use is from coal. No wonder the country has now surpassed the US as the prime greenhouse gas producer.

Along with the US, the UK, Ireland, and Australia saw declines.

BP did mention that reserves are more or less stable (no whopping new discoveries), but it is happy to announce that we will have oil, gas and coal for decades to come. Pollution and global warming will get to us before we can run out of carbo-combustibles.

Happy breathing!

a preview of pleasures to come

Did you see the pictures of algae at Qingdao? Five thousand square miles of green gunk clogging up the sailing venue for the coming Olympics. It is the type of green that most of us can do without. If nothing else, the Beijing Olympics will show the West what is about to happen to our planet if we keep wasting energy the way we do now. China is the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

Take a look at this picture from the guardian of London.

That's a man standing in the waves, in case you didn't recognize it.

While graphic it is by no means the only evidence of pollution in China. I could add pictures of Beijing's famous smog, but there is nothing to see there but gray haze. China is a country that is so polluted, it gives the word pollution a whole new meaning.

And the Chinese response ? Mobilizing the population to go out and fish up the green stuff. It is reminiscent of the days of Mao Zhedong. Fortunately, the Chinese have lots of people they can put to work. Unfortunately, this is only a temporary measure and once the Olympics are over and eyes focus elsewhere, the Chinese will continue to do what they have been doing all along: pollute more and more quickly. And to make matters worse, they have virtually unlimited coal resources and an equally inexhaustible desire to put these to work.

Hello, brave new world.

G8 wisdom and foreclosures

The G8 ministers meeting in Japan are up in arms about oil prices. The G8 are a group of eight rich nations whose influence goes well beyond that of the remaining 100+ countries on the planet. Nevertheless the G8 invited China, India, and South Korea, illustrating the power shift that is about to take place on the world stage. Soon the G8 will have to add to its magic number or consider booting some of it older members who are no longer carrying so much weight.

For now though, it appears the G8 mostly invited China and India so participants could scold these countries for their energy subsidies. The participants in question being mostly the US. Never mind that the US has its own energy subsidies in place. When you are the biggest bully on the block it is fine to attack others for what you yourself do all the time.

What worries the US is that world oil production has stalled since 2005, while global economic growth -read China and India- is pushing demand to ever higher levels. Much of that growth is fueled by US dollars and US demand for cheap goods. The US has moved much of its manufacturing base to China, and much of its low-level services base to India. When you buy a gadget in the US, chances are it was made in China, and when you call customer service to inquire about something, chances are someone in Bangalore will be answering the phone. That puts the US in a tricky position. What also puts the US in a tricky position is the increasing military might of the Chinese. That while we are busily trying to keep our head above the water in the Middle East.

We also read that the five top consumers, the US, China, Japan, South Korea, and India, urged oil producers to boost output, while pledging to develop clean energy alternatives and increase efficiency. It is unclear what if anything the US government means by its pledge to develop clean alternatives and increase efficiency. So far, all we have seen is quite to the contrary. Any attempt to take away subsidies from fossil fuels has been death on arrival. With two oil men in the White house, it seems unlikely such a pledge amounts to much more than window dressing. Other bills, to support alternative energy, or to reduce greenhouse gases, or other pollution have all been stalled, and received veto warnings to boot.

On a more practical level, both China and the US are increasingly reverting to coal, a fossil fuel that is even more damaging to the environment than oil. So much for progress. In the US, coal has been busy convincing consumers and politicians alike that there is such a thing as "clean coal." Ads on TV ask consumers to embrace clean coal as the energy of the future. Both the US and China unfortunately have huge coal reserves to feed their power hungry consumers.

The advertising is especially damaging. At this stage, clean coal is as real as cold fusion, or x-ray lasers. And we all know what happened there. Fortunately for us, the US is more constrained than China and US consumers are more sensitive to coal pollution than the Chinese, who have little say in what their government does. But there is no telling what US consumers will put up with once gas prices close in on $8 a gallon. It is a scenario that is more realistic than most people think. The US infrastructure is also more vulnerable than the Chinese infrastructure. In the US much of what is there, and almost all of what is being added daily is heavily dependent on cars and trucks. The layouts are very unfriendly towards alternatives such as walking, biking, or even public transportation.

If the US mortgage crisis has a silver lining it is right here. Now is the time to abandon much of this non-sensical infrastructure. If you have to leave because your house is in foreclosure, at least now you have the option to go live closer to work, closer to the city, or in a place where you can walk or use transit. The high oil prices give you an added incentive and one can only hope prices will stay high for long enough to support a mini-migration towards the population centers. It is important because there will be partial recoveries and people may be tempted to re-indulge in their bad habits. Ultimately though our economy is unsustainable and a collapse of one kind or another is inevitable. The more we adjust now, the better off we will be when that finally happens.

the return of coal

With oil prices skyrocketing everyone is busily looking for relief. They are also busily ignoring the simplest and by far the most rational solution: consume less. Reducing consumption is what people should focus on now. More than half of our energy use is downright wasteful and does nobody any good whatsoever. It is wasted in heating and cooling of empty residences, office buildings and the like. It is wasted in illuminating the night -and quite often the day- sky. It is burned up sitting in endless traffic jams and countless trips to the shopping mall where we buy more energy-hogging appliances, tools and toys.

And speaking of shopping malls, Memorial day is just around the corner. A double whammy. Big sales and the the official start of what is known as the (summer) driving season. For good measure stores have been announcing pre-Memorial Day sales. Why not get into the action a bit early? Anything we can do to support waste. How many people remember what Memorial Day is all about?

The reason why people ignore the best solution is simple: nobody stands to gain anything from less consumption. Nobody makes any money this way. As a matter of fact, many stand to lose money if consumers were to decide to stop wasting stuff. Our economy is totally dependent on discretionary spending. So spending less means recession, a word we have learned to fear as the black plague. And speaking of black, the black stuff known as coal is making a comeback.

However, we do not want to think of coal as black. That carries bad connotations. Coal is so polluting that lobbyists have coined the term clean coal. Clean coal is mirage much like those now-empty homes in the Arizona desert. That is why companies are starting to run ads to convince us there is such a thing as clean coal. Doublespeak anyone?

The run to coal is accelerating and with every rise in the price of oil, the pace increases. The NYT ran an article recently documenting the return to coal. Unfortunately for the environment we all live in, the US has plentiful coal supplies. And so does China. The two biggest polluters on the planet have the largest in-house reserves. Reserves to their ever increasing energy thirst. Nothing much good can come of this. It is akin to a bunch of heroin addicts with their own poppy growing plantations.

The Bush administration is not sitting still either. Ever busy behind the scenes to do whatever it can to please the energy industry, the administration is quietly attacking existing EPA rules. It aims to overturn as many as it can, while taking the teeth out of the others. Federal laws and regulations are weakening under its relentless onslaught. The situation has gotten so out of hand that states and local governments have tried to pick up the pieces. And here is where the Bush-Cheney legacy is perhaps most telling. The Federal government is working overtime trying to repeal, stall, or nullify state and local initiatives. Talk about Republican values and less government intervention.

The government is also promoting its assets. The Department of Energy website proudly proclaims:"Coal is one of the true measures of the energy strength of the United States. One quarter of the world's coal reserves are found within the United States, and the energy content of the nation's coal resources exceeds that of the world's known recoverable oil. Coal is also the workhorse of the nation's electric power industry, supplying more than half the electricity consumed by Americans. " Hallelujah. Citizens rejoice. Start your plug-in hybrids and inhale those fumes.

We surely have enough coal here to turn our little planet into another Venus. For those of you who haven't caught on yet, the rules of the game are quite simple. He or she who dies with the most goodies wins !

as clean as coal

Many people think nothing is cleaner than electricity. Some yearn for electric cars, while others forgo gas-driven tools for electric ones. There is less noise, no emissions, and nothing but clean useful energy. Or is there?

The US produces 25% of all electricity worldwide. It is followed by China and Russia. All three countries are similar in that the majority of their electricity is generated from coal. It is cheap according to economists, who never factor in the cost of pollution. Coal as a source of electricity is predicted to increase its share in the coming decade. That is mostly because China builds about one power plant a month, most of them driven by coal. By 2020 coal will  play a more prominent role than it already does, while renewables will be less important.

49.7% of US electricity comes from coal. Only 19.3% is nuclear energy and 6.7% is hydro-electric. "Other sources," such as solar, windmills, and waste recycling make up 2.9%. In contrast, France generates 78.1% of its electricity from nuclear power, and only 3.9% from coal.

Whatever you may think about nuclear power, consider the following. Coal contains minute amounts of radioactive material and burning it in very large quantities releases these radioactive substances into the air. Radioactive contamination from burning coal is higher than that of a nuclear power station, where radioactive materials are tightly controlled and stored rather than released into the air we all breathe.

And just how much coal do we burn? In the first half of 2007, US power generation burned 603,228,000 tons of coal, up 1.7% from the first half of 2006. 40% of that power or 139,300 kWh per month went to residential customers. A slightly lower amount of 127,504 went to commercial users. Industry consumed only 85,300 kWh.

Because coal releases carbon that was stored in the earth millions of years ago, it is a major contributor to CO2, a greenhouse gas. And that is probably the "cleanest" part of coal. Coal also contains heavy metals such as mercury, arsenic, and others. Burning coal vaporizes all these elements and releases them into the atmosphere. You may be worried about lead paint on your children's toys, but do you worry about leaving the lights on and releasing mercury?

It is often said that individuals can do little to affect global warming. These numbers show that this is blatantly false. Consumers have control over more than half the electricity produced in the country. 40% is in their homes and another 35% in the businesses where they work. What will it take to teach people to turn off their lights?

Consumers also indirectly control what happens in the world. Most of China's output is cheap consumer products that US consumers eagerly snap up to save a few dollars here and there. These products are a double whammy for the environment. Not only are they driving countries like China to build new and dirty power plants, they also have to shipped half way across the globe, adding even more pollution.

You could use the money you save from turning off your lights to buy locally produced goods. That way you would do the environment a favor twice over. Think about it this holiday season.