Arno's EnergyIdeas (28)

The End of the Oil Age - with or without hydrogen!

"...' Peak Oil is now!' It is much likely that the maximum rate of global oil production is already reached and that the rate of production begins to enter terminal decline. By 2030, it could fall by half. Due to the rising energy consumption of the oil-producing countries, the supply on the world‘s market will also be reduced. For Germany, the consequences could be disastrous: in 2030, the country will not be able to import any oil...", says Dr. Werner Zittel from Ludwig-Bölkow-Systemtechnik GmbH, Ottobrunn, Germany, in a press statement in May 2008.

Caption: „Just fill it up, please“, seen at a fueling station in Shanghai, P.R. China. Photo: Arno A. Evers, Arno A. Evers FAIR-PR

Zittel was right at that time, however, the real reasons for the sudden increase in the oil price to its previous record of 147.27 U.S. Dollars on 11 July 2008 for a barrel (159 liters) of U.S. light oil (WTI) is unknown until today. Or was it "only" a speculative bubble? At the same time, with production of 74.86 million barrels per day the maximum oil production rate was achieved so far. By the end of 2008, prices fell again to an average of 55 U.S. Dollars, sometimes even below $ 40 per barrel. On the morning of the 12th January 2009 (closing date of this newsletter issue) the costs of a barrel of U.S. light oil WTI for delivery in February dropped to 39.79 U.S. Dollars and thus were 1.04 U.S. Dollars less than at the end of the former week.

The first and so far, most consequent oil crisis began in autumn 1973, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEG) curtailed the oil production by about 5 percent. On 17 October 1973, the price of oil rose by around 70 percent from about three Dollars per barrel to more than five Dollars. This led to significant recessions in the then industrial countries. During the next few years, the price of oil rose to over 12 U.S. Dollars.

The former decrease of oil flow was calculated, it served the OPEC countries to apply pressure to some of tue oil importing countries, which disagreed to the Yom Kippur War (6.10.-24.10.1973). Active in this oil embargo was, at that time, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Is this situation comparable with the current situation in the Middle East?

The next rise in oil prices began in the autumn of 2001, since than, it climbed from around 25 US-Dollar/Barrel to the all time high of 147.27 U.S. Dollars in summer of 2008. Around the year 2005, discussions started about the possibility of a further global oil crisis, based on the rising global demand for oil (in countries such as Brazil, India and China) and caused by an absolutely not deniable decline of the impending global oil peak. However, because of the rather difficult situation data, the maximum oil production probably can only be dated a few years after its occurrence.

The question here is: What comes next to satisfy the energy needs for the current 6.7 billion inhabitants of the world? In today's (2008) gross energy mix, oil has a share of about 35 percent, which is a lot. For comparison - Coal: 25 percent; Gas: 21 percent; Waste, Wood, etc. 10 percent; Nuclear Energy: 6.3 percent; Hydro: 2.2 percent; Geothermal, Solar, etc. 0.5 percent.
With what should these primary energies be replaced or supplemented on short, medium and long terms?

This question has been risen since the mid-seventies, 35 years ago. At that time, the "International Association for Hydrogen Energy " was founded by Professor T. Nejat Veziroglu in Coral Gables, FL, USA. The first international conference on the topic: „The Hydrogen Economy Miami Energy Conference“, briefly called THEME Conference, was held from 18-20 March 1974, in Miami Beach, FL, USA. Here, on the afternoon of the second conference day, a small group, which later became the "Hydrogen Romantics", was formed. This was the "nucleus" of the international Hydrogen movement, which is active until even today.

Much has happened since then, great expectations have been awakened, however: The industrial breakthrough for hydrogen as an energy carrier and fuel cells as energy converters is still not beeing materialized, whether on local ob global scale. What may be the reason? For the industry it‘s the classic chicken-and-egg syndrome. In my opinion, this is just an excuse. The "problem", is actually not a Problem at all, it is only an missunderstanding in terms of comprehension: As long as one works on the conversion from secondary energy sources such as electricity (electrolysis) or gas / coal (reforming) to hydrogen, one has already lost. We might forget that we do not have the time to wait another 35 years.

A hydrogen economy - or even better - a hydrogen society, will make sense, only if the direct conversion of solar energy in all its manifestations into hydrogen, scalable from mW to MW (both electric and thermal) will be dominated by customer-friendly and automatically technologies, available for everybody. However, there are unfortunately too little activities to be noted worldwide. Why is it so? A question I ask myself. With a decentralized production of hydrogen, direct from solar a second real problem can be solved, which is now not beeing discussed or questioned globally.: The transformation and transport losses in the production and distribution of electricity and fossil fuels are still alarmingly high and they are growing every day. But as it looks like, we can afford these losses, just like all the other 6.7 billion earthlings, obviously. And at least 1.3 billion of them do not even have "access" to electricity or to a reasonable supply of fresh water and sanitation...
That is worth thinking about...

However, in this context, it also good to know the figures from the first nine months (Jan.-Sept.) in 2008 for the Exxon Mobile Corporation, headquarters: Irving, TX, USA: The company's turnover amounted to U.S. Dollar: 392,663,000,000, achieving a net profit of U.S. Dollar 37,400,000,000, or, even better: of U.S. $ 1865.69 per second ...

Links to the news:
http://www.peakoil.net/
http://www.energiekrise.de/
https://www.hydrogenambassadors.com/background/world-energy-balance-2005.php
https://www.hydrogenambassadors.com/background/crude-oil2.php

Caption: „Just fill it up, please“, seen at a fueling station in Shanghai, P.R. China.
Photo: Arno A. Evers, Arno A. Evers FAIR-PR

Date: 13.01.2009