“Peak Carbon” H. Harrison July, 2011
By now nearly everyone has heard about “Peak Oil” and the effort to
identify the time when half the world’s reserves have been extracted.
At earlier times the price of oil is said to be ‘demand limited’: that
is, if demand for oil increases it’s relatively cheap to pump more oil
from generous reserves, with the consequence that prices are relatively
stable. At later times, the prices are ‘supply limited’: as demand
continues it gets more expensive to pump oil from depleting reserves,
and prices rise.
The consensus among experts is that Peak Oil is occurring about now.
If this is right, then 4$ gas is just an introduction to the future.
Welcome aboard.
For many years we’ve heard that extractable reserves of coal and
natural gas are ‘good for a hundred years or more’. Recent studies
are challenging this, however, with emerging estimates of revised
times until Peak Coal and Peak Gas, both centered around 25 years from
now. If these predictions are right, or nearly, we’ll be entering an
era of “Peak Carbon” in the lifetimes of some of us, and, more or less
certainly, in the lives of our children.
Is this bad news, or not? Depends on your perspective.
First order, more expensive energy costs will certainly impact costs
of living. They are doing so now. Clearly bad. In second order,
we’ll certainly adapt to Peak Carbon thru renewable-energy technologies,
and by changing our consumption patterns. Maybe good?
One straw in the wind .. really the reason I’m writing this to you now
.. is that a recent model exercise by David Rutledge of CalTech,
asserts that market forces alone may limit ‘Global Warming’ to CO2
levels near 475 ppm [presently 393.7 ppm] and globally averaged
temperature increases less than 2 degC [since 1990], by mid century.
Serious, but perhaps .. one hopes .. not catastrophic.
Careful, though. Rutledge is presently among a small minority in this
relative optimism. Others will have to think a bit before climbing
aboard. Or not.
Cheers,
Halstead
PS. This essay attempts to melt together two recent ‘precis’ that
bear on the subject. I’ll send them to you again, if you wish.
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