We’re not running out of resources. That’s the good news. As
Bjorn Lomborg has detailed in his sensational book, “The Skeptical
Environmentalist,” the “energy crisis” is largely a fantasy.
The mistaken impression that world energy supplies are dwindling
comes from the industry’s unfortunate habit of calculating
“reserves” as fuels available only at today’s prices. In those
terms we only have 20-30 years left. When we consider total world
resources, however, the abundance is stunning. There’s enough coal
to last us 1,500 years. There’s natural gas for at least 60 years
with more being discovered all the time. World oil supplies are
good for 100 years and when you add shale oil, which is almost
ubiquitous, there’s enough fossil fuels to last an incredible 5,000
years!
That’s the good news. The bad news is that while world resources
are almost unlimited, the United States is slowly running out of
one resource — readily accessible oil. Our production peaked in
1970 at 3.6 billion barrels per year and steadily declined to 3.2
bby in 2001. Our oil reserves also peaked in 1970 at 39 billion
barrels and now stand at 22 billion barrels. Technology marches
ever onward and we keep making new discoveries. Every year we
extract more and more oil out of older oil fields. But every year
it comes to less and less.
Meanwhile, our consumption keeps rising. In 1970 we consumed 5.4
bby. Last year it was 7.1 bby. President Nixon became alarmed in
1973 when imports jumped from 29 percent to 36 percent, just before
OPEC lowered the boom. In 2001, we imported 59.2 percent of our oil
and the figure rises every year.
Thus we find ourselves in somewhat the same position as England
just before the outbreak of World War II. Politically we stand
astride the globe, yet we remain crucially dependent on resources
outside our borders. One day there may be peace in the Middle East
and energy security won’t matter much, but right now we contend
with one hand tied behind our back.
Our main use of oil is in transportation. Trying to conserve our
way out is a fool’s errand. The more we mandate fuel economy for
cars, the more people drive. Autos get almost double the mileage
they did 20 years ago yet gasoline consumption marches ever
upward.
The initiative to develop a hydrogen-powered car, undertaken
recently by the Bush Administration, makes sense. Hydrogen is truly
an “alternative fuel.” Used in fuel cells, it could replace oil
consumption one-to-one. BMW, Chrysler, and Toyota all have
experimental models. With a critical mass, an infrastructure could
develop.
There’s only one problem. Hydrogen is not a “natural resource.”
There’s no free hydrogen sitting around waiting to be mined. It’s
all tied up in chemical compounds. Freeing this hydrogen will
require energy — more energy than comes out the other end. Like
electricity, hydrogen is not an energy resource but a carrier of
energy generated from other sources.
What other resources? There are two possibilities. Hydrogen can
be “reformed” from natural gas. But this will mean emitting more
greenhouse gases and shifting our dependence from one fossil fuel
to another. Alternately, hydrogen can be generated by splitting the
water molecule (H2O) with an electric current. That means producing
electricity.
Making a serious dent in our oil dependency would mean hooking
large portions of the transportation sector to the electrical grid
by producing hydrogen. Where would we get the new electricity?
Burning more coal and gas would mean more greenhouse gases. All the
good hydroelectric sites are already gone. There’s really only one
sensible alternative — nuclear power.
The power of the atom is something that Americans haven’t really
begun to appreciate. It lies in Einstein’s formula, E = mc2. When
matter is transformed directly into energy, as it is in a nuclear
plant, the amount of fuel consumed is multiplied by the speed of
light squared — one sextillion (1 x 1021). A handful of uranium
holds more energy than a 100-car freight train of coal.
The expansion of nuclear power now hinges on the Bush
administration’s efforts to establish a nuclear waste repository in
Nevada. If it succeeds, we may be able to reduce our critical oil
vulnerability. The doorway to energy autonomy lies on Yucca
Mountain.
