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Plentiful Coal, Not Peak Oil, Is Greatest Global Warming Threat

Even if oil production is nearing its peak in the next few years, there's more than enough coal that could be made into liquid fuel to make up the difference – but doing so would lead to a climate change disaster, according to scientists.

No matter when you believe global oil production will reach its peak and begin its inevitable decline, don't believe it will help humanity stop the burning of fossil fuels that contribute to global climate change.

Why? Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is far more plentiful than oil is or ever will be. Turning to coal as a replacement transportation fuel would lead to an even greater amount of greenhouse-gas emissions, and thus a greater threat of global climate change.

That's the view of scientists discussing the relationship between "peak oil" and climate change Wednesday at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco. The gathered scientists are seeking to predict what could happen after global oil production reaches its peak oil point – the maximum level of global oil production, which some studies say is decades away, and others say is happening right now.

"Will the end of oil usher in a century of coal, or will it usher in a transformation to low-carbon technologies?" asked Ken Caldeira, from the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University. "If we don't electrify or otherwise transform our transportation sector, the need for liquid fuels could lead to an increase in coal liquefication."

Making liquid transportation fuel from coal is a well-known process – Nazi Germany used coal-to-liquid fuels to power its war machine. But not only is coal a dirtier fuel than oil from a greenhouse-gas emissions perspective, making it into liquid fuel also involves the use of additional energy, making it "a double whammy" for global warming, Caldeira said.

The problem becomes more pressing given that burning coal for electricity production and other purposes is already expected to be the major contribution to future greenhouse gas emissions, said Pushker Kharecha, an associate research scientist with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Columbia University Earth Institute.

"Coal to liquids must not be used as large scale substitutes for dwindling oil and gas" when those become scarce, "unless all such emissions form them are captured and stored," he said. But capturing, or sequestering, carbon from coal plants is still far from mass adoption (see Canada to Beat U.S. to Carbon Storage and Vattenfall to Trap Carbon Emissions).

Preventing more emissions is critical, Kharecha said, because the levels of carbon dioxide that currently exist in the atmosphere are already higher than they should be to combat global warming, according to a paper published a few weeks ago Kharecha co-wrote with James Hansen, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and a well-known climate change scientist.

The paper argues that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels need to be brought down to 350 parts per million, rather than the more common target of 450 parts per million, Kharecha said. Current levels are about 385 parts per million, he said.

"Returning carbon dioxide to 350 parts per million by this century is still feasible," he said. But a key part of getting there would be to phase out all emissions from coal by 2030, he said.

That "will take Herculean efforts, really," including a massive shift to renewable energy sources in the short term and an increase in the use of nuclear power, as well as carbon sequestration for remaining coal-fired power plants, in the longer-term, he said.

It will also require a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, he added – a concept that has met with resistance from industries that prefer cap-and-trade systems to reduce emissions (see Carbon Tax a Better Idea? and U.N. Climate Talks Pose Big Impact on Greentech).

Thus, in terms of their effects on global warming, "oil and gas by themselves don't have enough carbon to take us into the dangerous zone for very long, because they just peter out," Kharecha said. "But that's assuming we do something about coal."

Comments [4]

  • Brad Arnold 12/17/08 7:39 PM

    Coal or no coal, we are lost already. Here is what Climate Code Red says:

    —Human emissions have so far produced a global average temperature increase of 0.8 degree C.

    —There is another 0.6 degree C. to come due to “thermal inertia”, or lags in the system, taking the total long-term global warming induced by human emissions so far to 1.4 degree C.

    —If human total emissions continue as they are to 2030 (and don’t increase 60% as projected) this would likely add more than 0.4 degrees C. to the system in the next two decades, taking the long-term effect by 2030 to at least 1.7 degrees C. (A 0.3 degree C. increase is predicted for the period 2004-2014 alone by Smith, Cusack et al, 2007).

    —Then add the 0.3 degree C. albedo flip effect from the now imminent loss of the Arctic sea ice, and the rise in the system by 2030 is at least 2 degree. C, assuming very optimistically that emissions don’t increase at all above their present annual rate! When we consider the potential permafrost releases and the effect of carbon sinks losing capacity, we are on the road to a hellish future, not for what we will do, but WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY DONE.

    “The alternative (to geoengineering) is the acceptance of a massive natural cull of humanity and a return to an Earth that freely regulates itself but in the hot state.”—Dr James Lovelock, August 2008

    By the way, any carbon diet strategy would be dependent upon clean coal:

    “The vast majority of new power stations in China and India will be coal-fired; not “may be coal-fired”; will be. So developing carbon capture and storage technology is not optional, it is literally of the essence.”—“Breaking the Climate Deadlock,” Tony Blair, June 26, 2008

    But, Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon dioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide—a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. “Beware of the scale,” he stressed.”

     Reply
  • Clifford Wirth 12/18/08 4:17 AM

    Peak Oil will destroy civilization before global warming does much more damage to the environment.The damage will continue for sometime after human civilization is destroyed.

    Independent studies (reviewed in the Peak Oil Report

    http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

    by Clifford J. Wirth) conclude that Peak Oil production will occur (or has occurred) between 2005 to 2010 (projected year for peak in parentheses), as follows:

    * Association for the Study of Peak Oil (2007)

    * Rembrandt Koppelaar, Editor of ?Oil Watch Monthly? (2008 to 2010)

    * Tony Eriksen, Oil stock analyst (2008)

    * Matthew Simmons, Energy investment banker, (2007)

    * T. Boone Pickens, Oil and gas investor (2007)

    * U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (2005)

    * Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Princeton professor and retired shell Geologist (2005)

    * Sam Sam Bakhtiari, Retired Iranian National Oil Company geologist (2005)

    * Chris Skrebowski, Editor of ?Petroleum Review? (2010)

    * Sadad Al Husseini, former head of production and exploration, Saudi Aramco (2008)

    * Energy Watch Group in Germany (2006)


    Independent studies conclude that global crude oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time, demand will increase. Oil supplies will be even tighter for the U.S. As oil producing nations consume more and more oil domestically they will export less and less. Because demand is high in China, India, the Middle East, and other oil producing nations, once global oil production begins to decline, demand will always be higher than supply. And since the U.S. represents one fourth of global oil demand, whatever oil we conserve will be consumed elsewhere. Thus, conservation in the U.S. will not slow oil depletion rates significantly.

    Alternatives will not even begin to fill the gap. And most alternatives yield electric power, but we need liquid fuels for tractors/combines, 18 wheel trucks, trains, ships, and mining equipment. The independent scientists of the Energy Watch Group conclude in a 2007 report titled: ?Peak Oil Could Trigger Meltdown of Society:?

    “By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame.”

    http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG_Press_Oilreport_22-10-2007.pdf

    With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won?t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, and automated building systems.

    This is documented in a free 48 page report that can be downloaded, website posted, distributed, and emailed: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

    I used to live in NH-USA, but moved to a sustainable place. Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area with a good climate and good soil? Email: clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or give me a phone call which operates here as my old USA-NH number 603-668-4207. http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/


    &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
    Gas prices will go back up.

    Global crude oil production will now decline from 74 million barrels per day to 60 million barrels per day by 2015. During the same time demand will increase 9%.

    We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel trucks for maintenance of bridges, cleaning culverts to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, roadbed and surface repair.

    Documented: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

    Anyone interested in relocating to a nice, pretty, sustainable area ? Email: clifford dot wirth at yahoo dot com or give me a phone call which operates here as my old USA-NH number 603-668-4207. http://survivingpeakoil.blogspot.com/

    Reply
  • Michael Powes 12/18/08 5:20 AM

    There is a new world wide web emerging right before our eyes.

    It is a global energy network and, like the internet, it will change our culture, society and how we do business.  More importantly, it will alter how we use, transform and exchange energy.

    Enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world’s energy needs for a full year.

    There is no energy supply problem, there is an energy distribution problem—and the emerging solution is a new world wide web of electricity.

    For more information, see http://www.terrawatts.com

     Reply

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