by Robert Bryce
The result: The Briggs and Stratton generator provides an eighteenfold improvement in power density over the hulking machines that Edison used.
Edison’s total investment in the Pearl Street station was about $600,000. (That figure included the cost of the real estate plus the cost of the wires, conduits, and machinery.)54 That’s about $12.7 million in 2007 dollars. Thus, to generate 600,000 watts back in 1882, Edison had to spend—in current dollars—about $21 per watt. If Edison wanted to supply that same amount of power using the Briggs and Stratton generators, he could simply buy sixty of them. His total cost for that power capacity (in late 2009, the Briggs and Stratton units cost $1,999.99 each) would be about $120,000.55 That works out to about $0.20 per watt. The result: a 105-fold improvement over the costs Edison faced when he built the Pearl Street station.
Indeed, if the Wizard of Menlo Park were still around, he could buy all the cheap generating capacity he wanted. And with an Internet connection and a credit card, he could even get free shipping.
CHAPTER 6
If Oil Didn’t Exist, We’d Have to Invent It
AMIDST ALL THE RHETORIC about the evils of oil, the evils of OPEC, the claims that we are “addicted” to oil, that oil fosters terrorism, that we can “win the oil endgame,” or that oil is killing the planet, the simple, unavoidable truth is that using oil makes us rich. In fact, if oil didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it.
Of course, many people would argue that point, but there’s simply no denying that as oil consumption increases, so does prosperity. And the correlation is so clear as to be undeniable. In mid-2009, the International Energy Agency published the graph reproduced in Figure 8, which shows oil demand per capita for the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) versus the rest of the world. In the countries where oil demand is more than 12 barrels per capita per year, GDP is at least two times as high as those where oil demand is 6 barrels or lower.
None of that is to discount the myriad problems that oil creates. The cofounder of OPEC, Venezuela’s Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso, famously called oil “the devil’s excrement.”1 The pursuit of oil and the riches that come with it have ruined countries and created generational corruption that persists to this day. Average residents of countries such as Nigeria and Angola, both of which sit atop massive deposits of oil and gas, have gained little from the exploitation of the mineral wealth beneath their feet. Frequent wars sprout in the Middle East as various countries vie to control the flow of oil from the region, with the Second Iraq War being the most recent example, and it has become one of the most militarized areas on the planet.
FIGURE 8 Gross Domestic Product and Oil Demand Per Capita, 2008
Source: David Fyfe, “Medium-Term Oil Market Report, 2009,” supporting slides, International Energy Agency, June 29, 2009, http://www.iea.org/textbase/speech/2009/Fyfe_mtomr2009_launch.pdf, 6.
And yet, for all of the problems that oil creates, it also provides us with unprecedented mobility, comfort, and convenience. Although we think of oil primarily as a transportation fuel, it’s also a nearly perfect fuel for heating, can be used to generate electricity, and, when refined, can be turned into an array of products, from cosmetics to shoelaces and bowling balls to milk jugs.
In short, oil may be the single most flexible substance ever discovered. The consumption of oil has so radically changed human society over the course of the past century that this entire book could be focused on that one topic. More than any other substance, oil helped to shrink the world. Indeed, thanks to its high energy density, oil is a nearly perfect fuel for use in all types of vehicles, from boats and planes to cars and motorcycles. Whether measured by weight or by volume, refined oil products provide more energy than practically any other commonly available substance, and they provide it in a form that’s easy to handle, relatively cheap, and relatively clean.2 Furthermore, oil provides the fuel for the two prime movers that have done more for the cause of globalization than any other: the diesel engine and the jet turbine.
That is not to downplay the significance of gasoline-fueled engines, which have brought mobility and useful power of all types (generators, motorcycles, weed whackers, and so on) to hundreds of millions of people. But since World War II, the diesel engine and the jet turbine have fundamentally changed the world. Since their use became widespread in the 1950s and 1960s, those two prime movers have had a greater impact on the global economy than any corporate marketing effort or international trade agreement.
A decade ago, a colorful railroad lawyer named Don Cheatham told me something that stuck in my head: “Without transportation” he declared, “there is no commerce.” Cheatham’s point is clearly true. But it leads to a corollary point, which perhaps can be called Bryce’s Hypothesis: If it is true that without transportation there is no commerce, then without oil there is no commerce. Proving Bryce’s Hypothesis is not overly difficult. The global transportation system depends almost exclusively on oil. No other substance provides such high energy density with such incredible versatility.
The diesel engine and the jet turbine effectively reduced the size of the Earth. By offering greater reliability and range than engines powered by gasoline, they cut the amount of time required to traverse the distances between countries and thereby fostered unprecedented volumes of trade. Thanks to the characteristics of the fuels they use and their more efficient use of heat energy, diesel engines and jet turbines offer about 12 percent more range than comparable gasoline-fueled engines, and they do it with greater reliability.3
The pivotal role of diesel engines and jet turbines in the global economy underscores the essentiality of oil. Why? The fuels that drive those machines cannot be effectively replaced. A number of alternatives can be used to substitute for gasoline in the light-duty vehicle market, including electricity, natural gas, and ethanol, but none of those alternatives can be used to substitute for diesel fuel or jet fuel. Airlines are not going to be flying Boeing 737s from Tulsa to Tacoma by filling them with compressed natural gas or huge banks of batteries. Container ships that ferry consumer goods from Singapore to Rotterdam don’t run on corn ethanol.
Of course, there is growing interest in biodiesel made from soybeans and artificial jet fuel made from various substances. But none of those alternatives can provide anything close to the scale of production that would be needed to keep the world’s fleet of diesel engines and jet turbines on the move. For instance, even if the United States converted all of the soybeans it produces in an average year into biodiesel, doing so would provide less than 10 percent of America’s total diesel-fuel needs.4 Now suppose an inventor found a way to convert soybeans into jet fuel. Even with that invention, the conversion of all of America’s yearly soybean production into jet fuel would only provide about 20 percent of U.S. jet-fuel demand.5
When it comes to the global commercial transportation market, there simply is no substitute for oil. The centrality of diesel engines—and the diesel fuel needed to power them—can be demonstrated by this one fact: Ninety-four percent of the goods shipped in the United States are transported on diesel-powered vehicles.6 The same percentage likely holds true for goods shipped internationally. Sony and Samsung may be producing fancy big-screen televisions for sale at the nearest Costco, but those TVs would likely still be in China or somewhere else in the Far East if there were no giant diesel engines to propel the container ships that bring those TVs to the United States.
While diesels are driving surface-based trade, jet turbines (and thus, jet fuel) have made global air travel into a routine experience. Six decades ago, passenger airliners relied heavily on piston-driven engines that used high-octane gasoline, but by the mid-1960s, the era of piston-driven engines gave way to the jet age. Jet aircraft became dominant because they can fly about three times as fast and two times as high as their gasoline-powered cousins. That means that passengers can save huge amounts of time and do so while flying in the upper reaches of the troposphere, which is usual
ly above the levels where weather and air turbulence can present a problem.7 The astounding success of the jet turbine can be seen by the growth in air travel. In 1950, the total volume of air travel— measured in passenger-kilometers—was 28 billion. By 2005, that quantity of air travel had increased to some 3.7 trillion—a 130-fold increase.8
PHOTO 5 General Electric’s GE90-115B is the world’s most powerful jet turbine. The turbine’s 4-foot-long blades—made from titanium, carbon fiber, and epoxy—are designed to move large amounts of air quietly. One of the blades was recently displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Source: General Electric, “GE90-115B Aircraft Engine,” n.d., http://ge.ecomagination.com/site/water/products/ge90.html. On technical specifications, see GE press release, “It’s Great Design, Too: World’s Biggest Jet Engine Fan Blade at the Museum of Modern Art,” November 16, 2004, http://www.geae.com/aboutgeae/presscenter/ge90/ge90_20041116.html. For more technical data, see Museum of Modern Art, “Jet Engine Fan Blade,” n.d., http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=93637.
In the late nineteenth century, Jules Verne’s character Phileas Fogg became famous thanks to Verne’s novel Around the World in 80 Days. Today, thanks to high-speed jet airliners, Fogg could fly to almost any modern airport on the planet in thirty-six hours or less. In fact, if he were so inclined, Fogg could probably fly all the way around the world and be back at the Reform Club in London with a dry martini in his hand within seventy-two hours of his departure—if, of course, he kept his seatbelt fastened and his tray table in its upright and locked position.
Even if the world’s leading politicians wanted to quit using oil, their ability to do so would be stymied, because global commerce depends on the use of diesel engines and jet turbines. In fact, the ongoing improvements to those machines are likely to increase their dominance over the coming decades. Ever since Rudolf Diesel first patented the engine that carries his name in 1892, his design has been undergoing continual improvement. 9 Dramatic efficiency improvements are also being made to jet turbines—first flight-tested in the late 1930s—to make them quieter, more powerful, and more efficient. In 2008, General Electric, the world’s largest producer of jet turbines, announced it was developing a new design, the Leap-X, which could cut fuel consumption by 16 percent compared to existing models.10
The improving efficiency of the diesel engine and jet turbine—and their increasing popularity—provides yet more evidence of our centuries-long quest for horsepower. And the central role that oil plays in fueling those machines provides evidence that petroleum, and the many products and services that we derive from it, will remain irreplaceable for years to come.
Thus far, much of the discussion has focused on power density and energy density, while the issue of scale has largely been ignored. In the next chapter, the final chapter of Part 1, I will show just how daunting the challenge of replacing hydrocarbons will be. And in keeping with the themes of this book, I will provide those scale comparisons in both energy equivalents and power equivalents.
CHAPTER 7
Twenty-Seven Saudi Arabias Per Day
THE GARGANTUAN SCALE of our energy consumption is almost impossible to comprehend. The BP Statistical Review of World Energy estimates daily global commercial energy use at about 226 million barrels of oil equivalent. Of that quantity, about 79 million barrels comes from oil, 66 million from coal, 55 million from gas, 12 million from nuclear, and 14 million from hydropower. Obviously, hydrocarbons are the biggest portion of the global energy mix, accounting for about 200 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. But how can we even imagine what those quantities of energy represent?
What is 226 million barrels of oil equivalent? Well, try thinking of it this way: It’s approximately equal to the total daily oil output of twenty-seven Saudi Arabias. Since the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, Saudi Arabia’s oil production has averaged about 8.5 million barrels per day.1
Over the past few years, we have repeatedly been told that we should quit using hydrocarbons. Fine. Global daily hydrocarbon use is about 200 million barrels of oil equivalent, or about 23.5 Saudi Arabias per day. Thus, if the world’s policymakers really want to quit using carbon-based fuels, then we will need to find the energy equivalent of 23.5 Saudi Arabias every day, and all of that energy must be carbon-free.
While Saudi Arabia provides an easily understandable metric for global energy use, this book focuses on our desire for power. So let’s convert those global energy consumption numbers into power terms. That will be easy, as they are provided in barrels of oil equivalent per day, and that means they are readily converted into our now-familiar power metrics: watts and horsepower.
FIGURE 9 World Power Consumption, by Primary Energy Source, in Horsepower (and Watts)
Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2009, http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAGING/local_assets/2009_downloads/renewables_section_2009.pdf.
SI provides the easiest way to compute power. A barrel of oil contains 5.8 million Btu. That’s equal to about 5.8 billion joules (5.8 GJ). To obtain watts, we must divide those joules by seconds. (Remember that power = energy/time.) We must therefore divide our 5.8 gigajoules by 86,400 seconds, which is the number of seconds in 24 hours. We must also account for the heat lost during the conversion of that heat energy into useful power. The result: Each barrel of oil equivalent produces about 22,152 watts, or about 29.7 horsepower. For simplicity, let’s call it 30 horsepower per barrel of oil equivalent per day.2
Multiplying global energy use (226 million barrels of oil equivalent in primary energy each day) by horsepower per barrel (30), we find that the world consumes about 6.8 billion horsepower—all day, every day. Therefore, roughly speaking, the world consumes about 1 horsepower per person. Of course, this power availability is not spread evenly across the globe. Americans use about 4.5 horsepower per capita, while their counterparts in Pakistan and India use less than 0.25.
FIGURE 10 Per-Capita Power Consumption in the Six Most Populous Countries, in Watts
Sources: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2009, http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAGING/local_assets/2009_downloads/renewables_section_2009.pdf; Central Intelligence Agency, World Factbook, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/.
Although those numbers are telling, they are somewhat unwieldy. Thus, it makes sense to also look at global power consumption in watts. Using the numbers cited above, we find that global power consumption is about 5.1 trillion watts, or 5.1 terawatts. Using watts allows us to see the disparity in power consumption much more clearly. For instance, the average resident of India consumes about 167 watts, while the average Brazilian uses 516 watts. Meanwhile, the average resident of the United States consumes 3,366 watts.
The wealth of power in the United States provides an obvious explanation for America’s incredible economic success. U.S. residents have enormous amounts of power at their disposal that can be used for whatever bit of work they choose to do: running a spreadsheet, recharging an electric drill, mixing cookie dough, manufacturing computers, or running the air compressor in the garage in order to inflate the tires on the car.
In the never-ending quest for horsepower, the residents of the United States are leading the world, and they are doing so because America leads the world in the production of high-quality energy. The United States ranks first in the world in the production of electricity from nuclear reactors (ahead of France). It ranks second in coal production (behind China), second in natural gas production (behind Russia), third in oil production (behind Saudi Arabia and Russia), and fourth in hydro production (behind China, Canada, and Brazil).3 In all, the United States produces about 74 percent of the primary energy it consumes, a fact seldom mentioned by the many neoconservatives and energy posers who have been sounding the alarm about the evils o
f foreign energy.4 America’s enormously productive energy sector—combined with significant imports of oil—allows the United States to provide colossal quantities of power to its citizens. And it’s that power availability that has turbocharged the American economy and made it into a powerhouse.
Furthermore, the United States has more hydrocarbon reserves than any other country. In October 2009, the Congressional Research Service reported that the proved hydrocarbon reserves of the United States totaled nearly 970 billion barrels of oil equivalent. The vast majority of that total (about 906 billion barrels of oil equivalent) is in the form of coal. Running second behind the United States in total hydrocarbon reserves is Russia, which has about 955 billion barrels of oil equivalent, followed by China with 466 billion barrels of oil equivalent.5
Given America’s enormous energy production and energy reserves, why are so many Americans willing to believe that they should trade reliable resources, such as nuclear energy, coal, oil, and natural gas—all of which have high power density—for unreliable, low-power-density sources, such as solar energy and wind power? The answer is that many Americans are too willing to believe the hype. They haven’t bothered to investigate the claims or do the calculations that would allow them to see through the hype. Or perhaps the self-satisfaction they get from aligning themselves with such grand ideals is so alluring that they don’t even want to try.
In the next section, I will expose many of the myths of “green” energy. In doing so, I will set the stage for Part 3, where I will explain why the most logical, or rather, the inevitable, energy policy for the future is N2N: natural gas to nuclear.