Copenhagen 1937 -- 2037

[jacob]

Here's a movie clip of Copenhagen from 1937 with a voice over from those days.
Today, aside from the bicycle/car ratio and the clothing, the city looks practically identical. All the buildings, etc.
I submit, that due to peak oil Copenhagen in 2037 will look fairly indistinguishable from what it looked like in 1937.

[Q]

Do you think if a single country (any country) decided to take on the huge task of basically creating or maintaining multiple energy supplies such as wind, solar, and nuclear, would it work?
Like if Alaska took over the oil production (sub-contracted it) and then sold the oil to the rest of the continent while lowering our own USA costs...
Or California creating super-solar and wind fields. This is an area where I think government intervention would work semi-well. Like a Post Office of Energy (without the blood sucking unions)

[jacob]

Wind, solar, hydro-power, and nuclear power need to be used somewhat close to its source of production due to resistive losses.
Those losses are the reason power lines carry tens of thousands of volts. This makes the current very small and P=UI=RI^2.
This is also the reason why nuclear reactions aren't built larger than 1GW. It's better to have two 1GW reactors geographically apart and closer to their consumers than having one 2GW plant.
Oil and coal can easily be transported---since it's liquid oil is obviously much easier to transport than coal. Gas can't be so easily transported (it needs to be compressed)---this is why it's often flared if there's no local use for it.

[Q]

If the problem is with distribution - the technology doesn't exist to make giant re-chargeable batteries? I mean, the batteries could be charged at said farm and transported in Natural Gas trucks.
I've always wondered why they don't make something like that to be honest. But thanks for clarifying those types of power need to be close.

[S]

Unfortunately, the windiest states in the US are also some of the least populous, so transmission is a big problem. Perhaps a combination of off-shore wind and tidal power would be more useful in densely populated coastal areas.
Re the video: I look forward to a time of less cars and more bikes.

[Matthew]

@Jacob
Back to Copenhagen 1937. I totally agree, although I have not attempted a future date calculation in a long time, but I thought it would take a lot longer to get so many people on bicycles after peak oil(I am aware you just kept the date to show a century;)
Are you willing to share your best approximate guess year for true peak (before we start sucking less and less every year)? I would be interested in "world as is" projected date(not including increased demand) and whatever you actual think the crystal ball is showing:)
@Q and @S
I always thought a good way to save wind and solar power, in the middle of nowhere, would be to use electrolysis to make hydrogen from water. Couldn't this be transportable like oil (Although I can only imagine how many wind towers it takes to make a substantial amout of hydrogen, compress it, and transfer it)?

[jacob]

@The Dude - 2005. True peak in the way you define it is tricky, because there will be a lot of volatility once supply can't meet demand. What will happen then is the prices will shoot up dramatically and affect the economy to a degree where demand will be lowered. Then later, this will happen again.
A better question is, when does oil production flatten out instead of presenting annual rises. The answer is right now.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/txt/ptb1105.html
I like XOM, CVX, and TOT.

[George the original one]

It's interesting that the Persian Gulf nations had one peak in the late '70s, then tightened production in the '80s, and have now gone back to match the peak production of the '70s again (for the past 5 years).
Are they still managing their production for maximum long-term results (as they used to) or is this an all-out production effort now?

[jacob]

@George - That depends on who you ask. Peak Oilers say that Saudia Arabia is in an all out effort detrimental to their long-term production. I remember Anwar, their biggest field, is taking in water. It's been a while since I followed peak oil directly though.
Also note that Russia may be the new swing producer---the one that picks up the slack and thereby sets the price. This is problematic for the recent US strategy of invading and buying since Russia can actually defend itself. Also note, that if SA falls, Iran is will take over as the top producer, hence their interest in the nuclear option. However, as far as I remember, Iraq actually has more reserves; they're just not developed, so they may end up being the top producer.
I think this is more likely to explain the future of the Middle East than the theory about terrorism. It's too bad that the general public is only presented with one side of the story, when the two stories are very much intertwined.
Unfortunately it may be too complex to grasp. While we're at the subject of movie recommendations, Syriana made a nice attempt at illustrating the interdependent dynamics between oil companies, government organizations, oil princes, religious leaders, and workers turned terrorists. Without a geopolitical background it is hard to follow that movie.
What we call "war on terrorism" could easily be called "resource wars" in a parallel universe. The reason, we have terrorism is that the resources are to be found in countries with a massive military disadvantage. If it wasn't, we'd have World War 3, just like we had World War 2 for the same reason. World War 3, then, would start when the powers that control the resources (US and Russia) would be perceived as too weak compared to the powers that want them.

[NYC ERE]

Interesting, and perhaps to be expected, that the world oil production peaks right after the start of the Iraq war. What happens if/when Iraq stabilizes and ramps up production? What about all the oil sands (shale) in North America, Europe and Asia, which are only in the beginnings of their exploitation?

[NYC ERE]

@ Jacob what about BP plc? Yield is currently 9.45%.

[jacob]

@NYC - Iraq has actually been increasing production since 2004. Shale oil depends on natural gas or another heating source (thermal nuclear reactors). It also requires a source of clean water which will end up as "not very clean water". As a resource it depends on the cost of other resources (unlike "real" oil). Hence, as oil price goes up, so will the cost of producing shale oil.
I would not buy BP. They have a history of safety violations larger than the rest of them put together. This is a large liability.

[George the original one]

@NYC - BP plc (NYSE symbol BP) suspended the dividend on June 16. Currently losing money at a rate slightly less than the former dividend. You might buy it as a gamble that the share price will appreciate, but recognize that it is a definite gamble at this time.
Everytime I research the major oil companies for investing, I am not impressed. Their yield is no better than average and the income is highly unstable with losses in many years. IMHO, they're little better than airlines as a long term investment.
The best way that I've found to get a good income from the oil companies is to buy their pipeline royalty trusts, particularly when the price of oil is down. BPT is the Alaska pipeline and is yielding about 9% (realize that the payments fluctate with the price of oil so aren't predictable).

[Matthew]

@Jacob
Interesting...peak as I described is passing. 2037 might not be unrealistic for many to start riding bikes. I find it hard to believe our culture will adjust that fast but I can imagine it looking more like Europe by then. I think I now understand why the oil crisis back in the 70's happened...peak US oil.

[Britz]

Actually, the car/bike ratio is not so different; or, more precisely, about 40% of commuting was by bike, and the rest by car, bus, train, etc. Today, about 36% of commuting in Copenhagen is by bike (and more by car than back then but fewer by bus, say), with the city pushing hard to get this up to 50% and even 80% eventually. One big difference between Copenhagen then and now is that there are now dedicated bike lanes, so instead of all those bikes in the video getting in the way of cars and each-other, the flow of bike traffic is much quicker and safer.
PS: I liked the comment about the happy lower classes, due to age pensions (apparently not so common around the world in 1937). Denmark still leads the world in happiness ratings, which is still mainly due to its socially responsible policies.

[jacob]

@Britz - I'm not so sure that happiness can be ascribed to socially responsible policies in the sense of removing absolute power as much it they prevent relative poverty by ensuring that everybody's after-tax income falls in a very narrow range. To wit, a group of people where everybody eats rice, figuratively speaking, will be happier than a group where half eats rice and the other half eats steak, again figuratively speaking.

[Britz]

Just a note on energy sources: if you build huge, high-voltage power lines (like the Chinese 800kV ones), then you hardly lose any energy; the energy loss with 450kV lines is 3% per 1000km. Locally produced power sometimes makes sense, like solar-heated water for your home, but scale of economy often means that distant-produced energy can be better, hence Desertec, say, or using Norway's dams as UK + North Europe's electricity-stabilising battery.

Regarding the size of nuclear power stations, the reason for 1GW rather than 2GW stations is also a matter of reliability costs: when your 2GW plant dies or is taken out for maintenance or checks (which happens for several weeks on average per year), you have to supply backup electricity, which is often very expensive, since the backup power stations, often gas-powered, might not produce much electricity themselves but might stay idle until needed (lucrative business!). France pays quite a lot of money to German power companies to supply electricity when their own nuclear power stations are down.

Therefore, 1) nuclear power plants - and indeed large coal plants - are described as "baseline power" but in fact need huge backup power capacity, 2) small and numerous distributed energy sources reduce power supply risk and even out variation. For instance, Denmark has since 1981 converted most of its big [coal]power plants to about 4000 small power plants that can fire up or shut down quickly.

[Britz]

@Jacob: I agree that the lack of relative poverty in Denmark is a big factor in Danes' happiness, and Denmark has (had?) the lowest gini-index, which works well with the Denmark tribe-cultural setup but won't work in the US, say. However, Danish happiness is also due to the other things, including a general feeling of security, not only from crime-violence or oppression, say, but also from not being stuffed if you lose your job and not having to worry about hospital- and university bills, which are huge stressors in the US, for instance. Of course, you also have the common and tight-knit Danish identity and cohension etc. etc., so the happiness is not all due to policies, and some unhappiness might also come from having to pay high taxes, if some people would prefer to have choice of paying private pensions, private education, private hospitals, road tolls, etc. Not many Danes would prefer this, but I could imagine some would, perhaps among those who vote K or V.