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Kenneth Deffeyes, The Best Peak-Oil Expert
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Kenneth Deffeyes, a retired Princeton Geologist has written two very entertaining and enlightening books on peak oil, Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage, and Beyond Oil, The View from Hubbert's Peak.
The explain the oil side of peak oil theory exceptionally well, and are fairly convincing. However he tells us in the preface of Beyond Oil that "I have no expertise in 'the dismal science' of economics." Unfortunately, the main point of the book is to sell us on an economic catastrophe of enormous proportions, for which he has not a shred of evidence.
In spite of this, in his second book, he takes two large steps forward in understanding peak-oil economics, and lands well ahead of any other "expert" in this field. The first point, found on page 7 is this:
"On a fifteen-year time scale, I have no doubt that human ingenuity will find adequate energy sources with nice adjectives like "renewable," "nonpolluting," "sustainable," "alternative," "organic," and "natural."
In other words, he disowns the die-off theory of Campbell, Duncan and Heinberg. (Although his Princeton web site still links to "die-off.org".
His second discovery is based on the geology of coal which he explains as "Worldwide coal reserves are large enough to continue present rates of production for a few hundred years." Since world coal production provides two thirds as much energy as world oil production, that's enough to get by for quite some time. Deffeyes has now realized that this is what will happen if oil runs out. The last sentence in the coal chapter of his second peak-oil book reads as follows:
"I hate to say it, but we likely will be forced to choose either increased pollution from coal or doing without a significant portion of our present-day energy supply." —Kenneth S. Deffeyes, Beyond Oil, 2005.
I congratulate him for being the first peak-oil expert to name the real dilemma. What he must also know is which option we would choose. The world will not seriously curtail its driving habits but will choose instead, without blinking an eye, "increased pollution from coal." There is no energy shortage in this century, and we will not be saved from climate change by running out of oil. Coal will again be king, and its high ratio of carbon to energy will hasten global warming.
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http://zfacts.com/p/853.html | 01/18/12 07:21 GMT
Modified: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:17:12 GMT
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