Preliminary estimates from the International Energy Agency, released in March, suggest that energy-related emissions of CO2[1] were unchanged in 2014 compared to 2013. Countries experiencing notable drops in emissions included China, Britain, Germany and the EU as a whole, but not, of course, Australia[2]
This has happened before, but only in years of global recession, whereas the global growth rate in 2014 was around 3 per cent. Of course, there are plenty of special factors such as a good year for hydro in China. Still, after looking carefully at the numbers, I’ve come to the conclusion that this really does represent, if not the long-sought peak in emissions, at least the end of the link between rising living standards and CO2 emissions.
The most striking feature of 2014 in this context was the behavior of fossil fuel prices. Coal prices had already fallen a long way from their peak levels in the years around the GFC, and they kept on falling through the year, even as coal mines began to close and lots of projects were abandoned. Oil prices remained at historically high levels until the middle of the year but then joined the downward trend, which has continued into 2015. Natural gas is a more complex story, since there isn’t a global market, and I haven’t figured it out yet.
Still, it seems to me that the 2014 outcome is a consistent with a story in which most growth in demand for energy services will be met by a combination of renewables and energy efficiency, and in which coal continues to lose ground to gas. The lack of demand implies that fossil fuel prices are likely to stay permanently below the levels anticipated when most recent projects were initiated.
Behind all this, it seems as if the various piecemeal measures introduced with the aim of switching away from fossil fuels are working better than almost anyone expected, and with minimal economic cost. Hopefully, this will encourage world leaders to set more ambitious targets, consistent with stabilising the global climate at temperatures 2 degrees or less above pre-industrial levels.
fn1. This excludes, for example, the effects of land use change, on which the IEA doesn’t collect data
fn2. At least after the repeal of the carbon tax
John Quiggin 
@Ikonoclast
The disputed quote I was referring to was from JQ’s comment at #72:
John, with regards to natural gas, I think the price for Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) exports could remain relatively high in the short term as China struggles to reduce its air pollution problems, but I don’t think it will be long before its price falls considerably. And I include Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) in the same category as LNG because, while it is more convenient than LNG, they substitute for each other very well.
Every LNG and LPG importing country has been taking steps to increase its renewable generating capacity. While some have not come far yet, it has been shown many times that renewable development can be slow at first and then rapidly ramp up. And with new renewables now competitive with fossil fuels on price, any sudden removal of subsidies will not result in an end to their development. Gas prices will be hit hard because it will often be the first fuel to be displaced by renewable production thanks to its expense.
Thailand is one example of a gas importer that is rapidly expanding renewables. The current retail cost of electricity for homes and industry is apparently about 5 baht a kilowatt-hour or 15.5 US cents. At Australian or German installation costs rooftop solar is a clear money saver with their insolation levels. And as a solar panel manufacturer with low labour costs, they should be quite capable of beating Australia on cost. The last I heard they had a target of getting 20% of their electricity from solar by 2022. This is good news for the world, but bad news for LNG and LPG exporters.
China could increase its consumption of LNG and LPG to reduce pollution in its cities, but China already produces almost as much electricity per capita as a developed nation and no longer needs to increase generating capacity at a breakneck pace and so China’s increasing amount of wind and solar capacity will to a larger extent displace coal and natural gas use instead of merely contributing to meeting increasing demand. China could be a huge market for cheap LNG and LPG, but as long as their prices remain high cheaper wind and solar capacity will be built. And with the cost of wind and solar power decreasing gas is going to become increasingly less attractive.
Japan, the world’s largest importer of LNG and LPG, has made considerable progess in renewables. While the development of geothermal and wind power has not been fast, the slow development of wind is not surprising given that Japan’s wind capacity consisted of little more than testbeds when the Fukushima nuclear disaster occurred. This may sound odd given that at the time Japan was already producing a considerable number of wind turbine components for other countries to use, but is really no weirder than Japan’s monster truck production. They are currently trialling floating wind turbines that are required for offshore wind due to the lack of shallow water to the east of the nation and could be deploying them in large numbers within a few years. Increasing solar capacity, improving efficiency, and declining population are all reducing Japan’s demand for gas.
International spot prices for gas have already dropped with the fall in oil prices, and I expect them to, on average, get worse as renewables reduce the need for gas in importing countries and remove the need to start importing gas in other developing countries. So gas is just one more fossil fuel that we will mostly eliminate our use of after we are done getting rid of coal.
Ugo Bardi gives a short history of the general disinformation campaign against the book “Limits to Growth”.
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com.au/2011/09/cassandras-curse-how-limits-to-growth.html
He does not assert that it was a conspiracy but it has all the general charcteristics of the attacks against Rachel Carson, against the tobacco-lung cancer connection and against climate science.
Limits to Growth denialism is no better than Climate Change denialism and deserves to be assigned to the same dustbin of specious propaganda against science as Climate Change denialism itself.
Limits to Growth is based on the ignorant assumption that:
(1) the sun don’t shine, or more specifically, produce bounteous energy that technology has only just begun to put within our reach
(2) recycling is an expensive waste of time (the conservative IPA and CIS say this all the time)
(3) technological development is at some type of Francis Fukuyama End of History tipping point. Again, conservative bongo nutso.
(4) we can’t get resources from space if we need to.
Throughout history, Paranoid Androids have been convinced that a religious or secular Armegeddon is upon us. BS, I say. But thanks for the amusing Black Comedy 🙂
@Newtownian
I am aware of occasional reticence in discussing population growth, and its evil twin, population control—which is really population management, a slightly more nuanced thing. This is for numerous reasons, no doubt, but one thing which did scare the punters who lived early to mid-century in the previous century was the idea and talk by intellectuals on eugenics. Considering the degree of autonomy we have sacrificed in the last decade, post 9/11, and the infiltration of micro-capture of a person’s life as it reels along in real time, eugenic discussions look like faded dust jackets of boring 50’s country rock. While eugenics did develop a left/right kind of divide in politics, once Hitler came to powerful influence in Europe, he rather stunned into shocked silence those who had once promulgated—with good intention—such ideas. Hitler’s obsession with the so-called Aryan race and racial purity was hardly an encouragement to stand up and go “Oh, we have a few too many people, so we have to manage who gets to procreate and how many children they can have, what colour eyes, good teeth, etc.” Wouldn’t have gone down well out all. Ever since Hitler, the argument about population growth and controlling it (even without government intervention) is killed off by the comparison with Hitler. I suspect some Greens might be wary of that.
The Chinese solution of one child only had some pretty appalling consequences too, namely the killing of female newborn babies. Again, if someone mentions the China solution, it is an argument killer.
The elephant in the room is that if we wish to bring down the footprint of humanity across the planet, then a natural population decline implies a significant change in the population age distribution towards the old age bracket; how an economy deals with that challenge is the 800 pound gorilla/elephant/rhino/other large soon-to-be-extinct mammal in the room. Euthanasia is the other bookend.
How to come up with a sustainable population without some horrible mechanism? It will only come through a reduction in wasteful over-consumption, a population decrease, technological changes which assist adapting to older population structures, and some intelligent thinking about it *now*. The behaviour of the Abbottian government with respect to AGW is signal enough that we can’t cope at the political level with sensible discussions on these sorts of topics.
CO2 leveling out – hardly.
trend CO2 concentration has increased 9 ppm in 4 years 2011 – 2015.
Changing the amount of vegetation does not make any real impact.
It is all pretty clear from this:
https://archive.today/R1vdH
So in 40 years we will be near 500 ppm.
In 80 years – who knows.
Nothing can prevent this, no carbon price, no silly meetings of world leaders, no protests in the street, and no amount of academic journals.
@Ivor
“Nothing can prevent this…”
Really? “Nothing” can?
If you’d said “Nothing will prevent this….” I’d reluctantly agree that you were probably right. But I will not believe that nothing can stop it. If we got our democracy back, took back control of information from the establishment media propagandists, informed and mobilised enough people….then who knows? I think it might be possible.
PDF version to download, fifth printing 1972, back cover quote “The message of this book is urgent and sobering: The earth’s interlocking resources-the global system of nature in
which we all live-probably cannot support present rates of economic and population
growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology”
@Megan
More than around 80% of the developed world are not willing to give up their cars, concrete constructions, petrochemical spin-offs and energy.
The rest of the world will insist that they have the same right to fossil fuel energy on a per capita basis, as in the OECD.
When both of these finally do become willing – it will be too late.
There is absolutely no reason why life should continue on this planet, none whatsoever.
If people’s attitudes towards cars became like that of smoking at the dinner table, people would give up their cars. The hook we are caught on is that we’ve been convinced to individually purchase cars, rather than sharing cars, or using other means of transport. Zinging past a long line of single occupant vehicles is one of life’s little joys for a cyclist in peak hour; I’d trade that for more efficient use of road space by motorists though.
Major changes in behaviour do occur, but for difficult issues they need to be worked at, and that’s where government behaviour is important. The current Abbottian government has chosen to sabotage every effort of two previous governments at dealing with the pernicious problem of AGW. This sends a signal to a new generation of teenage people, though how they respond is yet to be seen.
A summary of the book Limits To Growth written by at least two of the authors back in 1972:
“1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next 100 years. The most probable result will be a sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.”
1972 + 100 years would be 2072, which would occur prior to 2100.
And here’s a funky graph I found on the internet which appears to show predictions from the book: http://www.financialsense.com/sites/default/files/users/u559/images/2012/limits-to-growth.JPG
And here’s the same graph but someone has jazzed it up with a shaded area and dotted lines and included a bubble that says, “2030 Population declines following economic collapse”: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–dj0GV6Br–/17ihibcufd0sejpg.jpg
@plaasmatron
I posted the same point. The dust jacket of the fifth edition mentions 2100 which J.Q. apparently misread as 2000. Unless he can produce a dust jacket showing 2000 his argument is not looking good. I still reject his position of basing arguments on books on their dust jackets in any case. So let us list the items which disprove J.Q.’s claim that LTG predicted 2000 as the year of collapse;
(1) The dust jacket.
(2) The text.
(3) The graphs.
Game, set and match. The book is more nuanced than making a simple prediction of timing for a decline or collapse. Being written in 1972, it suggested that we had on their estimate until about 2000 to change course to avoid serious dangers of collapse somewhere in the timeframe of about 2035 to about 2100 depending on various parameter assumptions. It suggested collapse would be much harder to avoid but not necessarily impossible to avoid if we kept up BAU beyond 2000.
The updates now show that since we did not radically change BAU by 2000 but instead actually ramped up and intensified production greatly we now face a decline or collapse at the early end of the run predictions from about 2035 (plus or minus maybe 10 years for error by my guess).
I have even gone out on a limb in the past on this blog and suggested we would be seeing unnmistakeable signs of trouble by 2020. That limb might be a bit too slight to support me but we will see.
A summary of the book Limits To Growth written by at least two of the authors back in 1972:
“1. If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next 100 years. The most probable result will be a sudden and uncontrollable decline in both population and industrial capacity.”
1972 + 100 years would be 2072, which would occur prior to 2100.
And here’s a funky graph I found on the internet which appears to show predictions from the book: http://www.financialsense.com/sites/default/files/users/u559/images/2012/limits-to-growth.JPG
And here’s the same graph but someone has jazzed it up with a shaded area and dotted lines and included a bubble that says, “2030 Population declines following economic collapse”: http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–dj0GV6Br–/17ihibcufd0sejpg.jpg
@David Irving (no relation)
Donald Irving I am doing a lot of reading on this at present and there have been (and are), societies that share resources much more fairly then we do.
Using history as a cop out on this is unjustified.
Dennis Meadows offered his perspective (to reviewers of the LTG book series) on why misunderstandings still persist about the LTG book series.
In summary, his reasons amount to;
(1) Optimism bias.
(2) Shoot the messenger.
(3) BAU easier than fundamental change.
(4) Systematic bias in favour of growth by vested interests.
(5) Focus on short term profits. (Linked to 4 essentially.)
He also notes two mistakes that the LTG authors made in his opinion.
(1) Failed to actively rebutt criticisms of the first book as it was felt time would vindicate them.
(2) “The title of the book was poorly chosen. The focus of our analysis is not on limits but on the features of the system that produce overshoot and collapse.”
I happen to disagree with his point two “mistake” expression above. A system which follows the overshoot and collapse path has dynamically exceeded its long term sustainable limits. The issue is still about limits to growth. Limits can be understood simply as in there is a limit to how much water is in a glass. Or limits can be understood dynamically for complex systems in that overshoot and collapse trajectories can occur.
Here is a link to an excellent review of the LTG series. I hope the link isn’t too long to work.
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.naturaledgeproject.net%2Fdocuments%2FTNEP%2520-%2520Limits%2520Review%2520%2528Final%2529.doc&ei=81goVf7VGcKhmQXkw4HAAQ&usg=AFQjCNFrL2e4eKzMRWsM2fqrEuiN-o0Qww&bvm=bv.90491159,d.dGY
J.Q. still needs to respond to the various posts above (mine and others’) which illustrate he is incorrect about his 2000 prediction claim with which he seeks to discredit the LTG book series and thesis. I know I am being a nark but the principle is important. If enlightened and nationally prominent social democratic thinkers like John Quiggin accept the false right-wing propaganda against the LTG science then we have very little hope of getting the proper debate happening in the mainstream.
I think conservatives will be in a snit if growth doesn’t happen. In Tasmania it’s evidently compulsory judging by the name of a new department
http://www.stategrowth.tas.gov.au/
Conservatives also think entrepreneurial spirits and consumer passion will create something from nothing, somewhat at odds with physical laws. I think acknowledged volumetric peak oil will occur around 2018. That means you cannot make more flammable liquid without taking it from some other ready made supply. The next conservative fantasy seems to be spontaneous efficiency gains as decreed in last week’s energy white paper. As others point out maybe 10% efficiency gains are possible but not 50%. That’s using less input not the same amount by some other means.
Hermit, you may find this article on planned German efficiency improvement interesting: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/magic-of-energy-efficiency-revealed-as-germany-aims-to-cut-consumption-50-51906
@Hermit
We could still possibly level off to a stable physical economy and a growing tech economy if we are very careful and implement all the right policies. I say this with respect to places like Australia, North America and South America. Other regions will have more trouble doing this but northern Europe still has a very reasonable chance. Russia could do well to if they could somehow overcome their historically conditioned prediliction for authoritarianism. China I am not sure about. The Middle East and North Africa look in severe trouble to me. The Indian sub-continent and S.E. Asia will likely struggle too. It’s hard to see Central Africa being sustainable either.
What are the right policies?
(1) Fossil power fuels must be entirely phased out within a generation, say 25 years.
(2) Existing nuclear power is a bridging power supply but cannot be expanded (peak uranium).
(3) Renewables must be expanded to become 100% of all power (sationary and motive) by about 2050.
(4) We might have to keep burning coal to make iron.
(5) We must become an entirely electrical economy.
(6) Electronics and biotech will play key roles.
(7) Passive and energy saving design will need to play a big role too.
Current corporate capitalism as a system is not fit to lead these changes. The necessary pace of change will not happen under corporate capitalists and oligarchs. A dirgist approach will have to be taken with a large expansion of the public sector. Wasteful consumerism as a method creating aggregate demand will have to be rapidly phased out in favour of nation-building via renewable power transition and energy saving tranports and frastructure programs. Employment will also need to be expanded in the health, welfare, education and ecosystem remediation arenas.
This is what needs to happen but it has little to no chance of happening under the current sclerotic neocon ideology. Overthrowing this ideology is our biggest challenge. Its current hold over public power and public debate is very powerful. What will be needed to change perceptions will be a string of salutary economic, ecological and climate disasters due to the outcomes of neocon ideology. These failures will inevitably occur if the maladaptive neocon idelogy continues to hold sway. Absolutely no sabotage of the system is necessary and would be counter-productive and lead to mass supression and conflicts in any case.
If this system continues unabated it will very successfully sabotage and destroy itself. That is the clear and very predictable bottom line. The cusp of the inevitable and extensive failure of the current system will be the most propitious time for transforming politics fundamentally and permanently (if the transformation fails to occur earlier) and entering a new era. If humanity fails in this then collapse, barbarism and even human extinction are the most likely outcomes.
I’m taking my own advice and taking the LtG side issue to the sandpits
In 2014 Germany halted the 2011-12-13 trend of emissions increases let’s see if they can now get double digit emissions cuts consistent with their necessarily high retail energy prices. Perhaps the less authoritarian approach of the UK might see Germany overtaken in GDP, by 2020 some reckon.
Iron could be smelted using $5 so per kilogram from water electrolysis, rather than cheap carbon in the form of coke. Uranium depletion is not a problem this century. The connection is 4th generation nuclear reactors (so far at prototype stage) can breed their their own fuel and make cheap hydrogen. It just needs the public to accept them.
Hermit, iron ore is Fe2O3. It takes 26.9 grams of hydrogen to reduce it into one kilogram of iron. If your $5 figure is mostly the cost of electricity, as would be expected for industrial scale production of hydrogen via electrolysis, then, with the best electrolysis efficiencies pushing 90% but assuming a more realistic 75% efficiency figure, if it costs $5 to make enough hydrogen to reduce enough iron oxide to produce 1 kilogram of iron then we are looking at an electricity price of around $3.50 a kilowatt-hour or more than 100 times the current average wholesale electricity price. Given that renewables now outcompete fossil fuels on price it seems unlikely that electricity prices will ever reach that level.
Also, coke could simply be used to reduce iron and the CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere as a result removed and sequestered. At a cost of $100 per tonne of CO2 this would increase the cost of producing iron by about 4 cents a kilogram or less. That’s about $40 a tonne.
Additionaly, Brazil has produced millions of tonnes of steel using charcoal for reduction instead of coke. Plantation eucalyptus has played an important role in this as it has astounding growth under Brazillian conditions and cultivation and they produce an average of over 35 cubic meters of wood per hectare per year, with record harvests exceeding 100 cubic meters per hectare per year.
Well, what is the case being made here? The IEA provides nothing but estimations of emissions and therefore no more than a variety of theoretical and hyperbolic assumptions pertaining to living standards and emissions.
The hard empirical data on emissions – Mauna Loa – current, show greater than 400 ppm CO2 and no change to the rate of increase, such data therefore, does not support any estimate of emission reductions but is entirely consistent with continued emission increases, likewise for temperature increase.
MH, emissions from CO2 didn’t increase last year but we’re still a long way from stopping atmospheric CO2 levels from rising. We would have to cut CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels and land clearing by roughly 80% to do that. But despite the fact we still have a long way to go, the halt in increase is still good news, because when you find yourself in a hole the most important thing to do is stop digging.
RB I said or meant to say hydrogen could cost $5/kg. I didn’t say or mean to imply anything about the cost of iron. Maybe I shouldn’t type while watching sports on TV. Some but not all hydrogen prices from water are given here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_splitting
A trick used to be to weld two chunks of WA hematite (Fe2O3) with an acetylene torch with reduced oxygen.
Some wood and charcoal is used to make metallurgical grade silicon the precursor to PV grade. They also use some coal a point seldom acknowledged by solar enthusiasts. I doubt there are enough trees to use for billions of tonnes of steel production; after all the switch from wood to coal was a cornerstone of the Industrial Revolution. Cheap hydrogen will also be needed to make or enhance liquid fuels when oil is gone.
“If humanity fails in this then collapse, barbarism and even human extinction are the most likely outcomes.”
Give that man an enema.
@jt
And you – a stick of dynamite.
The LTG assumed, somewhat naively, that resource and ecological constraints would show up in GDP, and in the core regions. Somewhat naive, but economists had not given them reason to suppose otherwise.
In very general terms, complex networks react to constraints first by shedding marginal parts, and then by simplifying until some new balance is reached. In terms of the first, well, the Soviet Union, parts of Africa, parts of the Middle East (Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Yemen) have been shed, and bits of South America are wobbly. This started in 1989. The simplification (the ideology of small government, corporatisation, privatisation…) got under way around the same time.
GDP growth and invention are both perfectly compatible with organisational decay.
Ronald. This is nonsense, whats your reference or source citation? Every bit of CO2 added to the atmosphere is a net increase, with no decrease on the quantity existing or having been created, possible over a long time integer of some 300 years, every additional part of CO2 is an increase on the last amount. Since there has been no noticeable cessation of human use of fuels that produce GHGs, by reason of doing something, more CO2 has been added.
Nett increase = amount emitted (in one year) – amount absorbed (in one year).
Nett increase could be negative, but is nearly always positive since we started measuring it.
Stock at year’s end = Stock at previous year’s end + Nett increase.
Anyway, while I do think LtG is stating the obvious about exponential growth in a finite resource world, I think we forget sometimes that resources aren’t necessarily confined to the surface of the planet. We can grow plants in 3D racks, computer controlled environment, on a vast scale, for one. As another example, have a look at a picture of the Earth cut through the middle, and look at how small the depth of the deepest abyss is when compared to the radius of the Earth; same for the crustal layer our land is a part of; we have scratched the surface, and that’s about it. Perhaps with scientific developments, we may one day be able to find minerals far deeper underground at present, and use a fully autonomous mining system to extract it. Who knows?
My point is that while we may well cause the destruction of a significant fraction of the sum of all species on Earth, that doesn’t necessarily mean that humanity is sunk, and doesn’t even mean that humanity in the future won’t have the capacity to thrive. I think there are very real risks we face, but consideration of the risks alone, that leads to biased views of the possible futures.
I’m not happy that we are destroying the joint, ecologically speaking; I wish it weren’t so. Whether living in a world where there are no lions or rhinos is worse than one where they exist, that’s a very subjective and individual call. Do people miss the dodo, for instance, or feel their lives are less for its absence? I’d wager most would say no, not really. For some people, ecological collapse is a minor news story if it doesn’t interfere with their food supply. An agricultural collapse would be a completely different proposition. We live in interesting times.
@Donald Oats
The question was:
Interruption of food supply is why I think peak oil is ‘bigger’ than climate change. CC is gradual and insidious with just the occasional pour soul getting drowned or incinerated. Empty shelves at supermarket will scare the bejabbers out of everybody. It is said the calorific energy return on food is 0.1 so that 10 kj of mainly fossil fuel input went into producing every 1 kj of metabolic energy. Think of tractor fuel, fertiliser, cooking, refrigeration, plastic packaging, warehousing and delivery to the store. Most of that energy comes from currently cheap oil and gas. Climate change issues like drought add to the cost. I predict anxieties in some large part of the world before 2020.
MH, what do you disagree with?
(1) That energy related emissions apparently did not increase last year.
(2) We are still a long way from stopping CO2 levels in the atmospere from rising.
(3) We would have to cut emissions from burning fossil fuels and land clearing by roughly 80% to stabilise CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.
Hermit, it would always be possible to use a portion of farmland to produce biofuels to power farm machinery and get food to markets. However, wind and solar power would remove far less land from use at lower cost. And note that while I’m sure that electric farm machinery will make use of batteries, neither trains nor farm equipment require them to operate off electricity.
Also note that fossil fuels aren’t required to produce urea, the largest agricultural input. It can be produced using wind or solar power or plants can produce nitrates themselves. And note that humans actually produce very little methane. Most of the flammable gas emmitted by human anuses is actually hydrogen, so a shift to legumous crops is unlikely to contribute to global warming. And anyway, fartless beans have already been bred and people have been eating fart reduced varieties for years.
@Ronald Brak
In that case I propose a new rule since biofuels come under the RET… ethanol producers must farm with ethanol powered tractors and deliver with ethanol powered tanker trucks. Same goes for biodiesel and whatever else. I think you might find not a lot left over makes it to the retail bowser.
I don’t have reliable numbers for non-gas derived urea. Since the WWI war criminal Fritz Haber invented his NG-ammonia-urea process it has been the standard. Aussie fertiliser maker Incitec Pivot built their new plant in the US since they thought gas would be cheaper there. Manures and compost will not cover several million square kilometres of the wheatbelt, the direct (bread etc) and indirect (chook feed etc) source of 40% of our protein. Again if we could make bulk hydrogen much cheaper than water splitting we might avoid collapse.
Hermit, producing ethanol is, to be succinct, nuts. It is my least favorite thing to do.
@Ivor
I can’t speak for Ronald Brak’s references, but I found at CO2 Now, scrolling down the home page a little, that Mauna Loa CO2 atmospheric measurements, given as average annual atmospheric CO2 in ppm (Mauna Loa Observatory), shows:
==========
Year CO2 ppm
——————–
2012 393.82
2013 396.48
2014 398.55
==========
…and that is certainly an increase from 2013 to 2014, just as there is an increase from 2012 to 2013. I’m not sure where Ronald has gotten his numbers, but Mauna Loa is the usual go-to site AFAIK.
@Val
Not a cop-out. I’ve heard far too many cornucopians go into a hand-waving frenzy about “better distribution of food” every time anyone has pointed out that we’re overpopulated to take it seriously.
If we were capable of better and fairer distribution of resources, we’d already be doing it, and there’d be no starvation in sub-Saharan Africa.
Hermit, you wrote: “Again if we could make bulk hydrogen much cheaper than water splitting we might avoid collapse.” I’m guessing you mean that if we could obtain hydrogen chearper than from the electroylsis of water we could avoid a collapse that would result in millions dying. It sounds like you are suggesting that making nitrogen fertilizer using hydrogen from water electrolysis is so expensive people will starve to death before they can afford to pay for it. Fortunately, I can assure you this is not the case.
An Australian wheat farmer might use 50 kg of urea per hectare to produce almost 2 tonnes of wheat. Urea is 6.7% hydrogen by weight. So that’s about 1.7 grams of hydrogen per kilogram of wheat produced or roughly one gram to provide enough food kilojoules for one person for one day. Natural gas is currently about 19 cents a kilogram and is one quarter hydrogen by weight, so assuming hydrogen can be extracted from natural gas for free, one gram of hydrogen from natural gas costs 0.076 cents a gram. A large industrial complex probably would have low electricity prices based on wholesale spot prices, but even if they had to pay as much as say a shopping center, which would be about 15 cents a kilowatt-hour here in Australia, the electricity cost of producing 1 gram of hydrogen from the electrolysis of water would be, assuming 75% efficiency, about 0.8 cents a gram.
I can assure you, that if people are faced with a choice between watching their loved ones starve to death, or paying roughly 0.7 cents more per person each day in food costs, then the very large majority of the human race, would chose to pay the extra 0.7 cents per person per day rather than see their families die. In fact, most people would not even notice the increase.
RB you need to do a complete calculation based on hydrogen from water splitting then production of urea involving the cost of energy, the cost of other reactants, amortisation of plant, labour and so on. I doubt you can get close to the current $350 wholesale a tonne for natural gas derived urea. Suppose gas-free urea cost merely double. Then the cost of wheat based on your figures could go up $100 or so per tonne. There goes $1 sliced white bread at Woolies. If natural gas is in short supply so is diesel for combine harvesters and trucks to get grain to the silo.
In general terms I agree food is priced too low. An ‘artisanal’ bakery near me sells sourdough loaves for $12. No way I thought which is how the average punter will react to high prices for staple foods. Energy is for big screen plasma TVs, weekend trips interstate and towing the boat trailer, not wasted on farming.
Hermit, no I really don’t need to do a complete calculation involving everything. Firstly, this method may not be used. I’m just pointing out that even extracting water from hydrogen is not that expensive. Secondly, the amazing thing about atoms is, as far as we can tell, they are all the same. Hydrogen atoms from water electrolysis are exactly the same as hydrogen atoms from reforming methane. So as soon as we get hydrogen we can stop at that step because everything else is going to be the same. Okay, there is one quibble, the CO2 produced from reforming methane is usally used later on the urea producing biz. This is a problem, but not a huge one (the world is not exactly CO2 constrained), and like I said it doesn’t really matter as this method probably won’t be used.
And Hermit, if 50 kilograms of urea are used to produce 2 tonnes of wheat, then at the current price of around $380 a tonne, the urea cost of a loaf of bread is about half a cent. Doubling that would take it up to 1 cent. So we might not see $1 bread at Woolies or Coles anymore, but we would see $1.005 loafs of bread. Since artisanal sourdough is kind of dense they might go up to $12.01.
So what method might be used to produce urea? Well, we could use the same method as now, reform natural gas to get hydrogen to make ammonia and so forth. The CO2 released could be removed from the atmosphere and sequested. If this costs $100 a tonne then the cost of sequestering the carbon in the natural gas feedstock will be about $20 per tonne of urea produced which will increase the cost of urea by a little over 5% and add about 0.025 cents to the cost of a loaf of bread.
@Donald Oats
Yes
The data from Cape Grim is similar.
Ronald Brak
If the price of urea doubled from $380 to $760 the cost of producing a tonne of wheat would increase 5% or $19 so my quick estimate was excessive. However your method of taking the cost of elemental hydrogen then the relative atomic mass in the end product molecule simply gives a lower bound for cost.
Let’s take hydrazine rocket fuel H2N2 molecular weight 2+28=30. If I understand your approach hydrogen will be 2/30 of the cost so 0.1c a gram hydrogen will cost 0.2c for every 30 grams of hydrazine. For 1,000 grams this gives $6.70 per kg. In fact it is $17 which shows that your approach omits a number of input costs.
Obviously non-gas based nitrogen fertilisers are not competitive at the moment. Google
Incitec Pivot ammonia plant USA
based on the perception of lower NG prices than Australia. When gas runs out which could be say in 20 years for eastern Australia then we’ll either import urea, make it from coal (which was proposed for WA) or try an energy intensive new method. Future food must be more expensive than now I expect markedly so.
Hermit, with roughly 25 kilograms of urea being used per tonne of wheat grown, a doubling of the price of urea would result in the current wheat price of around $300 increasing by about 3%. But I’m okay with 5%. Close enough.
My estimate for the cost of producing urea using hydrogen derived from water was simplistic, but it does not need to be more complex as my goal was simply to show that the process may be much more expensive compared to the current method, but is still easily affordable overall. This is not rocket science. If just the cost of hydrogen goes up and everything else stays the same, it’s okay to just consider the rise in cost of hydrogen. The fact that rocket fuel contains hydrogen and costs NASA $17 a kilogram is not relevant. Insulin contains hydrogen and costs $70,000 a kilogram. Again, not that is not relevant. If the cost of one input goes up, and one input alone, we only need to consider that one input. If the cost of eggs goes up by 10 cents each, and only the cost of eggs increases, then if I use 2 eggs to bake a cake, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the cost of baking a cake will go up by 20 cents. You see what I’m getting at?
And I will repeat, just to be clear, urea may never be made using hydrogen from electrolysis. I’m was just showing that you when you wrote, “… if we could make bulk hydrogen much cheaper than water splitting we might avoid collapse”, you were wrong. It is still affordable at current electricity prices to produce urea using water electrolysis and no collapse is required.
RB fair enuff but this is the grim reality of energy price sensitive manufacturing… playing coal states off against each other in a race to be dirtiest
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-03/perdaman-threatens-to-move-collie-fertiliser-plant-to-vic/5717218
Never on the Direct Action radar I’ll bet.
Businesses pitting the states against each other for the best deal probably started while they were still burying the uneaten meat pies left over from celebrating Federation. (The burying of uneaten pies is something that did occur and an early form of carbon sequestation.) Having a sensible carbon price won’t put a stop to it without other major changes being made as well, but it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and at a high enough price ($70 a tonne optimistically) we will have zero net emissions.
Actually I see the DA auction is set to pounce. I think most of it an invitation to exaggeration if not fraud. How does one measure the methanogenic exhalations of ruminants? Feed them muesli bars and Hazelwood is as good as eliminated. Why? Because Greg Hunt says so.
Who knows we might get a whopping 3% percent reduction on our year 2000 emissions? For only 2.5 large.
At current rates of emission our entire permissible CO2 budget, if we want to stay under 2C warming, will be used up by 2024. Thereafter our remaining fossil fuel reserves should all remain in the ground. Since it would unfeasible to continue full throttle use then stop dead in 2024, what are chances of reducing our emissions rapidly each year now so that fossil fuels are phased out by say 2035 and we do not exceed the budget for 2C warming? I wonder.
Zero for the world at large.
One or two countries may achieve this but only by switching entirely to wooden buildings, electric or hydrogen cars, buses, and trucks, and renewable energy.
This would put them at a serious competitive disadvantage when it comes to trade.
But warming will continue – forever.
The Abbott Team has achieved its ambition of halting progress on large scale renewable energy, with investment down 90% and 2300 jobs lost from the sector in the 2013–2015 period. At least the solar rooftop PV is still bubbling along. Perhaps in the coming budget they have a plan for halting that market as well.