207
that the constant discovery of new reserves was necessary to keep up with demand.
If not, the world would run out of oil sooner rather than later.
Hubbert ran some calculations based on what was known about world oil supplies and prospects in the mid-1950s, and determined that peak oil would be reached
globally in the early 1970s. Although this was largely true for conventional U.S. oil
resources, Hubbert missed the mark on global oil. His prediction for the date of
global peak oil was pushed out several decades because large discoveries in the
North Sea, South America, Australia, and Southeast Asia occurred after his paper
was published. Nevertheless, Hubbert’s original peak oil concept still stands: oil
production in any given field will climb, peak, and then fall off. The date of peak oil
in the United States has been postponed by unconventional oil and gas, but not
cancelled.
Hubbert’s work is often interpreted in the context of fossil energy sustainability,
but surprisingly, that was not his original intention. In the mid-1950s, commercial
nuclear power was on the verge of being established. As part of the hype, the infant
nuclear industry bragged that electrical power from reactors would be so cheap and
plentiful that it would not even need to be metered. People were told that they could
have access to essentially unlimited amounts of electricity for a low, flat monthly
fee. This terrified the oil, gas, and coal industries. Hubbert was trying to assess how
the introduction of inexpensive nuclear electricity would impact the demand for oil
and gas, and alter the peak oil curve.
At the same time the natural gas industry was reacting to the promise of cheap
nuclear power by coming up with something called the “hydrogen economy.” The
idea was to use the waste heat from nuclear reactors to thermally dissociate water
into hydrogen and oxygen, similar to the process used a century earlier to make
“town gas” from water and coal, except without the carbon monoxide component.
The hydrogen gas would be piped through existing natural gas infrastructure to
customers. This would allow the gas industry to survive as a distribution utility, even
though the transmission and production branches would wither. There were technical issues with hydrogen embrittlement of steel pipes and the fact that pure hydrogen has twice the Btu value of natural gas, which would have required retrofitting
the burners on every existing gas appliance. Despite this, the fear of abundant
nuclear electricity was so strong that business models were in development.
In the end, nuclear power turned out to be anything but cheap, of course. Instead
of a nuclear power plant on every street corner, the total number of nuclear power
plants in the U.S. never got above 110. Nuclear reactors were simply not abundant
enough to make hydrogen generation practical. However, old ideas never really die,
and the hydrogen economy based on surplus nuclear heat is being reconsidered as a
possible alternative for GHG-free energy. Nuclear electricity emits no combustion
products at all, and the only combustion product of hydrogen is H 2 O, or plain
old water.
Peak oil in the U.S. was reached in the late 1960s on conventional resources. This
includes conventional associated gas. Non-associated conventional gas peaked
about a decade later, helped by modest unconventional gas production from tight
sands and coal seams. The ensuing shortages of natural gas drove prices into the
11.1 Peak Oil
that the constant discovery of new reserves was necessary to keep up with demand.
If not, the world would run out of oil sooner rather than later.
Hubbert ran some calculations based on what was known about world oil supplies and prospects in the mid-1950s, and determined that peak oil would be reached
globally in the early 1970s. Although this was largely true for conventional U.S. oil
resources, Hubbert missed the mark on global oil. His prediction for the date of
global peak oil was pushed out several decades because large discoveries in the
North Sea, South America, Australia, and Southeast Asia occurred after his paper
was published. Nevertheless, Hubbert’s original peak oil concept still stands: oil
production in any given field will climb, peak, and then fall off. The date of peak oil
in the United States has been postponed by unconventional oil and gas, but not
cancelled.
Hubbert’s work is often interpreted in the context of fossil energy sustainability,
but surprisingly, that was not his original intention. In the mid-1950s, commercial
nuclear power was on the verge of being established. As part of the hype, the infant
nuclear industry bragged that electrical power from reactors would be so cheap and
plentiful that it would not even need to be metered. People were told that they could
have access to essentially unlimited amounts of electricity for a low, flat monthly
fee. This terrified the oil, gas, and coal industries. Hubbert was trying to assess how
the introduction of inexpensive nuclear electricity would impact the demand for oil
and gas, and alter the peak oil curve.
At the same time the natural gas industry was reacting to the promise of cheap
nuclear power by coming up with something called the “hydrogen economy.” The
idea was to use the waste heat from nuclear reactors to thermally dissociate water
into hydrogen and oxygen, similar to the process used a century earlier to make
“town gas” from water and coal, except without the carbon monoxide component.
The hydrogen gas would be piped through existing natural gas infrastructure to
customers. This would allow the gas industry to survive as a distribution utility, even
though the transmission and production branches would wither. There were technical issues with hydrogen embrittlement of steel pipes and the fact that pure hydrogen has twice the Btu value of natural gas, which would have required retrofitting
the burners on every existing gas appliance. Despite this, the fear of abundant
nuclear electricity was so strong that business models were in development.
In the end, nuclear power turned out to be anything but cheap, of course. Instead
of a nuclear power plant on every street corner, the total number of nuclear power
plants in the U.S. never got above 110. Nuclear reactors were simply not abundant
enough to make hydrogen generation practical. However, old ideas never really die,
and the hydrogen economy based on surplus nuclear heat is being reconsidered as a
possible alternative for GHG-free energy. Nuclear electricity emits no combustion
products at all, and the only combustion product of hydrogen is H 2 O, or plain
old water.
Peak oil in the U.S. was reached in the late 1960s on conventional resources. This
includes conventional associated gas. Non-associated conventional gas peaked
about a decade later, helped by modest unconventional gas production from tight
sands and coal seams. The ensuing shortages of natural gas drove prices into the
11.1 Peak Oil