High Noon for Natural Gas

The New Energy Crisis

Julian Darley

Book overview:

Blackouts, rising gas prices, changes to the Clean Air Act, proposals to open wilderness and protected offshore areas to gas drilling, and increasing dependence on natural gas for electricity generation. What do all these developments have in common, and why should we care?

In this timely expose, author Julian Darley takes a hard-hitting look at natural gas as an energy source that rapidly went from nuisance to crutch. Darley outlines the implications of our increased dependence on this energy source and why it has the potential to cause serious environmental, political, and economic consequences. In High Noon for Natural Gas readers can expect to find a critical analysis of government policy on energy, as well as a meticulously researched warning about our next potentially catastrophic energy crisis.

Did you know that:

• Natural Gas (NG) is the second most important energy source after oil;
• In the U.S. alone, NG is used to supply 20% of all electricity and 60% of all home heating;
• NG is absolutely critical to the manufacture of agricultural fertilizers;
• In the U.S. the NG supply is at critically low levels, and early in 2003 we came within days of blackouts and heating shutdowns;
• Matt Simmons, the world’s foremost private energy banker, is now warning that economic growth in the U.S. is under threat due to the looming NG crisis?

“While much is known about the growing pressures on peteroleum supplies, far less is known about natural gas. As Julian Darley convincingly demonstrates in this important book, the long-range future for gas is equally bleak as that for oil. This invaluable book arrives at a critical juncture.” –Michael Klare, author of Resource Wars

About the Author
Julian Darley is a British environmental researcher who writes about nonmarket and non-technology-based responses to global environmental degradation. He runs an Internet broadcasting station (GlobalPublicMedia.com), develops OpenSource web database sites for nonprofits and civil society organizations, and is currently writing a book on how and why we need “global relocalization” of the economy, society and culture. Julian lives in Vancouver, Canada. For more information on Julian Darley, please visit his personal website

Folks,

I’m breaking my GRL fast with this article from, of all places, the Puerto Rico Herald. It’s a good summary of our current national energy situation, written in simple journalistic prose that anyone can understand. Energy experts among you won’t find much new information here, but it’s still a worthwhile overview of the situation, taking into account the Peak Oil problem without wholly committing itself to it.

As longtime GRL readers know, however, I do not believe that the so-called “hydrogen economy” is ever going to live up to the hope and hype that our leaders have invested in it. (See previous GRL article, “What’s Wrong with the Hydrogen Economy?”.) There are numerous problems with a hydrogen economy, and even if it could be made to work, technically speaking, it simply isn’t pragmatic: it would take an unfathomable amount of investment and energy to displace the amount of energy we currently consume in the form of oil and gas. We just don’t have the wallet for it!

To quickly summarize, the main problems with a hydrogen economy are:

• Hydrogen, being the smallest of the elements, is extremely hard to contain in any sort of a vessel or pipeline without substantial leakage.
• Hydrogen has a much lower energy content per volume, even compresssed. And compression takes more investment of energy. So storage and delivery mechanisms have to be huge. According to the May 2004 issue of Scientific American, “Put another way, it would take about 15 trucks to deliver the hydrogen needed to power the same number of cars that could be served by a single gasoline tanker.”
• Hydrogen does not occur freely in nature. It’s always bound to something else, in everything from water to natural gas and oil. To extract it, you must invest energy. Then it must be transported and stored, which is difficult.
• When you convert energy from one form to another, you will always lose some in the conversion. Extracting hydrogen from a fuel source, and then consuming it in a fuel cell, is a process entailing many such conversions. From “wells to wheels,” losses ultimately total about 92%!
• A hydrogen economy isn’t necessarily a cleaner economy, because hydrogen would likely be extracted (or produced) using “dirty” fuel sources such as coal and tar sands. Sure, zero-emission coal plants and hydrogen plants powered by renewable energy would be great, but if you don’t think they’re “economical” today, then you’re kidding yourself if you believe we’ll invest in them tomorrow. What we’ll do is what we always do: use the cheapest (and dirtiest) sources available. Which is exactly what the Cheney energy plan says. Remember: this administration has actually cut investment in renewable energy, and laid out billions for new coal and nuclear plants.
• There are some applications where hydrogen can be a useful and appropriate energy storage mechanism. However, those applications are limited, and probably don’t include transportation. From Scientific American: “And in one way the hybrid is, arguably superior: it already exists as a commercial product and thus is available to cut pollution now. Fuel-cell cars, in contrast, are expected on about the same schedule as NASA’s manned trip to Mars and have about the same level of likelihood.”
• Natural gas is where most enthusiasts of the hygrogen economy hope that we will get the hydrogen. But as many observers and peak oil theorists have noted, it’s not nearly as abundant as once thought, and its supplies will also peak and fall, perhaps 20 years after oil.

Side note: you may find this exchange worthwhile, about energy and Peak Oil, which I had with blogger Sam Koritz of Antiwar.com: “Peak Oil Backtalk” (Search the page for “peak oil” to find it.) Koritz, like other more optimistic observers, believes that more perfectly functioning markets (being libertarian, Koritz advocates removing price controls and tarrifs) will lead to intelligent investment into renewable energy solutions, and dovetail nicely with tapering off of fossil fuel supplies.

I hate to carry the label “pessimist” in this discussion, because I think I’m being a pragmatist. I just don’t believe the numbers are going to work out for a nice soft landing. I think the situation is quite dire, in fact. But no one would be happier than me to be wrong about that.

There is much more to come on energy. Stay tuned.

Further reading:

Book: High Noon for Natural Gas by Julian Darley

Article: “Questions about a Hydrogen Economy” – Scientific American, May 2004. (Fee to download article.)
(more…)

Folks,

Here’s a break from the usual GRL fare: a short (7 min) film by Andy Schocken, about the flag and how it’s used. His summary:

In a post-9/11 world, the United States flag is everywhere. But does this proliferation of the flag dilute its power and impact? Did you know that according to the United States Code, the flag is not to be used in advertising? This serious documentary uses satire to drive home its points about patriotism and the American way.

Watch it here: Old Glory

I thought it was quite good.

–C