Living in Denial…
Thursday, December 11th, 2008As recently reported on Forbes.com, “The International Energy Agency released its ever-popular annual World Energy Outlook.
Using a modest 1.6% annual energy demand assumption through 2030, the world will need 45% more energy.
Assuming some conservation, new energy alternatives and a mere $26 trillion in capital investments, daily oil production would need to rise 25%.
This is the equivalent of four Saudi Arabias going into production between now and 2030.”
Ok. Gas prices are down at the pump. Crude oil has hit a four year low. And they both may go lower. But this doesn’t obviate the fact that the world is growing, that recessions (and depressions) end, and that a bigger population will require more energy. The IEA is projecting a slight contraction in the “growth demand” in energy markets for 2009. (meaning, even in a global recession demand for energy will continue to rise)
These are some bright folks. And if we don’t pay attention to what they’re saying, we’re going to be, as some say, ‘up the Nile, without a paddle.’
lWe’ve got to stop living in denial, or were going to be ‘up the Nile.’
The equivalent of 4 Saudi Ariabias to meet a conservative energy-demand growth?! $26 TRILLION in capital and exploration investment to find more energy over the next 22 years?!
Steven Chu, Nobel Prize Laureate, and President Elect Barack Obama’s pick to lead the US Department of Energy will have his hands full over the next few years. Fortunately, Chu has a track record of innovative thinking as the head of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Berkeley, California.
Under his guidance, LLNL has been actively involved in modeling a technology which will address the global demand for energy in a timely manner. That technology is Underground Coal Gasification or UCG.
In conjunction with BP, LLNL, is validating the science behind UCG, and working to bring the technology to commercial viability as soon as possible.
BP and Linc Energy, Ltd (www.lincenergy.us) have recently reaffirmed an MOU for BP to off-take up to 14,000 barrels a day of Linc’s ultra-clean, sulfur-free, diesel fuels.
In a world-first demonstration facility in Chinchilla, Queensland, Linc has proven the integration of UCG and Coal-to-Liquids, providing proof that previously ‘stranded’ coal assets can be commercially accessed in an environmentally responsible manner, and converted into that very product that the world covets- petroleum.
Unlocking the inaccessible coal assets available in the United States can provide us with the equivalent energy value of Saudi Arabia. Converting that resource into environmentally friendly petroleum products (the Linc Energy fuel is dramatically less polluting than that derived from conventional oil, and yet, it actually provides more efficiency or “bang for your buck” per gallon) will actually fuel our economic growth for another couple of centuries.
Interestingly enough, the technology that Linc has brought to the market in Australia is actually less expensive than conventional Coal-to-Liquid facilities. By a long shot. The tremendous cost savings that underground coal gasification brings to the fore will allow the US to engage in Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) electricity production- and reduce CO2 emissions by nearly 40%.
Linc Energy recently announced that it will build a demonstration facility in Wyoming over the coming 12 months. Proving, once again, that coal - which powered the world’s first great economic expansion, can be an environmentally, and economically, viable solution in the near term.
22 years isn’t that far off. Solar energy is going to make big strides in that time. So is wind energy (though T. Boone Pickens is worried about getting financing for his $10 Billion dollar wind farm), and geothermal, and fuel cell technology, and bio-fuels, etc.
We may have additional Nuclear power electrical production facilities on-line by then (though the last one constructed in the US took almost 22 years to get built.)
We have the coal now. We have the technology to access it with robust environmental and societal stewardship- no strip-mining the tops off of mountains, no putting underground miners lives at risk, no particulate pollution, no mercury effluent, no acid rain – through the application of underground coal gasification.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has been on the forefront of the science. Linc Energy has been on the forefront of making clean-coal a reality in the real world.
Steven Chu will have his hands full addressing energy supply, energy security, and climate change. Fortunately he’s seen that UCG can work. Hopefully he’ll advance this as a component of his overall policy agenda to ensure that we’re not up the Nile without a paddle in 22 years.
