RE: [greenyes] Bleak Projection of Peak Oil Production

["Brennan, Terry" <tbrennan@no.address>]

The natural gas production curve has typically followed the oil curve,
though a little behind it.  Coal would follow it's own curve, but it has
a dirtier source of energy.

Most likely, rather than adjust our lifestyles initially, tremendous
pressure will be placed on government and industry to find other sources
of energy - this will probably include coal and nuclear as well as
cleaner alternative energy sources.  Many alternative energy sources
easily lend themselves to distributed generation, which is not in the
best economic interest of energy companies who would rather control the
supply.

Much of the emphasis on hydrogen is somewhat of a red herring.  Hydrogen
is an energy storage method, and it takes energy to separate water
molecules to get hydrogen. As long as we are using fossil fuels to do
that, we are not progressing much, except that it is easier to control
emissions from a centralized plant supplying hydrogen fuel that from
millions of cars and generators.

I hope this generates some discussion of energy issues on this list.  It
is a huge looming problem, and it will affect nearly everything we do.

Terry S. Brennan
Integrated Waste Management Specialist
California Integrated Waste Management Board phone 
(916) 341-6578 fax 
(916) 319-7474 
e-mail tbrennan@no.address 

Zero Waste - You make it happen!

-----Original Message-----
From: Donald Scherer [mailto:dschere@no.address] 
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 6:22 AM
To: Brennan, Terry
Cc: keith.ripley@no.address; Peter Anderson; greenyes@no.address
Subject: RE: [greenyes] Bleak Projection of Peak Oil Production

One must ask whether Hubbert's projection for petroleum production is
generalizable to other forms of energy.  The answer may be yes with
respect to natural gas, but the timeline for coal, which of course
requires cleaning it has not traditionally had, is much different, and a
lot of stock needs to be placed in wind turbine energy.

Donald Scherer
Environmental Ethicist
Professor Emeritus of Applied Philosophy
419 308 7312  CELL
419 372 7142  OFFICE
419 372 8191  FAX