RE: Energy Policy / Junk Science Environmentalism

Let me try to address optimism/pessimism questions in science using examples from biology--which I have been involved in for 35 years or so. Take DNA/genomic sequencing. In my opinion, that scientific process has gone better than most optimists would have dreamed. Greg Sutcliffe got his Ph.D. at Harvard sequencing the plasmid pBR322 with 4300+ bp in the late 70's. Now a bright high school student could do 100x that amount of bp in a week. The human genome project came in early and under budget. You may soon be able to identify the problematic alleles in your own genome within a few years if necessary. This area of research has exceeded most of the greatest of expectations--certainly mine. On the other hand gene therapy-replacing deficient genes in your tissues with the proper ones--has been a dud. It seemed like we might replace defective insulin genes, immune system proteins, blood components, etc. already 20 years ago with this therapy, but that has not been succes!
sful in any even small way in humans. Technology did not live up to its promise there. Now we have the promise of stem cells. I have no idea where this project will lead. I would not be surprised if diabetics have insulin-producing cells functioning inside their bodies 25 years from now, or some paraplegics walk again, but neither would I be surprised if this line of research also did not live up to its promise. We simply cannot tell by our theoretical projections how the actual experiments will turn out.

Now with regard to energy, I think we have problems and right now there is nothing in sight equivalent to stem cells in biology that will alleviate such problems. Right now we are producing 83-84 million barrels of liquid per day. The optimists like Lee Raymond of Exxon and many others tell us that by 2016 we will be producing around 120 million barrels per day. Most of these extra 36 million barrels a day (plus whatever has to made up for depleting fields) will have to come from existing fields, some "secret fields" that the general public doesn't know of, and newly discovered fields in the next several years. For the last 30 years or more the rate of discovery of oil fields has been decreasing and the size of the discovered fields has been smaller. I don't think a reasonable person can conclude that we are suddenly going to discover many new large fields, although one or two giants is not impossible (but not anything one can count on either). The leaders of the peak oi!
l scenario include Colin Campbell, Jean Leherrere, and Kenneth Deffeyes. These are older gentlemen who have been involved in the oil business for 50+ years, working at one time or another for many of the major oil companies. It is pretty much impossible for me to believe that with all their contacts and experience, they are unaware of large secret oil fields that the major oil companies are just waiting for the right time to open up. Thus this increased oil (if the optimists are right) will basically have to come from existing fields. Maybe it will, but if you read the articles on Glenn Morton's web site as well as all of the other material written by peak oil geologists it sure doesn't seem like a good bet: in fact; I would like to read any article with good evidence explaining why it isn't just a terrible bet. I think the optimists have great faith in new technologies. Somehow the geologists will be able to increase the amount of oil they will get from a field. They gen!
uinely think that with increased prices as an incentive, new oil will
I spent 2 years taking certified financial planning courses on Saturdays with people working in financial fields. It finally dawned on me that this entire set of courses was based on the extrapolation of the past. These people live and work almost 100% on extrapolation. The stock market will go up in the next 20 years about like it did during the last 50, the economy will grow about 3% a year forever, etc. They plan the lives of their clients on this perspective. Insurance, stocks, bonds, retirement, estate planning are all based on the extrapolation of the past. That is how they think; they eat, drink and live this worldview. The road just keeps going on forever with a few bumps and turns, but no dead ends. That is why whenever you read an article that dismisses peak oil you will almost always read a litany of all of the past history of oil depletion predictions that were premature (or in their thinking, dead wrong). The peak oil theorists will thus always be wrong. !
 After looking at this area extensively, I am convinced that most Americans believe that with money, technology, and intellect we can somehow find an acceptable solution to virtually any problem.

What do I think will happen? I think there are limits to growth. Taking a wild stab into the unknown, I am guessing that in 2016 the world will be producing somewhere between 80 and 90 million barrels a day. That means that the world will either miraculously find some alternatives to compensate for the missing 30-40 million barrels or some life styles will have been significantly altered. What will happen in the United States and Canada? We use 30% or so of the world's energy with only 5% of the population. We have the most room to take up the decrease by living much more efficiently and using less energy. Will we? I hope so, but I think there is a good chance we will pull a David like in 2 Samuel 12; we could be like the rich man with many sheep and cattle who goes to the man with one lamb and takes that lamb away from him to prepare a meal for the traveler instead of using one his own. I can see the US with its military and economic power making sure that it gets its!
 energy needs met at the expense of some poorer countries that just cannot compete. How the world political system plays out with decreasing energy sources will indeed be something to watch.

What about alternatives? There are lots of ideas out there that can work in a pilot project like getting uranium from seawater. These projects can be shown to work on a small scale at 100-1,000,000X the cost that would have to be met to be economically viable. The optimists claim that when things are scaled up and new ideas are incorporated as the project goes forward, such and such will be a viable method; pessimists tell us that it will never work efficiently. Now if the advances in efficiency scale up like DNA sequencing did or like computer chip storage did, some of these technologies indeed would be viable. But if they turn out like the gene therapy experience we are in deep trouble. And without an immense investment, there is no good way of determining the final outcome for any of the ideas out there. I don't have a crystal ball that tells me whether the optimists are right or the pessimists are right--the big problem is deciding which of the many projects relat!
ing to nuclear, wind, hydrogen, tides, waves, solar, biofuel, etc. have the best chance of success. You cannot believe the hype of the proponents, since they are putting the best face they can on it. Maybe some will work, maybe they won't, but I don't know how to tell.

If I had to guess, the two things that would seem to be the best possibilities for future projects would be solar fuel cells and electric energy storage. If we could somehow store protons on a membrane and get the energy to do that from the sun, we could get the hydrogen economy off the ground. We could strip the protons off water molecules using solar energy and store it on a membrane that could easily be transported and kept in storage. But I don't read that anyone sees that as being viable anytime soon, if ever. Having some way to store significant electrical energy in a small battery would also be greatly beneficial. This is a pretty mature field however, and the prospects are not yet clear for significant improvements from what I have read. I don't think right now there is any alternative energy source that has the promise that stem cells do for medical care, but I cannot rule out the possibility that some new project with great potential may soon become evident. !
The trouble is that, in my opinion, we really are not putting enough effort into this problem. We should divert funds from NASA and NIH into more studies in this area of energy production. Nuclear energy has some promise, but I really cannot agree that it will be a satisfactory answer either.

Finally, in the long run, as a biologist familiar with the limits of growth, I just don't see how the human population can grow much longer without reaching a limit. With questions already of fresh water, food, and waste disposal limitations, I consider it more likely than not that we have exceeded the carrying capacity of this planet already.

And on that note: Happy New Year!

Al
Received on Wed Jan 4 13:34:53 2006