This is bureaucratic waffle or to describe it in Britspeak I'd say it was largely bollocks. How can petroleum use ever be sustainable unless we wait a million years for the next lot to be formed?

The pages of TOD have produced countless well reasoned arguments why neither hydrogen fuel cells nor CO2 geosequestration are likely to help anytime soon. All lost on Sir David apparently. UK officialdom needs someone else (with a science background) to give the hard delivery.

I find this paper very disappointing, especially coming from someone of King’s calibre and position.

Exactly how does one achieve caliber and position nowadays?
Through a great body of Works, perhaps?
Not a chance.
Having qualities deemed acceptable by his superiors?
You're getting close.
Having family members well placed to aid in his "achievements"?
Bingo! Works every time!
I don't know Professor Sir David King from Kwame, but I'll wager a sack of White Castle hamburgers the latter have more to do with his "position' than the former.

advancing the technologies that will enable the fossil fuel resources that exist, whether conventional or those currently dubbed unconventional, to be utilised ... sustainably.

Oh boy! If this guy believes that fossil fuels can be utilised sustainably then he is in for a massive shock. I hope this submission will be laughed at profoundly by APPGOPO, not only because of the above gaping fallacy but also for his utter reliance on very old forecasts (I notice that two of his graphics come from 2004 and 2000), with no corroborating evidence for his assertions (as in, just what has been the record of those USGS predictions?)

He will, of course, be able to claim that he said there were "uncertainties" in the information. But, apparently, not uncertain enough to make him doubt for one second that there is any problem with oil supplies for at least 20 years.

Ah! Pig man, what a charade you are!

Sounds like the case of a paper being due and him pulling something together the night before. :)

Hello Chris,

"The paper is probably the best indication we have to government's official position on the matter."

If that is true, that is a very sad development. Hell, even a TOD & EnergyBulletin newbie could write a better paper after just studying the latest info for a mere three months.

Sir King needs to be invited to TOD so he can get up to speed. Is he going to the Cork ASPO conference?

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Chris,

How would you answer his point on Middle East well levels?

The rest does not consider, OPEC overstatements, unscaleability of unconventional and the speculative arctic and EOR etc. Can you think of anything else?

It would be great if someone were to write a response to his points.

Would it be possible to get the eMail addresses of David King and John Hemming (and any other MPs in the PO study group) ?

Thanks,

Alan

It is no longer astonishing to me that people like King, well-known for their advocacy on environmental issues, and particularly climate change, become scientific illiterates when they are asked to think about petroleum.

There are two primary reasons for this. First, King doesn't know anything about oil — this is clear from his views. This doesn't stop him from making ignorant and unhelpful comments. All of his information is second hand, half-baked. The other reason has to do with psychological defense aka denial, rationalization, etc. (See Anna Freud) He will not acknowledge the problem, which is strange because he works for a nation whose oil production declining, and which is now a net importer. I suppose it is just those uncomfortable truths that causes the man put his head up his arse when the "peak oil" argument arises.

And then there is the weird disparity between those studying fossil fuels, and those involved in environmentalism. The "enviros" all of a sudden become unintelligent if you mention oil depletion. Jared Diamond comes to mind. Jeffrey Sachs, a well-known environmentalist and social activist in the U.S. (at Columbia University), flatly denies there are any problems with the oil supply. Robert Kennedy Jr. opposes the cape wind farm because it may obstruct his view from the beach at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannisport. Since I studied environmental problems and climate change for years before deciding to concentrate on peak oil problems, I find all of this new-found ignorance embarrassing and distressing. How is it that these people can be concerned about rain forests and "peak fish" and all manner of sustainability problems, and then not "get it" when it comes to the sustainability of fossil fuel consumption? What a crock of shit.

Very disappointing report indeed! However, let's remember that Sir David King is first of all a chemist specializing on catalysts. So when first ask about oil production, he naturally googled a lot and copy pasted all the arguments that showed up that seem to come from respected governmental/scientific institutions (USGS/CERA/EIA). Problem is that he didn't reviewed the arguments or used his critical judgment. For instance, he's making also the most common mistake about oil production: he equates large reserve numbers to large flow rates.

Prof King's paper reads like the work of someone who is concerned about global warming and sees peak oil as a potentially dangerous sideshow - i.e. what if policy makers decide oil will be over soon so see no need to take action on climate change? King thinks focussing on peak oil is not 'the most helpful approach'. I submit it depends on who or what you want to help. What King seems to mean by 'sustainable' use of fossil fuels is use that enables 'the radical reductions on greenhouse gas emissions that we need to achieve globally'.
In this respect his view seems similar to that of George Monbiot, who until recently regarded peak oil as an unhelpful distraction from climate change issues. Monbiot looked more closely at the evidence and started to wonder.
King hasn't got it yet, but my guess is that like Monbiot he will. Meanwhile, for those of us who aren't burdened with the task of being a government's chief scientific advisor, it may well be possible to focus on more than one issue at once. Scientific, no?

RE: Figure ES1

All that enhanced recovery and development of unconventional resources is expensive. Oil prices need to be 2-3X higher to make them economic. OK, that will happen soon enough. But that is to recover the initial investment and turn a profit. Where is that initial investment money going to come from?

Remember that at the same time, we are also talking :about making massive investments world wide in things like carbon capture & storage; electrified rail transport to replace reliance on motor cars; renewable energy resources (wind, solar, additional hydro, geothermal, tidal); and maybe more nuclear power plants. All of these massive projects, in addition to ongoing needes to reinvest in maintaining existing infrastructure.

I repeat: Where is all of that investment money going to come from? Is it even possible for the world to come up with all of that investment capital under ANY possible scenario? If not, it is time to stop talking "pie in the sky" and start talking about making some very difficult prioritization decisions. Actually, I rather suspect that time to start talking about that was quite a while ago.

This is what David King said on the 12 June 2007, not so long ago, in evidence before the Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee:

The planet is finite and the amount of oil on it is, therefore, a finite amount. We are probably approaching having used about half of it. The implication of that is that there must be a peak in oil production at some point. The economics means that the oil price will go up as demand exceeds supply and at that point we will turn to less likely sources of oil, such as the tar sands, but eventually we will reach a point where converting coal to the usual oil products, such as chemicals and gasoline, will be a more economically viable route. We are pretty close to that right now. What I am referring to is the process that was developed in South Africa, the so-called Sasol process, for taking coal and converting it into perfectly useable, very good petrol product...[but] it is not much of an ally, we still need to focus heavily on not burning all that carbon that had become naturally sequestered under the planet's surface.

He also highlighted the danger of a shift to coal for petrol (Full minutes: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmenvaud/uc59...)

I fail to see how his new statement corresponds to what he said then: I can find neither his opening assertion that peak is now, nor his emphasis on coal-to-liquid.

Gordon Taylor

He claims that world reserves of oil and Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) are larger than needed to meet rising demand until at least 2030. However, when quoting mainly the IEA and the USGS as data sources, he should consider their likely agendas. In a matter as important as this, it is only prudent to consider all possible data sources. In particular, there is no reference to ASPO or the Uppsala Hydrocarbon Depletion Study Group, lead by Professor Kjell Aleklett, who are surely independent. (See http://www.peakoil.net/ and http://www4.tsl.uu.se/isv/UHDSG/). This last shows that oil and NGL will peak around 2010. At the very least, this will lead to a continuing increase in the price of oil.

He says that he is not convinced that focusing on the ‘peak oil’ concept is the most helpful approach. Yet most people realise that the planet and all its fossil and mineral resources are finite, so that production rates must peak. Moreover, there is no mention of the declining net energy of fossil resources, resulting in a ‘point of futility’ long before the resources are exhausted. (See http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2367). Indeed, there is no mention of the vital need for a transition to a sustainable energy future. (His use of the word ‘sustainably’ in connection with fossil fuels implies that he does not understand its true meaning). He should know that it takes decades and huge investments of energy to make major changes to energy infrastructures. This is recognised in most other developed countries, including by the governments of the Netherlands and Sweden. (See http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com/productdetail.kmod?productid=20 and http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1704937,00.html).

Most of the paper is devoted to oil and NGL, which are largely used for transportation fuels. Yet the Carbon Capture and Storage that he advocates is certainly not practical for moving vehicles. He further claims that hydrogen and fuel cell technologies have the potential to replace oil as the basis for our transport systems in the coming decades. Thus he seems to be unaware of the physics and technology limits that militate against such options. (See ‘The Future of the Hydrogen Economy: Bright or Bleak?’ http://www.energypolicy.co.uk/hydrogen.htm). Also he seems to be unaware that the automobile manufacturers have ceased spending significant funds on these options. DaimlerChrysler (soon to be Daimler AG) has allegedly spent a billion euros on the R&D of fuel cell vehicles, but has very little to show for it. GM and Ford are both hugely in debt, and thus happy to spend any funds granted by the U.S. Government, even when the prospective return is problematic. Toyota and Honda have both produced fully engineered fuel cell cars, but from such profitable companies, these may be regarded as ‘due diligence’ exercises. Meanwhile, both are doing good business selling hybrid cars in ever-increasing volumes, with Ford - and soon GM, Daimler and BMW - following at a distance.

Spending up to £ 1.1 billion over 10 years via an Energy Technologies Institute would probably do little for U.K. industry. The U.K. has lost most of its capability to design and build capital goods, such as power stations and even wind turbines. Moreover, it would probably be wrongly targeted, as so often when the U.K. Government tries to ‘pick winners’. Analyses from Switzerland and Sweden have shown that – for energy sustainability – the largest contributions and best investments would be energy saving options. (See http://www.efficientpowersupplies.org/pages/Steps_towards_a_2000_WattSoc... http://www.cepe.ethz.ch/publications/Jochem_WhiteBook_on_RD_energyeffici...).
Indeed, many energy saving options would be available at negative cost, especially if the various market distortions were removed. (See
http://www.vattenfall.com/www/ccc/ccc/Gemeinsame_Inhalte/DOCUMENT/567263...
http://www.vattenfall.com/www/ccc/ccc/Gemeinsame_Inhalte/DOCUMENT/567263...).
Hence the U.K.’s energy R & D efforts would be far better directed to determining where all the primary energy is going, and comparing that for every energy conversion and end-use with the theoretical limits. This should reveal the opportunities and thus enable the U.K. to be at least an informed buyer, even if most of the design and manufacture of the capital and consumer goods takes place overseas.

These comments drew upon my presentation at the recent ‘European Sustainable Energy Forum’, entitled ‘Energy Criteria for Sustainable Energy Solutions’. (See http://www.energypolicy.co.uk/sustainpres.htm).