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Fuel for Thought - The Future of Transport Fuels
Posted by Phil Hart on July 10, 2008 - 7:05am in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is the national government body for scientific research in Australia. The CSIRO Future Fuels Forum (FFF) began in November 2007 and culminated in July 2008 with the release of a report, "Future Fuels Forum report - Fuel for thought". The initiative brought together 18 leading representatives from Australia’s community, industry and government to share ideas and develop a range of options for our nation’s transport fuel future, determining what could potentially get us ‘from A to B’ by the middle of the century.
ASPO Australia spokesperson (and TOD editor) Phil Hart gave this speech at the launch of the report on Friday 11th July:
The Australian Association for the Study of Peak Oil congratulates CSIRO for leading the Future Fuels Forum and thanks all the participants for the constructive dialogue that led to this final report. We have all learnt new things along the way. I have been personally encouraged to hear of the many changes businesses have been making – there are more pro-active changes under way than even I realised.
2007 began with oil prices falling back to near $50 a barrel – because the speculators got it wrong. Many forum participants would have choked on a prediction of $8/litre (~US$30/gallon) early last year, but tight supply and the rapid increase in prices since then have given them courage to accept these dramatic model outcomes now. No one can know the precise future of oil prices, but such high figures reflect how hard it is to transform our cities and economies built on cheap oil when we are faced with declining oil production.
It was logical and appropriate for the Future Fuels Forum to include previous forecasts from international energy agencies among these scenarios. However, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil believes these forecasts are fundamentally flawed, and it is self evident that they failed to anticipate the beginning of this 3rd oil shock. The International Energy Agency has now signalled that its forecast to be released later this year will dramatically revise down estimates of future oil production.
We therefore believe that the peak oil scenarios in this report provide a far more useful insight into our future than the assumptions of 'business as it used to be'. An imminent peak in global oil production is demonstrated to have serious negative impacts on the economy and society. A complementary scenario shows that with a rapid cultural and technological response, the impacts of peak oil can be minimised. However, it is a lot easier to transform society and the economy in a computer model. The transformations required in the real world are on a scale that can barely be imagined, and they need to start today if we are to successfully mitigate the impacts of peak oil.
Professor Ross Garnaut has rightly described climate change as one diabolical problem. Well, now we have two. There is no silver bullet and we must accept that we will have higher transport and energy costs in the future. This signals that conservation and efficiency must be part of our response, and this is where we can make some of the most cost effective changes. Debating five cent price reductions does nobody any good - we need to look for more courageous and honest leadership on this issue.
We must also avoid counter-productive responses which result from dealing with these two issues in isolation. The most viable unconventional 'oil' is turning coal into liquids and this market response to peak oil has already begun, producing some of the most carbon dioxide intensive liquid fuels imaginable. As an engineer with oil industry experience, I am sceptical that 'Carbon Capture and Sequestration' is viable on the world scale required. Given how critical a role it is assumed to play in the future, and in these scenarios, the coal industry needs to pay for and get on with large scale demonstration plants to prove them quickly. We do not have time for a decade of cautious development when there are other more certain alternatives.
I would like to finish with my favourite quote from the Future Fuels Forum report:
“The choices Australians make about how often, how far and in what mode they travel and what size vehicle they need to own are likely to be equally as important as the fuel and technology choices they make”.
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Congratulations on the big splash and ABC radio spot; it's currently the ABC's top story:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/11/2300646.htm
But you know you've really hit the big time with this:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/11/2300730.htm
;-)
As someone who has embraced voluntary simplicity, and hence a greatly reduced household income I shake my head when people suggest downsizing their vehicle to save money on fuel, or even to reduce fuel usage. Unless we go quickly to $10 / litre then a reduction of fuel usage from 10 litres per 100 kms to 7 or even 6 litres per 100kms can never be made up in the changeover costs. and becuase of the huge imbedded energy that makes up a motor vehicle you are better off, looking after your vehicle and scrapping it when it gets to 300 to 325 thousand kilometres - when the engine is basically worn out and the refit of a new one is not really viable.
With regard to lowering your carbon emmissions, unless you scap the larger vehicle and not resell it, some wannabe hippie such as myself will buy it becuase the cost of ownership of the vehicle will work out to be only cents per kilometre plus fuels and oils vis a vis the new behicle where the ownership costs are between 30 cents per km and a $1 depending on model and regularity of trade-ins.
To really reduce your carbon footprint - Adjust your thinking not the vehicle, look after your existing machine but use it less - cut sunday drives etc. That is take a few steps back along to Olduvai and act like people did in the 1930's...
It's great to see someone with the scientific cachet of the CSIRO breaking the bad news. Maybe more people will now take notice of Peak Oil. (Or a least politicians will be more hesitant to reach for the "no one knows the future of fuel prices" defence...)
Phil,
Thanks for posting this report. It seems strange that the predictions are almost no hybrids, PHEV or EV even by 2020, and no PHEV's until 2032. Some of the reasons given are time to switch production, new fuel infrastructure. Neither of these really apply for PHEV with the possible limitation of Li batteries. The CSIRO however is researching the use of Lead/acid batteries/capacitors, and we can see that there has been a big switch from small/mid size vehicles is just 4 years. If we are even half way to $8/L petrol by 2020 we are surely going to see a total switch in vehicle models. Its not unreasonable that >12million new vehicles will be sold from 2009 to 2020. Even if electricity prices double we would still have the cheapest electricity in almost any country.
Of the investments that influence energy use, surely private motor vehicles have one of the shortest life-times(excepting computers), so compared with replacing refrigerators, homes, coal fired power plants, diesel buses and trains, it seems that dramatic improvements in passenger vehicle energy use and carbon dioxide emissions would be the sensible place to start. The government doesn't have to invent the technology (like sequestration), it doesn't have to jack up petrol prices, ( thats been done by others), it just has to legislate its application. Its a bit sad seeing the government negotiating with Toyota for the building of 10,000 hybrids per year( perhaps more), having a fuel economy of 4-5L/100km, when we could have legislation that in 7 years, the fleet average has to be better than 5L/100km. We could do close to that for imports today. In that time we could also convert all new ICE vehicles to be duel NG/petrol with only modest infrastructure changes, and really drop carbon dioxide emissions.