“We are using up the fuels made from sunlight that the Earth stored up for us over those many hundreds of millions of years. Obviously, we have, unintentionally, created a trap for ourselves. We will, so to speak, run out of gas. There is no question about that. There’s only a finite amount left in the tank. When will it happen?”
So asks Caltech professor of physics and vice provost Dr. David L. Goodstein. In his new book Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil he hopes to make us consider the consequences of becoming dependent on non-renewable energy sources, and argues for a transitional methane-based fuel economy until we become
able to rely fully on nuclear and solar power sources for all our needs. We are pleased that Dr. Goodstein has agreed to an interview with SciScoop!
Goodstein’s interest in the future of energy is only the latest endeavor in a varied career. His 1975 book States of Matter launched the field of condensed matter physics. He was responsible for the 80’s television series The Mechanical Universe, 52 half-hour programs on physics, and his other books include Feynman’s Lost Lecture, co-authored with his wife, Judith, who is also a Caltech professor. The articles available on his homepage are a great read (check out the one on cold fusion!).
Here at SciScoop, YOU ask the questions! Submit your questions for Dr. Goodstein all week long on this story. If you don’t already have a free account, sign up now and rate each other’s posts during the week to determine which questions will be passed on to Dr. Goodstein. At the end of Sunday, March 28, the top-rated questions will be sent to him, and his responses will be posted here when ready.
How do you respond to the theories put forth on Abiogenic Petroleum, such as from Thomas Gold or other papers?
Even if it were true it may not promise unlimited oil (cost significantly increasing to drill deeper) but it might explain some of the existing wells abnormally replenishing.
Could you explain why Nuclear Energy is always categorized as renewable, when it is still based on the refinment of limited natural resources? What exactly are the estimates on the world’s deposits of Uranium and what countries are they located in?
Dear Dr. Goodstein,
I think I have somewhere a rejection letter from you when I applied for a faculty position at Caltech back in the early 1990’s – no hard feelings though, it would be one of many :-)
I have not read your book “Out of Gas” – but from what I have read you seem to have identified nuclear and solar as the two main long-term options (discussed extensively here at sciscoop – see this story in particular – http://www.sciscoop.com/story/2004/1/8/204529/3366 which reviews the book “Innovative Energy Strategies for CO2 Stabilization”, one I would strongly recommend if you haven’t seen it.
But nuclear power has had hundreds of billions of dollars invested in it over the years, and still has 4 serious problems: local safety, waste dispoal, weapons proliferation, and cost. In addition, as you are aware, a once-through fuel cycle would quickly run into similar fuel supply problems as for fossil fuels if it were used to supply all the world’s energy needs. Even in Deutch’s recent MIT study, a tripling of worldwide nuclear power installations seemed the most they could hope for, due to the intrinsic high capital cost of nuclear power plants, and that’s still likely an order of magnitude less power than will be needed.
So first question – given all those problems, why are you so positive about nuclear power?
MIT’s technology review, among others, has recently explored the hype about hydrogen, based to a great extent on the recent NAS review that determined hydrogen would contribute little to replacing oil before 2030 or so. And also on a few recent realizations that (1) hydrogen right now is made from fossil fuels and releases more CO2 in production, refrigeration, transportation, and storage than an equivalent quantity of gasoline, and (2) practical fuel cells have at least a couple of orders of magnitude improvement needed in cost, and aren’t as efficient as we like to think.
We already have renewable bio-fuels (ethanol, bio-diesel) that can contribute a substantial amount to oil replacement for transportation purposes (with no need to convert to hydrogen on the way). Other ways of producing hydrogen from renewables go through electricity – so why not use that electricity directly in battery-powered vehicles? How can hydrogen be any better than a good modern battery (say Nickel metal-hydride)?
Over the last year I have become more and more convinced that we have, particularly in the US, been extremely negligent about one major potential new power source: solar power collected in space, rather than on earth. And there seems to be no mention of it in your book. Why not?
A few references:
In particular, moving collection to space resolves the two major (related) issues with solar photovoltaic installations: intermittency, and low capacity factor. It is not practical today, but neither is fusion, and the relative cost ratio from practicality seems similar. But only on one of those two options are we investing billions of dollars in R&D. In fact by my estimation there’s been at most $30 million spent on space solar power since Jimmy Carter was in office. Other than the obvious conspiracy theories, do you have a good explanation?
Can China leapfrog to a hydrogen-based transport system, or is it already developing an oil addiction? Is it possible that environmental solutions could soon be emerging from rapidly developing countries who have scientific know-how and severe environmental problems, or will the West dictate fuel consumption patterns for the forseeable future?
I keep hearing that solar power cells currently cost more power to create then they produce in their entire lifetime. Is this true? If so, do you know of any technologies in the near- and far-future that will make power cells generate more than they cost?
In a prophecy that he says is meant to be self-falsifying, Goodstein says, “Civilization as we know it will come to an end some time in this century, when the fuel runs out”, meaning fossil fuels. In the same essay* he also mentions the possibility of estimating a Hubbert’s peak date for uranium.
My question: has he in fact tried to predict that date? With what result?
This would entail determining how much can be taken, with reference not to today’s price of barely 40 US cents per barrel-of-oil-equivalent (BOE) with respect to once-through use in conventional thermal-neutron reactors, but to a much higher BOE price equal to the product of the highest BOE price civilization as we know it has lived with and a conversion fraction.
The conversion fraction is how many actual barrels of synthetic liquid hydrocarbon a BOE of uranium can make. Obviously this is much less than 1, but it’s probably also much more than 0.1, so if we use 0.1 as a conservative guess, we get US$10/BOE as the limiting price for the uranium that fits under the Hubbert curve.
(Not $4, a tenth of the highest price suppliers have been paid. The highest price petroleum revenue beneficiaries have actually received is on the order of US$100 per barrel. Most of these beneficiaries are not the suppliers, of course; they’re civil servants, government contractors, and others who maintain themselves by cashing government cheques, or direct electronic deposits, that are substantially fuel-tax-derived.)
So the uranium under this Hubbert curve shouldn’t cost more than US$10 per BOE. But according to Japanese researchers, that price is abundantly enough to flush out a large fraction of the ocean’s 400-trillion-BOE inventory. They say they can get it out for only US$100-200 per kg, i.e. US$1-2 per BOE.
Goodstein mentions Deffeyes’ book “Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage”. But Deffeyes long ago wrote about “World Uranium Resources” in Scientific American, with Ian D. MacGregor, Jan. 1980.
A figure from this article was recently reprinted in a web-accessible PDF file, p. 29, aka p. 1-15. Although seawater uranium seems to put the lie to notions of energy scarcity any time this millennium, it is not unique in doing so; several other bars in that figure are taller (represent more uranium)
and farther left (the U is not so dilute).
Let us hope this cornucopian news does not fall only on deaf eyes … I’d like civilization to change at least a little from how we now know it. As above shown, energy with which lossily to make oil seems to be available, if we really have to have oil, but I’d prefer we be given the choice to run our motors on boron. This is like hydrogen, usable as fuel only when you also have the primary energy with which to make it, except it is not bulky, not given to fuel-air explosions, and has no decades-long history of forgotten promises and prototypes.
— Graham Cowan
How motoring gains solar cachet
* http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/Essay2.pdf
http://www.humboldt1.com/~michael.welch/pvpayback.pdf
— Graham Cowan
How motoring gains solar cachet
Graham, your link doesn’t work – but here’s another:
http://www.nrel.gov/ncpv/pdfs/energy_payback_faq.pdf
— i.e. energy payback for PV cells deployed on earth is typically 1 to 2 years; much less than typical lifetime.
Dear Dr. Goodstein,
My question is twofold. How do you view new theories (or philosophies, as some say) that are emerging as Superstring, M and M-brane, etc. and do you believe if Richard Feynman was still among us, would he ‘jump’ in to it?
Victor
The oceans contain a lot of methane which could be a replacement for gasoline if it could be effectively converted to methanol. How close are we to developing a catalyst that can control the methane to methanol conversion?
“We are using up the fuels made from sunlight that the Earth stored up for us over those many hundreds of millions of years. Obviously, we have, unintentionally, created a trap for ourselves….”
Nope,
We are using the fuels that nature stored for us to use to increase the entropy of the universe until we have had time to develop the necessary technology that will be required to “leap” to a higher level of entropic efficiency.
We will continue to survive for as long as we continue to do our part to increase the entropy of the universe, and it requires an unfounded, faith-like philosophical leap beyound the basic entropic nature of our expanding universe to conclude that humans are here for any other reason than to assist in the process.
‘God don’t throw dice.’
Sorry about posting anonymously, but I’d just registered and didn’t know what I was doing when I submitted my comment.
but I did listen to your explanation on the radio and it’s pretty clear you acknowledge the realities of the situation, as far as the need for breeder reactors and associated reprocessing, and use of thorium, for example.
But still, you are advocating for an increase in R&D funding for nuclear power. Haven’t we already spent at least tens of billions of dollars on nuclear R&D? How would a bit more make a difference? Is the problem that past spending on fission and fusion was, in part, misdirected?
Best course of action – repost the comment with your username. That way if it makes the cut to get submitted to Dr Goodstein, it will have your ID on it.
“Fuel Consumption Perpetuates the Species”
… was the title to my comment, but it doesn’t appear that I’ll need to worry about it making the “cut”, which is a shame because I actually can prove what I say.
Ah well, it’s a touchy subject and people probably think that I’m some kind of religous fanatic or whatever. No biggie, the good Dr will be hearing plenty about it before it’s over… ;)
Thanks anyway, for the advice.
I’ve noticed small children seem to be very efficient at increasing the world’s entropy – at least from macroscopic appearances :-)
Not sure that’s what you were referring to though. Do you have some links?
Here’s the link – just published today:
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/2004/april/article2.cfm
though it seems to have lost some of my formatting. Oh well…
Anyway, to repeat the conclusion there:
Respected Sir,
I Prafull More a chemical engineer.(24 year 8m)
Queastion :can we reach to ultimate truth
1) why human are here?
2) what is motive behind human life?
3) why we are living?
by research in physics maths cosmology
can we formuate a theory for ultimate super power behind this universe can we reach to ultimate truth with help of scientific research?
if yes, how?
if not, then what is point in doing all these grate researches just for technological upgradation only?
is it true that only ultimate philosophical pricipals lead us to truth behind whole universe and human life?
no it is not, bye
I’m home schooled and these problems were in my physics book. I’ve worked and worked the problem without having a result. I was thinking maybe you could help me? I’m sure they’ll be easy to you.
A spherical shell starts from rest and rolls down an incline. The coefficient of static friction between the shell and incline is (Us=.2). What is the maximum angle of the incline such that the shell will roll without slippage?
A solid roll of paper falls off the countertop, the outward sheet still held on the counter by a large can of beans. The diameter of the roll is 14cm, and its mass is .2kg(consider constant).
Find:
a)The acceleration of the roll’s center of mass
b)The tension in the outward sheet of paper
A disk of radius .3m and mass .5kg is held over another disk of radius .5m and mass 1kg which is rotating in a horizontal plane at a rate of 15.92rev/sec. The top disk is released and drops onto the bottom disk(centers align).
a)What is the final angular velocity(in rev/sec) of the two disks?
b)What was the change in rotational energy of the two-disk system?
A homogeneous and uniform rod of length 10ft and weight 100lb rests in the corner of a room as shown. The coefficient of static friction between the rod and floor is (Us=.4). There is no friction between the rod and the wall although there is a compression force. What is the minimum angle that the rod can make with the floor and still be in equilibrium?
A 1kg solid cylinder of radius 2cm is connected to a hookes’ law spring (k=100N/m). The cylinder is displaced 20cm to the left and released. The cylinder rolls without slipping.
Find the maximum velocity of the cylinder’s center of mass?
THANK YOU FOR HELPING
I wholeheartedly agree with your idea of an electrical battery powered vehicle. As a person who does not like the increasing rate of gasoline, I am supporting your idea of an electrical battery powered vehicle more and more every time gas prices rise. You have my support and I sincerely hope that you succeed in your promising ventures. In fact, I would like to interview you, so please contact me at http://www.jaxman@att.net.
Un til then, I wish you pleny of luck.
Yours truly,
An appreciative fan