Resolved: Climate change is not a reason to cut petroleum consumption.

[Happy_Fun_Ball]

First off, I want to apologize to everyone for being absent from my own thread. In most cases I think this is bad form, but I posted and then the hammer came down at work. I have not had time to do any responses justice. Anyway, thanks all for replying.

@Chronos

First, it’s true that current methods of removing carbon from the atmosphere are inefficient and slow. But it may be that, ten or 20 or 50 years from now, we’ll develop some method of carbon removal which is efficient and fast. If we can delay any climate catastrophe until that time, then the problem will be solved.

This is interesting and directly contradicts my OP. I agree that if we are going someday change the atmospheric carbon removal rates, then it makes sense to reduce fossil fuel consumption to reduce climate change. I seriously doubt that we will ever be able to do this however. I would think that significantly changing the rates of carbon removal would require either changing the chemical composition of the ocean, changing the chemical processes in the atmosphere (to precipitate the carbon), or creating some organic “gray goo” like algae to pull carbon out of the atmosphere as it grows.

@Chronos

The second is similar: Even if currently-available green technologies would only stretch the timeline for running out of fossil fuels from 200 years to 300 years, better technology will come along. It may be that in a few decades we’ll be able to wean ourselves completely from fossil fuels, and just leave all of the remaining reserves in the ground indefinitely. Again, if we can hold out until we get to that point, we’re golden.
Third, even if we can’t postpone global warming indefinitely (which we won’t know until we get there), we can at least slow it. The Earth has been warm in the past; the warmth itself isn’t actually the problem. The problem is that the warming is occurring faster now than it ever has in the past, and the speed of the change is too great for some parts of the environment (possibly including us) to adapt. If it takes 300 years for global warming to reach its end point instead of 200, that’s an improvement, even if the ending conditions are the same, because there will have been more time to adapt to the changing conditions.

OK. I agree that slowing consumption will presumably slow the rate of climate change, but the endpoint should not change much due to the carbon removal rate unless we stop emitting carbon before we run out of fossil fuels. Also, if the warming rate is truly one of the scariest things about climate change, then reducing the rate is a good goal. I will think about this…

@CutterJohn

Not arguing whether it will or won’t get that bad, just pointing it out as a missing assumption…

As I read it, you seem to be arguing for us to stop consuming. My point was that if we consume our fossil fuels slowly (say 1/2 current rate, 400 years) we will have the exact same endpoint as if we burn it quickly (current rate, 200 years). I agree that if this endpoint is a “tasteless slab of coal” we should do something about it (like ceasing our carbon emissions), but my argument is that reducing the rate of fossil fuel consumption will not do much to change the endpoint.

RogueAOV, I agree with pretty much everything you say, but it does not really address the OP. I agree we should go green because:
[ol][li]The less fossil fuels used, the less carbon in the atmosphere, and assuming anthropogenic climate change is a reality, the less climate change.[/li][li]Using fossil fuels to drive our economy is not sustainable.[/li][li]Developing green energy sources gives us control of the sources. Currently the majority of the energy used in the US is from a source we do not control.[/li][li]Ignoring climate change, green energy sources are probably better for the environment (this is an assumption, but probably true). On further reading, Sinaijon makes this point above.[/li][li]Since the world will have to move to new sources sooner or later, it would be nice for the U.S. to pioneer these technologies because we will profit from them in the long run.[/li][li]etc…[/ol][/li]Note: All of these arguments effect the total amount of fossil fuels used, not the rate that we use them. I guess if we develop viable green energy sources significantly before we run out of fossil fuels and convert our entire economy to use them, then reducing the rate makes sense (which I believe is Chronos’ point above).

Thanks Quartz, I am glad I can pique your interest. Regarding your post: I was not aware you could bio-generate petrochemicals getting most of the carbon content from added minerals (calcium carbonate). I thought that even if the soil that you are growing your switch grass (or whatever) in was rich in calcium carbonate, the huge majority of the carbon in the grass would be a result of photo-synthesis and the carbon would be taken from the atmosphere.

@ITR_champion

But if we use the power of government to increase the costs of carbon emission, it will motivate people to research carbon-free power sources.

This is a different argument, though one that I happen to agree with.

Sinaijon, good points. I have always wanted to see an analysis on how “green” green technologies really are. For that matter, I have always wanted to see an analysis on how dirty our petro-chemical technologies really are. For example, the fact that our coal plants release huge quantities of radioactive materials into the atmosphere has always been one of the strongest arguments for me against the people who say nuclear power should be avoided due to the risks of releasing radiation into the environment.

Rune, my point exactly (I think).

@Public_Animal_No.9

Rutledge’s presentation is very interesting - he does a very good job of arguing that fossil fuels are running out faster than we think.

Doesn’t he? When I first saw his presentation I tried to get some discussion going on the Dope especially with JShore and Una Persson but I was never able to get any traction. I find his analysis of reserves convincing and would love to discuss it, but that point is outside this OP. I think I will probably will start a thread about this sometime. Regarding the rest of your comments, no disagreement from me.

@Blake

You’ve made the common mistake of confusing reserve, proven reserve and resource. You;ve also made the mistake of equating oil with liquid crude.

The resource is the amount of oil or coal in the ground, total. We have extracted less than half of the liquid crude oil resource, but there is at least 400 times that amount of oil available in the form of tar sands and oil shales.We have extracted such a tiny fraction of the coal resoucre that we don’t even know how little it is. There may be over 10, 000 times more coal available for removal from the ground than the total amount mined in the whole of human history.

The reserve OTOH is the amount of that resource that we can extract at 33% profit using today’s technology in today’s geopolitical and physical climate. Reserve is an economic measure, not a physical one. It tells you absolutely nothing about how much of the resoucre we will ultimately burn.

A proven reserve is an even worsemeasure to try to use in this sort of debate. A proven reserve i a reserve that has been test mined/drilled and analysed. It’s the gold satndard of a reserve and usually only comes into being when someone wants to get a loan to develop the reserve. The size of proven reserves doesn’t even tell you how much fuel we can profitably extract right now, much less how much we will eventually extract. All it tells you is how much people have tried to get loans to develop.

So for your thesis to have any legs at all you need to look at totally different data. Look at the data for total resource, not reserves. You’ll be hard pressed to find total resource figures for coal because there is so much of it siting onthe surface that nobody cares. However we have figures for oil and it’s over four times the size of the reserve. And you also include the figures of alternative oil resouces: shales tars sands and so forth. At high prices those resoucers become attractive and will be utilised, and they are orders of magnitude larger than the liquid crude resource.

Maybe you are right and I have made some common mistakes with regards to how much fossil fuels are available, but I think you are completely missing the point of my OP. I believe my thesis “has legs” independent on the total quantity of fossil fuels available. To paraphrase / reformulate my OP:

Assumptions:
[ol]
[li]Carbon dioxide causes climate change through the green house effect.[/li][li]Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide.[/ol][/li]Argument:

If the supply of fossil fuels is finite and if the amount of time it takes to use that supply is significantly less that the amount of time it takes carbon to be removed from the atmosphere (say 500 years) then it does not matter if we reduce the rate at which we use fossil fuels (from the perspective of reducing climate change).
Does my mistake in estimating the amount of fossil fuels invalidate this argument? I would think that for it to change it I would have to be off by at least a factor of 4 if not more… Regardless, you should check out Rutledge’s presentation which is germane to your post.

[Quartz]

@L. G. Butts

Thanks Quartz, I am glad I can pique your interest. Regarding your post: I was not aware you could bio-generate petrochemicals getting most of the carbon content from added minerals (calcium carbonate).

You mistake me: that was a hypothetical, not an actual.

[Delayed_Reflex]

@L. G. Butts

OK. I agree that slowing consumption will presumably slow the rate of climate change, but the endpoint should not change much due to the carbon removal rate unless we stop emitting carbon before we run out of fossil fuels.

I think this could be the ultimate end goal of climate change policy - the eventual elimination of GHG emissions in the long term, not merely a reduction in the rate of emissions. I think targeting a reduction in rates is simply what is feasible in the short term - we can’t exactly drop fossil fuels cold turkey. Kyoto is targeted for emissions reductions over the period of 2008-2012. However, it will likely be decades before people start talking about having to eliminate emissions completely.

Assumptions:
[ol]
[li]Carbon dioxide causes climate change through the green house effect.[/li][li]Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide.[/ol][/li]Argument:

If the supply of fossil fuels is finite and if the amount of time it takes to use that supply is significantly less that the amount of time it takes carbon to be removed from the atmosphere (say 500 years) then it does not matter if we reduce the rate at which we use fossil fuels (from the perspective of reducing climate change).
Does my mistake in estimating the amount of fossil fuels invalidate this argument? I would think that for it to change it I would have to be off by at least a factor of 4 if not more… Regardless, you should check out Rutledge’s presentation which is germane to your post.

If there is some threshold for dangerously adverse climate change, say, 2 degrees C, and this corresponds to a threshold for GHG concentration in the atmosphere, then it would be desirable to stay under this threshold. Suppose that we target a concentration of 500ppm CO2 in the atmosphere as a hard ceiling (it is currently 387ppm). Looking at the Keeling Curve, it appears that CO2 concentration has been rising fairly steadily since 1958 (eyeballing it gives me something around 1.4ppm/year). If CO2 only rises linearly (as opposed to exponentially) in a business-as-usual case, we would hit 500ppm in ~80 years.

This could mean that the “cap” on TOTAL fossil fuels consumed should be motivated by climate change drivers rather than how much resource is actually left, though I agree it is more a matter of the total carbon burned rather than strictly the rate. It depends on what thresholds you are working with - if you think an 8 degree C increase in global mean temperature is acceptable, then perhaps we WILL run out of (cheap) fossil fuels first. A reduction in emissions rates gradually is simply working towards meeting the end goal over time - if we didn’t reduce the emissions rates, we could find ourselves in the position where we have to completely eliminate GHG emissions in a 10 year timeframe, versus having 100 years to gradually build up green infrastructure.

While the market should adjust naturally to the dwindling physical resource (peak oil, etc.), it requires a system in place to account for a climate change cap, which artificially reduces the resource that can be burned - that is, a price needs to be put on GHG emissions.

[Public_Animal_No.9]

@L. G. Butts

If the supply of fossil fuels is finite and if the amount of time it takes to use that supply is significantly less that the amount of time it takes carbon to be removed from the atmosphere (say 500 years) then it does not matter if we reduce the rate at which we use fossil fuels (from the perspective of reducing climate change).

Not quite. One scenario is to use fossil fuels only for those applications for which there is no reasonable alternative. One such application could be air travel/transport (recognizing the recent tests with bio-based aviation fuels), perhaps another would be construction equipment. The remaining forms of transport would not be fossil-fuel-based. Wind for ships, nuclear/renewable electricity for road vehicles and rail, etc. In this scenario, the use of fossil fuels for vehicles would be tremendously reduced, perhaps extending the lifetime of reserves beyond the time for carbon to be removed from the atmosphere. Reduction of the rate would then have a very clear impact on the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Given that, as others have noted, we are not likely to make such major changes in our energy infrastructure in the short term, moving toward a steady-state system still makes sense by reducing the emission rate. Consider the case where we ramp up our petroleum consumption to use it as quickly as possible. This would emit much more CO2 into the atmosphere in a short period of time, resulting in a spike in concentrations and increasing the warming beyond what is now projected. In 500-1000 years, perhaps we would be back down to a reasonable level, but in the interim, the situation would be quite different. My view is that things would get pretty ugly for those of us still around during the temperature peak. After that, who knows?

[NoJustice]

@Delayed_Reflex

I think this could be the ultimate end goal of climate change policy - the eventual elimination of GHG emissions in the long term, not merely a reduction in the rate of emissions.

Don’t hold your breath