My professional opinion, from having worked on coal-oil and oil-coal retrofit projects, is it’s of limited practicality on anything other than a very small scale (few number of plants). UNLESS you’re talking about building new CCGT plants and retiring Rankine coal plants. Which is possible in the scenario given in the OP.
And what is “significantly” in terms of CO2 between bituminous coal and oil? Surely you’re comparing CCGT versus Rankine cycle, because I’d like to see what in terms of numbers constitutes significant if both coal and oil are going to be burned on the Rankine cycle.
Well since few are all that excited about discussing what happens to the Arab world in a world in which oil no longer matters that much, I’ll join Una Persson in responding to RTF.
First off as to the need to build new energy capacity- probably not. Here’s one analysis using California as a test case that claims ample off-peak capacity.
Of course any renewables ramped up, including home wind generators, co-fired biomass, solar, etc., would be gravy.
As to battery technology … the new Li-ion batteries by the likes of A123, GBT, Enerdel, Altairnano, CBAK and others are making PHEVs and full BEV for high milage fleet vehicles a soon to be cost effective reality. This is more than just incremental over NiMh.
Overnight? No. It will take on the order of decades to turn over the car inventory in the US. But it is very possible that China will mainly skip ICE and go directly into a primarily grid-derived powered vehicle state, instead of buying millions and millions of ICE vehicles over the next decade or so. Not so unlikely given their large coal and lithium reserves, the fact that most of the major lithium battery manufacturers are in China, and that they want energy independence as much as we do.
Between those factors and the potential for new biofuels from cellulosic feedstock and from algae in those new-fangled bioreactors attached to powerplant flues (both real works in progress) my scenerio is none too unlikely in a reasonable timescale of a couple of decades or less.
And after thinking on it since I first posted I’m none too hopeful for anything but a dire outcome for the region if it occurs.
I have to wonder what the powers-that-be over there are thinking? Surely they must realize the oil will run out. I know we have argued on the board here on when that might happen but it WILL happen. There is a finite supply and consumption is huge and growing. Seems to me that any measures to setup your country for a post-oil economy need to be started today as such things can take years or decades to fully mature.
Perhaps some countries already are. Looking at what the UAE is doing in places like Dubai they seem to be setting up the city as something more than an oil only place. They seem to be driving it as a resort destination and a major business center. I never really thought of all that in terms of mitigating a post oil economy so may be way off (just thinking out loud) but I’ll wager they fare better than a place like Iran likely will.
The oil state powers-that-be are in general thinking what they are always thinking everywhere - if I cream enough off right now, I and mine will be fine and fuck the rest.
Oh btw RTFsome are even concerned that we have so much excess capacity (after we’ve accounted for new investments in energy efficiency) that it threatens the uptake of new renewable generation facilities … no need for new generation at all, they fear.