Taking The Measure Of Energy Options

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Gusher The world uses a cubic mile of oil (CMO) each year; by 2050, that figure will inevitably increase.

It is impossible to be a chemical scientist or engineer these days without an acute awareness of the challenges that face this world when it comes to energy. One of the major themes of the 2011 International Year of Chemistry (IYC) is energy and sustainability.

All the IYC events that I have attended—the United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization IYC opening and the official IYC events in the U.S., South Africa, Israel, the Philippines, Jordan, and Brazil—have expressed the urgency of our growing energy needs and climate-change challenges, and more pointedly, the responsibilities (as well as capabilities) of chemical scientists to address these challenges. The severe weather experienced in the middle and southern sections of the U.S. recently and the terrible drought and wildfires we are experiencing in my hometown of Albuquerque—whether connected with global climate change or not—add a personal anxiety to the urgency of the energy problem.

In light of all this, how refreshing it is to read a logical, nonpolitical plan to address the energy challenges before us. In “A Cubic Mile of Oil: Realities and Options for Averting the Looming Global Energy Crisis,” authors Hewitt D. Crane, Edwin M. Kinderman, and Ripudaman Malhotra lay out the challenges, opportunities, and complex realities of energy technologies. They are, respectively, one of the founders of the independent think tank SRI International, an R&D management expert, and an organic chemist. The authors say they wrote the book to inform readers about the technological and economic issues of energy so that rational, useful policy decisions can be made, understanding that developing new energy technologies to replace fossil fuels will take many decades.

The book assumes that we will need sustainable, low-carbon energy sources to dominate our global energy use by the year 2050 and explains the options and challenges in each source of energy from fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas, tar sands, etc.) to nuclear energy to many renewables (solar, wind, tidal, etc.). The authors believe we need to make policy choices now to make sure that we have energy options in the future. However, the book does not discuss specific policies nor does it debate global warming. It focuses on energy technology, its challenges, and its possibilities.

All studies of global energy require the discussion of large, almost incomprehensible, units of energy. To make the concept more intuitive, the authors refer to a cubic mile of oil (CMO), which roughly equates to the world’s annual consumption of crude oil. The world’s total annual energy consumption from all sources is 3.0 CMO, and by 2050, they write, the world will need between 6 and 9 CMO of energy per year to provide for human needs. Although a CMO (which equals 153 quadrillion Btu) may be a more visual unit of energy, I had trouble imagining it. Even when I climbed the Sandia Mountain foothills next to my house in Albuquerque and looked at the mountain peak rising just about a mile above the plains, a cubic mile of oil still seemed unimaginable.

But the book nonetheless succeeds on many levels. The preface was my favorite part. As a former energy researcher, I have been frustrated by the promotion of energy technology ideas that I know will have little or no impact on the gigantic nature of the global energy problem. The authors make clear that they understand the enormity of the energy problem and thus consider only technologies and solutions that have a possibility of working.

The realistic and helpful nature of their suggestions for energy technologies echoes a highly acclaimed National Academies study, “America’s Energy Future: Technology and Transformation,” published in 2009. Although the authors of “A Cubic Mile of Oil” had no input into the National Academies study, the discussion of energy technologies in their book serves to explain the policy recommendations of the committee. What’s more, the correlation between the book and the National Academies study suggests that a meeting of the minds does exist among experts regarding the potential of various energy technologies.

The authors go on to explain that they wrote the book to assist others in accurately evaluating potential energy technology schemes. Having seen too many energy technologies proposed and funded that are neither thermodynamically efficient nor a realistic possibility for one reason or another, I find their goal to be worth more than a cubic mile of oil. That is, they succeed in accurately explaining the complexity and enormity of global energy challenges and the requirements for developing realistic energy technology alternatives. “A Cubic Mile of Oil” is an excellent book for anyone who wants to learn enough about energy technology to be able to take the next step and make energy policy decisions.

The book has many useful graphics that effectively display its subject matter. These are a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding or communicating energy options to other people. Although the book is for lay readers, it has enough technical depth and insight to also be of value to more knowledgeable readers.

That the authors do not advocate for any particular policy direction or specific energy technology is a rare and refreshing characteristic for a book of this type. They avoid scare tactics and threats of disaster. Their plain, technical analysis of energy options leaves the reader unusually optimistic about how we can address the energy challenges that will face us in the next 40 years. Finding a book that explains the true hard facts about energy is unusual enough; finding one that leaves the reader with a sense that there are reasonable options for our energy future is both rare and valuable.