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manicore.com Summing it up: A couple of implications for collective decision Les Houches 11 March 2016 Jean-Marc Jancovici [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] My first major conclusion Use big fonts for legends! In the room you have ordinary people, not eagles www.manicore.com Some more minor ones In real life, we never choose between paradise and hell. We make trade offs. The “fossil predicament” is choosing between a short and exciting fireworks, and a longer and more austere lifestyle. Can the small community that gathered in Les Houches for 5 days can help to make better trade offs? “better” refers to a moral judgment, so it does not belong to science. But “better informed decisions”, that we can definitely try to achieve. www.manicore.com New world, new science How do we invest to mitigate climate change or adapt in a recessive world? How do we invest with zero interest rates? How do we create “clients”, e. g. people that have an interest in understanding what we do? Given the major role of energy supply in modern societies, that is on parity with the major role of a stable environment, we must build the “energy IPCC”, that provides the scientific basis for energy planning (which drives the “wealth of nations” and the sustainability): Explicit and normative definitions whenever possible Ways to sort between what is physically possible and what is not Methods to explicit counterparts that are not present in scenarios www.manicore.com The laws of physics will always remain stronger than our desires The law of conservation imposes that men can only extract from the environment some energy that already exists there (primary energy) All primary energies are free: no one ever paid a single cent for the formation of oil, gas, waterfalls or coal. Fossil fuels are as free as renewables. The “cost of energy” represents only salaries and rents that had to be paid to other humans in the course of extracting energy from the environment. Nature never gets paid. The more an energy source is diffuse and non manageable, the more difficult it is to extract it from the environment in the form of high power, and the more expensive/capital intensive it will be. It’s just physics. www.manicore.com Using oil is probably slightly easier than using wind 10 m Renewables -> fossil : price / 50-100 = 80 km/h 3 millilitres ! 0,3 cents per kWh (manageable) 10 m 8 cents per kWh (without buffering), 25-50 (with buffering) www.manicore.com Once we were renewable and sustainable… World energy 1860-2014. Jancovici, on Shilling et al before 1965, BP after, misc. www.manicore.com Once we were renewable and sustainable… World energy 1860-2014. Jancovici, on Shilling et al before 1965, BP after, misc. www.manicore.com Once we were renewable and sustainable… World energy 1860-2014. Jancovici, on Shilling et al before 1965, BP after, misc. www.manicore.com Once we were renewable and sustainable… World energy 1860-2014. Jancovici, on Shilling et al before 1965, BP after, misc. www.manicore.com Once we were renewable and sustainable… World energy 1860-2014. Jancovici, on Shilling et al before 1965, BP after, misc. www.manicore.com Once we were renewable and sustainable… World energy 1860-2014. Jancovici, on Shilling et al before 1965, BP after, misc. www.manicore.com Once we were renewable and sustainable… What gets journalists excited Look at transparent and comprehensive calculations, published in technical and scientific papers, and forget the newspaper World energy 1860-2014. Jancovici, on Shilling et al before 1965, BP after, misc. www.manicore.com All energies are equal, but some are more equal than others Specific energies allow for specific transformations and thus specific activities When going from an energy to another for the same use, there are transition costs, even among fossil fuels -> never discard them For example, the capex for conventional oil in the Middle East is circa 20 k$/barrel.day; the capex for tar sands is circa 150 k$/barrel.day With the same money, you will get 5 times less annual production in tar sands than in conventional oil… as long as there is some www.manicore.com Nietzsche wanted supermen, oil did the job 80 kg + 10 kg up 2000 m ≈ 0,5 kWh 1 day out of 2: 100 kWh/year @ 1000 €/month: 200 €/kWh Even a slave: 4-40 €/kWh 6 m3 earth lifted up 1 m 0,05 kWh per day (10 kWh/year) 2000 €/kWh x 10 1,5 €/L : 0,4 €/kWh ÷ 500 10 kWh ÷ 10100 x 100 ÷ www.manicore.com 5000 2-4 kWh mechanical output 1L Yummy kWh, or plenty of (fossil) food for plenty of machines… +0,4% / year 20.000 kWh per person and per year ≈ 200 energy slaves per capita +2,5% / year Energy consumption per capita, 1880 to 2013. Source: Jancovici, 2014, on primary data coming from Schilling et al., 1977, BP Statistical Review, 2014, UN & World Bank 2014 www.manicore.com Our economy seen by (super) Mario Capital Productive system Work www.manicore.com Production Actually, you'd better have some resource! Resources Capital Productive system Work (transformation) Muscles = 1 Machines + Energy = 200 ! www.manicore.com Production The best macroeconomic model in the world: a straight line 2014 1965 Energy consumption vs. GDP in constant $ for the world, 1965 to 2014. Source World Bank 2014 for the GDP, BP Statistical Review 2014 for energy www.manicore.com And when availability is an issue, electoral promises have a hard time 2014 1965 Energy consumption vs. GDP in constant $ for Spain, 1965 to 2014. Source World Bank 2014 for the GDP, BP Statistical Review 2014 for energy www.manicore.com Think with the correct causal link! It’s because we have energy that we have transformation and therefore GDP. It is not because we have transformation (GDP) that we have energy! Never think “energy demand”. Think “energy availability” instead. www.manicore.com Assessing GDP? Forget the price! 2014 1960 Oil price in constant $ per barrel (horizontal axis) vs GDP in constant $ (vertical axis) for the world, 1965 to 2013. Jancovici, on World Bank & BP Statistical Review www.manicore.com Is the price of oil elastic? 2014 1921 1986 2001 1973 Oil consumption in the world (horizontal exis) vs. price per barrel in constant dollars (vertical axis). Jancovici, 2014, on various data (oil prices from BP Stat). www.manicore.com Fancy calculating a “real” price ? X 15 ! 1860 1880 1973 2014 Constant $ per barrel. Source BP Statistical Review, 2015 1860 1900 1950 2000 Reconstruction of the GDP per capita in the US Source : Historical Statistics for the World Economy, Angus Maddison, 2007 In a century, the real price of a mechanical kWh has been divided by 30 to 50 in Western Countries -> any transformation of natural resources has seen its real cost divided by the same number -> most real prices have evolved the same way www.manicore.com The party was more and more funny… then hangovers began Change of the primary energy supply in OECD countries since 1965. Jancovici, on data from BP Statistical Review 2015 & World Bank. www.manicore.com What is the appropriate way to analyze past data? Annual change of the primary energy supply in OECD since 1965. Jancovici, on data from BP Statistical Review 2015. www.manicore.com But the causal link is alive and well Annual change of the OECD growth rate since 1960, and prolongation of trend. Jancovici, on data from World Bank 2015. www.manicore.com What future? Past energy consumption in the OECD region and three ways to extrapolate. Jancovici, on data from BP Statistical Review 2015. www.manicore.com Do we have energy or energy? Raw coal Crude oil Crude gas Engineers + losses Steal coal, coke… Motion Refined fuels Heat Purified gas + losses Transformation Fissile nucleus Electricity Wood, wind, waterfalls, sun… Steam, hot water… and maybe H2 Primary Unclear Final www.manicore.com Work! Useful Savings? What savings? I get the same services with less energy –> Efficiency I drive the same mileage, in a car of the same weight and engine power, but technical leads tospace, less consumption per car I live in improvement the same housing but insulation leads to less energy consumption I buy the same quantity of shirts and beauty cream, but they have been manufactured with less energy I deliberately decrease my consumption of goods and services, and hence usecarless Sobriety I drive less, or in a smaller that energy uses less–> gasoline, and I do it from my own will II decrease my housing spacecream, (smaller flat, co-rent) buy less shirts and beauty and door not buy more of something else to compensate I decrease my consumption – and thus use less energy but I never asked for it –> Poverty www.manicore.com If we want to be heard, we have to be precise EROI is a good proxy for availability, capital costs, final price to end consumer, and in the end industrial production per capita. As a potent indicator to “be honest”, it has to be precisely defined. www.manicore.com EROI philosophy -> what energy input does the energy output relies on? Primary energy Other Resources Losses Final energy All free, took 14 billion years since the Big Bang Services Losses www.manicore.com Terms of reference #1: climate 2015 Cumulated CO2 emissions since 1870 in billion tonnes Average temperature increase 1850-2100 depending on cumulated emissions. IPCC, 2015 www.manicore.com No more than 700-1000 Gt CO2, who does without? Potential emissions associated to burning all proven reserves, in billion metric tons of CO2. Jancovici, on data from BP Stat 2015. www.manicore.com Dividing emissions by 3, where do we start? Other Deforestation Coal power plants Oil & gas power plants Cement Agriculture ≈ 6% ≈ 4% ≈ 2% Transportation ≈ 2% Boilers in buildings Other industry Breakdown of world emissions in 2014. Jancovici, on various data. www.manicore.com Is Kyoto of any use? Divided by 3 I ratify Divided by 3… I do not ratify Energy efficiency of the US and European economies, in grams of CO2 per constant $ of GDP. Primary data from BP Statistical Review (energy) and World Bank (GDP), calculations by the author. www.manicore.com Some very simple conclusions… extremely hard to accept After two centuries of growth, we have lost our habits of ruling a constrained world. The good question is not how we avoid “degrowth”, but how we manage it at best. EROI can help in that respect. As less energy = less GDP, going low carbon is equivalent to triggering a recession. In a democracy, we must think of the counterpart that makes it desirable/manageable for a majority. Engineers can help explicit “physical” counterparts (e. g. you cannot extract oil and still have the same amount in the ground), sort between what is possible and what is not, but in the end the society decides (even imperfectly) for itself. Less energy = less GDP. Going to zero carbon in 65 years is equivalent to following a recessive path, that we accept because it allows our species to (sur)vive longer. www.manicore.com