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Implications of Peak Oil for
Climate Change
Members Conference
Chris Vernon
[email protected]
1st September 2007
www.theoildrum.com
Peak Oil
Climate
Change
The IPCC (1/1)
“Despite the obvious relevance of “peak oil” to future climate change, it has
received little attention in projections of future climate change. For instance,
in the CO2 emissions scenarios outlined in the Special Report on Emissions
Scenarios (SRES) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC, 2000), socioeconomic and technological changes are employed as
determinants of future energy use, without explicitly addressing the
consequences of peak production of fossil fuels.”
Dr James Hansen (2007)
The IPCC (2/2)
Hansen (1/2)
Business As Usual
CO2 emissions
Peak emission
Year of peak
14 GtC/y
2077
CO2 concentrations
Peak concentration
Year of peak
580 ppm
2100
Hansen (2/2)
Coal Phase Out
CO2 emissions
Peak emission
Year of peak
10 GtC/y
2017
CO2 concentrations
Peak concentration
Year of peak
440 ppm
2050
Impact on campaigning
 Amount of CO2 emitted into the
atmosphere from the combustion of oil is
proportional to the amount of oil produced.
 To reduce the CO2 emissions from oil,
the production of oil must be reduced.
 Oil production is not significantly
determined by demand.
Oil: Supply-side limited, not demand-side
Coal: Demand-side
Peak Oil: Good News or Bad News? (1/2)
IEA Reference Scenario: 121 million barrels per day in 2030
Peak Oil: Good News or Bad News? (2/2)
2030 Comparison
No Peak Oil
2030 extraction = 121mbpd
Some non-conventional
Peak Oil
Peak in 2010 at 90mbpd
Decline at 2% per year
2030 extraction = 60mbpd
 Tar Sands:
 Coal to Liquids:
 Gas to Liquids:
 Biofuels:
Total 121mbpd
CO2 equivalent of more
~4mbpd
~1mbpd
~2mbpd
~4mbpd
2x CO2
2x CO2
1x CO2?
1x CO2
Total 71 mbpd
CO2 equivalent of 76 mbpd
8mbpd
2mbpd
2mbpd
4mbpd
31% cut in CO2 emissions in 5 years
"In 1992, the first full year after the demise of the USSR, Russian carbon
dioxide emissions stood at 573.5 million tonnes, but by 1997 had fallen to
394.7 million tonnes - a 31 per cent decline in just five years.“
Dr Mark A Smith
Coal
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/2726
Five reports this year:
Coal: Resources and Future Production
- Energy Watch Group (March)
“Production profile projections suggest the global peak of coal
production to occur around 2025 at 30 percent above current production
in the best case.”
The Future of Coal & Coal of the Future
- for European Commission Joint Research Centre (February)
“...the world could run out of economically recoverable (at current
economic and operating conditions) reserves of coal much earlier than
widely anticipated.”
Hubbert’s Peak, Question of Coal, and Climate Change
- Dr Dave Rutledge, California Inst. of Technology. (June)
Coal
- The US National Academy of Science (June)
“Recent programs to assess coal recoverability in limited areas using
updated methods indicate that only a small fraction of previously
estimated reserves are actually recoverable.”
Conclusions
 IPCC don’t consider resource constraints, only “socioeconomic and
technological changes”.
 Applying realistic constraints prevents the worst case scenario – at least by
IPCC mechanisms.
 Oil is a supply side limited resource. As such the CO2 in the atmosphere from
oil is not effected by addressing the demand side – the only possible way is
supply side actions.
 Coal is demand side limited so its CO2 impact can be addressed through the
demand side (as well as supply side).
 There is large scope for action on coal:
 reduce demand for electricity
 alternative electricity generation
 Peak oil is good news for climate change.
Backup Slides
This pulse response function for anthropogenic CO2 emissions illustrates the
proportion of CO2 that remains airborne t years after emissions and looks like
this:
One-third of anthropogenic CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere
after 100 years and one-fifth after 1000 years.