The Energy YoYo: When Will Renewables Replace Oil & Gas?

by Peter Brown (Biodiesel Magazine/International Procurement Tools Inc.) We may already be over the tipping point where greenhouse gases (GHG) have so altered the delicate balance in nature that climate changes are irreversible. Two worlds have collided and what may result is the painful start along the road to reclaiming what we have already destroyed. Those two worlds are the oil and gas industry with their reluctance to consider sharing what they perceive as their mission to maintain and increase the worldwide availability of petroleum products, and the renewable energy world’s almost fanatical dedication to change the way energy has been used for centuries.
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For the O&G sector we are seeing massive projects to increase distribution and production of their petroleum energy. This is based on a shift in the sources of petroleum products from the Middle East to North America with huge investment in new infrastructures such as the hotly contested XL Pipeline, new shale oil from Argentina, China and even Russia. Dial in the incredible rise of natural gas based on the worldwide distribution of shale gas and the attendant horror stories of the fracking industry, and we have a classic environment versus sustainability issues war. Because oil and gas have become harder and harder to extract, the price per barrel for the products goes up and the financing for new ways to access oil becomes affordable. Tar sands, which less than 30 years ago were not mined because of the extraction costs, have now come roaring back. There are tar sands projects around the world.
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The agenda is clear; GHGs are the direct result of our reliance on oil and gas pulled from the earth and shipped all over the place to be converted into two main products: gasoline and diesel. Most of that is used in transportation and the vast majority of transportation fuels can be replaced by electric vehicles, renewable fuels and some exotics like hydrogen.
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There is a corresponding penalty to be paid in environmental damage such as well blowouts (Gulf Oil Spill), pipeline spills, air quality issues and regional environmental damage.
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The trend towards getting production as close to distribution is now mirrored in what we call the Urban Bio Revolution. Cities across the world are using local collections, from waste vegetable oil traps in restaurants to water treatment plant sludge to produce biodiesel. Wendell Jenkins, CEO of DC Biofuels, after years of development, is poised to collect what he can in and around Washington, D.C., and produce up to 7 million gallons of ASTM biodiesel or 22 million gallons of B20. Veridis in Oakland, Calif., is looking for the funds necessary to build a biodiesel facility to recuperate sludge from the water treatment facility and add biodiesel to their existing methane digesters.
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The various governmental agencies around the world play a huge role that we did not even discuss. There are climate change deniers, and people who have no problem with rising gas prices. There are destitute third world countries that could play pivotal roles and are as yet not aware of their power; engine builders and car manufacturers who may be able to lower gas consumption to a level that would make certain fuels redundant; farmer co-ops that by banding together could dictate fuel prices in a new eco-OPEC.
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This is a worldwide effort because it is just as important that the Ghanaian farmer get his produce to market with affordable biodiesel from local palm plantations and that the New Delhi Indian city dweller and the Chinese executive can walk in his town without suffocating just as the child in West Oakland will not suffer from asthma due to idling ships running on bunker fuels. READ MORE