[sustran] "exhaustible resources or exhausted economists?"

Lee Schipper schipper at wri.org
Thu Nov 22 08:42:44 JST 2007


At $100/bbl we're beginning to fall away from using oil ..natural gas is
next. With the chances
Of real action on carbon looming big, we may see a serious (i.e.,
$100/ton carbon) tax on carbon. But the world's economy keeps growing,
putting more cars on the road and connecting more people to modern
electricity, gas, and/or LPG supplies. I think the growth from this
expansion can be cut drastically.

What is happening now is in part letting it stay in the ground, in part
demand not growing as it would have, in part some caution on the part of
multinational fuel suppliers who realize we do live in a (hydro)-carbon
constrained world. Today's generation of mostly carbon intensive "bio"
fuels doesn't make it, and many are worried that fuel-scale exploitation
of biomass in Asia and Africa will simply ruin those places. 

Is oil supply, i.e, the RATE of exploitation, peaking. I don't know and
it doesn't really matter. CO2 is a good enough reason to slow the rise
and begin the fall in use of hydrocarbons, period. My own view is that
there are trillions of barrels of oil left, but now rather than the
overall marginal cost of getting that oil falling (as in OPEC
countries), it is rising, albeit with some of that rising cost coming
from a very low base (the OPEC countries) and some from very high cost
countries like the US.

But while oil is an input to things, so is natural gas or (ugh) coal.
More important, so is labor, capital, water, knowledge.  What is vital
is not oil per se but high-grade stored energy (or more correctly
exergy). I suspect
That air travel and chemicals are some of the most important uses of the
resources of exergy. While chemicals can be made from natural gas, air
travel has not yet found anything like jet kerosene for a combination of
high energy./weight, relative safety of handling, and relative
abundance. Not surprisingly defense interest are searching for bio fuels
alternatives.

And we can argue whether some of the things (polyster knits instead of
wool, etc) represents the use of fossil fuels we want to save oil
for....

The only way out is to reduce the need for using these fuels, i.e., cut
the whole problem down to size. I think that can be done, although
admittedly the US is leading the charge to the rear in its present
policies.  Particularly dangerous is subsidizing alternatives like
farmer corn-based ethanol rather than letting fossil fuel prices rise
even more to reflect the alleged "need" for these alternatives, to
reflect carbon dangers, etc. when you subsidize fuels you get more fuel
and more car use and more waste in general.

I don't know how much more I can say. 

Lee Schipper
Director of Research,
EMBARQ the WRI Center for  Sustainable Transport
www.embarq.wri.org
and
Visiting Scholar,
Univ of Calif Transport Center
Berkeley CA
www.uctc.net
skype: mrmeter
510 642 6889
202 262 7476


-----Original Message-----
From: sustran-discuss-bounces+schipper=wri.org at list.jca.apc.org
[mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+schipper=wri.org at list.jca.apc.org] On
Behalf Of Lee Schipper
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 3:29 PM
To: Zvi Leve
Cc: sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org
Subject: [sustran] Re: "In my view you have no place asking a
questionlike this since Shell "

My Ph D is in astrophysics, my BA in Music my work in energy and
transport economics.
So would you believe me?

Lee Schipper
Director of Research,
EMBARQ the WRI Center for  Sustainable Transport
www.embarq.wri.org
and
Visiting Scholar,
Univ of Calif Transport Center
Berkeley CA
www.uctc.net
skype: mrmeter
510 642 6889
202 262 7476


-----Original Message-----
From: Zvi Leve [mailto:zvi at inro.ca] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 3:27 PM
To: Lee Schipper
Cc: sustran-discuss at list.jca.apc.org
Subject: Re: [sustran] Re: "In my view you have no place asking a
question like this since Shell "

Lee, you are an economist, correct? Perhaps you can  "enlighten" me a 
bit on the economics of non-renewable resources. Why should we be 
falling all over ourselves to "exploit these resources" as quickly as 
possible? I would think that leaving them in the ground and thereby 
letting the value increase as it becomes more and more scarce could also

be a 'profitable' business alternative. Am I missing something?

One of my friends often reminds me that oil is a crucial input to almost

everything in modern society. Burning it to propel our vehicles is a 
rather wasteful use of such an important resource!

Zvi

Lee Schipper wrote:
> At the main event, Niel Golightly, VP of Shell for Sustainability,
stood
> up before the group, and said "buy less of our product".
>
>  
-------------------------------------------------------- 
IMPORTANT NOTE to everyone who gets sustran-discuss messages via
YAHOOGROUPS. 

Please go to http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/listinfo/sustran-discuss to
join the real sustran-discuss and get full membership rights. The
yahoogroups version is only a mirror and 'members' there cannot post to
the real sustran-discuss (even if the yahoogroups site makes it seem
like you can). Apologies for the confusing arrangement.

================================================================
SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred,
equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries
(the 'Global South'). 


More information about the Sustran-discuss mailing list