[Rhodes22-list] Energy -not sailing

[Ronald Lipton]

We had an interesting talk today by Steven Koonin, formerly the
provost of cal tech and now the chief scientist at BP.  Since there
was some discussion on the list about future energy issues it was useful
to get some up-to-date information.  He made a few interesting points:

- It is in OPECs interest to keep the price of oil moderately low to 
prevent
development of alternative technologies and discourage conservation.
- The known reserves of oil is projected to last 41 years, gas 67 and
  coal 200. The oil projection has been at 40 years for the past decade.
- The world supplies will begin to trend downward in ~20 years (non 
OPEC)
   and 30 years (OPEC)
- Technologies like natural gas and coal conversion to diesel become
  cost effective at $40/barrel oil!
- Co2 loading of the atmosphere is a serious issue. (He felt that the 
cause/effect
   relation between Co2 and the demonstrated warming trend was plausible
   but not proven.) This will become particularly serious as the 
developing world
   become significant consumers.  It is a problem with no solution that 
is both
   politically and economically feasible.
- The developing world is the 1000 pound gorilla here - even moderate 
increase
   in per capita consumption is a huge effect with that many capitas.
- Population growth is expected to moderate - to about 8-10 billion 
toward the
   end of the century.

We are actually going to have a series of these lectures, including 
fusion and
hydrogen power. For folks with fast connections the talks are available 
on
streaming video a few days after they are presented on:
http://www-ppd.fnal.gov/EPPOffice-w/colloq/colloq.html

Ron