November 1 2005
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>Yes...But! Year 5-52a
When natural gas came to Tweed, about 15 years ago, everybody
- well, almost everybody - switched over from oil to this clean
and cheap heating fuel, saving hundreds of dollars each year.
Being too far from town, I did not qualify. Those who got connected
were assured that natural gas would be available for at least
50 years, as supplies were abundant and easy to obtain. The
wholesale price then was around $2.00 per million BTU’s
( British Thermal Units) and companies made a good profit at
that low price, even though the underground pipelines to every
home were expensive to install.
The myth of abundant natural gas lives on. Paul Roberts in
his recent book,”The End of Oil,” maintains that,
since oil will run out soon, we must, before we can rely on
renewable sources such as wind, hydrogen and solar, have natgas
fill the gap. He writes on page 314: “Because the bridge
economy will initially be fueled by gas, the first step for
U.S. policymakers will be to dramatically increase the availability
of gas as quickly as possible.”
I know that government can do a lot. They do, indeed, provide
a lot of gas, but not the stuff that gives a clean burn. The
policymakers are good at providing money and levying taxes,
and putting the blame on somebody else, but increasing the
amount of natural gas is beyond their power: they are no miracle
workers, creating fuel that is no longer there. The harsh truth
is that we in Canada and the USA are running out. Fast. Matthew
Simmons - whose bank finances drilling rigs - reports that
between April 1996 and April 2000 the number of rigs in the
Gulf of Mexico increased by 40 percent, but production remained
flat. Blame the accelerating depletion of reserves in North
America, soon to become a permanent scarcity.
True, there is plenty elsewhere, but all in ‘enemy territory’,
the Middle East, and only available via a procedure involving
LNG - Liquid Natural Gas - where the substance is cooled to
minus 260 degrees Celsius, itself very energy - intensive,
then transported in special ships - floating nuclear bombs
- and reconstituted at special terminals where pipe lines will
then bring it to Tweed and elsewhere. In the process some 30
percent of the gas is expended. Matthew Simmons has calculated
that we need 50 of these conversion terminals in the USA alone.
Now there are 3 or 4. Nobody wants such an potential explosive
situation in its back yard.
So why has this clean, cheap fuel so suddenly climbed to $12
per million BTS, a six fold increase and I read predictions
of $20.00? Why this enormous jump? The reason: two Gulf hurricanes,
winter coming and quickly disappearing reserves have kept natural
gas futures hovering near all-time highs.
Way back in the early 1990’s, thanks to our over optimistic
predictions we opened the border to limitless exports, intent
to supply all of North America as, the experts said, there’s
plenty for all. Now, whatever is left is near the Arctic, and
has been claimed by the producers of the oil sands, where 2
barrels oil- equivalent are needed to give us 3 barrels of
oil. Plus lots of pollution. So, soon we may not have enough
to heat and cook and supply electricity.
However we are not the only potential victims. Something far
worse threatens because global food supplies are in danger.
Crop plants combine carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen into
proteins that make plants grow. Of those four elements, nitrogen
is the one that's often in short supply. Natural gas, the source
of nitrogen in fertilizer, fills that need. Thanks to this
non-renewable carbon fuel the earth can support our current
6.5 billion people. For our population to grow to the projected
9 billion or more, we need vast new supplies of natural gas
because our croplands are totally dependent on industrially
produced nitrogen fertilizer.
As reserves of fossil fuels dwindle, our children and grand
children will have to farm as our grandfathers did: grow crops
fed entirely by sunlight and natural fertility.
That is only possible in North America if we all become vegetarian.
But the rest of the world- already mostly vegetarian, especially
densely populated China and India - will continue to need lots
of natural-gas-derived- fertilizer.
Vaclav Smil, distinguished professor at the University of Manitoba
and author of the 2004 book Enriching the Earth: Fritz
Haber, Carl Bosch and the Transformation of World Food Production,
has shown how the global food system to a startling degree
depends on nitrogen fertilization. Using simple math, the kind
you can do in your head if there's no calculator handy - and
I happen to be good at that - Smil showed that 40 percent of
the protein in human bodies, world-wide, would not exist without
applying synthetic nitrogen to crops during most of the 20th
century.
That means that without the use of industrially produced nitrogen
fertilizer, without an ample supply of natural gas, about 2.6
billion people out of today's world population of 6.5 billion
simply could never have existed.
A pretty scary thought, given that the peak production of natural
gas is perhaps history.
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