Moreover, nearly all commercially produced hydrogen now comes from natural gas—whose production will peak only a few years after oil begins its historic decline. Unconventional petroleum resources—so-called “heavy oil,” “oil sands,” and “shale oil”—are plentiful but extremely costly to extract, a fact that no technical innovation is likely to change.
The hard math of energy resource analysis yields an uncomfortable but unavoidable prospect: even if efforts are intensified now to switch to alternative energy sources, after the oil peak industrial nations will have less energy
The hard math of energy resource analysis yields an uncomfortable but unavoidable prospect: even if efforts are intensified now to switch to alternative energy sources, after the oil peak industrial nations will have less energy
available to do useful work — including the manufacturing and transporting of goods, the growing of food, and the heating of homes.
(GRAPH TWO)
U.S. energy consumption by source
(Please click on image to enlarge.)
U.S. energy consumption by source
(Please click on image to enlarge.)
