Depending on lecture length, you may learn some, or all, of the following:
Section 1 - Prisoner's Dilemma - fossil fuels & what energy means to us
In this section, you'll learn:
- Where fossil fuels come from.
- What they are.
- How much we use.
- How we use them.
- And how important they are to us.
- That fossil fuels are really concentrated solar energy.
- About fossil fuels and their relation to carbon emissions and climate change.
- Why the energy we use has contained less and less carbon over the years.
- The important difference between primary and secondary energy.
- That 1 gallon of gasoline was once how many acres of vegetation?
- Why trees are a better biomass source than producing ethanol from corn or switchgrass.
- The unforeseen dangers of peak oil.
- Why using renewable energy is like living paycheck to paycheck.
- And why using fossil fuels is like having a big fat bank account.
Section 2 - Aladdin's Lamp - how much fossil fuel is left?
In this section you'll learn:
- That we are using oil faster than we can find it.
- How big fossil fuel reserves really are.
- About the controversy over how fossil fuel reserves are estimated.
- The difference between reserve and production rates.
- Why the Alberta Tar Sands (largest reserves after Saudi Arabia) cannot solve peak oil.
- And that there is a 95% chance that the world will meet peak oil by 2047.
- Why world energy consumption is expected to grow 4 times by 2100.
- Why the US has more forests now than in 1850.
- That the steam engine made energy portable for the first time.
- How society changed via increased energy consumption and how it will regress with peak oil.
- Why liquid fuels are so important to us and hard to replace.
- How important liquid oil is as an industrial component.
- Where most agricultural fertilizers come from.
- What percentage of today's energy comes from renewable energy.
- And the upper limit to which renewable energy can grow.
Section 3 - Core of the matter - CO2 and the environment
In this section, you'll learn:
- If there were no carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the earth's would be frozen solid.
- Why an enforced Kyoto Protocol only delays carbon levels by 10 years.
- Many other surprising things affect Earth's temperature.
- That many other surprising things create greenhouse gasses and may affect climate change.
- And we must have a secure and affordable energy supply to adapt to the effects of climate change.
- Why energy consumption and well being are closely related.
- Why energy consumption and carbon emissions are closely related.
- Why burning corn in a furnace creates fewer carbon emissions than using it to produce ethanol.
- Why international development guarantees increased energy consumption.
- Most plans to reduce carbon emissions will affect your well being.
- And how many people still rely on wood and animal dung for cooking and heating.
Section 4 - Common sense is not so common
In this section, you'll learn that common wisdom says climate change & energy supply can be solved by
a combination of:
- Carbon dioxide sequestration.
- The wide-scale practice of energy conservation.
- Improvements in energy efficiency.
- And the adoption of renewable energies.
common wisdom appears to be out of step with reality.
This section is the real star of any presentation. You'll learn:
- Why wind power can never supply more than 10% of world energy.
- Why all intermittent electricity (e.g., wind & solar) require an equal size fossil fuel back-up plant.
- Why some environmental organizations are trying to shut down wind power projects.
- Why some environmental groups protest new hydro dams, and advocate closing existing ones.
- Why people don't live near the best wind power locations.
- Why energy conservation is unreliable at best.
- Why energy conservation cannot be regulated.
- Why energy efficiency estimates are too high.
- Why energy efficiency often inadvertently causes a rise in energy consumption.
- Why each energy efficiency increase saves less and less energy.
- And why energy efficiency cannot increase indefinitely via regulation.
Section 5 - Can renewable energy replace fossil fuel?
In this section, you'll learn:
- Why switching to renewable energy makes the energy efficiency picture worse.
- Why tree-planting is not a reliable way to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions.
- Why world hydro electricity production can never more than double.
- And why most new hydro dams create refugees and require more flooded land than existing sites.
- Why biomass projects (e.g., ethanol from corn) were abandoned in the 1850.
- Why creating ethanol from corn threatens the food supply and drives up many prices.
- Why producing ethanol from corn provides very little net energy benefit.
- Why ethanol does almost nothing to lower carbon emissions.
- Why Net-metering does very little to lower carbon emissions.
- Why geothermal power cannot grow substantially.
- And why electric cars often produce
1.5 times more carbon emissions than regular cars.
Section 6 - The Hydrogen Economy: NOT a simple chemistry experiment
In this section, you'll learn:
- That hydrogen is not a source of energy. It is actually manufactured from energy.
- Why the Hydrogen Economy is not likely to mitigate peak oil.
- Why the Hydrogen Economy will not reduce carbon emissions in the short term.
- Why hydrogen makes a bad transportation fuel.
- The only way that the Hydrogen Economy works is with liquefied hydrogen.
- How much energy it really takes to liquefy hydrogen and how it affects the Hydrogen Economy.
- And why waste oxygen from electrolysis of water is a huge headache.
- Why the Hydrogen Economy is likely to reduces fossil fuel reserves.
- Why there are very few suitable locations for large-scale water electrolysis.
- How many blimps full of air are required to dilute waste oxygen to safe levels.
- That hydrogen is a challenge to store in large amounts.
- How often you'd really have to fill you tank if you drove a hydrogen-powered car.
- And that the Hydrogen Economy is 50 years away at best, and is not guaranteed to ever arrive.
Section 7 - Nuclear Energy - power to the people
In this section, you'll learn:
- How many nuclear power plants are under construction around the world today.
- How many million liters of gasoline it takes to equal a pound of uranium.
- How much carbon free energy the world needs.
- That humans must consume more energy, not less, to make it a more equitable world.
- And that all energies in the world are really derived from nuclear energy.
- How much nuclear fuel there really is.
- Why new nuclear reactor designs extend nuclear fuel reserves.
- Why waste from new reactor designs are far less radioactive.
- How existing nuclear waste can be used as fuel in new reactor designs.
- What the difference is between a thermal nuclear reaction and a fast nuclear reaction.
- How uranium prices affect utility rates.
- Why nuclear safety and proliferation are not a problem.
- And how quickly fast breeder reactors can be built.