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<H1 class="cN-headingPage prepend-5 span-11 last"><A
href="http://www.theage.com.au/business/emissions-scenarios-are-based-on-flawed-assumptions-says-energy-expert-20101126-18asw.html"><FONT
size=2>http://www.theage.com.au/business/emissions-scenarios-are-based-on-flawed-assumptions-says-energy-expert-20101126-18asw.html</FONT></A></H1>
<H1 class="cN-headingPage prepend-5 span-11 last">Emissions scenarios are based
on flawed assumptions, says energy expert </H1>
<DIV class="push-0 span-11 last"><!-- cT-storyDetails -->
<DIV class="cT-storyDetails cfix"><CITE>November 27, 2010</CITE>
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<P>HERE'S cold comfort. It would be impossible, according to Swedish energy
expert Kjell Aleklett, for us to emit enough greenhouse gas to warm the planet
by 6 degrees: we don't have enough oil, coal or gas to burn.</P>
<P>''All the emissions scenarios that have been put forward over the last 10
years are wrong,'' says Aleklett, professor of physics at the University of
Uppsala and world president of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil.</P>
<P>The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change business-as-usual forecast
to 2100, which would result in 6 degrees of warming, assumes worldwide
production of coal could rise 10 times higher than today.</P>
<P>''That can never happen,'' says Aleklett, who is on an Australian speaking
tour this month and was recently heard on the ABC's <EM>Science Show</EM>.</P>
<P>Aleklett says coal production will peak around 2030, and China is peaking
about now.</P>
<P>''Ninety per cent of all coal reserves in the world can be found in six
countries: the US, India, China, Russia, South Africa, and of course
Australia,'' he says. ''The whole CO2 emissions problem is only six countries.
Those are the drug dealers when it comes to selling coal. If these six countries
would stop selling coal, there would be no problem at all.''</P>
<P>Aleklett has been working with a Newcastle University team studying peak
fossil fuel production, led by Geoff Evans and culminating in a 2010 doctoral
thesis by engineer Steve Mohr, summarised on the Oil Drum website (and previewed
here last year).</P>
<P>Taking into account supply and demand, Mohr's ''best-guess'' estimates put
peak oil production in 2011-12, peak coal production by 2019 and peak gas
production between 2028-2047.</P>
<P>Aleklett says the Newcastle team is doing ''a great job … we get the same
numbers''. In the March edition of <EM>Energy Policy</EM>, Aleklett claimed oil
production peaked in 2008. ''We know that 2009 was lower, and it looks as if
2010 will be lower again,'' he says.</P>
<P>The concept of a peak - maximum production - does not mean a date after which
the world soon runs out of fossil fuels. It's about flow rates. ''We are not
running out,'' says Aleklett. ''But we have a limit to supply. What we're
running out of is the possibility of increased usage.''</P>
<P>Aleklett, a long-time critic of the International Energy Agency's forecasts,
is looking increasingly on the money as demand figures have been wound back in
the IEA's 2010 <EM>World Energy Outlook</EM>, released this month.</P>
<P>The IEA stopped short of calling a peak in oil production but did lower its
consumption forecasts.</P>
<P>In 2009, the IEA stressed the importance of oil for economic growth and
concluded that 106 million barrels a day (mb/d) would be required by 2030, about
20mb/d higher than today. In 2010, the IEA only predicts 99mb/d by 2035 and
avoids any discussion of economic growth.</P>
<P>''We can interpret this as meaning desired economic growth is not possible,''
says Aleklett. He means it.</P>
<P>Aleklett believes high oil prices - they peaked at $US147 in 2008 - helped
trigger the global financial crisis, when oil-dependent home owners in the outer
suburbs of America's cities began defaulting on their loans.</P>
<P>Peak oil will limit economic growth: the IEA now sees OECD oil consumption
falling 15 per cent by 2035. OECD nations, including Australia, will have to
revise down their consumption estimates. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural
and Resource Economics has yet to bring its forecasts into line with the IEA.
But Australia's oil production is declining rapidly - by the end of the decade
we could be reliant on imports for 80 per cent of consumption, says former Shell
Australia and Australian Coal Association executive Ian Dunlop.</P>
<P>Where will that oil come from? Can we outbid the likes of China and
India?</P>
<P>''The government's assumption there will always be oil available on the
market is nonsense, unless we're willing to pay a fortune,'' says Dunlop.</P>
<P>BHP Billiton's latest quarterly crude oil production figures showed drops
across the board, year-on-year, propped up only by the new Pyrenees field in
Western Australia.</P>
<P>ABARE's Energy Resource Assessment last year listed just two other new
Australian oil projects, including Thai operator PTTEP's Montara/Skua field -
site of last year's disastrous spill, which the government finally responded to
this week.</P>
<P>Local ASPO spokesman Phil Hart says ABARE is in ''economic fairyland'',
believing demand will always lead to supply. The same problem underpins the
IPCC's scenarios, which are modelled by economists who ''assume business as
usual is possible''.</P>
<P>Ultimately it is irrelevant whether we have enough fossil fuels to hit 6
degrees of warming. Global temperatures are already too high at 0.8 degrees
above pre-industrial levels, and climate change is already dangerous. Recent
Potsdam Institute analysis concluded 75 per cent of the world's fossil fuel
reserves must be left in the ground if we are to keep warming to 2 degrees.</P>
<P>''There's more than enough coal, oil and gas to get us into trouble,'' says
Hart. We need to stop burning fossil fuels now (and, the implication is, avoid
wasting billions on carbon capture and storage, which uses extra energy and will
only accelerate resource depletion) in favour of renewables.</P>
<P>The ramifications are profound, particularly for infrastructure spending: we
need to electrify transport, and shift from private to public transport.
Aviation may be a sunset industry. No more toll roads with wildly optimistic
demand projections. No more hideously expensive airports.</P>
<P>Aleklett says politicians should welcome the concept of peak oil. ''Peak oil
should be politicians' best friend,'' he says. ''It is something they cannot
fix.''</P>
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