Читать книгу Solar Water Heating--Revised & Expanded Edition - Bob Ramlow - Страница 13

Today we are facing an oil shortage much different than that of the ’70s and ’80s. We are entering the era of peak oil. There are many good books on this subject, such as The Party’s Over by Richard Heinberg, so we will not go into a lot of detail here. But essentially, today we are at a turning point in the history of modern civilization because the production of oil is at its peak; it will never grow larger, as it has in the past. At the same time, worldwide demand for oil is growing faster than at any time in history. As a result, the price of oil will continue to rise while the supply will decrease. It is important to note that Earth’s oil supply is not entirely depleted. About one-half of all the oil there ever was is still left in the ground. The reality is that we have reached peak oil production, while demand for oil continues to rise at record levels. For some time there will still be oil to be had, but producing it will become increasingly more expensive.

You are probably wondering why we have been discussing oil at such length. Though oil is rarely used to heat water, the price of oil affects the price of all other forms of energy. When it goes up, they do too. This is especially true for electricity. It takes large amounts of oil to mine coal, the basic feedstock of most of our electrical generating capacity in the US. It takes oil to mine and process uranium to feed our nuclear power plants. Oil is used in the natural gas exploration and distribution industry. Our society is completely and utterly dependent on a constant flow of cheap oil. As we enter the peak oil era, its price will continue to rise, with no end in sight.

The same holds true for natural gas, which is used to heat water. We have now reached peak natural gas production in North America, where all the natural gas used in the United States is produced. We will never be able to produce more natural gas than today, even if demand rises (which it is doing). When the United States reached peak oil production in 1970, this was a significant milestone, but it was not devastating to our economy or culture. The oil companies could inexpensively import oil from other parts of the world. All they had to do was to build inexpensive oil tankers to ship foreign oil to the US. This is not the case for natural gas. It takes very sophisticated and expensive ships to import natural gas from foreign sources. Also, expensive and sophisticated terminals must be built at both the shipping and receiving ports. This infrastructure is not in place and it will take many years and a substantial investment to create it. This will significantly affect the price of natural gas in the future. The bottom line is that the cost of natural gas will also continue to rise, with no end in sight.