The Forum > Article Comments > What is the 'Road to Recovery'? > Comments
What is the 'Road to Recovery'? : Comments
By Julie Bishop, published 23/8/2012The global economy continues to be fragile despite massive government intervention in the form of stimulus, bailouts and increased banking regulation.
- Pages:
-
- 1
- 2
- 3
- Page 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
-
- All
How exactly will gas take over from oil (apart from in power generation)? Gas provides power generation, ethylene for plastics, fertiliser and a very small fraction for transportation fuels such as CNG. It isn't a mainstream transportation fuel. There is hardly a major transition being made to CNG cars nor is there the infrastructure in place. Whilst yes theoretically this transition could take place we are talking about a timeframe measured in decades for it to have any real impact (where is the $$). Gas (and Coal) to Liquids is a very expensive proposition.
Hence why I focus so heavily on oil, it is the limiting factor (Liebig's law of the minimum) currently for the global economy and will put an upper limit on any economic "recovery."
Organisations such as the IEA now talk about all liquids production rather than conventional or crude oil production. Virtually all of the statistically insignificant increase in liquids fuel production since 2005 has come from liquids other than conventional oil, which has reached a prolonged plateau. These other liquids are inferior to oil in their energy density (eg ethanol and Natural Gas Plant Liquids), energy return on investment (biofuels and NGPLs) and scalability (all of the alternates).
It is not courageous to believe in wishful thinking. It is courageous to understand that the current organisation of society is heading to a torrid time so to start developing alternative ways of meeting humand kinds needs!