Tag: covid

Rebuilding After COVID-19

Posted on by Mark

Through the ages, lethal viruses continually attacked homo sapiens. While at personal levels the attacks can be devastating, they’ve not slowed human population growth. For instance, the Spanish Epidemic of 1918 killed about 2% of the global human population, a horribly huge number. Yet, on looking solely at population growth rate, this pandemic had no visible effect.

Currently our species is being attacked by another virus, COVID-19. Through great determination and effort we seem to be slowly countering its deadly effect. In consequence, we see many leaders setting post pandemic return-to-work targets. Often, they borrow now to pay later to keep our population busily consuming resources as demanded by the markets. In consequence, as COVID-19 surrenders, we expect to see our species return to business as usual meaning more people and higher consumption, especially energy consumption.

In 2019, our primary energy consumption exceeded 583 exajoules annually; sourced mostly from non-renewable sources. On average, each person’s annual energy consumption exceeded 75 gigajoules. This is a huge amount, being over 1.5 times greater than the average in 1965 and obviously a huge increase over preindustrial times. But the supply of fossil fuels will end. So, when we build back better after COVID-19, wouldn’t we be wise to enable lifestyles for the future 10 billion inhabitants that doesn’t rely upon fossil fuels?
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Our Baseload

Posted on by Mark

The COVID-19 pandemic reminds us again that we are human. Normally we live, create life and eventually after many years we hope to die of relatively painless old age. This pandemic sees many people across the world dying long before old age expectations. The final effects on human birth and death rate may be as noticeable as with the Spanish Influenza of 1918.

With many countries mandating only essential activities because of COVID-19 then we’d also expect energy consumption to drop. And it has. But for the first quarter of 2020 it only dropped by about 3.8%. The second quarter sees a reduction of 10% from the previous year. Now, given the continual proclamation to restore economies, we’re seeing activities return to usual and energy consumption responding in accord.

This small drop in energy consumption due to COVID-19 indicates that even while we are cloistered at home we still demand a huge amount of energy. Also, it indicates that if we continue to rely upon the economy to nurture our lives and give us a grand old age then we need continual access to huge amounts of energy. What happens when we consume all the non-renewable energy sources?

Essential Services

Posted on by Mark

Depending on where you live, you may be experiencing the end of a government mandated stay-at-home order due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This order has minimized commuting and constrained work activities to whatever can be accomplished in-residence. Only essential services continue. In consequence, there’s been a dramatic drop in our energy consumption.

Let’s look at this via oil. By the numbers, the world oil production has been hovering at just less than 100 million barrels per day. This value has been somewhat consistent for the past two years as demand and supply were well matched. Due to the order, the estimated consumption drop for the month of April 2020 is 29 mb/d. That is, we are using 1.77e17 Joules less energy from oil each day because of COVID-19 and the stay-at-home order.

This number is spectacular, especially from a conservationist point of view. Even more spectacular however is the amount of energy still being used. That is, even though the global economy is nearly shut-down we are still using 4.34e17 Joules of energy from oil. Each and every day! And this is solely for oil.

Oil supplies about 34% of the total primary energy consumption across our world. Assuming all primary energy consumption experiences the same drop means that humans need 12.77e17 Joules per day of energy (208 mb/d). This equates to about 700 dams the size of the Three Gorges Dam. This is just to sustain ourselves. One could say that this is the basal daily amount for our civilization.

Can we sustain this? Is it possible to create this amount of primary energy without affecting our planet? What will we do when the fossil fuels are no longer available?

Resource Extraction

Posted on by Mark

Today we have a very clear view of our civilization’s dependence upon energy. Or, really, the effect when we break that dependence. The break is caused by COVID-19. The effect is the near total stoppage of the economy as governments have ordered stay-at-home isolation. Thus, with no one going to work, or working, or returning from work then we consume a lot less energy.

Oil remains the dominant source of our civilization’s energy. Not long ago a barrel of oil was trading for well above $100US per barrel. Today, in the futures market, the cost of a barrel of oil has gone negative! That’s right, effectively producers have to pay someone to take the oil of their hands.

What really happened? Simply put, the oil producers did not want to contract their operations even though COVID-19 reduced demand. Thus for weeks they have been pumping an excess of up to tens of million of barrels of oil each day. Obviously if it’s not being consumed then it must be stored. And storage costs money. And the available storage space shrank very fast. Thus the drop in price.

Which of course brings up a sticky point. As the producers stop producing they will stop their oil rigs. And walk away. For example, Canada last week provided $1.7B to clean up orphaned wells. Orphaned means that the producer has walked away and the government must clean up their mess. Their sticky mess.

Expect COVID-19 to be temporary and this situation to be temporary. But it does highlight our civilization’s approach to resource extraction. That is, we are keen on getting the value from the resource but less keen on spending money to clean up the mess. Is this a sustainable plan with which to go forward? Which dependencies should our civilization maintain?

Photo by Donald Giannatti on Unsplash

COVID-19

Posted on by Mark

There’s nothing like a crisis to showcase the qualities of a civilization. For instance, the global wars of the twentieth century had some of the most amazingly displays of cruelty and some of the most wonderfully compassionate moments. And, plagues like the Black Death or Spanish Influenza swept over defenseless populations which then rebounded. There’s even ongoing swarming locusts in Africa that’s causing widespread, temporary challenges. The common factor to all these is that the event ends and, usually, a wiser civilization emerges.

The current international crisis is the COVID-19 pandemic. While much is being said about its characteristics, including its lethality, there is no doubting its global impact. Everywhere people are being asked or ordered to remain isolated at home with only occasional sojourns for essential matters. Less travel, and less work has an immediate effect on resource consumption and especially energy consumption. This reduction has an effect. A barrel of oil is cheaper; now costing the same as it did twenty years ago. Fewer airplanes traverse the skies. Mass fuel storages are full. And bankruptcies challenge the oil fields. It’s as if this pandemic has set our civilization’s feast on energy to pause.

This pause should be considered as just that, a pause. Our civilization will continue on the other side. It can continue as it did before COVID-19 or it could alter. Is there a wiser direction for our civilization? Is the free market and consumerism the optimal path? Perhaps now is the time for people to realize that we constitute one big global civilization. And people should realize that they are wise enough to consider and choose an optimal future. Let’s use this pause to consider the qualities we most admire and cherish and then let’s pursue them as we rebound from this crisis.

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