ENVS 202 On-line Access

Climate Change:

• There is strong evidence for global warming: 118, 3, 6
• There is strong evidence of climate change over the last 25 years: 103, 10, 14
• The biggest source of global warming is the destruction of the Amazon Rain Forest: 24, 63, 40
• In Eugene, the annual rainfall is significantly greater over the last 20 years than during previous times: 18, 25, 84
• Volcanoes Destroy the Ozone Layer: 28, 59, 40

Salmon:

• Hydroelectric Dams are the Single Biggest Reason for the Declining Pacific Northwest Salmon Population: 45, 41, 41
• The breaching of the Dams on the Snake River is a sound environmental idea and will help restore Salmon: 55, 20, 52

Energy Issues:

• By the year 2050 there will be about 12 billion humans on the Planet: 64, 30, 33
• We will run out of oil in the next 50 years: 48, 39, 40
• I purchase fluorescent light bulbs whenever I can: 17, 86, 24
• China should not build the Three Gorges Dam: 50, 5, 72
• Electric Vechicles could exist right now. Their deployment is being prevented by the power oil lobbies in this country: 106, 9, 12
• It takes more electricity to turn on a light bulb than to just leave it on: 33, 44, 50

Headlines, Media, Sources of Information:

• The New Carissa Accident was avoidable with better safeguards and regulations: 70, 8, 49
• The Makah should not be allowed to continue with their whale hunt: 39, 35, 53
• The current anarchist movement is quite similar to the Vietnam Protest movement: 18, 66, 43
• I read a newspaper (other than the Emerald) at least three times a week: 59, 66, 2
• I watch CNN at least 3 times a week: 25, 97, 5
• I use various WEB environmental monitoring sites often: 22, 97, 8
• Newspapers are a good source of unbiased articles about environment al matters: 10, 96, 21

Belief System:

• Nothing I do as an individual really matters when it comes to the environment: 0, 126, 1
• My friends know more about environmental matters than the professors in the UO Environmental Studies Program: 6, 97, 24
• I am more environmentally aware than my parents were: 111, 7, 9
• Science usually presents clear solutions to environmental problems: 24, 79, 24

Issues for This Class:

• I generally don't think, I usually just react: 13, 98, 16
• I generally don't require proof to believe something that someone who is smarter than me says: 8, 108, 11
• I am worried that this class will be too hard for me because it involves some math and science: 18, 94, 15

Fossil Fuel Depletion

The Two Principle Problems with Energy Management:

• Failure for policy makers to understand the concept of exponential growth.
• Failure for legislature to be formulated and passed to give us a long term energy strategy that is sensible

The result of these failures is to create an escalating energy crises as time continues to run out. Unfortunately, most people are either oblivious to this or believe that some new source of energy will magically appear.

If we look at the 20 year period 1970--1990 we see both good and bad trends:

Resource	1970	1990	Comments
Lead Emission	204,000 tons	5,000 tons	Factor 40 reduction
Aluminum Cans Recycled	1.2 billion	47 billion	Factor 40 increase
Passive Solar Houses	35,000	2 million	Factor of 75 increase
Tons of Garbage	121 million	160 million	marginal increase
Percentage of Oil Imported	23%	51%	Stupid
World CO2 Emissions	14 billion tons/yr	21 billion tons/yr	Climate Change

Other trends:

• 1970 1995: 35% decline in automobile air pollution
• 1995 new car has 1% the pollution of a 1970 car (which runs on leaded gas)
• Pollution abatement costs have gone up by factor of 7 since 1970
• Americans on average generate 4 pounds of garbage per person per day; landfill space has shrunk by a factor of 2.5 since 1970 (15,000 6,000 landfills)

Overview of The Fossil Fuel Problem

The World mirrors the US:

1992 Energy Consumption by Source

Resource	The US	The World
Oil	41%	38%
Coal	23%	26%
Natural Gas	24%	22%
Hydro	4%	7%
Nuclear	8%	6%

When does the Oil Run Out

Resource	US	World	US Lifetime
Oil	24 billion bbl	990 billion bbl	8 years
Natural Gas	0.16 tcf	4.9 tcf	9 years
Coal	265 gigatons	1140 gigatons	300 years

Note on Units:

• bbl = barrel of oil = 42 gallons
• tcf = trillion cubic feet
• gigaton = one billion tons

The US has:

• 2.5% of the world's remaining oil
• 3.5% of the world's remaining natural gas
• 19% of the world's remaining coal

Hence, it becomes clear that the major challenge which faces us is the large scale conversion of fossil fuel based energies to renewables ("green") on a time scale of 50 years

The Historial Price of Gas

Depletion Timescales:

At current consumption rate, total US Oil reserves can power us for 12 more years; Alaska alone has only 5 more years left in it:

• Known US Reserves as of 1990: = 36 billion barrels of oil
• Total population is 250 million 144 barrels per person
• Consumption Rate 3 billion barrels of oil per year 12 barrels per year per person
• 144/12 12 more years left therefore we require importation!

• By 1995 the Reserve Estimate had dwindled to 22.5 billion barrels of oil and the cosumption rate remains the same
• 22.5/3 = 7.5 years left so we are still on the trajectory
• Decline of our Reserve
• Where is the Oil in the US?:
  • Texas 26%
  • Alaska 26%
  • California 16%
  • Gulf Coast Off Shore 9%
  • New Mexico 3%
  • the remaining 20% is widely distributed

• On a World Wide Basis there are 400 bbl per person. Timescale when this resource is used up is dependent on the world wide consumption rate which is very difficult to estimate.

  A worst case scenraio is the "Third World" aspires to the US consumption rate and this consumption rate then doubles: there would only be 400/24 = 17 years although this is a worst case, most best case scenarios offer a resource exhaustion timescale which is at most 3-4 times this value (e.g. 50-70 years) left

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