Scientific American covers energy future

But Rosy Scenario seems to be an uncredited coauthor

The September SciAm looks at America’s, and the world’s energy future, primarily from a global warming perspective.

The issue, which is entirely about energy issues, is decent, but could have been better.

Peak Oil issues weren’t discussed in depth, let alone given a separate section of the magazine. And where EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Investment) was touched on in things such as ethanol, fuel from lignin or other biomass, biodiesel, etc., the authors of two of the sections I browsed leaned toward the optimistic side; on ethanol, for example, one pair of authors claimed an 18 percent positive EROEI before admitting that models range from 36 percent positive to 29 percent negative. Another article, in discussing the oil sands of Alberta, didn’t touch on either Peak Oil OR the relatively low EROEI of the sands.

The optimism appeared to leak out elsewhere, such as saying, in a chart, that a hydrogen fuel cell car could hit market in 15 years, and ignoring that plug-in hybrids will probably be more fuel efficient and more carbon-friendly.

Some of their other solutions, while not anywhere as dewy-eyed as Daniel Yergin is about Peak Oil, nonetheless all seem to lean optimistic on the global warming issue and the relative ease of fighting it. For instance, the mag suggests a 700-fold increase in wind energy to replace all of coal, if I recall correctly. That’s pretty huge.

And, while the authors do include its energy needs as part of the equation, finding the extraalternative electric power sources to power up plug-and-play hybrids only adds to the problem from the Peak Oil side.

I’m not an apocalypticist like James Kunstler, but I still find this issue of SciAm just a bit too optimistic.

Little of it is new, nor in-depth for readers of websites such as The Oil Drum. And, while a fair amount of it seems spot-on re the concerns, the answers do not quite put me at ease, or easiness.