Abstract
This chapter focuses on the importance of fossil fuels (coal, gas, and oil) and especially petroleum (meaning natural gas and oil, or sometimes just oil). First we want to ask why petroleum, and especially oil? Why has petroleum been so important, and why is it so hard to unhook ourselves from it? To do that we need to look more broadly for a moment at the energy situation that has faced, and that faces, humanity. Solar energy, either directly or as captured by plants, was and is the principal energy available to run the world or the human economy. It is enormous in quantity but diffuse in quality. As we have developed in the previous chapter, the history of human culture can be viewed as the progressive development of new ways to exploit that solar energy using various conversion technologies, from spear points to fire to agriculture to, now, the concentrated ancient energy of fossil fuels. Until the past few 100 years human activity was greatly limited by the diffuse nature of sunlight and its immediate products, and because that energy was hard to capture and hard to store. Now fossil fuels are cheap and abundant, and they have increased the comfort, longevity, and affluence of most humans, as well as their population numbers [1].
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Literature
Derived, with substantial modifications from Hall, C., P. Tharakan, J. Hallock, C. Cleveland and M. Jefferson. 2003. Hydrocarbons and the evolution of human culture. Nature 426: 318–322. Updates on EROI are available in a special issue of the Journal Sustainability (in press).
Munasinghe, M. 2002. The sustainomics trans-Âdisciplinary meta-framework for making development more sustainable: applications to energy issues. Int. J. Sustain. Dev. 5, 125–182.
Interlaboratory Working Group. 2000. Scenarios for a Clean Energy Future <http://www.ornl.gov/ORNL/Energy_Eff/CEF.htm> (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory LBNL-44029, Berkeley, California).
Hall, C. A. S., Lindenberger, D., Kummel, R., Kroeger, T. and Eichhorn, W. 2001. The need to reintegrate the natural sciences with economics. BioScience 51, 663–673.
Tharakan, P. J., Kroeger, T. and Hall, C. A. S. 2001. Twenty-five years of industrial development: a study of resource use rates and macro-efficiency indicators for five Asian countries. Environ. Sci. Policy 4, 319–332.
Kaufmann, R. K. 2004. The mechanisms for autonomous increases in energy efficiency: a cointegration analysis of the US energy/GDP ratio. Energy J. 25:63–86.
Smulders, S. and de Nooij, M. 2003. The impact of energy conservation on technology and economic growth. Resource Energy Econ. 25, 59–79
Sadorsky, P. Oil price shocks and stock market activity. 1999 Energy Econ. 21, 449–469. See also Hall C. and Groat, A. 2010. The Corporate Examiner 37: 19–26.
Tissot, B. P. and Welt, D. H. 1978. Petroleum Formation and Occurrence. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Campbell, C. J. and Laherrère, J. H. 1998. The end of cheap oil. Sci. Am. 278, 78–83.
United States Geological Survey (USGS) 2003. The World Petroleum Assessment 2000 <www.usgs.gov>
United States Geological Survey (USGS) 2000. United States Department of Energy Long Term World Oil Supply <http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/presentations/2000/long_term_supply/index.htm>
Hubbert, M. K. Energy Resources (Report to the Committee on Natural Resources) (National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, 1962).
Hallock, J., Tharakan, P., Hall, C., Jefferson, M. and Wu, W. 2004. Forecasting the availability and diversity of the geography of oil supplies. Energy 30:2017–201. John Hallock, personal communication.
Energy Information Administration, US Department of Energy. 2003. International Outlook 2003. Report No. DOE/EIA-0484(2003), Table 16 at <http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/oil.html>
Lynch, M. C. 2002. Forecasting oil supply: theory and practice. Q. Rev. Econ. Finance 42, 373–389.
Bartlett, A. 2000. An Analysis of U.S. and World Oil Production Patterns Using Hubbert-Style Curves. Mathematical Geology 32: 1–17.
Brandt, A. R. 2007. Testing Hubbert. Energy policy 35: 3074–3088.
Kaufmann, R. K. and Shiers, L. D. 2008. Alternatives to conventional crude oil: When, how quickly, and market driven? Ecological Economics, 67: 405–411.
Nashawi, I. S., A. Malallah and M. Al-Bisharah. 2010. Forecasting world crude oil production using multicyclic hubbert model. Energy fuels 24: 1788–1800.
Kaufmann, R. K. and Cleveland, C. J. 2001. Oil Production in the lower 48 states: economic, geological and institutional determinants. Energy J. 22, 27–49.
Kaufmann, R. K. 1991. Oil production in the lower 48 states: Reconciling curve fitting and econometric models. Res. Energy 13, 111–127.
Hallock, J., Tharakan, P., Hall, C., Jefferson, M. and Wu, W. 2004. Forecasting the availability and diversity of the geography of oil supplies. Energy 30:2017–201.
Cleveland, C. J., Costanza, R., Hall, C. A. S. and Kaufmann, R. 1984. Energy and the United States economy: a biophysical perspective. Science 225, 890–897.
Gagnon, N., C. A.S. Hall, and L. Brinker. 2009. A Preliminary Investigation of Energy Return on Energy Investment for Global Oil and Gas Production. Energies 2(3), 490–503.
Cooper, C. and Pope, H.1998. Dry wells belie hope for big Caspian reserves. Wall Street J. 12 October.
Hakes. J. 2000. Long term world oil supply: a Presentation Made to the American Association of PetroleumGeochemists, New Orleans, Louisiana  <http:www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/presentations/2000/long_term_supply/index.htm>
Tainter, J. and Patzek, T. in press. The Gulf oil debacle and our energy future. Springer
Tainter, J. 1988. The Collapse of Complex Systems. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.
Hirsch, R., Bezdec, R. & Wending, R. (2005). Peaking of world oil production: impacts, mitigation and risk management. U.S. Department of Energy. National Energy Technology Laboratory. Unpublished Report.
Hirsch, R. 2008. Mitigation of maximum world oil production: Shortage scenarios. Energy policy: 36: 881–889.
Hall, C. A. S. (ed). Special issue of journal Sustainability on EROI (in press).
Prieto, P. and C. A. S.Hall. In preparation. EROI of Spain’s solar electricity system.
Murphy, D., C. A.S. Hall and R. Powers. 2010. New perspectives on energy return on (energy) invested (EROI) of corn ethanol. Environment, development and sustainability. 13:179–202.
Giampietro, M. and K. Mayumi. 2009. The biofuel delusion. Earthscan, London.
Smil, Vaclav. 2011. Global energy: The latest infatuations. American Scientist. 99:212–219.
Acknowledgments
We thank S. Ulgiati, R. Kaufmann, and C. Levitan for discussions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hall, C.A.S., Klitgaard, K.A. (2012). The Petroleum Revolution. In: Energy and the Wealth of Nations. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9398-4_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9398-4_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-9397-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-9398-4
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)