Global fossil fuel and US gas production and forecasts

The Amazon forest is burning. If you look at the satellite map in Figure 1, you will see that Brazil's tropical forest is being methodically plundered and destroyed by people who mean business. That Brazilian  "friend" of our own destroyer of the world is doing his best to encourage the burning and empower his criminal supporters. But on the multiple aerial photos of the forest, I also see drought. Parts of the rain forest are dry and ready to be burned. Global climate change is likely a contributing factor. In summary, a brutal liquidation of the priceless rain forest by the criminal farmers and ranchers running amok + climate change and drying of the forest = a global-scale calamity.

From Mike Haywood's collection of course.

And so that you have a clearer concept of what is happening here, president Trump is directly and personally implicated in the big Amazon burn. By blocking the Midwestern farmers from selling soybeans to China and US ranchers from selling beef to China, he created a giant new market in Brazil for these two commodities. The Brazilian farmers and ranchers are trying to satisfy the increasing demand by starting 80,000 forest fires. My warm regards go to the 70% of US farmers, who helped elect Trump.

In summary, we are fulfilling our destiny as a species by finishing off what we are genetically wired to do. We have always burned through the environment in which we live. The difference today is that the entire planet is our environment, so - naturally - we will burn the planet. This way, the 1.3 billion Chinese will also eat Brazil and the western hemisphere, which will switch to giant droughts all the way to Arizona and Colorado.  I will likely have to sell my beloved property in Austin, Texas, and move northwest to the coast.

Figure 1. The orgy of burning the largest tropical forest left on the planet Earth.  This picture is similar to what I have seen on the infrared satellite images from Indonesia since 1997. (Thus my 2007 OECD dinner speech.) From the map, it is clear that by commanding their murderous private militias, the rich ranchers and speculators are burning the forest from the edges inward and from the river waterways out. China needs lots of soybeans now that American farmers can no longer export our soybeans. China also needs lots of beef for their fast food joints. The Brazilian criminals empowered by Bolsonaro oblige, just like the Colombian drug lords obliged by exporting 150-200 tons/year of cocaine to their needy American customers in Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, etc. At least, the old narcos did not routinely burn the jungle in Colombia. Image source: The New York Times, "What Satellite Imagery Tells Us About the Amazon Rain Forest Fires," 23 August, 2019.

If you think that criminal behavior of the rich and powerful is new to Brazil, please listen to this short podcast with a priest in Brazil, who may no longer be among the living. With hidden cameras, my friend, Father Tiago, and others took these damning photographs of the violence visited on the poor and helpless by the same murderous thugs who are burning the forest today. During the day they masquerade as, say, policemen, and at night they are paid enforcers and killers for the rich landowners. I do pray that Father Tiago is safe. While I am writing these words with tears in my eyes, millions of the noble Notre Dames of nature are being annihilated by the Brazilian death eaters, and billions of good people everywhere are going shopping. And so it goes...

But in distress I digressed. This post is closely related to the previous one that covers global primary energy and US oil production and forecasts. Here, I will only reiterate that the cost of my forecasts will be astronomical over the next 20 years, and I doubt that the global economy will be able to support spending 14 trillion dollars for new oil and 8 trillion dollars for new gas. To put these numbers into perspective, my forecast in Figures 2 and 3 predicts that roughly two trillion dollars will be spent on drilling and completing the US shale wells alone.  The US shales will deliver almost all of American oil and gas production in the future. If one were to scale up the US shale drilling program to the world, the overall cost of the new development projects would be two times higher than the $22 trillion over the next 20 years I have quoted from IEA, BP, OPEC et al. Forty four trillion dollars is 1/2 of the world GDP in 2018.

Figure 2. Rate of drilling of horizontal shale wells in the US. The black curve is the past drilling rate from DrillingInfo. My forecast is to continue at a smaller average rate of 700 well per month for the next 20 years. Data sources: DrillingInfo, EIA, Baker Hughes, last accessed March 10, 2019.

Figure 3. As a result of the drilling program in Figure 2, 270,000 horizontal wells will be drilled. Since 82,000 wells were already drilled by 2018, 190,000 new wells will be drilled. At $10 million per well on the average over the next 20 years, this translates into 1.9 trillion dollars just for the well drilling and completions, or 3 times the GDP of Saudi Arabia. Data sources: DrillingInfo, EIA, Baker Hughes, last accessed March 10, 2019.

US gas production

Before I show you the global forecast of gas production, let's look at dry natural gas production in the US, depicted in Figures 4-7. The story here is a little different than that of the US oil production. By 2040, we will produce almost 400 EJ more as natural gas than as oil. This difference will be huge, if  both of my optimistic US forecasts turn out to be true. Only time will tell, but I want to sound optimistic for a change.

Figure 4. History of natural gas production in the US. Notice that the most recent production increases are almost entirely due to shales. Also notice that the 2018 shale cycle is more of a spike in comparison to the "2016" cycle that in turn is much narrower than the two broad conventional cycles. The 2016 cycle started in earnest in 2004 and peaked in 2016, hence its name.  Hidden in this cycle is also offshore gas. No new wells and no new production are present in this plot. Data source: EIA, last accessed July 19, 2019.

Figure 5. Historical cumulative gas production in the US obtained from integration of the curves in Figure 4. The 2018 shales provide the highest production rate ever, but not much of a cumulative increment. Data source: EIA, last accessed July 19, 2019.

Figure 6. My forecast of natural gas production in the US until 2050. The three very large future gas cycles will deliver each as much gas as the 2016 cycle. They are shorter but broader than the 2016 cycle. This means that somewhat fewer new gas wells will be drilled, but the future wells will be substantially "better" than the current ones.  In summary, my US natural gas production forecast is quite generous. The ANWR gas is included, but matters little.  Data sources: Vaclav Smil, EIA and BP, last accessed July 19, 2019.

Figure 7. My forecast of cumulative gas production in the US. The large future cycles will produce 0.4 zettaJ more gas, equal to 400 EJ, or 4 years of primary energy demand in the US. Since 1 EJ = 0.9265 Tscf, my predicted EUR of natural gas in the US is 2000 Tscf. Data source: EIA, last accessed July 19, 2019.

Global gas production

The giant fundamental gas Gaussian is still increasing, see Figures 8 and 9.  With the large future increases of gas production around the world, many-fold the US production level, natural gas will continue to be the fuel of choice for another century or so.

Figure 8. Global gas production forecast. For the time being, I have added one giant Gaussian, many time the projected future Us gas production. Data sources: Vaclav Smil, EIA and BP, last accessed July 19, 2019.

Figure 9. Cumulative global gas production is projected to reach an astronomical 11 zettaJ by the year 2040, and 17 zettaJ by the year 2100. Data sources: Vaclav Smil, EIA and BP, last accessed July 19, 2019.

Global coal production

Coal is the oldest fossil fuel of choice. Because of the very long and complex history of coal production worldwide, I had to use five Gaussians to resolve it, see Figures 10 and 11.  This complexity reflects a multitude of mines around the world that produced anthracite, hard coals, and now are producing mostly soft coals. Coal is far from done as fuel of choice for electric power stations. In fact, new mines are being opened in Australia to feed the ever hungrier India.  China will continue to import more coal as her mines are depleted and become uneconomic.

Figure 10.  Global coal production forecast.  The past production of coal is most complex among the three fossil fuels, and was resolved with 5 Gaussians.  The future coal production is lumped into one giant Gaussian from the new mines in Australia, Botswana, Mongolia, etc. Data sources: Vaclav Smil, EIA and BP, last accessed July 19, 2019.

Figure 11. Cumulative global coal production forecast.  Just like global gas, cumulative coal will reach an astronomical 11 zettaJ by the year 2040 and 13 zettaJ by the year 2100. Data sources: Vaclav Smil, EIA and BP, last accessed July 19, 2019.

Conclusions

Global climate change continues to accelerate. The environmental carnage inflicted by the human hordes, 7.7 billion strong, on the planet's major ecosystems is staggering. Very likely, humanity may be beyond the point of no return to biological and financial self-destruction. The ever-cautious scientists, bullied by the influential global fools, have consistently underpredicted the impacts of climate change on the future fate of humanity. (We don't really care about all other species, do we?) 

In this series of nine^** posts, I have investigated whether humanity will sober up and transit to the less power-intensive lifestyles everywhere. To do so, will require a strong global control of birthrates in India, most of Africa, and many other places. Our survival also depends on depowering the richer countries and a wise transition to renewables everywhere. There is scant evidence that any of these globally-coordinated actions can happen, given the political reality in so many countries. If you still don't understand what I am implying here, let me clarify: Humanity is on a straight short path to committing global suicide by massive social unrest, financial collapse, war and ensuing starvation.

I have presented a restrained, but rather optimistic version of a possible future of global and US production of fossil fuels. Still, given the constraints I imposed on my vision of the future fossil fuel production, global carbon dioxide emissions will be cut by half by the year 2040.  It remains to be seen if  the robust continuing fossil fuel production will pay for the grand transition to renewables.  Based on Part III of the seven-part Green New Deal essay, I have grave doubts. Figure 12 depicts a possible transition of modern humanity to living happily ever after.

^**Ten posts, if I count my Requiem for the Beautiful Earth that started it all.

Figure 12.  A historical, 800-year perspective of our fossil fuel civilization with my forecast of future fossil fuel production. Unless we change our current primary power supply mix to something else fast and decrease in numbers even faster, future looks bleak for human race. 

P.S. (8/28/2019)  Encouraged by their Brazilian colleagues, the similar African militias, this time driven mostly by the greedy Chinese companies, continue to burn the African tropical forests. As horrific as it is, I used the similar satellite images that showed the same equatorial Africa carnage to illustrate my alarm in the 2007 OECD paper, see Figure 18 there and compare it with Figure 13 here. That other figure shows in higher magnification the same Angola-Democratic Republic of Congo area 12 years earlier. In 2007, the leading death eaters were the European and American multinational companies burning forest for oil palm plantations that would produce the clean, environmentally friendly biodiesel for the European and American lobotomized green fools. Nothing has changed!

Figure 13. A NASA satellite map on Tuesday 08/27/2019 showed Central Africa as a thick fiery splotch, but experts cautioned that each dot represents a distinct fire in a large geographic region. Also see the Amazon forest lighting up, and the never ceasing fires on North Sumatra, West Java, Kalimantan, and West Sulawesi. North Madagascar is also on fire. Thus, the largest biodiversity islands on the planet are being exterminated by the deadly human scum (in the words of Father Tiago himself). When will they be stopped?! Source: the New York Times, citing NASA.

P.S.P.S. (8/28/2019) I stand corrected. Something has changed. In 2007, Siberia was not on fire. The whole world was not on fire.

P.S.P.S.P.S. (9/20/2019)  When I constrain my prediction of the future gas production in Figure 8 with the currently booked gas reserves, I have to decrease the height of the fundamental gas Gaussian.  The outcome is shown in Figures 14 and 15.

Figure 14. The height of the fundamental global Gaussian decreased from 165 EJ/year in Figure 8 to 150 EJ/year. Its growth rate increased, making this Gaussian a little narrower.  After this shrinkage, the fundamental Gaussian delivers a little more gas than the currently booked gas reserves.   

Figure 15. The fundamental Gaussian (green) is now constrained to deliver cumulative gas that is close to the currently booked reserves (black dotted line)

P.S.^3 (12/12/2019) The senseless meat grinder called the US gas shales is running out of cash to continue the insanely fast rate of drilling the uneconomic horizontal wells that are spaced too closely. The US O&G industry has brought the Red Queen syndrome to its logical extreme: Even if we borrow money faster than we can run, we are still losing ground.  There are other, much better solutions, but they fly in the face of the central dogma of the industry: "One f..ck today is worth to me more than one f..ck tomorrow, followed by one f..ck each day for the rest of my life."  Otherwise, this dogma is known as the time value of money. The infinitely greedy Wall Street firms and big banks played the key role in the imposition of this dogma on the industry.  My industry friends played along, because what would they do otherwise?  Admit that greed was not their second nature? Lose their companies in no time?

Alice is running ever faster with the Queen just to stand still.