Thu, September - 9 - 2010 |
(on a truly global perspective)
 |
|
|
|
The last two newsletters dealt with the issues surrounding the climate change discussion. Those who favor anthropogenic global warming blame the situation on the energy consumption of industrialized and developing countries. The greenhouse gases produced by the combustion of oil, natural gas and coal are blamed for the changes in climate that have been observed. In the last newsletter it was suggested that rather than spend considerable time and effort trying to prove or disprove the anthropogenic influence on climate change, that it would be better to direct more effort at developing energy technologies that did not increase greenhouse gases.
Much has been written about the potential for developing biofuels and biomass derived energy. Similarly there is a great deal of press and coverage for solar and wind energy. There is even considerable discussion about the role that nuclear energy could play. While considerable attention is being paid to developing energy from these sources, the likelihood that any or all of them will play a major part in United States energy in the next 10-20 years is limited. While petroleum will continue to be a major energy source in the future, global competition for this limited resource will continue to keep prices high. Similarly, natural gas will continue to be an energy source, but will likewise see significant increase in price resulting from increased global demand. The cheap energy source for the immediate future is to some a dirty word to others it is simply a four letter word; COAL.
Each year BP (formerly British Petroleum) issues a Statistical Review of World Energy. The latest review is available at: http://www.bp.com/productlanding.do?categoryId=6842&contentId=7021390 This review provides data about the proven reserves, yearly production and consumption of the major energy sources on a country and regional basis. Petroleum, natural gas, coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric resources are covered in the report. While there are no major surprises in the review, there are some interesting numbers. It certainly highlights the dependence of the US on petroleum based energy. At the end of 2005, the US consumption of oil was 20,655,000 barrels per day. This was up from a consumption of 17,725,000 barrels per day in 1995. Over the same period, US production went from 8,322,000 barrels per day in 1995 to 6,830,000 barrels per day in 2005. So consumption went up and production went down. Proven US reserves went from 36.4 thousand million* barrels in 1985 to 29.3 thousand million barrels at the end of 2005.
Not surprisingly the region with the largest proven oil reserves is the Middle East. Saudi Arabia leads with 264 thousand million barrels followed by Iran with 137 thousand million barrels and then Iraq and Kuwait with about 100 thousand million barrels each. The United Arab Emirates has reserves estimated at 97 thousand million barrels. In Africa, only Nigeria (36 thousand million barrels) and Libya (39 thousand million barrels) have significant reserves. The entire Asia-Pacific region has reserves of 40 thousand million barrels with China having the largest reserves at 16 thousand million barrels. Venezuela with 74 thousand million barrels of reserves dominates the Central and South America region that has a total of 104 thousand million barrels. With the current consumption of oil by the US it is clear to see the dependence on imported oil.
When it comes to natural gas reserves the situation is a little different. The big gorilla in natural gas is the Russian Federation with 48 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves, followed by Iran (27 trillion cubic meters) and Iraq (26 trillion cubic meters). US reserves are listed at 5.45 trillion cubic meters. Only two other countries have reserves between the US and Iraq and these are the United Arab Emirates with 6 trillion cubic meters and Saudi Arabia with 6.9 trillion cubic meters.
An interesting number contained in the BP report is the R/P ratio. This is the reserves of a resource at the end of a year divided by the production during the year. It estimates how long the reserves would last if no new reserves were found and production stayed constant. For oil, the US R/P ratio is 11.8 years while for natural gas it is 10.4 years, again assuming that production remains constant. The global R/P for oil is 40.6 years and for natural gas is 65.1 years. Unless there are significant new discoveries of oil and gas (possible) or the overall consumption of these declines significantly (not likely), the world will run out of these resources within the lifetime of those born this century.
So where does coal figure into this and why will it be the energy source for the immediate future? The BP review shows the global proven reserves of coal as 909 thousand million tonnes. The US has the largest reserves by far at 247 thousand million tonnes (27% of global). Only the Russian Federation (17.3%), China (12.6%), India (10.2%) and Australia (8.6%) have significant coal reserves. While the US is a large producer and consumer of coal, it is dwarfed by China. US coal production in 2005 was 576 million tonnes oil equivalent and consumption was 575 million tonnes oil equivalent. Chinese production and consumption numbers were 1108 million tonnes and 1082 million tonnes respectively. Even though the US consumes almost 20% of the global coal production the US R/P for coal is 240 years. For China it is 52 years. Chinese consumption of both coal and oil has almost doubled since 1995 whereas US consumption of oil and coal has increased 17% for oil and 14% for coal during the same timeframe.
Coal will continue to be the major energy source because it is used to produce electricity. As oil and natural gas become dear for transportation fuels and heating, the use of coal to produce electricity will increase. While solar, wind, nuclear and even biorefineries can produce electricity, the likelihood that they will contribute significantly to the electrical supply in the near future is doubtful. The cost and efficiency of solar conversion to electricity limit its broad scale adoption at this point. Use of solar for electrical generation will continue to grow, but at a slow pace relative to demand. Similarly wind power has great potential, but currently faces permitting and collection/transmission issues. Even though the US produces and consumes 29% of the global nuclear energy, the last commercial nuclear power plant brought on line in the US was in 1996. According to the Nuclear Energy Institute (http://www.nei.org/default.asp ), there are 31 to 36 new nuclear power plants in various stages of planning in the US. None are currently under construction.
Contrast this with plans for coal fired power plants. According to a report posted on the Department of Energy’s website dated January 24, 2007 (Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants, http://www.netl.doe.gov/coal/refshelf/ncp.pdf ), there are 159 coal fired power plants in the planning, permitting or construction stages in the US. Given that permitting, construction and start-up lead times for nuclear plants generally exceed those of coal fired plants, it is easy to conclude that the use of coal as an energy source will continue to increase and along with it generation of significant quantities of carbon dioxide.
The increasing demand for energy needs to be balanced against concerns of carbon dioxide generation. What is the solution? In the next newsletter some proposals to deal with anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions will be reviewed. Interestingly, a former Minister of Defense for Canada, Paul Hellyer, called on the governments of the world to disclose and use secret alien technologies to deal with future energy needs. In an article in the February 28, 2007 Ottawa Citizen, Mr. Hellyer indicated he believed alien technologies are known to various governments as a result of UFO crashes and he “would like to see what (alien) technology there might be that could eliminate the burning of fossil fuels within a generation….that could be a way to save our planet.” Don’t hold out too much hope for this solution.
* - The term thousand million is used in the BP report as the number “billion” in the UK is commonly used to denote a million millions.
Share with:
to subscribe and receive automatically periodical updates about new articles and reviews >>
send comments, notes, thoughts to feedback@knowledgeforaction.info
to inquire about contributing to KnowledgeForAction.info write to: proposals@knowledgeforaction.info
edited and managed by Knowledge for Action & Action for Knowledge
technical support by eLabora