Transcript Humanity`s Top 10 Problems for Next 50 Years

The Energy Challenge
CONTEXT
SCALE
CONTEXT: The Nobel Laureate’s View
Humanity’s Top 10 Problems for Next 50 Years
1. Energy
2. Water
3. Food
4. Environment
5. Poverty
6. Terrorism and War
7. Disease
8. Education
9. Democracy
10. Population
Richard E. Smalley, “Our Energy Challenge”
CONTEXT: The “Miller Lite” Summary
“Tastes great, less filling”
More energy, less CO2
SCALE: How much more energy?
How much less CO2?
How long?
What new technology?
What new infrastructure?
Energy Summary
Energy is one of the Grand Challenges of our time
Energy is not a monolithic issue
supply, demand, conservation, application, scale, location, independence,
environment, climate change, GDP, carbon intensity, infrastructure, technology,
policy, sustainability, public acceptance…
Fossil fuels will be important throughout this
century
Renewables are growing rapidly, but from a very
small base
Efficiency/conservation has the best payback
Each barrel of oil saved keeps $ in our pockets and ~1000 pounds of carbon dioxide
out of the atmosphere!
BUT we cannot save our way to meeting the world’s future energy needs.
Energy – World Scale Dimensions
1 exajoule (EJ) = 1018 Joules
15
1 Quadrillion BTU (Quad) = 10 BTU
3
6
9
1 Terawatt (TW)=10 Gigawatts=10 Megawatts=10 kilowatts
1 TWyr ≈ 30 Quads ≈ 30 EJ
World energy consumption ≈ 400 Quads/yr
US Energy Consumption ≈ 100 Quads/yr
Energy content of 1 cubic foot of natural gas = 1000 BTU
Energy content of 1 gallon of gasoline = 125,000 BTU
US daily consumption: 20 million barrels of oil
60 billion cubic feet of natural gas
3 million tons of coal
“We are not going to have energy
independence as long as the US relies
on the internal combustion engine.”
James R. Schlesinger
former Secretary of Energy
Coal use will increase under any foreseeable scenario because it is
cheap and abundant.
CO2 capture and sequestration is the critical enabling technology
that would reduce CO2 emissions significantly while also allowing
coal to meet the world’s pressing energy needs.”
- MIT report, “The Future of Coal” March 2007
Renewables will not play a large role in primary power generation
unless/until:
–technological/cost breakthroughs are achieved, or
–unpriced externalities are introduced (e.g., environmentally
driven carbon taxes)
Nate Lewis, Caltech
http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html
US Energy Mix
Electricity Generation (~40% of total):
50% Coal, 18% Natural gas, 3% Petroleum
Transportation Fuels (~30 % of total):
96% Petroleum
Very little overlap between energy sources for
these two dominant sectors!
World Energy Statistics and Projections
World energy statistics and projections ( N. S. Lewis and D. G. Nocera, PNAS, 103, 15729
Quantity
Definition
Units
2001* 2050
2100
N
Population
B persons
GDP
GDP
T $/yr
GDP/N
Per capita GDP
$/(person-yr) 7,470 14,850 27,320 + 1.6%/yr
/GDP
Energy intensity
W/($/yr)
0.294
0.20
0.15
Energy consumption rate
TW
13.5
27.6
43.0
Carbon intensity
KgC/(W·yr)
0.49
0.40
0.31
Carbon emission rate
GtC/yr
6.57
11.0
13.3
24.07
40.3
48.8
C/E
Equivalent CO2 emission rate GtCO2/yr
6.145
9.4
10.4
46
140¶
284||
- 1.0%/yr
* = (403.9 Quads/yr)·(33.4 GWyr/Quad)·(10–3 TW/GW) = 13.5 TW; and = (24.072 GtCO2/yr
GtC/GtCO2) = 6.565 GtC (adapted from ref. 1).
N. S. Lewis and D. G. Nocera, PNAS, 103, 15729 (2006)
= (869 EJ/yr)·(106 TJ/EJ)/(60·60·24·365 s/yr) = 27.5 TW [adapted from ref. 2 (Scenario B2)
= (1,357 EJ/yr)·(106 TJ/EJ)/(60·60·24·365 s/yr) = 43.0 TW [adapted from ref. 2 (Scenario B
Supply Perspective:
At minimum, we need to triple global
energy supply in this century.
Total Primary Power vs. Year
1990: 12 TW 2050: 28 TW
http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html
More Energy, but Less CO2
World in 2100 will need:
3X current energy production
<1/3 current CO2 emissions
= 10X less CO2 emitted per unit of energy
used
Carbon-Free Primary Power Need
http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html
= 7.4GtC
= 1.9GtC
Sir David King, 2007 presentation to AAAS
Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) @ Summit on America’s Energy Future 3/13/08
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/energysummit/bingaman_summit_ppt.pdf
Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) @ Summit on America’s Energy Future 3/13/08
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/energysummit/bingaman_summit_ppt.pdf
Potential of Renewable Energy Resources
• Wind
- Has potential to meet a large fraction of electricity needs
- Reliability, storage, transmission issues
• Solar
- Has potential to meet a significant fraction of electricity needs
- Suitable for distributed generation
- Reliability, storage issues
• Biomass
- Has potential to replace fraction of petroleum for transportation
- Questionable energy benefit for corn ethanol
- Land and water issues, competition with food production
There is no single energy source or technology
that will “solve” our energy and environmental
needs
We need to develop a range of technologies to
fuller potential
Technology alone is likely not enough
Efficiency/conservation has the best payback
BUT we cannot save our way to meeting the world’s future
energy needs.