The Energy Challenge

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1 The Energy Challenge Farrokh Najmabadi Prof. of Electrical Engineering Director of Center for Energy Research UC San Diego September 26, 2007 With Thanks to Dr. Steve Koonin, BP for energy charts

2 Energy and Well Being

3 Energy use increases with Economic Development US Primary Energy per capita (GJ) Australia Russia France Japan S. Korea UK Ireland Malaysia Greece Mexico China Brazil 0 India 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 35,000 40,000 GDP per capita (PPP, $2000) With industrialization of emerging nations, energy use is expected to grow ~ 4 fold in this century (average 1.6% annual growth rate)

4 Quality of Life is strongly correlated to energy use. HDI: (index reflecting life expectancy at birth + adult literacy & school enrolment + GNP (PPP) per capita)

5 There is a large disparity in energy use Worldwide Average power consumption per person = 2,350 Watts Use is very unevenly distributed USA - 10,500 Watts California - 7,300 Watts UK - 5,200 Watts China - 1,650 Watts (growing 10% pa) India Watts Bangladesh Watts

6 Source: IEA World Energy Outlook billion people (over 25% of the world s population) lack electricity:

7 Distances travelled to collect fuelwood in rural Tanzania; the average load is around 20 kg Source: IEA World Energy Outlook 2006

8 Source: IEA World Energy Outlook 2006 Deaths per year (1000s) caused by indoor air pollution (biomass 85% + coal 15%); total is 1.5 million over half children under five

9 Annual deaths worldwide from various causes Source: IEA World Energy Outlook 2006

10 Quality of Life is strongly correlated to energy use. HDI: (index reflecting life expectancy at birth + adult literacy & school enrolment + GNP (PPP) per capita) Typical goals: HDI of 0.9 at 3 toe/cap for developing countries. For all developing countries to reach this point, would need world energy use to double with today s population, or increase 2.6 fold with the 8.1 billion expected in 2030.

11 World Primary Energy Demand is expect to grow substantially World Energy Demand (Mtoe) Data from IAE World Energy Outlook 2006 Reference (Red) and Alternative (Blue) scenarios. World population is projected to grow from 6.4B (2004) to 8.1B (2030). Scenarios are very sensitive to assumption about China.

12 Energy supply will be dominated by fossil fuels for the foreseeable future Annual Growth Rate (%) Mtoe 18,000 Other Renew ables ,000 14,000 12,000 Biomass & waste Hydro ,000 Nuclear 0.7 8,000 6,000 Gas 2.0 4,000 Oil 1.3 2, Coal Total Source: IEA World Energy Outlook 2006 (Reference Case), Business as Usual (BAU) case

13 Some groups claim that we are running out of fossil fuels.

14 IEA study indicates that we are not running out of fossil fuels in the short term 6,000 Yet to Find Reserves & Resources (bnboe) 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 0 Unconventional Yet to Find Proven R/P Ratio 41 yrs. Unconventional Yet to Find Proven R/P Ratio 67 yrs. Proven R/P Ratio 164 yrs. Oil Gas Coal Short term issue is the distribution of fossil fuels, i.e., Energy Security. Long term issue is availability of liquid fuels for transportation.

15 Energy Security- World-wide Oil Flow

16 Energy security natural gas Global LNG flows

17 California and Baja California becoming major importer of LNG

18 CO 2 concentration in the atmosphere is rising due to fossil fuel use The global temperature is increasing There is a plausible causal connection between CO 2 concentration and global temperature (global warming) But this is a ~1% effect in a complex, noisy system Scientific case is complicated by natural variability, ill-understood non-linear behavior, etc.

19 Global Warming: The Earth is getting warmer. Green bars show 95% confidence intervals J. Hansen et al., PNAS 103: (26 Sept 2006)

20 CO 2 concentration will grow geometrically! The earth absorbs anthropogenic CO 2 at a limited rate The lifetime of CO 2 in the atmosphere is ~ 1000 years The atmosphere will accumulate emissions during the 21 st Century Impact of higher CO 2 concentrations is uncertain ~ 2X pre-industrial is a widely discussed stabilization target (550 ppm) Reached by 2050 under IEA Reference Scenario shown. To stabilize CO 2 concentration at 550 ppm, emissions would have to drop to about half of their current value by the end of this century This in the face of a five fold increase of energy demand in the next 100 years (1.6% per year emissions growth) Modest emissions reductions only delay the growth of concentration (20% emissions reduction buys 15 years). Reducing emissions is an enormous, complex challenge; technology development must play the central role.

21 U.S. Annual Energy Use By Sectors

22 U.S. Annual CO 2 Emission from the Energy Consumption

23 Many sources contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases It is more important to consider Emissions instead of Energy end-use.

24 Technologies to meet the energy challenge do not exist Improved efficiency and Conservation Huge scope but demand has always risen faster due to long turn-over time. Renewables (will be discussed in follow-up lectures) Intermittency, cost, environmental impact. Carbon sequestration Requires handling large amounts of C (Emissions to 2050 =2000Gt CO 2 ) Fission (will be discussed in follow-up lectures) fuel cycle and waste disposal Fusion (will be discussed in follow-up lectures) Probably a large contributor in the 2 nd half of the century

25 In Summary,

26 In a CO 2 constrained world uncertainty abounds No carbon-neutral commercial energy technology is available today. Carbon sequestration is the determining factor for fossil fuel electric generation. A large investment in energy R&D is needed. A shift to a hydrogen economy or carbon-neutral syn-fuels is also needed to allow continued use of liquid fuels for transportation. Problem cannot be solved by legislation or subsidy. We need technical solutions. Technical Communities should be involved or considerable public resources would be wasted The size of energy market ($1T annual sale, TW of power) is huge. Solutions should fit this size market 100 Nuclear plants = 20% of electricity production $50B annual R&D represents 5% of energy sale

27 Thank you! Any Questions?