The Energy Challenge

CONTEXT

SCALE

Humanity’s Top 10 Problems for Next 50 Years1. Energy2. Water3. Food4. Environment5. Poverty6. Terrorism and War7. Disease8. Education9. Democracy10.Population

Richard E. Smalley, “Our Energy Challenge”

CONTEXT: The Nobel Laureate’s View

More energy, less CO2

CONTEXT: The “Miller Lite” Summary

“Tastes great, less filling”

SCALE: How much more energy? How much less CO2? How long? What new technology? What new infrastructure?

Energy is one of the Grand Challenges of our time

Energy is not a monolithic issuesupply, 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 paybackEach 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 Summary

Energy – World Scale Dimensions

1 exajoule (EJ) = 10 Joules

1 Quadrillion BTU (Quad) = 10 BTU

1 Terawatt (TW)=10 Gigawatts=10 Megawatts=10 kilowatts

18

15

3

1 TWyr ≈ 30 Quads ≈ 30 EJWorld energy consumption ≈ 400 Quads/yrUS Energy Consumption ≈ 100 Quads/yr

6 9

US daily consumption: 20 million barrels of oil60 billion cubic feet of natural gas

3 million tons of coal

Energy content of 1 cubic foot of natural gas = 1000 BTUEnergy content of 1 gallon of gasoline = 125,000 BTU

“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!

+ 1.6%/yr

- 1.0%/yr

N. S. Lewis and D. G. Nocera, PNAS, 103, 15729 (2006)

World Energy Statistics and Projections

At minimum, we need to triple global energy supply in this century.

Supply Perspective:

1990: 12 TW 2050: 28 TW

Total Primary Power vs. Year

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 3/13/08http://www7.nationalacademies.org/energysummit/bingaman_summit_ppt.pdf

Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) @ Summit on America’s Energy Future 3/13/08http://www7.nationalacademies.org/energysummit/bingaman_summit_ppt.pdf

• 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

Potential of Renewable Energy Resources

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 paybackBUT we cannot save our way to meeting the world’s future energy needs.