Energy Production, Consumption, and Consequences (1990) / Chapter Skim
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1. Supply, Demand, and Reappraisal
1. Supply, Demand, and Reappraisal
Pages 19-72
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From page 19... ...
1 Supply Demand, and ~appralsa1
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, Palmer Putnam argued that a prudent custodian of the world's energy future should assume energy demand would grow exponentially and that energy supply would turn out to be lower than the expansive estimates of supply then current. Although Putnam's maximum plausible world population by 2050 was only 6 billion people, his per capita growth rate for energy of approximately 3 percent per year was very high; this led to his "maximum plausible" annual demand for energy of 436 quads (1 quad = 1 quadrillion, or 10~5, Btu)
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From page 22... ...
Although an Office of Coal Research had been set up in 1971, nuclear energy strongly dominated the government's thinking about the future of energy. President Nixon's price freeze in 1971, followed by the Arab oil embargo in 1973, marked the beginning of the modern era of energy policy.
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From page 23... ...
Although the energy demand in the less developed and newly industrialized countries continued to expand, the entire noncommunist world became considerably more energy efficient: ~ ~ 1.3 in 1966 1970; ~ ~ -0.5 in 198~1983. The other characteristic trend has been the continued electrification of the United States and of the world.
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How can this extraordinary diminution in the growth of energy demand be explained a diminution so extreme as to call into question the usefulness of forecasting energy demand? Four schools of thought have arisen to explain away this discrepancy.
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. Because services are by and large less energy intensive than manufacturing, energy demand has flattened.
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Energy policy must, therefore, stress increased technical efficiency; but at least for doctrinal conservationists the government must mandate efficiency standards such as corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) and building efficiency performance standards (BEPS)
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Under the circumstances, we have much incentive to avoid big, threatening, energy supply projects in favor of demand management and much smaller, decentralized, supply options. By contrast, where the political structure is elitist, particularly in France with its Jacobin political tradition, large, centralized supply optionsespecially nuclear energy remain viable.
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Because our energy demand in 10 years cannot be predicted, we should not build anything very large. Thousand-megawatt power plants or 100,000-barrel-per-day synfuel plants are much too risky.
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However, even if the capital costs of small units are favorable, most would claim that operating costs will be higher for small plants than for large plants. One must therefore ask, does the trend toward incrementalism imply that energy particularly electrical energy—will always be more expensive in the United States than it is in countries where large plants continue to dominate?
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Yet it seems fair to say that U.S. energy policy during the coming decade will be demand dominated that the emphasis will be on trying to reduce demand.
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Thus, MITI expects the total energy demand in Japan to be at least 62 percent higher in 2030 than it is today and in its maximum-demand scenario 211 percent higher. Nor is Japan attracted to U.S.
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At least, we have discovered what has not worked, in particular that the magical talisman of nuclear energy simply was neither magical nor a talisman. It faltered because nuclear optimists ignored social, political, and economic realities.
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Government Printing Office. Energy Policy Project.
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Energy Policy 13~1~:51-59. World Energy Conference.
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was asked to set up the first energy conservation efforts in the federal government, including public education, federal agency actions, and research support. At the Federal Energy Office, a wide range of energy conservation efforts were initiated hurriedly, including what turned out to be long-term successes such as building and appliance standards, efforts to increase public awareness, research and development initiatives, and some policy initiatives.
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in the mid-1970s was a key activity in the national attempt to understand energy demand. The study (National Research Council, 1979)
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This may indeed explain why automakers are not investing in new energy efficiency improvements: car buyers are indifferent, partly because other features such as performance are more important to them and partly because further efficiency gains would contribute relatively little to the reduction in total operating costs. This does not mean that
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Policy intervention will most likely continue to be very difficult to accomplish, however. For example, the 1988 rollback of the corporate average fuel economy standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
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When cost changes occur slowly enough, energy substitution becomes viable. Future growth in energy demand depends on both prices and policy, but the most likely scenarios imply that growth rates for energy consumption will be lower than in the past.
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Marginal improvements in efficiency contribute less to total operating costs as fuel economy increases. SOURCE: National Research Council (1979)
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mind: Liquid fuels constitute by far the most important fuel resource If one looks back over the past 10 years, several reflections come to · The favorite scenario of the CONAES study (2 percent average GNP growth since 1975 and about 2 percent average increase in real energy prices) has turned out to be pretty accurate (see Bible 1~.
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. 0 O 1 1 1 1 1 1 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 FIGURE 5 Total primary energy use projections for SLY scenarios.
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Throughout the 1970s, actions taken to improve energy efficiency were often dramatic successes but occurred primarily in industry, transportation, commercial buildings, and residences when fuel was a very significant operating cost and, therefore, when the payback for such an investment could be realized very quickly. Actions were often accelerated even further by public policy incentives.
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industrial energy consumption. In 1980, 31.6 quads was consumed, rather than 46.2, because of unanticipated savings due to efficiency gains and structural changes.
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women in the work force grew from 36 to 56 percent between 1976 and 1986. Changes in the residential sector have contributed significantly to improved energy efficiency (see Figures 11 and l2)
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i ~.~:~r~.;i.~.2"~. O ~ /A 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982 1984 m ce o o LU at LL FIGURE 10 Imports of energy-intensive products (non-energy imports only; imported energy such as oil and natural gas is excluded)
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The fuel economy of new cars today is nearly double that of the past decade. Although the replacement rate of cars has slowed, considerable future efficiency gains are also possible and perhaps essential if we wish to further reduce oil imports.
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industry, such a capability, along with the existence of the SPR and improved energy efficiency, all serge to lessen vulnerability to short-term oil disruption, even as increased dependence on foreign oil returns. In the longer term, however, most trends in the economy, resource availability, and energy demand point toward dangerously increased vulnerabili~,r in the coming years.
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economy on foreign energy sources remains the nation's most critical long-term energy problem. The economic vulnerability resulting from this dependence is partly due to poor, albeit improving, energy efficiency and a lack of flexibility in responding quickly to changing energy supply and prices.
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1979. Alternative Energy Demand Futures to 2010.
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This chapter describes the relationship of electrification and related technologies to some current national themes: economic growth and productive efficiency, quality of life and social change, environmental improvements, international competitiveness, and the international energy resource base. Each of these topics involves a vast complex of factors; the key role of electrification in influencing their future course and outcome will be illustrated, along with some of the implications for the biosphere, technology, societal structure, and national energy policy.
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Although electricity was first used for lighting, the electrification of industry started in the early 1900s when the electric motor became a commercial product. The energy demand effect is shown in Figure 1.
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This phenomenon seems counterintuitive at first. Electricity generation is often perceived as a wasteful process, since about two-thirds of the primary energy input is rejected as waste heat at the power plant.
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data in Figure 4. A detailed study shows that the 1973 oil embargo, which initiated fuel cost increases and thus electricity price increases, resulted in an economic drive for more efficient use of electricity, primarily in industry.
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This phenom itive at first. Electricity generation is often perceiv since about two-thirds of the primary energy input at the power plant.
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FIGURE 3 U.S. electricity generation versus GNP (1947-1987)
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2.5 2.0 t~ 1.0 LL ~ 0.5 At: o ~ 0.0 1986 19w ~ 1 970 ~ 1 965 1 960 ~ for / MU '95:' 1 975 / /0 1 , 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 ~ I 1.0 1.4 1.8 2.2 2.6 3.0 3.4 3.8 GNP (trillions 1986 $) FIGURE 5 Electricity generation versus GNP in the USSR and Eastern Europe (196 1986~.
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From page 59... ...
projected the range of total energy demand to the year 2060 and the resulting fuel resource implications (Frisch, 1986~. This long-term projection serves to reveal some of the basic issues associated with the characteristically slow changes in energy systems, which generally have a SO-year time constant for significant change.
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About 31 percent of global primary energy was converted to electricity, with 33 percent efficiency in the industrial world (the Soviet Union and member nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and 25 percent efficiency in the developing countries.
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If one assumes that the efficiency of conversion or primary fuel lo electricity Is not improved, this would mean that during 204(}2060, electricity generation will require as much primary energy as total world energy consumption today. Skeptical as one may be about the credibility of such long-range projections, the historical trends of the past century suggest that these may be conservative.
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In 2060, this projection calls for 1.64 times as much annual fossil fuel consumption for electricity generation as was used in 1980. In Figure 10 it is assumed that the world's hydroelectric energy is 5 times as much and nuclear energy 18 times as much as was available in 1980.
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Perhaps the cost of electricity will eventually be the dominant determinant, driven by the economic scarcity of fossil fuels. In any event, the history of international calamities and uncertainties in long-range strategic planning would suggest that all technical options should be kept viable and that each may have a useful niche in the future global mix of fuels for electricity generation.
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Further, centralized generating plants based on fossil fuels usually permit a much higher quality of pollution control than is feasible with small dispersed activities. The goal, then, is to minimize pollution by promoting the most efficient generation and use of electricity.
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Three approaches are now being developed: the low-temperature phosphoric acid, and the hi~h-temnernt~,r~ molten carbonate and solid oxide fuel cells. Gas turbines work well with carbon monoxide.
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Of special interest is the potential of the more recent developments such as lasers, plasma torches, superconductors, and new materials. Lasers provide a highly collimated energy beam that can be tuned over a wide range of frequencies ranging from infrared to ultraviolet.
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Another long-range technical challenge is the fixation of nitrogen by electrical means. Low-cost fertilizer is one of the key requirements for meeting the food demands of the inevitably increasing global population.
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Further environmental benefit can be gained by using the by-product heat from electricity generation for urban district heating or other local uses. In the city, the air pollution created by the gasoline-fueled automobile has become an incipient health hazard.
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Electrified `'people movers" such as trains, subways, elevators, escalators, and walkways facilitate more efficient infrastructure for high-population-density urban communities. These few examples of the possible future implications of electrification have focused on their potential for societal change.
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We need a national energy policy whose directions can be maintained and supported for decades by both government and industry. As a more general comment, it should be emphasized that although applied science and engineering can provide the technical tools, their use depends on the initiatives and support of industrial, political, and social institutions.
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From page 71... ...
World Energy ConferenceConservation Commission. London: Graham & Footman.
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