Energy and Society
(Chap. 6)
Energy use has grown much faster than population, a sign of increased development and living standards (e.g., growth in per capita consumption). While population double din the last century, energy use increased 14 times.
In these two lectures we examine: (1) environmental problems (and some social problems) associated with sources and sinks in energy use; (2) the “energetics of societies” (the relationship between energy use and development), (3); policy and geo-politics of oil, the energy form most widely traded on global markets, and (4) energy use behavior.
•Source Problems: energy resource supply issues are more complicated and subtler now than argued in 1960s and 1970s when the main concern was simply running out. For example, known reserves have more than doubled since the pessimistic estimates of the 1970s set off big concerns about running out of oil. Estimates now that oil economic reserves will be mostly consumed somewhere between 2030 and 2070 (say 2050 or so----go back to mineral discussions in Chap 3 to recall the many uncertainties associated with any non-renewable resource depletion estimate---I’ll ask for them in regard to oil on the final exam). Natural gas goes with oil so its depletion estimates are similar, and coal is widely abundant, and limited more by it dirty nature (a sink problem) than by its availability (source).
Oil is single largest source of energy (30%, and 22% each for natural gas and coal; plus 25% of energy from nuclear, hydropower, wind, solar and traditional fuels like wood and animal dung).
We’ll return to geo-poltical source problems later, but
simply note here that many sources that make up the increase in estimates since
the 1970s are in hard-to-get-at and/or environmentally sensitive places like
the tundra of Russia’s Siberia or off-shore.
•Sink Problems: So, supplies may not be limiting as much as thought in the 1970s oil and energy crises, but some sink problems are getting worse; global warming; ocean pollution especially from oil spills as more oil is transpor\ted (one off coast of France in the news during these lectures); and pollution from especially coal burning in several developing nations, like China (p. 228-229). A few sinl problems have improved: Nox and SOX emissions in many n MDCs have been reduced by fuel swicthing (coal to natural gas), scrubbing technologies, and associated laws like clean air and acid rain policies.
Types of energy
sources:
Fossils Fuels:
•Oil is chief global source from fossil fuel,
it has a high net useful energy (net energy after discovery, extracting, processing and transporting) and high energy content (BTUs per mass or bulk—this makes it more transportable than many fuels, so we have a global oil market); its distillates (e.g., gasoline) are useful in transportation applications ; maybe economically depleted by 2030-2070; and brings with it geo-political problems associated with its geography and trade (discussed more in next lecture).
•Coal: most plentiful fossil fuel; high net useful energy mainly because it is easy to find and typically not transported long distances because it is widely distributed. Has medium energy content; but is the dirtiest fossil fuel; supplies many LDCs
•Natural has: moderate reserves, often associated with oil; medium to high net useful energy because generally not transported long distances, often thru relatively efficient pipelines; high energy content; most clean-burning of fossil fuels; useful in any applications (industrial, space heating, and more limited in transport) but hard to transport in bult between continents (must be liquified and kept cold kin pressurized tanks, not much is moved this way and many ports, especially in US, will not accept LNG because of danger of explosion).
•Nuclear: (6% of world energy; 17% of all electricity) – a very controversial source; high energy context, but the source, uranium, requires lots of refining and is thinly distributed; perceived risks of hazards like melt-downs most problematic, (TMI, Chernobyl); plus less well-known problems like waste disposal (must be carefully stored awayf from people and the bio-sphere for hundreds to thousands of years) ;plus the risks and costs of decommissioning contaminated plants. Probably less and less economical in the futre, so maybe.
Renewables: (we’ll
talk about three)
•Hydropower (about 20% of global electrivity); requires expensive dam and reservoir construciton, but relatively low technology, and moderate to high energy yield, fairly reliable (constant) except in drought periods, and easy to operate and maintian. Environmental costs of larger dams and reservoirs the main problem. Mosdt always centrtalized systems.
•Wind: low energy yield, not easy to translate wind blowing across the land or ocean into electricity, and is intermittanly available, so not that efficvient. But relatively easy technology that can be widely dispersed, thru individualized systems. Clean! Unless you don’t like the wind turbines as visual pollution, unwanted land use (LLU’s: locally unwanted land uses), or hazards to birds.
•Solar: moderate energy content and efficiency, subject to improved technology as its economics improved compared to fossil fuels. Useful for electricity and for direct heating of air (space heating) and water. Clean, but intermittant, and not as useable in some cloudy and high latitude locations. Can be widely dispersed in individual systems on every house top.
“The Energetics of
Societies:
The main point here is that energy use obviously increases,
often on a per capita and per unit of production basis, as societies develop,
becoming more industrial over time. This is: –Energy Intensity (per unit economic output)
(fig. 6.2) and suggests a rather strict requirement of development---maybe even that you can’t develop without this linear increase in energy use. But the second main point is that the precise rise in energy use differs among high-energy-use societies, so there is some evidence that alternative paths are possible, illustrated in Fig. 6.3 that compares per capita gross national product to energy use for indusdtrialized countries. Bnote that countries with similar levels of development (per capita GDP above, say, $5,000) show a wide range of energy use—there are different paths!).
per
capita quality of life not always = more energy
Several geo-political and political-economic aspects of energy use raise source problems, especially for oil and nuclear
First, there is a big north-south disparity, with MDCs hosting 1/5 of global pop but using ¾ of global energy. Not unlike other MDC/LDC tensions, and this one showed up in the negotiations over global warming mitigation policies. The US stands out here too: with 1/20 pop, and ¼ of energy use (and US became less efficient in 1990s, due mostly to a loss of efficiency in automobiles).
Second, the geo-politics of oil are complicated and problematic.
First, note that oil is globally traded, so increases or decreases in supply certainty affect the “global price”, even if you’re not using oil from a particular area.
Then recall the map shown in class (I’ll try to get it on the web in lecture notes) from the 11/9 New York Times Magazine: oil reserves are disproportionately located in the Mideast, especially in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, and Iraq---countries in the news associated with political tensions b/w the US and fundamentalist Muslim countries; these countries’ attitude toward Israel, and US policies toward Israel. Saudi Arabia, our biggest source, sends 1.7 million barrels a day to the US, and has reserves of over 250 billion barrels!
Two additional issues show up in the map, and in the maps from Newsweek about Iraq’s and Russia’s potential role in global oil supply. Newsweek was suggesting that our fight with Iraq is at least partly associated with the idea that a more friendly regime there would add to global supplies and thus reduce the price. A “freed and democratic” Iraq could add up to 800,000 barrels of oil a day to US imports (almost half of the 1.7 mbd now coming from Saudi Arabia). This addition can reduce global prices and make us less dependent on other countries in the Mideast (perhaps the assumption here would be that an occupied and reformed Iraq is more stable than other countries in the region). Another entanglement comes with the potential pf Russia’s large, mostly untapped, reserves (over 50 billion barrels). Increased Russian production could reduce our dependency on the Mideast, but requires that we get more closely aligned with a former cold war enemy and a country that comes with lots of its own political baggage (e.g., the Chetnya situation).
•Personal
and household energy consumption
behavior (238-42)—read this section closely!
National policy and international geo-politics obviously matter in the energy equation, but so does individual and household use behavior (just as with water resources). In the US with much of our energy use tied up in transportation, heating and lighting, individual choice really matters. So, we’ll talk about behavior briefly.
Harper suggest two main models of human behavior:
The Economic-rationality model: posits that people make rational choices among economic options; so what really matters is the cost of an energy source and use and its alternatives. One results of the rapid rise of energy prices in the 1970s and early 1980s was a real drop in use and an increase in efficiency. So, PRICE MATTERS. But it does not explain all use, and some segments of the pop did not respond to price increases (their use was “inelastic” the economists would say), why?
•The Attitude-behavior consistency model: people’s choices are guided by tradition, experience, culture, education, etc. not just price. A household in “Twin Bridges” New Jersey showed differences of as much as 2 to 1 in energy use between similar households in the same town. Other studies showed that attitudes may lean toward conservation, but actual behavior did not, especially as the effort required or cost increased (p. 240).
Several attitude-behavior studies have shown that voluntary/educational approaches to modifying use behavior have not been very effective in the U.S.
Another factor is structural features of society, both technology and policy. Maybe people want to conserve (attitude) but simply can’t because their physical options (technology) are limited. Design, engineering, and technology structure people’s energy use (e.g., building design, code; appliance efficiency): all of these limit our choices and sometimes get in the way of efficiency. Even urban planning matters—how much driving people have to do to live.