GEOG 3000 Resource Management 23' Energy Resources: Types and Origins

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GEOG 3000 Resource Management23. Energy
Resources Types and Origins

• M.D. Lee CSU Hayward Fall 2002

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Energy resources

• Energy exists, it is neither created nor
  destroyed by us (1st law of thermodynamics).
• Energy is not produced by power stations or by
  photovoltaic cells or by internal combustion
  engines. They just convert what there is to a
  more useful form that meets our needs (it does
  work heating, pressing, pumping, etc.).
• When we put energy to work, it dissipates or
  attains a lower grade (2nd law of thermodynamics
  - the law of entropy) it goes from useful to
  useless.
• Our most important energy systems today all
  involve transforming chemical energy (created by
  thousands of years of storing up the suns
  energy) into heat, that can then be used to do
  useful work.
• These non-renewable fuels are being replaced at
  only a tiny fraction of the rate they are being
  converted to useless forms.
• There are renewable fuels, currently a small
  proportion of global production, with conversion
  balanced by replacement, governed by current,
  rather than geological, process cycling flows.

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Energy production and consumption

• Energy production - the conversion of energy from
  a natural energy source into a more useful form
  for humans (may have many steps e.g. crude
  oil?diesel ? heat ? steam pressure ?magnet
  rotation ? electromagnetic field ? electricity ?
  heat).
• Energy consumption - the transformation of this
  useful energy into a relatively useless form
  (i.e. random particle motion of atmospheric gases
  at ambient temperatures).
• Energy production efficiency useful energy
  output/energy input.

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Electricity generation
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How to power the way we live?
The past?
The future?
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Energy sources - Non renewables

• Oil liquefied decomposed, fossilized remains of
  organic material, esp. plants and microorganisms.
• Natural gas gaseous version of above.
• Coal solid version of above in various grades
  of carboniferous rock and near-rock.
• Oil shales, tar sands (mix of oil and sediments
  that can yield oil if heated or pressurized).
• Geothermal (theoretically is non-renewable since
  the earth cools as the heat is extracted away as
  steam or hot water but could last thousands of
  years depending on ratio of heat conductance to
  heat extraction).
• Nuclear power (needs a non-renewable fuel
  radioactive ores - but fast breeder reactors that
  use spent uranium to create plutonium mean it has
  vast potential).

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Energy Flow Fossil Fuels
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Oil and natural gas

• Exploited using land and sea-based wells.
• Roughly 1 trillion barrels of oil and 10,000
  trillion ft3 of gas are thought to be
  recoverable.
• Thus oil will last some 40 years and natural gas
  some 100 years at current rates but both will
  become increasingly expensive.
• Most of the easily recoverable oil is located in
  the Persian Gulf region.
• Oil supplies about 40 and gas about 24 of US
  energy needs. The majority of the oil is
  imported.
• Exploration for oil and gas uses satellites,
  sound waves, and test drillings to identify
  structural traps below ground.

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Oil and gas formation

http//www.umich.edu/gs265/society/fossilfuels.ht
m
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Natural gas

• Natural gas contains only a few different
  hydrocarbons and thus is relatively simply
  separated into methane, ethane, propane and
  butane.
• Household natural gas is a balanced mix of these
  different elements plus a smelling agent.
• Propane and butane are usually pressurized into
  liquid form and used for heating and cooking.
• Methane is often piped as a gas to users mostly
  for space heating, electricity generation and for
  chemical manufacture.
• Chemical plants are frequently located close to
  gas refineries on gas fields or at the end of gas
  pipelines.

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Crude oil

• Crude oil contains hundreds of different
  hydrocarbon compounds.
• They are separated out in a fractionation tower
  by heating the oil based on their respective
  densities, they rise and are siphoned off or
  condense out at different heights within the
  tower.
• Crude oil also contains petrochemicals which can
  be separated out by different processes to make
  fertilizers, plastics, rubber, paints,
  pesticides, medicines and synthetic fibers.
• Refineries and petrochemical plants are usually
  located side by side.

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Fractional distillation
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Oil production

• US oil is expensive to produce - our average well
  yields 20bpd whereas the average Saudi well
  yields 10,000 bpd.
• Primary production is where oil gushes out under
  its own pressure.
• Secondary production is where water or gas is
  pumped down under or above the oil to force it
  out.
• Tertiary production is where heat or chemicals
  are injected to make the remaining heavy, viscous
  oil flow out more freely.
• Oil mining (of shales and sands) is where oil
  bearing sediments are excavated and the oil
  heated or washed out of them.

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Oil and Gas Production
http//www.umich.edu/gs265/society/fossilfuels.ht
m
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Who has the Oil? - Regions
http//www.bp.com/centres/energy/world_stat_rev/oi
l/reserves.asp
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Coal

• Became the dominant fuel in the steam age of the
  1700s and the industrial revolution of the 1800s.
• Was used principally for transportation (trains)
  and for steel manufacture (blast furnaces).
• Was also used widely as a direct heat source for
  homes and later for centralized energy
  production.
• India and China are hoping to build their
  continued industrialization on coal.
• Coal varies by water content, non-combustible
  elements (esp. sulfur), carbon content and heat
  value.
• Coal was formed from swampy bogs where water
  prevented organic decomposition.
• The best kind is called anthracite and is hard
  and crystalline, and the least calorific is peat,
  a kind of soil.

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Coal production

• The US has the largest deposits of any nation
  (24).
• Global reserves will last about 200 years at
  present levels of use although perhaps there is
  enough to last 1,700 years worldwide!
• Coal seams can be from one inch to 100 ft thick.
• Where coal occurs within a few hundred feet of
  the surface it can be open-cast or strip mined.
• The industry currently favors mountain top mining
  (e.g. in the Virginias) as the most
  cost-effective (but damaging) form of production.
• Sub-surface or pit mining is the oldest form of
  mining - 40 of US coal is extracted this way.
• Pit mining leaves up to 50 of the coal below
  ground.

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Renewable fuel types
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Centralized renewables

• Some renewable energy can be generated at the
  large scale, at big power plants.
• Hydroelectricity water moving from higher
  elevations to lower elevations converts potential
  into kinetic energy via turbines spinning
  electromagnets (EMs).
• Wind farms vast numbers of interconnected
  impellors are pushed by the wind to spin many
  small and medium EMs.
• Solar thermal plants concentrate the suns UV
  rays with mirrors/prisms to boil liquids and
  drive turbines with steam.

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Centralized renewables

• Biomass burned to produce heat and/or steam -
  methane, fuelwood, alcohol from sugar-cane/corn,
  etc.
• Waste incineration combustible garbage burned
  for heat/steam.
• Hydrogen fuel production systems (solar based)
  uses sunlight to split H atoms from water and
  burn it in a fuel cell.
• Ocean thermal uses hot/cold differential to
  boil/condense ammonia and spin a turbine and an
  EM.
• Wave tide barrages harness the rising and
  falling tides or the regular pulsing of waves to
  push turbines/EMs.

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Other energy sources

• Decentralized renewables (small units, e.g.
  house)
• Solar photovoltaics chemically fused panels
  that produce flow of electrons from sunlight
  uses inverter battery system or feeds to grid as
  net-meter system.
• Other solar (passive, etc.) using the direct
  heat of sunshine to warm air or water or
  circulate cooler air by creating pressure
  differences, etc.
• Windmills individual impellors charging
  household batteries and driving individual pieces
  of equipment (e.g. a pump).
• Biodigesters (biogas) decomposing animal or
  human waste to produce methane for lighting,
  cooking, heating.
• Hydrogen fuel cells small units for splitting
  and/or using H from H20 in hydrogen fuel cell
  (for a car for example).

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Conservation Alternatives

• Also known as demand-side management meeting
  new needs or making up shortfalls by conserving
  energy used inefficiently at present.
• Energy efficient appliances refrigerators,
  compact fluorescent lights, air conditioners,
  etc.
• Building insulation/ventilation double windows,
  recirculating fans, attic and wall space foam or
  fiberglass, etc.
• Waste heat recovery systems capturing waste hot
  water, steam condensate, hot exhaust and using it
  to pre-heat otherwise cold water, air, etc.
  intakes.
• Energy efficient transportation any measure
  designed to reduce the amount of fuel required
  per passenger mile logged.
• Increasing energy efficiency of industry any
  measure that allows the production of a given
  amount of goods and services with lower amounts
  of energy (energy-GDP ratios).