Modeling World Energy Production and Supply

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Modeling World Energy Production and Supply

• Paul Hanz
• Faculty Advisor Dr. Peter Berg
• UOIT

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Preface

• Peak Oil
• Marion King Hubbert
• Predicted for any geographical area, oil
  production would resemble a bell-shaped Hubbert
  Curve
• Although initially scolded by the scientific
  community, his predictions became shockingly
  accurate and are now widely accepted

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Hubberts Predictions
Left Hubberts 1956 prediction of American oil
production Right Hubbert Curve applied to
Norwegian oil production numbers

• Left PEM fuel cell cross-section, Right
  Triple-phase boundary in cell catalyst layer.
• Fuel cells are complex multi-phase,
  multi-component, multi-device systems with
  reacting gas-flow. Major fuel cell challenges
  are reliability, durability, costs, degradation.

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Implications How Hubberts theory ties into
the bigger picture of world energy supply and
demand

• Demonstrated to the world that oil is indeed
  non-renewable
• Other fossil fuels and non-renewable resources
  are likely to follow similar trends
• Peak occurs well before we completely run out of
  the resource in question
• Exponential growth in energy demand is
  unsustainable, when considering current
  technologies

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My Work

• (Discrete) Time Series
• MATLAB
• Used values only from well known respectable
  sources. Eg United Nations, British Petroleum,
  etc.
• Plotted known production data and relationships
  for all major energy sources for the years until
  2006
• Extrapolated these relationships, taking into
  consideration remaining reserve values and other
  factors which would affect future output

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My Work

• Neglected environmental concerns
• Assumed global economic and population growth
  continues, at the rate experienced consistently
  for decades
• All values converted to and plotted in joules
• Best Case Scenario (Capital, Materials and
  Labour)

Sample of my project code
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Trends in Supply

• Non-renewables
• Oil, Coal, Natural Gas,
• Nuclear (Uranium)
• Renewables
• Theoretical/Practical Limit
• Hydroelectricity, Wind
• Renewables
• Potentially No Limit
• Solar

TopHubbert Curve, Centre Logistic Curve,
Bottom Exponential Curve
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Results
For how much longer can we continue with the
status quo?
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2007 We are here
2015 Oil peaks here
2030 Natural Gas peaks here
2055 Total Fossil Fuel production peaks
concurrently with coal here
1900
1950
2000
2050
2100
2150
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Other Opinions

• Implications of peak oil for atmospheric CO2
  and climate
• P. A. Kharecha and J. E. Hansen
• NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and
  Columbia University Earth Institute

Left My work, predicting a concurrent fossil
fuel and total energy peak around 2055 Right
P. A. Kharecha and J. E. Hansens work
predicting fossil fuel peaks and their
consequential CO2 emissions
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Other Opinions

• The Quaker Economist - a journal devoted to
  examining worldwide economic, social, and
  political problems.

Left My work, predicting a concurrent fossil
fuel and total energy peak around 2055 Right
Loren Cobb of The Quaker Economists work
predicting world population and energy peaks
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Solutions?

• Wind
• Resource intensive iron and other raw
  materials
• Intermittent energy production require a
  storage medium
• Solar
• Sun radiates 10,000x more energy onto the earth
  than we use every day
• The most common cost effective cells are only 8
  efficient, however this is improving with every
  year
• Size of Cells and thus amount of material used in
  their production and their cost is also
  decreasing with every year

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Solutions?

• Biofuel
• 1st Generation
• From food sources vegetable oil, sugar cane,
  corn (ethanol)
• Energy vs. Food
• Ethanol EROEI (Energy Return on Energy
  Invested) 1.34 (34)
• 2nd Generation
• Cellulose byproduct of agriculture production
  switch grass, plant stock

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Solutions?

• Hydrogen
• An energy storage medium, not an energy source
  (like a battery)
• Nuclear Fusion
• Technology still many decades away
• Produces 100x as much energy per unit mass of
  fuel as the nuclear fission process

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End

• Thank you for your time and attention
• Questions?