Module 34: Patterns of energy use

Mod 34-Patterns of energy use

• Non-renewable: not in your lifetime (argument made by one senator that nuclear power was renewable every billion years)
  
• Examples: fossil fuel (from fossils), nuclear energy
  
• Energy units: Joules, BTU (British thermal unit), quad = 1 ee 15 BTU or 1.055 EJ (etta Joules)
  
• Worldwide energy use (2015):
  

• Note about even split of coal, natural gas and oil, depending on location, economy, development. 
  
• Which of these do you think is changing, how and why?
  
• China leads in overall consumption, US in consumption per person (China has 1300 million people, we have about 320 million)
  
• LDC (lesser developed countries) use subsistence energy sources: dung, wood, peat (one reason women in LDC have high cancer rates)
  
• US use (again, this is 5 years ago):
  

• n.b. coal is on the decline, nat gas is increasing ("fracking" or hydraulic fracturing of underground formations)
  
• Jan 10, 2023: More renewable energy used in the US than coal (!)
• Almost even 1/4 splits for transport, industrial, commercial and residential-which do you think is changing, how and why?
  
• James Woolsey on Salt 2010: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128127191
  
• Transportation use: 70% oil
  
• Electrical grid: 50% coal, also nat gas, hydro, nuclear (this is rapidly shifting)
  
• These two are not connected-Electric vehicles will change these HOW?
  
• (OPEC means Oil producing/exporting countries)
  
• "We have to destroy oil as a strategic commodity" (btw, data exceeded oil in value last year)
  
• Plug in hybrids, efficiency in fossil fuel cars, encourage biofuels (flex fuel, remember Brazil?)
  
• PM particulates, aromatics (benzene, toluene, xylene), $100 million in US health costs 
  
• Point source pollution exemption-crazy!
  
• Fossil fuels are portable, potent and there is infrastructure to support it (oil dominance in transportation)
  
• Think also of Tesla charging stations-a new infrastructure is emerging
  
• Salt-why Austria/Hungary was so wealthy, one reason we had World War one...
  
• New term: EROEI: energy return on energy investment, e.g. 100 J of coal from 5 J of work would be 20/1 
  
• EROEI of Corn ethanol is around one, or slightly less than one, since we use petrochemicals (fertilizers, pesticides) to grow it...
  

Comparison of all nonrenewable energy sources:

mJ per passenger kilometer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport

Where would bicycle show up on here?

You will need to know all these bits and how they work together:

The only thing changed for nuclear, oil, or natural gas NON-TURBINE plants is the heat source...

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