Energy Sources
Nonrenewable, Renewable, &
Inexhaustible
Energy Sources
Energy: The ability to do work
Energy sources are defined as
– Nonrenewable
– Renewable
– Inexhaustible
The SUN is the original source
of almost all energy sources on Earth.
Current Revolution in Power
• Driven by technological advances.
• Revolution being led in oil and natural gas
production (fracking and horizontal drilling,
oil sands), wind (huge turbines in windy
areas ), solar ( huge solar fields ), and
increased efficiency
(revamping/modernizing of our power
grid).
• October 7, 2013 Time magazine article on
energy revolution: Power Surge Pg 35
Consumption 1973 and 2012
•
•
•
•
•
•
Petroleum: 46% (of total) /36.5%
Natural Gas: 29.7% / 27.3%
Nuclear: 1.2% / 8.5%
Wind: 0% / 1.4%
Solar: 0% / 0.3%
Biofuel: 2% / 4.5%
Before Energy Revolution
Fracking began in earnest in 2006. Now coal accounts for only
37% of our total energy consumption.
This is based on 2011 Data
From US Energy Information Administration
Nonrenewable Energy Sources
Sources that cannot be replaced once used
Fossil Fuels
•Coal
•Oil
•Natural Gas
Alternative Energy:
Any fuel that is not
identified as a fossil
fuel
Petroleum Imports 2012
• The US imports petroleum from 80
countries.
• The top 5 are Canada(2048), Saudi Arabia
(1356), Mexico (972), Venezuela (906),
Iraq (474). (thousand barrels per day)
• We are about 10 years out from producing
all the petroleum we need.
Fracking
Drill down and break the rock with a high pressure fluid - micro
cracks form and any liquid in the rocks is released.
Nonrenewable Energy Sources
Sources that cannot be replaced once used
Uranium
•Nuclear energy
(fission)
•20% of the
world’s electricity
comes from
nuclear power
Renewable Energy Sources
Sources that can be replaced once used
• Animals
• Food
• Biomass
– Biofuel
• Ethanol
• Methanol
U.S. Department of Energy
Inexhaustible Energy Sources
Hydroelectric
Tidal
Inexhaustible Energy Sources
Geothermal
U.S. Department of Energy
Inexhaustible Energy Sources
Wind
U.S. Department of Energy
Inexhaustible Energy Sources
Solar
U.S. Department of Energy
PS10
Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System
Mohave Desert in California – largest solar power plant in the
world.
Efficiency
• Smart meters, smart grid
• More fuel efficient cars, appliances,
• “Today the US uses less oil as a whole
than it did 40 years ago, when the
economy was a third of its current size.”
• “…the US gets twice as much economic
value out of a single unit of energy today
as it did in 1980..”
The Bet – Human Ingenuity or
Not
• In 1980 biologist and environmental icon
Paul Ehrlich and conservative economist
Julian Simon made a simple wager.
Ehrlich bet that the price of five common
metals would rise over the next decade,
and Simon bet that the price would fall,
with the loser paying the price change on
a $1,000 bundle of the five metals.
• The bet was really a contest of visions.
Ehrlich--a neo-Malthusian best known for
his 1968 book The Population Bomb-believed that rising prices for materials
would show that the world was headed
toward scarcity and catastrophe. Simon
believed that human creativity would
always find ways to make basic resources
cheaper and more widely available.
• In 1990, Simon won the bet (and $576.07 from
Ehrlich). Ever since, his vision has prevailed.
Scarcity, by and large, gave birth to the new
technologies that have ushered the U.S. into a
time of relative energy abundance. Geology
didn't decide our destiny. Human ingenuity did.
"Today we've got booming production of oil and
natural gas, rapidly falling oil consumption and
rising renewable energy," says Michael Levi, a
senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations. "It's not just one boom. It's several at
the same time."
•
Where is Utah in All This?
• http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=UT#tabs-5
Ways to Store Energy
• Hydrogen
• Batteries
Are not themselves a source of energy
U.S. Department of Energy
Image Resources
Microsoft, Inc. (n.d.). Clip art. Retrieved January
10, 2008, from http://office.microsoft.com/enus/clipart/default.aspx
U.S. Department of Energy. (n.d.). Retrieved April
16, 2008, from http://www.doe.gov/