Last Monday,
June 16, BP released its Annual Statistical Review of Global Energy, and it is
an opportune time to gauge the progress made on the energy front. I am
commenting on some salient bits that jumped out at me at first glance.
Total Energy. Primary energy use
climbed another 2.3% in 2013,
bringing the total to 3.7 CMO. This
value includes an estimated 0.3 CMO from biomass that is not covered in the BP
reports. In Chapter 4 of the the book, A
Cubic Mile of Oil, we had looked at various scenarios for future energy
demand spanning several growth rates. Global energy consumption has been
following the high-growth business-as-usual (BAU) scenario trajectory, which,
if continued, leads to an energy consumption rate of 9 CMO by 2050.
The world has
been implementing many measures to increase energy efficiency—light bulbs,
appliances, automobiles, power stations etc. Nevertheless, since 2000, except
for a temporary dip following the economic crisis in 2008, global energy
consumption has continued to rise at. As we had pointed out, the BAU growth
rate was based on the historic data since the 1960s; it subsumes a certain
level of consistently improving efficiency. Thus, if we wish to bend the growth
curve down further, we will need to redouble our effort to increase efficiency
in everything we do. While the trend line has clearly diverged from the
scenario corresponding to the 1.8% growth, it is still not too late for the
future energy consumption to follow the green trajectory we had labeled
“variable profile.” The good news is that global CO2 emissions from
energy use increased only 2.1% to 35.1 Gt while energy use increased by 2.3%;
global GDP increased at an even faster rate of 2.7%
The increase in a tenth of a CMO was made
up by increases of 0.01 to 0.02 CMO in all the different sources of energy:
wind and solar, hydro, coal, oil, and natural gas. Only nuclear energy remained
flat.
Electricity. Total electricity production, which
comprised 36% of total primary energy, has grown to 41% in 2013. The increasing
contributions wind, solar, and geothermal sources are shown in Figure 2. For
perspective, the figure also includes a line corresponding to 2% of total
electricity generated in each year. The sum total of solar, wind and geothermal
exceeds 5% of the global electricity generation, with both wind and geothermal
exceeding the 2% level.
Figure
2. Electricity generation from wind,
solar, and geothermal sources.
As wind and
solar installations continue to get cheaper they become the preferred choice
for new installations in more markets. The cost of solar panel has already
fallen to about $0.70/Watt, but the total cost of installation is still above
$4/Watt. Rightly so, greater attention is now being paid to cost of other
components, including permitting and installation. We can hope that these costs
continue to decline and make PV affordable for the utilities and their
customers. Nonetheless, it is a long road to reach the scale of a CMO/year.
Oil Production. In previous posts
(March 10 and Oct. 15, 2013), I had commented on the increasing oil production
in the US. I was particularly surprised by the projection by the IEA that the
US oil would soon surpass that of Saudi Arabia. Yes, there had been a recent
uptick in the US oil production, but in 2011 the Saudi production exceeded that
of US production my more than 3 million bpd. While this gap could be
bridged in a few years, that would require a massive investment, which I had
not seen, and also it would depend not only on US production, but also the
response of Saudi Arabia to the rise in US production.
The figures in
the latest BP Report show that the gap between the US and Saudi production has
indeed narrowed. In 2013 it was down to
1.5 million bpd. Here is the updated figure of the US and Saudi oil production
and consumption. Incredulous as I was then of the IEA analysts, I am beginning
to feel that they had done their homework and looked at not just the past
production numbers, but also the investments made for projects that were
already in the pipeline.
Figure
3. Oil production and consumption in the US and Saudi Arabia.
Writing this post
reminded me of the time I was asked, back in 2008, if the US could replace all
its coal-generated electricity with that from “green source” in ten years. Here
is a short, 3-min video clip from that event.
