1. The Energy Challenge Farrokh Najmabadi Prof. of Electrical Engineering
Director of Center for Energy Research
UC San Diego
2009 TAST Conference
Costa Mesa, CA
October 3, 2009

2. Energy Challenge Scale of the Challenge
Technical means to meet the Challenge and Can they provide a solution?
Economic instruments and the political challenge

3. Energy and Well Being
Most of the data is from IEA World Energy Outlook 2006

4. World uses a lot of energy!
World Primary Energy consumption is 14 TW (2004)
Equivalent to ~0.5 EJ or 11.2 Billion Ton of Oil Equivalent pa
World energy [electricity] market ~ $4.5 trillion [$1.5 trillion] pa
World energy use is expected to grow 50% by 2030.
Growth is necessary in developing countries to lift billions of people out of poverty
80% of world energy is from burning fossil fuels
Use is very unevenly distributed (average 2.4 kW per person)
USA ,500 Watts
California - 7,300 Watts
UK - 5,200 Watts
China - 1,650 Watts (growing 10% pa)
India Watts
Bangladesh Watts

5. Energy use increases with Economic Development
Australia
Russia
Brazil
China
India
S. Korea
Mexico
Ireland
Greece
France UK
Japan
Malaysia
10kW
With industrialization of emerging nations, energy use is expected to grow ~ 4 fold in this century (average 1.6% annual growth rate)

6. Quality of Life is strongly correlated to energy use.
HDI: (index reflecting life expectancy at birth + adult literacy & school enrolment + GNP (PPP) per capita)

7. 1.6 billion people (over 25% of the world’s population) lack electricity:
Source: IEA World Energy Outlook 2006

8. Deaths per year (1000s) caused by indoor air pollution (biomass 85% + coal 15%); total is 1.5 million – over half children under five
Source: IEA World Energy Outlook 2006

9. Quality of Life is strongly correlated to energy use.
HDI: (index reflecting life expectancy at birth + adult literacy & school enrolment + GNP (PPP) per capita)
Typical goals: HDI of 0.9 at 3 toe/cap for developing countries.
For all developing countries to reach this point, world energy use would double with today’s population, or increase 2.6 fold with the 8.1 billion expected in 2030.

10. World Primary Energy Demand is expect to grow substantially
World Energy Demand (Mtoe)
0.5 EJ
Data from IAE World Energy Outlook 2006 Reference (Red) and Alternative (Blue) scenarios.
World population is projected to grow from 6.4B (2004) to 8.1B (2030

11. ’04 – ’30 Annual Growth Rate (%)
Energy supply will be dominated by fossil fuels for the foreseeable future
’04 – ’30 Annual Growth Rate (%)
6.5
1.3
2.0
0.7
2.0
1.3
1.8
Total
1.6
Source: IEA World Energy Outlook 2006 Reference Case (Business as Usual)

12. Conclusions on Energy Need
Large increase in energy use expected, and needed to lift billions of people out of poverty
Seems (IEA World Energy Outlook) that it will require increased use of fossil fuels
Pollution and global warming*
Will run out sooner or later
There is an urgent need to reduce energy use (or at least curb growth), and seek cleaner ways of producing energy on a large scale
IEA: “Achieving a truly sustainable energy system will call for radical breakthroughs that alter how we produce and use energy”
*Ambitious goal for limit CO2 to twice pre-industrial level. To do this while meeting expected growth in power consumption would need 50% more CO2-free power than today’s total power
US DoE “The technology to generate this amount of emission-free power does not exist”

13. Different Energy Sources affect different economic sectors

14. Many sources contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases
It is more important to consider Emissions instead of Energy end-use.

15. Technical means to meet the energy need and their issues (Seeking a significant fraction of world’s 14 TW consumption)

16. Technologies to meet the energy challenge do not exist
Improved efficiency and Conservation
Huge scope but demand has always risen faster due to long turn-over time.
Renewables
Intermittency, cost, environmental impact.
Carbon sequestration
Requires handling large amounts of C (Emissions to 2050 =2000Gt CO2)
Nuclear (Fission)
fuel cycle and waste disposal
Fusion
Probably a large contributor in the 2nd half of the century

17. Energy Efficiency
Production: e.g. world average power plant efficiency ~ 30% → 45% (state of the art) would save 4% of anthropic carbon dioxide
use of flared gas in Africa could produce 20 GW (= half Africa’s current electricity)
Distribution: typically 10% of electricity lost (→ 50% due to ‘non-technical losses’ in some countries: need better metering)
Use: e.g., better insulated homes, more efficient transport
Huge scope but demand is rising faster due to long turn-over time.
Energy Efficiency and Conservation should not be confused

18. Buildings
Consumes ~ 50% of energy (Constructing, maintaining, occupying buildings)
Improvements in design could have a big impact (e.g. could cut energy used to heat homes by up to factor of three)
Issue: turn over of housing stock ~ 100 years
Tools: better information, regulation, financial instruments
Source: Foster and Partners. Swiss Re Tower uses 50% less energy than a conventional office building (natural
ventilation & lighting…)

19. Transportation
Road transport is growing rapidly e.g. IEA estimates 700 million light vehicles today → 1,400 million in 2030 (China: 9M → 100M)
For the world’s per capita petrol consumption to equal that in the USA, total gas consumption would have to increase almost ten fold!
Huge scope for more efficient (lighter) cars
There have been huge improvements in efficiency of the cars but it has been used to provide heavier cars, lower emissions, traffic, …
20 years turn-over time
After the end of oil? Syn-fuels coal & gas, bio material → oil, hydrogen, electric…

20. What carbon “beyond petroleum”?
Fuel
Fossil
Agriculture
Biomass ↑
1000
Annual US Carbon (Mt C)
15% of Transportation Fuels

21. Carbon/CO2 capture and storage (‘sequestration’)
Possible in principle from coal or gas power stations (35% of total of CO2 from fossil fuels) and from some industrial plants (not from cars, domestic) – needs to last well beyond end of fossil fuel era (and not leak too much)
Downsides
not proven on large scale (from coal: 3Mt captured in vs. 9,593 Mt produced), but can build ‘capture ready’ plants now
would increase cost by (2-3)c/kWhr; needs CO2 cost above $25/tonne to be viable
decrease efficiency by ~10% (i.e. 45% → 35%)

22. Potential of Renewables
Solar - 85,000 TW reaches earth’s surface  25,000 TW on land, if capture [PV] 0.5% at 15% efficiency  19 TW ~ 1.35x current total use
but: cost, location, intermitency → storage? [note – lose (conversion efficiency)2]
Wind TW input  no more than a few TW available (bottom of atmosphere)
Biomass - 40 TW from all current growth (farms + forests etc) absorbing CO2 [average solar → biomass efficiency ~ 0.2%]
Hydro – 1.5 TWe max, 1 TWe useful, 0.3 TWe already in use
Geothermal - total flux out of earth* ~ 10 TW → maximum useful 0.1 TW (well exploited where sensible: 10 GW installed) ; more available by ‘mining’ up to 100 GW?
Waves - 1 TW available in principle on continental shelves, 0.1 TW in shallow water

23. Wind turbines are a developed technology
Boeing
Offshore GE 3.6 MW 104 meter rotor diameter
Offshore design requirements considered from the outset:
Crane system for all components
Simplified installation
Helicopter platform

24. Photovoltaic Plants in the U.S.

25. Nuclear Power (Fission)
Recent performance impressive – construction on time and budget, excellent safety record, cost looks OK
New generation of reactors (AP1000, EPR) – fewer components, passive safety, less waste, lower down time and lower costs
Constraints on expansion
Snail’s pace of planning permission
Evolving regulatory climate (i.e., Licensed to build but not to operate)
Concerns about safety
Concerns about waste
Proliferation risk
New generation of reactors to maximize fuel utilization (or breed) and minimize (or “burn”) waste.

26. Economical Energy Production is essential (US energy sales = 10% of GDP)

27. UK Royal Academy of Engineering study of generating costs:
Nuclear base cost assumes 7.5% discount rate.

28. impact of CO2 cost on levelised Cost of Electricity
Solar PV
~$250
$0.35/gal or 5 p/l

29. Meeting the Challenge: No silver bullet exists!

30. Energy Challenge: A Summary
Large increases in energy use is expected.
IEA world Energy Outlook indicates that it will require increased use of fossil fuels
Air pollution & Climate Change
Will run out sooner or later
Limiting CO2 to 550ppm by 2050 is an ambitious goal.
USDOE: “The technology to generate this amount of emission-free power does not exist.”
IEA report: “Achieving a truly sustainable energy system will call for radical breakthroughs that alter how we produce and use energy.”
Public funding of energy research is down 50% since 1980 (in real term). World energy R&D expenditure is 0.25% of energy market of $4.5 trillion.

31. Most of public energy expenditures is in the form of subsidies
Energy Subsides (€28B) and R&D (€2B) in the EU
Coal
44.5%
Oil and gas
30%
Fusion
1.5%
Fission 6%
Renewables
18%
Source : EEA, Energy subsidies in the European Union: A brief overview, 2004.
Fusion and fission are displayed separately using the IEA government-R&D data base and EURATOM 6th framework programme data
Slide from C. Llewellyn Smith, UKAEA

32. Need a few good engineers!
Energy debate is dominated by activists and lobbyists.
Left: “Energy challenge can be readily met by conservation and renewables alone.”
Right: “Limiting greenhouse emissions are so costly that it will wreck the economy.” or “Uncertainty in the CO2 impact justifies inaction.”
Scientists and engineers are NOT involved in the debate
Most proposals by activist and hyped by popular media either violate physical laws, or are beyond current technology, or would not make any sizeable impact.
No carbon-neutral commercial energy technology is available today.
Solution CANNOT be legislated.
Subsidies do not work! Energy market is huge (T$ annual sale)
Time-scale for developing and fielding energy technologies are long!
We need to launch an aggressive Energy R&D program
5% tax on energy sale = $75 B per year!

33. Thank you! Any Questions?