Energy Security Flashcards
Which countries dominate coal production?
China = 45.5%
USA = 11.6%
India, Indonesia and Australia
What factors are coal extraction dependent on?
- Level of economic development
- Coal based energy strategy
Which countries dominate oil production?
Over 70% of the world’s oil production is in the Middle East, USA and Russia
- Middle East/Russia = conventional reserves
- Increasing unconventional reserves
What factors are oil extraction dependent on?
- Geology
- Climate
- Accessibility
- Geopolitics
How does geology affect oil extraction?
Specific conditions needed to concentrate oil into exploitable accumulations
How does climate affect oil extraction?
Permafrost reduces accessibility and economic viability
How does accessibility affect oil extraction?
Middle East - shallow and large reserves vs deepwater reserves along Brazilian coast
How does geopolitics affect oil extraction?
Unstable governments discourage TNC investment
Which countries dominate natural gas production?
Russia, Middle East, USA and Canada
Which countries dominate nuclear energy production?
HICs: lack of fossil fuels and have money to invest in infrastructure e.g. Japan and France
Which countries dominate renewable energy production?
China (HEP), India (wind/solar), Brazil (HEP and Bioethanol), EU and USA
Why is energy consumption increasing rapidly in Newly Emerging Economies (NEEs)?
- Rapid industrialisation
- Urbanisation
- Rising incomes > high standards of living
- Energy producing countries are using their energy wealth to promote development
Why is energy consumption stabilising in HICs?
- Already have high standard of living
- Increasing energy efficiency of appliances
- Energy-intensive industries are in decline due to global shift
- Population growth is stable
- Increased awareness of environmental impacts of energy use
Why has consumption of natural gas increased?
- Large discoveries in many countries
- Development of long gas pipeline connections
- Development of gas combined cycle technology for more efficient electricity generation
Who are the largest consumers of coal?
China, USA, Russia
Who are the largest consumers of oil?
USA, Japan, China, India, Russia
Who are the largest consumers of gas?
Iran, China, Japan, Canada
Who are the main importers and exporters of Oil?
Exporters: Middle East, Russia, Venezuela
Importers: USA and China
Who are the main importers and exporters of gas?
Exporters: Russia (pipeline to Europe and Asia)
Importers: Japan, Germany and Italy
Who are the main importers and exporters of coal?
Exporters: Australia
Importers: Germany, Uk and China
What % of global energy supply is made up of oil?
31%
What % of global energy supply is made up of coal?
29%
What % of global energy supply is made up of natural gas?
21%
What % of global energy supply is made up of nuclear?
6%
What % of global energy supply is made up of renewables?
12%
Why is oil the most traded fossil fuel?
- Uneven distribution : necessity of trade, need to source from multiple locations
- Operations of global energy TNCs
- Was a lack of alternative to oil based transport strategies
- Ease of transportation
Why are renewable energy resources not traded?
- Cannot store (transports difficult)
- Even distribution (countries can make their own)
What are the advantages of oil as an energy source?
- Indispensable in road transport and petrochemical industry
- LEading tradable commodity
- Flexible/easy to transport/trade
What are the disadvantages of using oil as an energy source?
- High price volatility
- Geopolitical tensions in areas with the largest reserves
- Market dominated by leading oil producing countries and TNCs
- Oil spills > significant environmental and human health impact
What are the advantages of using coal as an energy source?
- Wider geographical distribution
- New technologies improve environmental performance e.g. carbon sequestration
- Stable prices (more reliable)
What are the disadvantages of using coal as an energy source?
- High emissions of carbon particulates and other pollutants (worst fossil fuel)
- Dangers of production
- Environmental impacts of production - waste/spoil heaps etc
What are the advantages of using Natural Gas as an energy source?
- Cleanest of fossil fuels
- Flexible and efficient fuel for power and heat generation
- Increasing unconventional supplies (reassessment of speculative reserves and shale gas)
What are the disadvantages of using Natural Gas as an energy source?
- Resources increasingly offshore or remote
- Large investment needed for gas transport and distribution (pipelines)
- Increasingly long supply routes with high infrastructure cost
What are the advantages of using Nuclear as an energy source?
- Less atmospheric pollution (no greenhouse gases produced)
- High efficient energy production
- Relatively large reserves of Uranium
- Moderate and predictable cost of energy over the life of a power station - steady maintenance costs
- Increase domestic energy security
What are the disadvantages of using Nuclear as an energy supply?
- Disposal of nuclear waste > expensive/dangerous
- High initial investment cost (restrict use to HICs) > cost passed to consumer
- Restriction in site placement - tectonic stability; water supply etc
- High water use, used water is heated > damages wildlife when released into water sources
- Risk of nuclear disaster e.g. Chernobyl, Ukraine 1986n
What are the advantages of using Solar as an energy source?
- Renewable
- More reliable source of renewables ( no moving parts; set hours of sunlights)
- Plentiful silica
- Can be used on a small scale in remote locations
- Post-construction no greenhouse gases
- Tech advances are increasing efficiency
What are the disadvantages of using Solar as an energy source?
- Initial purchase/ installation expensive
- Can be unreliable if unsettled weather/no energy at night
- Difficulty storing energy
- Large areas needed to get significant quantities
- Some toxic chemicals in Pv cell production
- Currently only useful in electrical production
What are the advantages of using Wind as an energy source?
- Doesn’t produce greenhouse gases
- Becoming cheaper as tech improves > lower consumer prices
- Renewable
- Readily available in most countries
- Can create electricity in remote areas
What are the disadvantages of using Wind as an energy source?
- Unreliable and inefficient > still need to import from other sources
- Damage to ecosystems > noise pollution/bird migration impacts
- Loss of farmland > food insecurity
- Eyesore
- Offshore tech - problems for sea navigation; require transmission lines
- Require sufficient wind levels > may reduce number of suitable sites
What are the advantages of using Biomass as an energy source?
- Renewable
- Carbon neutral
- Efficient use of marginal land
- Relatively high energy density
- Flexibility of form therefore can also be used in transport
What are the disadvantages of using Biomass as an energy source?
- Critical flow
- May reduce flood production > food insecurity
- Carbon neutrality
- Extraction/refining of biofuels > expensive/energy intensive
- Deforestation for biomass growth > soil erosion/ loss of biodiversity
- Biomass is relatively inefficient vs petrol/diesel. Few cars compatible with biofuels limited usefulness
What are the advantages of using Hydroelectric Power as an energy source?
- Low operating costs
- No waste or CO2 emission
- Can top-up supply in periods of high demand
What are the disadvantages of using Hydroelectric Power as an energy source?
- Large dam projects are controversial - heavy environmental costs
- Expensive initial investment - use often limited to HICs
- Limiting physical conditions; impermeable rock; high rainfall/relief
What are the advantages of using Tidal as an energy source?
- Renewable
- One of the more reliable forms of renewable energy
- No greenhouse gases produced
What are the disadvantages of using Tidal as an energy source?
- Tidal barrages destroy habitats of estuary species
- Limit river access > issues for shipping
- Expensive to build
- Limited areas to build based on physical geography
What are the advantages of using Geothermal as an energy source?
- Renewable
- Reliable form of renewable energy
- No greenhouse gases produced
What are the disadvantages of using Geothermal as an energy source?
- Limited by physical geography (tectonic activity)
- More suited to electricity production
- High initial investment costs (tends to be found in HICs)
What is Energy Mix?
Composition of different primary energy sources from which households and industries in a named area get their energy
What factors influence a country’s energy mix?
- Availability of energy sources > use those available first even if fossil fuels
- Inertia
- Government energy policies
- Physical conditions: impact of using different renewables
- Level of demand/population - cost effectiveness
How is coal formed?
Sedimentary rock - peatification > coalification (heat/pressure)
Varying qualities dependent on carbon concentration and resultant energy density
What is Lignite?
65-70% pure carbon
What is Anthracite?
86-98% pure carbon
What geological conditions are needed for the formation and storage of oil and natural gas?
Sedimentary rock > organic material > kerogen > kerogen to oil when underground temperatures over 110C (higher = natural gas)
High pressure forces oil/gas upwards through porous/permeable rocks > layer of impermeable cap rock needed to trap it
What are the different priorities countries have when trading energy?
- Price - vulnerable to supply and demand changes. Conflict between buyer and seller (use of energy as a weapon e.g. Russia/Ukraine)
- Environmental concerns vs development of resources - Paris Agreement. Damage done by Prudhoe Bay
- Energy Security vs Dependence - Avoid energy use from countries with unstable governments/geopolitical disputes e.g. USA vs Iran
- Political Instability - countries may avoid becoming dependent on countries with an unstable government
How has energy consumption and production promoted globalisation?
They are unevenly distributed which means that energy needs to be transferred between countries - creating links/globalisation
What role do TNCs play in international oil trade?
Control most oil and gas extraction, refining and distribution. State owned oil companies own/control access to 95% of the world’s oil and gas reserves.
Many are vertically integrated - involved in upstream oil sector; midstream industry and downstream sector
How does geology affect the possibility of hydraulic fracturing (‘Fracking’) ?
Shale is impermeable but porous so natural gas/oil can be found in the pores of the rock, in small amounts this can then be extracted but is often more expensive than conventional resources
What are oil/tar sands?
Oil is found as a layer of Bitumen surrounding individual sands. Bitumen is too thick to be pumped as a liquid from the ground so has to be mined by strip mining or open pit mining, methods such as gravity assisted drainage, then separate sand and oil.
How can Climatic conditions affect solar energy efficiency?
- Hours of direct sunlight
- Level of sunlight interference - cloud, fog, smog, air pollution
- Air density - higher relief > thinner air > less scattering of sunlight > more efficient
- Wind levels > may damage/cool cells
How can climatic conditions affect wind energy?
- Wind speed - most productive if wind speed is over 5.5m per second
- Air density > lower relief > more efficient
- Prevailing winds > reliable wind speeds/direction
- Sufficient distance apart to prevent eddying or wind breaking
How do physical geography conditions affect HEP?
- Sufficient shape and size of drainage basin to ensure sufficient volume of water in the channel
- Reliable and sufficient flow of water
- High relief to ensure sufficient potential energy from fall of water
- Topography - long steep sided valley; narrow exit > more economically efficient dam.
- Geology - stable and impermeable
Are energy TNCs vertically or horizontally integrated?
Vertically
What is SHELL and where is it’s HQ?
Anglo-Dutch oil and gas TNC. HQ = Hague, Netherlands
What is SHELL involved in?
- Upstream Organisation: exploration/production and transportation to market of oil and natural gas
- Middle/downstream organisation: Distribution/marketing; 46,000 retail stations; refineries and petrochemical production
- Renewable & energy solutions organisation: power generation and some renewables/decarbonisation technologies to meet Paris Agreement
- Operations in over 70 countries; 2019 revenue of $344.9bn; 3.7 million barrels per day; 83,000 direct employees. Does work with consortiums/joint ventures
What are the three strategies to manage energy supply?
- Oil and gas exploration
- Development of renewables
- Development of nuclear power
What two types of oil/gas supply are becoming more economically viable as fossil fuels are depleted?
- Unconventional resources (hydraulic fracturing and tar sands)
- Development of resource frontiers e.g. deep sea drilling, Arctic Circle
What are positives of using renewables to improve energy security?
- Renewable > more sustainable
- Decreases dependence on other nations
- Lower contribution to atmospheric pollution > doesn’t produce greenhouse gases
What are the negatives of using renewables to improve energy security?
- Unreliable/intermittent
- Can be expensive (HEP)
- Other environmental problems e.g. Three Gorges Dam flooding 632 km2 of land and displacing 1 million
What was the UK’s Feed-In Tariff?
Energy suppliers pay small scale renewable producers for energy they produce
What are some recent examples of renewable energy development in the UK?
- Blackfriars Bridge: world’s largest solar bridge with 4,400 solar panels
- London Array: offshore wind farm
- Biomass: New Earth Avonmouth Energy recovery facility which generates electricity from anaerobic gasification of waste.
What are some examples of household energy saving strategies?
- Promote production of renewables
- Switch-off standby, lights, heating
- Use double-glazing, energy efficient light-bulbs/appliances, cavity wall insulation
- Smart energy meters in all households by end of 2020
- ‘Green Deal’: received loans for energy efficient improvements with repayments made on electricity bill
What are examples of industrial and commercial energy saving strategies?
- Heat recovery systems: reuse heat from other processes
- Combined heat and power systems
- Improving efficiency of air conditioning and lighting
- Carbon tax
- Energy audits must be completed by large businesses
What is a combined heat and power system?
Generates electricity while also capturing usable heat for use in water/ space heating reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions.
What are examples of sustainable transport strategies?
- Technology: more fuel efficient vehicles; electric/hybrids
- Design changes
- Government policies: sale of new diesel/petrol cars banned from 2030.
- Behavioural changes: car sharing clubs.
What is Acid rain?
Raind made acidic by atmospheric pollutants
Give three causes of acid rain
Sulphur dioxides and nitrogen oxides from:
- Cars
- Factories
- Power stations
What are the environmental impacts of acid rain?
- Damages and kills trees as it removes nutrients from soil
- Leaches toxic metals from soils
- Kills fish stock and damages ecosystems
- Damages buildings by accelerating weathering
- Harmful effects on human health and respiratory problems
How can the impacts of acid rain be reduced?
- Catalytic converters in cars
- Scrubbers in power stations to take out the sulphur
- Renewable energy - coal is high in sulphur content
- Energy conservation
What are the impacts of the enhanced greenhouse effect?
- Extreme weather events
- Rising sea level
- Decreasing agricultural yields
- Changing ecosystems/biomes
- Population
- Melting polar land ice
What are issues with disposing nuclear waste?
- Long half life : remains dangerous for a very long time
- Groundwater contamination
- Terrorism risks
- Could be dug up by future generations
