The Global Energy and Materials system Flashcards
The energy and Materials systems is composed of which two sides.
Supply
Demand
What is the relation between materials and energy?
Energy is important for material production.
Materials are important for energy production
What are undiscovered resources?
Undiscovered bodies of mineral-bearing material whose existence is surmised from broad (regional) knowledge
and theory.
What is a resource?
A concentration of naturally occurring solid, liquid, or gaseous materials in or on the earth’s crust in such form that economic extraction of a commodity is regarded as feasible, either currently or at some future time.
What is an identified resource?
A resource whose location, grade, quality, and quantity are known or can be estimated from specific geologic evidence. (Identified resources include economic, marginally economic and sub-economic resources.)
Name three types of identified resources
Economic
Marginally economic
Subeconomic
What is a reserve
That portion of an identified resource from which a usable mineral or energy commodity can be economically and legally extracted at the time of determination.
Measured reserve
Material whose quality and quantity have been determined by quantitative data from closely spaced and geologically well-known sample sites.
(Aka: They know for sure that it’s there trough proper research.)
Indicated reserves
Materials whose quality and quantity have been estimated partly for analyses and measurement and partly from reasonable geologic inferences.
(aka, Estimated)
Demonstrated reserves
A collective term for Measured reserves and Indicated reserves
Inferred
Materials in identified but unexplored deposits whose quality and quantity have been estimated from geologic projections.
(Aka: we know something is there, and experience tells us it might be something like this…)
Hypothetical resources
Undiscovered materials that may reasonably be expected to exist in known mining districts under known geologic conditions.
Speculative resources
Undiscovered material that may occur in known types of deposits in geologic settings where no previous discoveries have been made or in as-yet-unknown types of deposits that remain to be recognized.
What is the R/P ratio?
Reserves (R) divided by Production (P)
What does the R/P ratio indicate?
The amount of years an energy resource or material can be mined..
.. at frozen production level and without addition of new reserves
Why should we deal carefully with R/P ratios?
- Technical and economic conditions change
- Demand is not frozen
- Knowledge of known reservoirs/mines improves
- Declining exploration efficiency (energy)
- Data issues (reliability, methods)
Two reasons demand can decline.
- More recycling of materials
- Resource substitution
Peak energy/material
the point at which the maximum rate in (global) production is reached
Reaching peak oil (uncertainty)
Lots of uncertainties. Depends on different measuring methods, calculations and data on reserves.
“Current numbers are not very accurate, accurate numbers are not very current and there are conflicting versions of some important historical series”.
Factors that affect peak oil
- Uncertainty
- Rate of extraction dependent on geopolitics (-), physical properties (-), ability/willingness to invest (+)
- Oil substitution/improvement alternatives (+)
- Net energy gains decrease
Crude oil - additional EOR
EOR = enhanced oil recovery. So the oil that can now be recovered due to improved techniques.
Current world oil production…
would have been lower than in 2005 if unconventional resources were not available
The date of peak oil…
may have already passed. There is current debate on this and it is very much dependent on what is classified as “oil”
The growth of oil production…
appears to be reaching a plateau compared to the historical growth at least
Future liquid fuel demand….
is higher than the supply side capacity and when looking at the most prominent projections this is set to occur sometime between now and 2030.
Four issues that are expected to have a critical influence on the timing and shape of global peak oil
- Field–size distribution
- Reserve growth
- Decline rates
- Depletion rates
Field-size distribution
how regional and global oil resources are distributed between different sizes of field and the relative
importance of large and small fields.
Reserve growth
why estimates of the recoverable resources from individual fields tend to grow over time and how much
growth may be expected in the future.
Decline rates
how rapidly the production from different categories of field is declining and how this may be expected to
change in the future
- measure of change in production of a field in one year to the next
Depletion rates
how rapidly the remaining recoverable resources in a field or region can be produced
- the measure of the rate at which the recoverable resources are being produced. (The inverse of R/P)
Two classification systems for oil field size. Classifications made by
Simmons
Ivanhoe
Simmons’ classification system is based on
production rate of a field
Giant field (according to Simmons)
100 kb/d
Ivanhoe’s classification system is based on
the estimated URR
Super giant (Ivanhoe)
A field of >5 GB
Giant field (according to Ivanhoe)
> 0.5 GB
Less than 1% of the fields (370), containing 3/4 of total oil discovered.
URR
ultimately recoverable resources
Small fields are likely
underrepresented in data because they are economically less viable/valuable
Small fields should increasingly become more interesting when
oil prices rise and/or (production) cost fall
At some point the energy to discover and develop in small fields
will be higher than the energy that can be extracted.
(energy return on investment)
the focus will come on increased recovery in large fields
Two levels of reserve confidence
1) P1 (proved reserves)
2) P2 (proved an probable reserves)
Two alternative names for reserve growth
1) cumulative discovery growth
2) ultimate recovery growth
Three reasons for reserve growth
1) Geological factors
2) Technological factors
3) Definition factors
What are geological factors for reserve growth?
New estimates based on improved geological knowledge
What are technological factors for reserve growth?
Increasing of estimated recovery factor or the part that is technically possible or economically viable
What are definicion factors for reserve growth?
Factors that do not influence the actual OOIP but just how much there is on paper. (Legal, economic, political, etc.)
OOIP
Original oil in place
Decline rates are … for OPEC fields, and particularly for the …
Lower
Middle east
Decline rates are … for off-shore production because…
higher
the high fixed cost involved in off-shore production. (Aka, we have high yearly cost, so let’s produce it in as few years as possible.)
Decline rates are … for the large fields due to
lower
due to later decline and producing a larger proportion of their URR during the decline phase
Newer field have … decline rates due to …
Higher
higher production rates
Average decline rate past peak:
6,5%/yr
Average decline rate currently producing
4%/yr
The average decline rate will…
increase due to more giant fields becoming past-peak and exploitation of smaller fields at a higher rate
Cummulative production
Total amount of produced material
Energy efficiency vs. cumulative production
The first oil could be extracted against almost 100% efficiency (it literally spurted out of the earth’s crust), it becomes more and more difficult (takes more and more energy) to get the remaining oil out).
Give one main argument why the peak copper estimate provides a more realistic picture than the R/P ratio for copper.
The peak concept assumes a gradual decline of production after its peak and does not suggest that production rates can be kept at today’s level when reserves decline.
