Energy: Hydrocarbons in North America

January 25, 2011

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ENERGY: Hydrocarbons in North America by J. David Hughes

EXCERPT:
North America is at the top of the food chain when it comes to consuming energy: Its inhabitants have nearly four times the average global per capita energy consumption.

Although Mexicans consume less than the global average, Americans consume 4.5 times and Canadians nearly 6 times as much. In absolute numbers, we in North America consume one-quarter of the world’s primary energy production, even though we make up less than 7 percent of the world’s population.

North America’s massive energy diet is largely made up of hydrocarbons—a full 83 percent comes from oil, gas, and coal, and if we include nuclear energy, 91 percent comes from nonrenewable fuel sources. In 2008, North America consumed 27 percent of the world’s oil production, 25 percent of natural gas production, and 18 percent of coal production. Most of the rest of our energy consumption was derived from nuclear power and large hydropower, with renewable energy sources such as biomass, wind, photovoltaics, and geothermal aking up less than 2 percent of our total. Moreover, despite a several-fold growth in non-hydropower renewable energy sources, nonrenewable sources are still forecast to supply 88 percent of our primary energy consumption by 2030 (figure 17.1).

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The sheer scale of our dependency on nonrenewable, energy-dense “fossilized sunshine” is often lost on those who believe that renewable energy sources can supplant hydrocarbons at anything like today’s level of energy consumption. Thus it is prudent to examine the prognosis for fossil fuels within North America, as they will make up the bulk of our energy consumption for many decades to come.

The North American fossil-fuel story is largely driven by consumption in the United States, the biggest user of energy in the world and, until China overtook it in 2006, the biggest carbon dioxide emitter. Also critical to this story is the vulnerability of the U.S. economy given its addiction to hydrocarbons. It is highly dependent on imported oil and may soon be dependent on imported natural gas. For these reasons, this chapter will focus primarily on the future availability and vulnerability of supplies of hydrocarbons to the United States, and will look in detail at oil, natural gas, and coal.

About The Post Carbon Reader

Image RemovedHow do population, water, energy, food, and climate issues impact one another? What can we do to address one problem without making the others worse? The Post Carbon Reader features essays by some of the world’s most provocative thinkers on the key issues shaping our new century, from renewable energy and urban agriculture to social justice and community resilience. This insightful collection takes a hard-nosed look at the interconnected threats of our global sustainability quandary and presents some of the most promising responses.

Contributors to The Post Carbon Reader are some of the world’s leading sustainability thinkers, including Bill McKibben, Richard Heinberg, Stephanie Mills, David Orr, Wes Jackson, Erika Allen, Gloria Flora, and dozens more.

David Hughes

David Hughes is an earth scientist who has studied the energy resources of Canada for four decades, including 32 years with the Geological Survey of Canada as a scientist and research manager. He developed the National Coal Inventory to determine the availability and environmental constraints associated with Canada’s coal resources. As Team Leader for Unconventional Gas on the Canadian Gas Potential Committee, he coordinated the publication of a comprehensive assessment of Canada’s unconventional natural gas potential.

Over the past decade, Hughes has researched, published and lectured widely on global energy and sustainability issues in North America and internationally. His work with Post Carbon Institute includes: a series of papers (2011) on the challenges of natural gas being a "bridge fuel" from coal to renewables; Drill, Baby, Drill (2013), which took a far-ranging look at the prospects for various unconventional fuels in the United States; Drilling California (2013), which critically examined the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) estimates of technically recoverable tight oil in the Monterey Shale, which the EIA claimed constituted two-thirds of U.S. tight oil (the EIA subsequently wrote down its resource estimate for the Monterey by 96%); Drilling Deeper (2014), which challenged the U.S. Department of Energy’s expectation of long-term domestic oil and natural gas abundance with an in depth assessment of all drilling and production data from the major shale plays through mid-2014; and Shale Gas Reality Check (2015) and Tight Oil Reality Check (2015), updates to Drilling Deeper. Separately from Post Carbon, Hughes authored BC LNG: A Reality Check in 2014 and A Clear View of BC LNG in 2015, which examined the issues surrounding a proposed massive scale-up of shale gas production in British Columbia for LNG export.

Hughes is president of Global Sustainability Research, a consultancy dedicated to research on energy and sustainability issues. He is also a board member of Physicians, Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE\Healthy Energy) and is a Fellow of Post Carbon Institute. Hughes contributed to Carbon Shift, an anthology edited by Thomas Homer-Dixon on the twin issues of peak energy and climate change, and his work has been featured in Nature, Canadian Business, Bloomberg, USA Today, as well as other popular press, radio, and television.


Tags: Coal, Consumption & Demand, Electricity, Fossil Fuels, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Oil, Post Carbon Reader, Renewable Energy