Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Geographical Barriers
Energy resources are not evenly distributed throughout the world; they are often found at consid-
erable distances from large population concentrations where their utilization is most desirable.
The location where energy resources are found is often a barrier to their use. North Sea British
oil and North Slope Alaskan oil could not be used before new pipeline and drilling technolo-
gies were developed, illustrating a common association between geographical and technical
barriers. Tidal power and ocean thermal gradient technology may eventually provide energy
supplies to some coastal and island areas, but not to interior areas of large continents (e.g.,
South Dakota). High-temperature geothermal resources are relatively rare and local in nature,
although development of low-temperature geothermal resources using chemical technology is
becoming more common with engineering advances. Overcoming geographical barriers may
involve substantial expenditures to develop new technology or to move an energy resource from
its origins to where it is utilized.
Economic Barriers
Market prices of some energy technologies are sometimes too expensive to compete effectively
with resources in use at a particular point in time. Technologies have long been available to extract
liquid hydrocarbons from oil shale and coal, but at greater expense than importing petroleum to the
United States from the Middle East. Electricity can be generated using nuclear fission processes,
but at much greater total expense than with coal or oil. Economic barriers may be particularly
sensitive to technological developments, decreasing as new inventions in nuclear reactor tech-
nology become available, for example, or increasing with policy changes such as more stringent
requirements for reactor safety.
Political Barriers
Policy changes are produced by political behavior of individuals and groups affecting both inter-
national relations and domestic activities, which may increase or decrease access to some energy
supplies. U.S. support for Israel led to reduced access to imports of Middle Eastern oil during
the oil embargo of 1973. Combative relations with Libya and Iraq have at other times impeded
imports of oil from those countries. Political barriers are partly emotional in nature and may in
some cases be more intractable and difficult to overcome than some technical barriers.
Environmental Barriers
Development, transportation, or use of some energy resources in some locations may entail un-
acceptable disruption of the environment, contrary to widely held values of the populace. The
combustion of coal without stringent air pollution controls has stimulated several national policy
changes in the United States, and its continued use without some associated carbon sequestration
may stimulate more changes out of concern for global climate change. Development of hydro-
electric facilities has been excluded from some unique scenic areas, and the use of nuclear fission
from others. Environmental barriers are political in nature, and their erection or modification may
affect the market price of an energy technology, so they are often related to economic barriers and
may be quite difficult to overcome without technological change.
These five barriers to supply expansion sometimes work in combination, with complex inter-
 
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