Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
true about affordability. There is enough coal, oil, and gas
to last for a good part of this century even under the
business-as-usual scenario, and the rate at which explor-
ation has added to proven reserves has exceeded the rate
of consumption of those reserves for many years.
How-
ever, if the growth in demand continues at its present rate
it is very likely that there will be supply constraints in the
second half of the century. All the fossil fuels will certainly
get more expensive as the easy-to-access sources begin to
be used up. Part of the increase in the price of oil seen
in recent years is because meeting demand has required
tapping resources like the Canadian tar sands, where
production costs are much more expensive than the stand-
ard light oil produced by OPEC.
.
World Oil Reserves
World oil consumption in
amounted to about
million barrels per day according to the Energy Infor-
mation Administration (EIA) of the US Department of
Energy; in energy terms, about
% of TPES. Most of
the oil goes to fuel the transportation sector (
% of the
transport sector runs on oil). The rest goes into petro-
chemicals, heating, pesticides, some industrial processes,
electricity production (a small percentage), cosmetics,
chewing gum
you name it. Oil demand worldwide is
projected by the International Energy Agency (IEA) to
increase at the rate of
-
.
% per year. If that rate of
A word of caution: government estimates tend to be on the optimistic
side. I have tried to
find conservative estimates, but be warned: there may
be less than is indicated here for all except natural gas.
