Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
larger amounts of it have to be mined for its degradation. This substantially increases
the energy required to extract the ore and contributes to the costs.
Despite intensive efforts by some countries to develop nuclear energy, at 6% its
share of worldwide primary energy supply is still relatively low. A few countries
like France are using nuclear power stations to cover 80% of their electricity needs.
However, even in France cars cannot be run on nuclear power, and only some houses
use nuclear energy for heating. Consequently, nuclear energy only really constitutes
40% of the total primary energy supply, even in France.
The supplies of uranium would be depleted in just a few years if nuclear energy
were used to replace all fossil energies, which would also mean developing nuclear
automobiles and nuclear heating. Power stations could use other techniques, such
as relatively risk-free fast breeders, to increase the amount of energy they are able
to exploit, but this would do very little to change the fact that the supply of uranium
is limited. Even the uranium supplies that can be exploited economically will run
out in a few decades at the most - which does not make a convincing argument for
building new nuclear power stations with a lifespan of 30 to 40 years. For these
reasons alone nuclear energy is not a viable alternative to fossil energies.
1.6 Oil Prices Today - Politics, Supply and Demand
The low energy prices of the 1970s were the foundation not only of the economic
miracle in several industrial countries, but of the massive rise in energy consump-
tion. The founding of OPEC and the politically motivated limiting of production in
1973 led ultimately to a dramatic increase in oil prices. The shocked industrialized
countries reacted with relative helplessness. In 1973 they founded the International
Energy Agency (IEA) to coordinate their energy policies and ensure that the supply
of energy remained secure and affordable.
The purpose of strategic oil reserves is to guarantee availability when the oil supply
is interrupted and to stabilize prices. For example, Germany stockpiles 25 million
tons of crude oil or crude oil products that can cover the country's oil requirements
for 90 days. The US strategic petroleum reserve is the largest in the world and holds
up to 99 million tons.
The commitment to developing the use of renewable energies also increased in the
1970s. However, a large number of failed mammoth projects showed that cost-
effective and sustainable energy supply is not something that can be forced through;
it can only be the outcome of long-term, ongoing development. Nevertheless, the
oil crisis in the 1970s paved the way for the current boom in renewable energies.
The 1990s were marked by extremely low oil prices. As a result, efforts to save
energy and to develop renewable energies stagnated. Due to booming global eco-
nomic activity and extremely high demand, especially from China, oil prices reached
new heights after the year 2000. Oil prices in 2006 were almost double what they
were at the time of the oil crises in the 1970s (see Figure 1.11). Up to now this has
only had a limited effect on the world economy. This can be explained by consider-
