NORTH AMERICA And it’s energy problems Daniel, Melissa, Siân and Abi.

Current Energy Demand Demand is currently higher than supply. As shown in Figure 3 crude oil has been dropping since 1985 with peak oil production in 1970 and is continuing to drop. From our own knowledge we can judge that the price of oil is constantly fluctuating. As shown in the diagram below. * In Alaska there is currently 6-16 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge but is currently inaccessible due to ethical issue’s.

Future Energy Demands As Energy Demand is always increasing from % increase in demand for petajoules of energy (projected)  *Lower Demands or higher supply need to occur and at America’s current energy consumption it is more likely that supply will increase. The alternative is to increase reliance upon renewable sources to fulfil demand. E.g. The Hoover dam creating electricity through hydro technology

Current Energy Security There is the north American free trade agreement (NAFTA) between USA,Canada & Mexico. This allows for exchange of energy resources and materials between countries without cost. The USA’s demand is high, as shown in the table it has 5,080 production of Crude oil but needs 23,000.  Within the NAFTA agreement the USA has the opportunity to import Gas & Crude oil from Canada and Mexico as shown in the Table. Meaning it has security in its neighbours, but for how long ?

Future Energy Security Although demand is increasing, the USA does have a large expanse of coal sources that it has not yet fully exploited to benefit its energy security. As you can see from the sample from figure 2 they are currently producing more coal then they need and exporting the excess. If they exploited their coal resources more they could either export more to be able to import more sources such as oil or gas. Alternatively they could fuel more power stations with the coal in order to use less Crude Oil or gas which is less readily available. The USA also has vast areas of potential for renewable technologies as shown in figure 9 . For example California has very high potential as it has all forms of renewable potential and a very high demand. Therefore this would be a perfect place to exploit and develop renewable technologies if it was not for its dense population and focus on tourism.

Synoptic Links Exploitation of the Canadian Tar Sands can damage Biodiversity. The process of extracting the bitumen from the sand can pollute the Athabasca river and releases toxins into the air. This can damage bio-diversity because species will die off due to pollution damage creating a genetic bottleneck and reducing the alleles in their population reducing genetic diversity and their range of genes which could help them fight against future diseases. If these resources are available for use it may put governments off renewable sources of technology as they already have a source of oil. This means that the technology will not be developed leaving our renewable technologies behind what they should be and our countries still polluting the environment until we go over the tipping point.