Energy Sources Nonrenewable, Renewable, & Inexhaustible

Energy Sources Energy: The ability to do work Energy sources are defined as –Nonrenewable –Renewable –Inexhaustible The SUN is the original source of almost all energy sources on Earth.

Current Revolution in Power Driven by technological advances. Revolution being led in oil and natural gas production (fracking and horizontal drilling, oil sands), wind (huge turbines in windy areas ), solar ( huge solar fields ), and increased efficiency (revamping/modernizing of our power grid). October 7, 2013 Time magazine article on energy revolution: Power Surge Pg 35

Consumption 1973 and 2012 Petroleum: 46% (of total) /36.5% Natural Gas: 29.7% / 27.3% Nuclear: 1.2% / 8.5% Wind: 0% / 1.4% Solar: 0% / 0.3% Biofuel: 2% / 4.5%

Before Energy Revolution Fracking began in earnest in Now coal accounts for only 37% of our total energy consumption.

This is based on 2011 Data From US Energy Information Administration

Nonrenewable Energy Sources Sources that cannot be replaced once used Fossil Fuels Coal Oil Natural Gas Alternative Energy: Any fuel that is not identified as a fossil fuel

Petroleum Imports 2012 The US imports petroleum from 80 countries. The top 5 are Canada(2048), Saudi Arabia (1356), Mexico (972), Venezuela (906), Iraq (474). (thousand barrels per day) We are about 10 years out from producing all the petroleum we need.

Fracking Drill down and break the rock with a high pressure fluid - micro cracks form and any liquid in the rocks is released.

Nonrenewable Energy Sources Sources that cannot be replaced once used Uranium Nuclear energy (fission) 20% of the world’s electricity comes from nuclear power

Renewable Energy Sources Sources that can be replaced once used Animals Food Biomass –Biofuel Ethanol Methanol U.S. Department of Energy

Inexhaustible Energy Sources Hydroelectric Tidal

Inexhaustible Energy Sources Geothermal U.S. Department of Energy

Inexhaustible Energy Sources Wind U.S. Department of Energy

Inexhaustible Energy Sources Solar U.S. Department of Energy PS10

Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System Mohave Desert in California – largest solar power plant in the world.

Efficiency Smart meters, smart grid More fuel efficient cars, appliances, “Today the US uses less oil as a whole than it did 40 years ago, when the economy was a third of its current size.” “…the US gets twice as much economic value out of a single unit of energy today as it did in ”

The Bet – Human Ingenuity or Not In 1980 biologist and environmental icon Paul Ehrlich and conservative economist Julian Simon made a simple wager. Ehrlich bet that the price of five common metals would rise over the next decade, and Simon bet that the price would fall, with the loser paying the price change on a $1,000 bundle of the five metals.

The bet was really a contest of visions. Ehrlich--a neo-Malthusian best known for his 1968 book The Population Bomb-- believed that rising prices for materials would show that the world was headed toward scarcity and catastrophe. Simon believed that human creativity would always find ways to make basic resources cheaper and more widely available.

In 1990, Simon won the bet (and $ from Ehrlich). Ever since, his vision has prevailed. Scarcity, by and large, gave birth to the new technologies that have ushered the U.S. into a time of relative energy abundance. Geology didn't decide our destiny. Human ingenuity did. "Today we've got booming production of oil and natural gas, rapidly falling oil consumption and rising renewable energy," says Michael Levi, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It's not just one boom. It's several at the same time."

Where is Utah in All This?

Ways to Store Energy Hydrogen Batteries Are not themselves a source of energy U.S. Department of Energy

Image Resources Microsoft, Inc. (n.d.). Clip art. Retrieved January 10, 2008, from us/clipart/default.aspx U.S. Department of Energy. (n.d.). Retrieved April 16, 2008, from