Natural Resources

1. Natural Resources Energy

2. Fossil Fuels

3. Fossil Fuels • Our Principal Industrial Energy Source • Fundamental to the U. S. Economy • 88% of our energy needs are met by coal, oil, & natural gas

4. Fossil Fuels • The Historical Development of Fossil Fuels • Coal mining began 8 centuries ago on the north coast of England • The use of fossil fuels was negligible before 1800

5. The General Depletion Picture Oil & Natural Gas Liquids2003 Base Case Scenario

6. Oil And Natural Gas • The Natural Occurrence of Oil and Gas • Both resources require that some sort of geologic trap exist

7. Oil And Natural Gas • Oil Field Sizes • Oil fields range from supergiant (>5 billion bbls) to small (5 million bbls) • Few undiscovered supergiant or giants are believed to remain • Seems virtually certain they have all been found in the U.S.

8. Global distribution of 592 giant oil fields plotted on topographic-bathymetric world map. Yellow boxes indicate concentrations of giant oil fields shown in detailed figures. A) Alaska; B) Rocky Mountain foreland; C) Southern California; D) Permian and Anadarko basins; E) Gulf of Mexico; F) Northern South America; G) Brazil; H) North Sea; I) North Africa; J) West Africa; K) Arabian Peninsula / Persian Gulf; L) Black Sea; m) Caspian Sea; N) Ural Mountains; O) West Siberia; P) Siberia; Q) China; R) Sunda; S) Australia; T) Bass Strait / Australia / Tasmania

9. Top 20 Oil Reserves

10. Top 20 Oil Reserves

11. Top 20 Oil Consumers

12. Top 20 Oil Consumers

14. Map of lower 48 States showing location of continuous-type plays for oil and gas in sandstones, shales, and chalks (U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1118 )

15. Oil And Natural Gas • Getting Oil Out of the Ground • Exploration • Secure drilling rights • Drilling • Pumping • Processing

16. After drilling, a cement mixture is pumped into the ‘payzone” and left to harden. Once hard, the cement zone is perforated. Drilling

17. Oil And Natural Gas • Oil Recovery Ranges from 10 to 80% • The industry average is 30% • Secondary Recovery • This is mostly water or natural gas injection • Raises recovery 2 to 10%

18. Oil And Natural Gas • Tertiary recovery is rarely done • in situ heating by burning or detergent injection are used

19. Oil And Natural Gas • U.S. oil production will continue to fall as the resource declines • Year 2000PRODUCTION = 5x106 bbls/day CONSUMPTION = 16 to 17x106 bbls/day

20. Oil And Natural Gas • Suppliers of Petroleum to the U. S. • Importer nations must go to those who have oil regardless of politics • Dependence on oil has forced reliance on distant sources as domestic resources fall • Industrial powers now rely on politically unstable nations

21. Oil And Natural Gas • A Brief History of OPEC • Founded around 1960 by Venezuela because oil companies paid so little for the oil they extracted • Other nations joined because their huge oil resources generated so little money • In the early 1970's U.S. inefficiency forced us to switch from exporter to importer • The Shah of Iran urged price increases • OPEC production has fallen since 1977

22. Oil And Natural Gas • Oil Shales • 20% of the U.S. is underlain by oil shale • The Green River Formation of Colorado, Utah & Wyoming • covers 17,000 sq. miles and has 2 x 1012 bbls oil • better deposits have 30 gallons/ton rock • most land is federally owned • Best known recovery methods involve strip mining and surface retorting

23. Oil And Natural Gas • Oil Shales • Environmental problems • retorting expands the shale 20% compounding disposal problems • strip mining • waste is very alkaline and pollutes streams • air pollution from dust and many chemicals • burning shale oil produces 1.5 to 5 times the CO2 of conventional oil • CO2 is released from calcite

24. Oil And Natural Gas • Natural Gas (methane CH4) • History • Natural gas was once considered a nuisance and was routinely flared before 1940 • Now natural gas is either: • reinjected to maintain oil field pressure • shipped to market • preferably by pipeline • LNG tankers are dangerous

25. Oil And Natural Gas • The resource yet to be developed in the U.S. may be 1500 x1012 cubic feet • 65 years supply at 1995 consumption rates • This high total may result from discoveries in the Rocky Mtn overthrust belt

26. Top 20 Natural Gas Reserves

27. Top 20 Natural Gas Reserves

28. Top 20 Natural Gas Consumers

29. Top 20 Natural Gas Consumers

30. Coal • Coal resources are more easily estimated • U.S. may have 400 - 500 billion tons of commercial coal • a 600 year supply • resource is 10 times oil • 4000 billion tons may ultimately be available • USSR has 3 to 4 X the U.S. resource

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32. Coal distribution in the U.S. Map of lower 48 States showing areas of coal-bed gas and locations of plays assessed (U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1118 )

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34. Coal • Important uses of coal • electricity generation • production of methane by gasification • domestic and commercial heat • heat for industrial processes

35. Coal • How coal is produced Source

36. Coal • Adverse environmental impacts • Strip mining • occupational hazards - black lung, mine collapse, etc. • stream pollution from mines • SO2 and NOX air pollution - acid rain • particulate air pollution

37. Mountaintop removal mining near the Mud River, southern West Virginia Resulted in polluted air, streams and well water, in addition to strong earth vibrations due to the detonation of explosives. Photograph by Melissa Farlow / Source

38. Mountain top mining in Kayford Mountain in Raleigh County, West Virginia Photograph by Melissa Farlow / Source

39. Cleanup of a mine tailing dam failure near Inez, Kentucky in October 2000 250 million gallons (950 million liters) of slurry entered into the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River Photograph by Melissa Farlow / Source

40. J. Paul Storrs, mining engineer, U.S. Geological Survey, examining the coal in ColoWyo Coal Company's mine near Axial. Moffat County, Colorado. 1960 The underground loading of coal in ColoWyo Coal Company's mine near Axial. Moffat County, Colorado. 1960

41. Countries by carbon dioxide emissions world map source

42. NUCLEAR POWER

43. Atomic Fusion • Possibility was first recognized by Hans Bethe 1939 - Nobel Prize) • Concept is to harness the energy of the sun by fusing 1D2 into 2He3 or 2He4 • This has already been done in the form of the hydrogen bomb Image source

44. Atomic Fusion • Definitions • Isotope – atom that exhibits variation in its mass number • Mass number – sum of the neutrons plus the protons in an atom • Atomic number – # of protons found in the nucleus • Atomic weight – average of the atomic masses of all the element's isotopes

45. Atomic Fusion • Nuclear energy is released by several processes: • Radioactive decay, where a radioactive nucleus decays spontaneously into a lighter nucleus by emitting a particle Alpha particles are stopped by a sheet of paper whilst beta particles halt to an aluminum plate. Gamma radiation is dampened when it penetrates matter. Gamma rays can be stopped from 4 meters of lead. source

46. Atomic Fusion • Nuclear energy is released by several processes: • Endothermic nuclear reactions where two nuclei merge to produce two different nuclei. The following two processes are particular examples: • Fusion, two atomic nuclei fuse together to form a heavier nucleus; • Fission, the breaking of a heavy nucleus into two nearly equal parts source

47. Fusion Fission source

48. Atomic Fusion • The 3 Isotopes of Hydrogen • Hydrogen 1H1 • Deuterium 1D2 • Tritium 1T3

49. The Energy Of Atomic Fission • Fuels for Nuclear Reactors • Natural fuels • U235 is the only natural isotope of any element that is spontaneously fissionable • 92U238 - 99.283% of all U • 92U235 - 0.711% • 92U234 - 0.006% • U235 is the initial fuel for all fission reactors • 1 gram of U235 equals 2.7 metric tons coal or 13.7 bbls oil

50. The Energy Of Atomic Fission • Fuels for Nuclear Reactors • Man made fuels • U238 and Th232, fertile materials, can be made to combine with a neutron to make a useful fuel • 92U238 + neutron → 94Pu239 fuel • 90Th232 + neutron → 92U233 fuel