Sustainable Resource Development

Taking a fresh new look at the energy industry and how the Earth's resources are being developed, the aim of this book is to aid engineers and scientists in attaining sustainability in this field, both from an economic and environmental perspective. The author herein presents engineering research and practice that is focused on achieving energy sustainability from a global perspective, as is also outlined in other Scrivener books, such as The Greening of Petroleum Operations and the author's own recently published book, Sustainable Energy Pricing, the companion volume to this book. The author applies the principles of economic sustainability developed there to re-examine actual engineering practices in fossil fuel and alternative energy (such as wind and tidal power) exploration and development. One of the book’s unique features is its analysis of what is deficient in the thinking and analytical frameworks that inform engineering work done in the field. The book addresses the complex issues surrounding our quest for sustainability and the key causes of the challenges that face the energy industry and its resource development. From this standpoint, the book challenges the reasoning and conclusions drawn from the often-quoted theory of "peak oil".

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements xiii Preface xv Introduction xvii 1 A True Sustainability Criterion and Its Implications 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 Importance of a Sustainability Criterion 3 1.3 Criterion: The Switch that Determines Direction at a Bifurcation Point 8 1.3.1 Some Applications of the Criterion 11 1.4 Current Practices in Petroleum Engineering 16 1.5 Development of a Sustainable Model 24 1.6 Violation of Characteristic Time 26 1.7 Analogies with Physical Phenomena 31 1.8 Intangible Cause to Tangible Consequence 32 1.9 Removable Discontinuities: Phases and Renewability of Materials 34 1.10 Rebalancing Mass and Energy 35 1.11 Holes in the Current Energy Model 37 1.12 Tools Needed for Sustainable Petroleum Operations 40 1.13 Conditions of Sustainability 43 1.14 Sustainability Indicators 44 1.15 Assessing the Overall Performance of a Process 46 2 "Alternative" and Conventional Energy Sources: Trail-Mix, Tom Mix or Global Mixup? 59 2.1 Introduction 63 2.2 Global 68 2.3 Solar Energy 74 2.4 Hydroelectric Power 78 2.5 Ocean Thermal, Wave and Tidal Energy 79 2.6 Windi Energy 80 2.7 Bioenergy 82 2.8 Fuelwood 82 2.9 Bioethanol 83 2.10 Biodiesel 86 2.11 Nuclear Power 88 2.12 Geothermal Energy 91 2.13 Hydrogen Energy 92 2.14 Global [ Efficiency 94 2.15 Solar Energy 95 2.16 "Global Warming" 113 2.17 Impact of Energy Technology and Policy 117 2.18 Energy Demand in Emerging Economies 119 2.19 Conventional Global Energy Model 120 2.20 Renewable vs Non-renewable: Is There a Boundary? 121 2.21 Knowledge-Enriched Global Energy Model 126 2.22 Conclusions 128 3 Electricity and Sustainability 131 3.1 Electrical Power as the World's Premier Non-Primary Energy Source 131 3.2 Consequences of the Ubiquity of Electric Power Services 143 3.3 The Last Twenty Years of "Electrical Services Reform" in the United States 150 4 The Zero-Waste Concept and Its Applications 169 Part A. Petroleum Engineering Applications 169 4.1 Introduction 170 4.2 Petroleum Refining 172 4.3 Zero-Waste Impacts on Product Life Cycle (Transportation, Use, and End-of-Life) 193 4.4 No-Flaring Technique 194 Part B. Other Applications of the 'Zero-Waste' Principle 205 4.5 Zero-Waste Living and the Anaerobic Biodigester 205 4.6 Solar Aquatic Process Purifies Waste (including Desal-inated) Water 209 4.7 Last Word 212 5 Natural Gas 293 5.1 Introduction 293 5.2 Divergence of Energy Commodity Pricing From Laws of Supply and Demand 303 5.3 Sustainability and the Increasing Fascination with Natural Gas 307 5.4 Natural Gas Pricing, Markets, Risk Management, and Supply 311 5.5 Natural Gas in Eurasia 328 5.6 Nature As The New Model 333 6 OPEC — The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries 359 6.1 Birthmarks — The First Twenty Years 359 6.2 OPEC's Hard Choices in the Era of the Bush Doctrine 367 6.3 Monopoly, Cartel, Rentier — or Instrumentality for Economic Independence? 380 6.4 Postscript (Friday 21 October 2011) 400 7 Concluding Remarks 405 Appendix 409 Al Taking Economics Backward As Science 416 A2 Developing a Theory of Marginal Information Utility Based on "The Alternative Approach of Beginning with Highly Simplified, Quite Concrete Models" 418 A3 Imperfections of Information, or Oligopoly and Monopoly? 426 A4 Afterword 435 Bibliography 443 Introductory Note 443 I. Bibliography 445 II. Websites 494 Index 497