the energy problem in 2012

Advances in Energy Engineering (AEE) Volume 2, 2014 www.seipub.org/aee

1

The Energy Problem in 2012 Giorgio Giacomelli, Giuseppina Maltoni

University of Bologna and INFN Bologna

DIFA, Viale Berti Pichat 6/2, 40127 Bologna, Italy

[email protected]; [email protected]

Received 2 March 2013; Revised 4 September 2013; Accepted 12 September 2013; Published January 2014

© 2014 Science and Engineering Publishing Company

Abstract

The world consumption of all forms of energies are first

considered. The main fuel sources are still fossil. Including

oil sands and oil/gas shales, the effective world fossil

reserves are now considerably greater. And some of the new

sources emerge in the market but not at high costs. At the

moment, only the US and Canada produce oil and gas from

oil/gas shales and oil sands in commercial quantities and this

has started a market “revolution”. A brief review of

renewable energies and their future roles are discussed. At

the moment, the contributions from new renewable energies

are small, but there are great hopes for the future, in

particular in the European Union. A short presentation is

given on major nuclear plants (in China, South Korea and

France) used to study a neutrino oscillation parameter,

which is a novelty. The nuclear power status in some nations

is discussed, with emphasis on fast neutron reactors. These

considerations are applied to different situations: while

Eastern Nations plan to increase the contributions from new

nuclear power reactors, the situation is not clear in many

Western Nations, mainly due to the strong NIMBY effect

and from changes in the government parties. The role of

electric energy, the opportunities for energy savings and a

sustainable energy future are investigated, with conclusions

and perspectives. The U.S. and Canada are also making

strong efforts to implement energy saving techniques and to

use new non invasive technologies for non conventional

fossil fuels.

Keywords

Energy Consumptions; Fossil Fuels; Renewable Energies; Nuclear

Energy; Energy Saving; NIMBY Effect

Introduction

The industrial revolution, which began in the mid‐

eighteenth century, provided peoples with steam‐

powered trains and ships, and with internal

combustion engines, which transformed the ways

peoples moved and produced goods around the world.

Electrification continued the revolution in the next

centuries. Today, a growing number of persons keep

their homes warm in winter, cool in summer and

lighted at night and travel by cars with powers

equivalent to about hundred horses. This power is

derived from our ability to exploit fossil sources of

energy. However, in the transition to “horsepower”,

the CO2 emissions created significant climate‐change

risks [Chu, S. and Majundar, A., 2012]. Carbon

dioxide emissions are expected to increase in the next

decades. The world would need another revolution in

order to make our sources affordable and sustainable.

Despite the significant growth in the use of renewable

energies, the fractional sum of non‐carbon emitting

new renewable energy sources remained small during

the past decade.

In 2012 there was another technological revolution in

the US and Canada, obtaining oil and gas in

commercial quantities from oil shales and oil sands,

thus vastly increasing the oil and gas reserves. It may

be worth pointing out that about 10 years ago this

possibility was considered inapplicable and too costly.

But the development of new technologies made it

possible.

The energy field is changing rapidly due to the

application of new technologies and one must keep a

good track for new possibilities.

There are recurrent news of “excess heat” produced in

Cold Fusion experiments, now called Low Energy Nuclear

Reactions (LENR). The field suffers from poor

reproducibility, lack of predictability and insufficient

formal checks [Cold Fusion, 2013]. There are

continuing “Edison type efforts” to produce devices

mainly for heat, and there are efforts to “certify” such

devices and establish their validity. This leads some

media to write articles of the type: “Nuclear Reactor in

In the 1850s, large cities (New York, London,..) had

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NATIONS

Renewable Energies

It must be stressed that the ability to discover and

extract fossil fuels could be improved. Economically,

recoverable reservoirs are likely to keep up with the

rising demand for several decades [Pallottino, G. V.,

2012]. And the new use of shale oil/gas will further

help. The stone age did not end because people ran

out of stones: they only transitioned to better solutions!

Some renewable energies are becoming competitive

with those from other sources. Western Europe and

other Nations tend to accelerate the transition to

affordable and sustainable energies, mainly solar and

wind, that may improve economic growth, increase

energy security and reduce risks of climate changes. It

is suggested to use any new type of renewable energy

and perform all possible energy savings. This may be

optimistic, but if we do not change direction soon, we

may end up where we are heading.

Renewable energies grew considerably in 1911‐2012,

but their global impact is still small.

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9

been used to measure the neutrino oscillation angle

parameter θ13, the last parameter needed to understand

the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations [Adamson, P.

2008, Ahmad, Q.R.2001, Ambrosio 1998, M, Fukuda

1998, Y., Ahn, 2006], see FIG. 13. The nuclear reactors

are of the latest french‐german design (EPR of

generation 3 or 3+):

‐two reactors in France (Experiment Double Chooz).

‐six new reactors in South Korea [Exp. Reno].

‐six new reactors in China (Exp. Daya Bay+Lingao)

near Hong Kong (This is the present complex with the

highest total nuclear power).

The experiments attracted large International Research

Collaborations and obtained important physics results,

taking advantage of the very large fluxes (1021‐1022

low‐energy electron antineutrinos per second) from

the power reactors. θ13 was found to be small, but not

zero [Abe, Y, An, F.P., Ahn, J.K, 2012,]: sin22θ13=0.098 ±

0.01 [Beringuer, J. 2012]. Besides this new important

physics result, the practical purpose of these reactors

is the production of electricity without CO2 emission.

This is particularly important for China, where the

large use of coal makes the cities foggy.

After the 2011 Fukushima incident in Japan, all

Nations adopted safety improvements in their nuclear

reactors, and the world nuclear energy production

decreased by 4.5%.

Most Western nations still hesitate to state clearly their

future programs [Sumini, M. and Toscano, E., 2012].

The Far‐East Nations decided as follows:

‐Japan stopped its nuclear power stations, but recently

restarted 2 reactors and now they are planning to

restart the full nuclear power program.

‐South Korea (SK) has 23 nuclear reactors with 20.7

GWe total power which supplies 1/3 of the used

electricity at low cost. SK plans to have, by 2030, 40

units to provide 56% of the electricity needed. It may

be worth mentioning that SK won a $20 billion

contract to supply 4 nuclear reactors to the United

Arab Emirates. Also Qatar and may be Saudi Arabia

are looking forward for a post‐oil situation without

CO2 emissions.

‐China, with 14 nuclear reactors of German‐French

and US design and 25 under construction, plans to

become self sufficient in design and building technical

parts; they hope to increase the number of reactors to

reach 60 GWe by 2020, and more later.

‐India has 4 GWe nuclear power and plans to reach

14.6 GWe by 2020 (with enriched Uranium fuel from

Russia). [G.Giacomelli, G.Maltoni, 2012].

‐Fourth generation nuclear reactors. Fast Neutron Reactors.

The 4th generation nuclear reactors are planned to be

much safer, as they use many passive automatic safety

systems, in particular water cooling of the reactor core

by gravity [Giacomelli, G., 2009, 2011].

Fast neutron reactors (FNRs) are a step forward from

present conventional reactors and could yield a much

more efficient use of natural uranium:

‐FNRs use U238, which is over 99% of natural uranium

and, besides U238, they burn U235, Pu and the actinides

(which represent most of the present high‐level long‐

lived nuclear wastes).

‐FNRs producing Pu are called breeder reactors.

‐the best solution would be a closed cycle, burning

everything.

‐these reactors have an experience of 400 reactor‐years

and further research is ongoing in many Nations ( but

they are not commercially ready yet).

‐the 4th generation nuclear reactors will mainly be FNRs.

‐the world U235 fuel supply for present nuclear reactors

is estimated to last around 50 years, while the U238

supply may last several thousands.

‐many nations plan to use FNRs as soon as they will

be available. For example:

‐France stated that half of their present reactors will

eventually be replaced by FNRs.

‐China has a 20 MWe experimental prototype.

‐India has a 500 MWe experimental prototype.

‐Other prototypes are in the US, UK, Germany, Japan,

Kazakhstan, Russia.

‐Research has been performed on Thorium Reactors,

expecially in India. Thorium, about 3 times more

abundant than Uranium, would represent an advantage

since no nuclear bomb can be made with it. But not all

technical problems are solved yet.

‐Nuclear Energy in Italy.

In Italy, before 1964, three nuclear reactors were

operative or in an advanced construction stage. ENEL

made operative in 1984 the 4th nuclear reactor (the last

one) at Caorso. After the 1987 referendum, it was

decided to stop the construction of more reactors, the

immediate stop of the 4 reactors and to convert the

two almost completed reactors at Montalto from

nuclear to methane (but the Italian Tirrenian sea ports

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www.seipub.org/aee Advances in Energy Engineering (AEE) Volume 2, 2014

12

‐New metal alloys together with computer simulations

allow an increased use of lighter materials.

‐Electric Power conversion: most future power should

be transported through power electronics which may

allow a considerable energy saving.

‐There may be a decrease in fuel chemical precursors

and in the cost of biomass harvesting, storage and

shipment in Brasil and in the US. But most Nations

should be careful that these methods do not increase

food prices, nor produce food shortages.

Conclusions. Perspectives

It can be seen that the world energy consumption keeps

increasing and that the main energy sources are still

fossil fuels. Their proven reserves keep increasing due to

improving technologies. In 2012 the exploitation of oil

sands and gas/oil shales in Canada and the US was

started in commercial quantities, initiating a sort of

“revolution”, with considerable increases of their local

productions and of their reserves. This may be quickly

repeated in many other Nations.

FIG. 6 shows also the environmental impact around a

new large mine of this type. In principle the area will

be brought back to its original situation, but this may

be difficult in heavily populated regions. Moreover

there is an increase of CO2 emissions. These impacts

may be solved in the large areas of Canada and the US,

which also have good technical expertise. It may be

more difficult in other places.

New Renewable Energies (RE) made much progress,

but their contribution is still limited. European

Nations expect to increase the use of RE in the coming

20 years, with the main purpose of reducing emissions

of CO2.

In addition, nuclear technologies are improving and

they are exploited in full in Eastern Countries, also in

the hope that major progress will be made with fourth

generation nuclear plants.

Energy savings made major progress everywhere, in

particular in Western Nations.

A positive summary of this presentation may be

summarized by the new Colorado River bridge near

the Hoover Dam on US route 93 between the cities of

Phoenix and Las Vegas. The old Hoover Dam, built

during the recession of the 1930’s, became a tourist

attraction, with about one million visitors per year.

The new Colorado River Bridge, at a large height,

constructed starting at the beginning of the recent

financial crisis using new techniques, remained within

the approved budget, operated on time in 2011, and

started to be another effective tourist attraction.

These successes may be considered examples of

offsetting the NIMBY effect (“Not In My BackYard”),

which caused so many delays and extra costs in many

major projects in Western Nations. We may recall as

an example the high velocity connection (TAV)

between France and Italy. The NIMBY affected also

the networks of radio emitters used by portable

phones, but the general “love” for such phones seems

to have eliminated the effect.

In the West we are probably starting to feel the effects

of the gas and oil revolution started in Canada and the

US, but we may need a “cultural change”if we do not

want to be left behind by the Emerging Nations.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the Ravenna Labelab organization.

We thank the participants to the Ravenna workshops and

many colleagues from ENEA‐Bologna, the University of

Bologna, INFN‐Bologna for their collaboration.

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