Exploring Energy

Solar Energy Production

2013-04-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), all of the electricity generating capacity added to the grid last month was attributable to solar power. This was the first time this had ever happened. All other sources of electricity generation remained constant for the month while seven solar installations were brought online. The full monthly report provides details on the location of each new installation - states that had installations come online include Hawaii, California, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, and New Jersey.

It is important to remember that solar is still a small part of our energy mix - but it is growing. In 2011 it accounted for less than 1% of all electricity generation while wind accounted for approximately 23% of electricity generation and hydro power, the largest source of renewable energy, accounted for 63% of electricity generation.

Industrial Energy

2013-04-17T12:58:00.003-07:00

In an earlier post (March 20, 2013) about the ways that energy is used (residential, commercial, industrial, transportation), perhaps the most striking feature is the fact that total energy used in the industrial sector has been relatively stagnant since the mid-1970s while all other sectors have experienced clear growth in energy usage.

This should not be taken to mean that industrial or manufacturing output has been stagnant. Just the opposite - the value added to the economy from manufacturing has grown consistently over the past 25 years with the exception of the Great Recession which saw a slowdown in all economic activity. The chart below is based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and shows inflation-adjusted value added of manufacturing from 1987 through 2012.

From this we can infer that manufacturers have found more energy efficient ways to produce an increasingly valuable output.

Cities and Energy

2013-04-12T17:59:00.000-07:00

As of the 2010 Census 80.7 percent of U.S. residents lived in urban areas according to the Census Bureau. The U.S. has experienced a long trend of urbanization as have other developed countries and similar patterns are observed in developing countries. In fact more than half of the world's 7 billion people now live in urban areas.

This has important implications for energy use. Ed Glaeser, an economist at Harvard, has studied this issue and shown that households in urban areas use less energy and therefore have lower carbon emissions. In addition to this, within urban areas households that live in the central city are more efficient compared with those in suburban areas. The research examines four sources of energy and emissions: home heating, electricity, driving, and public transportation. The main drivers of the findings are the facts that urban households are characterized by smaller living spaces, higher population densities, and less reliance on the automobile.

The geography of economic and residential activity is an important part of understanding our energy use. As the world continues to urbanize it is important to understand how this could influence energy use patterns across the globe. The chart below from the UN provides a snapshot of the global urbanization trend.

Climate and Energy

2013-04-11T10:45:00.001-07:00

Last week at the annual meeting of the Southern Regional Science Association in Arlington, VA the Director of the National Climate Assessment, Kathy Jacobs, presented an interesting overview of the work being done on the project. The National Climate Assessment provides a tool to observe changes in the climate, evaluate the current state of the climate, and to anticipate potential future changes in climate.

One of the areas examined specifically is energy supply and use. The report provides the following key messages on the interaction between climate and energy supply and use.

1. Extreme weather events are affecting energy production and delivery facilities, causing supply disruptions of varying lengths and magnitudes and affecting other infrastructure that depends on energy supply. The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are expected to increase.

2. Higher summer temperatures will increase electricity use, causing higher summer peak loads, while warmer winters will decrease energy demands for heating. Net energy use is projected to increase as rising demands for cooling outpace declining heating energy demands.

3. Both episodic and long-lasting changes in water availability will constrain different forms of energy production.

4. In the longer term, sea level rise will affect coastal facilities and infrastructure on which many energy systems, markets, and consumers depend.

5. As new investments in energy technologies occur, future energy systems will differ from today’s in uncertain ways – depending on the character of changes in the energy mix, climate change will introduce new risks as well as opportunities.

Future posts will examine these impacts in more detail as they are likely to alter the ways in which we consume and produce energy.

Energy Lecture Series

2013-04-03T17:23:00.000-07:00

Jeffrey Ball, scholar-in-residence at Stanford's Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, will be visiting campus next week as part of the Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow program.

Mr. Ball will present a lecture entitled "Power Grab: Sharp Fights and Hards Lessons in the Global Race for Cleaner Energy" Monday, April 8 at 7:00pm in the Yost Auditorium inside the Howard J. Burnett Center. As always the lecture is free and open to the public.

In addition, Mr. Ball will be visiting classes and student organizations throughout his week on campus.

Energy Summit at W&J

2013-04-01T04:51:00.002-07:00

This Thursday, April 4, the 2nd Annual Energy Summit will be held here on campus at Washington & Jefferson College. The focus of the event is U.S. Energy Security: How Do We Get There?

The keynote speaker will be Gen. Charles F. Wald (retired USAF), Director, Deloitte Services, Deloitte's Department of Defense Practices. Gen. Wald's talk is entitled "Energy Security: America's Best Defense."

In addition, two panel discussions will include a number of experts discussing the implications of increased domestic production of oil and natural gas for energy security. Limited spots are still available for the event.

Electricity in the 1970s

2013-04-01T04:40:00.000-07:00

Electricity generation in the 1970s showed an interesting pattern of changing generation sources.

With increased air quality and smog concerns (Clean Air Act of 1970) and relatively low oil prices electricity was increasingly generated using petroleum during the late 1960s through the 1970s. This meant that the proportion of electricity generated using coal dropped considerably during this time period.

The Oil Crisis of 1979 and rising oil prices put an abrupt stop to this pattern. Amid the fears of oil price shocks and supply disruptions there was an intentional shift to electricity generation from coal and a build-up of coal-fired power plants. Since this time petroleum has constituted a small and declining share of electricity generation.

This pattern can be clearly identified in the Washington & Jefferson College Energy Index.

In 1965 coal accounted for 21.5 percent of primary energy consumption while petroleum accounted for 43 percent in the same year.
By 1978 coal had fallen to 17.2 percent of all energy consumed while petroleum had climbed to 47.6 percent of usage.
In 1985 (following the 1979 oil crisis) coal had rebounded to account for 23 percent of primary energy consumption and petroleum had fallen to 40.5 percent of energy used.

The energy index values from this time period are telling.

In 1965 the value was 90 as domestic coal was used to produce electricity.
In 1978 the value had fallen to 77.5 as oil that was increasingly used for electricity production was sourced outside the US.
In 1985 the value was back to 85.6 with the shift back to domestic coal usage.

In later posts we will cover a similar situation that is occurring now as electricity is increasingly generated using natural gas as the primary energy source.

Mapping Marcellus Drilling

2013-03-30T07:39:00.000-07:00

With the increase in drilling of unconventional natural gas wells in Pennsylvania over the past several years many sources have tried to map the phenomenon. One that is interactive and provides some useful breakdowns by county and municipality comes from State Impact Pennsylvania which uses Pennsylvania DEP data as its source.

Natural Gas Drilling in Pennsylvania

You will notice that Washington County, where were are located at Washington & Jefferson College, ranks third among PA counties with 896 wells drilled. The most intense drilling activity tends be occurring in the southwestern and northeastern parts of the state.

Energy - How Is It Used?

2013-03-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

The ways that we use energy are numerous.

Consider a normal day - wake up in a heated (or air conditioned) house, turn on the lights, plug in the coffee maker, make sure that your laptop and smartphone are charged, drive to work, enter an office with computer, printer, lighting, and heat (or AC) - the list could go on nearly endlessly.

How can be gain some clearer information about the different ways energy is used?

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) classifies energy based on its end use. In 2011 the industrial sector accounted for 31 percent of all energy used in the US. The transportation sector accounted for 28 percent, the residential sector 22 percent, and the commercial sector accounted for 19 percent of usage.

While the transportation, residential, and commercial sectors have experienced consistent increases in consumption of energy, usage in the industrial sector has been relative flat since the early 1970s as the economy has been less dependent on manufacturing and as the sector has used energy more efficiently.

Ethanol Issues

2013-03-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press had an informative article about the connections between corn harvests and ethanol production.

Given that corn is the main input in U.S. ethanol production, plentiful and cheap corn is essential. The drought of 2012, that heavily impacted major corn producing states, led to 20 of the nation's 211 ethanol plants stopping production. The drought led to lower corn yields and higher prices - these higher prices make ethanol production unprofitable. The AP article notes that approximately 10 percent of the nation's gas comes from ethanol but that the impacts of the plant shutdowns should be minimal due to large stocks of ethanol. If yields do not rebound in the coming years however the industry could be hit hard.

Increased production of ethanol is part of the reason that more energy in the U.S. has been sourced domestically over the past decade.

The chart below from EIA provides some specific data on the margins that ethanol plants are experiencing.

Energy Usage at a Macro Scale

2013-03-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

One thing we can be sure of when it comes to energy - we use a lot of it. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) the US used 97.5 quadrillion btus of primary energy in 2011.

That is 97,500,000,000,000,000

So where did all of this energy come from?

The largest primary energy source is petroleum which accounted for 36 percent of energy use in 2011. This is followed by natural gas at 25 percent, coal with 20 percent, renewables at 9 percent, and nuclear at 8 percent.

In future posts we will devote a bit more time to each primary energy source and consider how this usage has changed over time.

Energy Lecture Series

2013-02-27T09:18:00.001-08:00

Maggie Koerth-Baker will be visiting campus on Tuesday March 5, 2013.

Her talk is entitled "The Past, Present, and Future of America's Electric Infrastructure." This will be held in the Yost Auditorium inside the Howard J. Burnett Center at 6:30pm.

Maggie is the science editor for Boingboing.net - one of the most influential blogs in the country.

This lecture, like the others in the series, is free and open to the public.

Energy in Our World

2013-02-07T09:25:00.000-08:00

Consider the various ways that we use and interact with energy sources everyday - burning gasoline to drive to work or school, relying on electricity to power all our gadgets, using natural gas to heat our homes and businesses. Where does all of this energy come from and how much of it is produced within the US?

These questions, and more, are central to the Washington & Jefferson College Energy Index.

In its simplest form the Index examines all energy consumed in the US and is able to provide a reliable and accessible measure of the share of this energy produced domestically. It also places our current energy situation in a historical perspective and allows for comparisons of regional differences with respect to energy consumption and production.

The chart below shows the percent of total energy consumed that was produced domestically. We see that the US produced nearly all of the energy it needed following WWII. It is also clear that as energy demands grew over time an increasing share of the energy used in the US was sourced from foreign countries. The two exceptions to this pattern of a decreasing domestic energy share are the late 1970s oil crisis and the present time period starting in the mid 2000s.

To return to our initial question - how much of the energy we consume is produced in the US - the answer currently is around three-fourths (75%). This is somewhat below the historical average but certainly is on the rise.