Change in traditional energy sources

Change in four traditional sources of traded energy from 1998 and

2008:
35% increase in natural gas production
49% increase in coal production
13% increase in nuclear energy
22% rise in hydro-electricity

Graph showing Percentage Change of Different Energy Sources Between 1998 and 2008.

Energy Source

A. Natural gas:

Production of natural gas has increased from 36% to 41% from

1998 to 2008
United States 689 billion m3 (19.8%)
Russia 671 (19.3%)
Qatar 161 (4.6%)
Iran 159 (4.6%)
Canada 155 (4.5%)
China 115 (3.3%)
Norway 109 (3.1%)
Netherlands 86 (2.5%)
Saudi Arabia 84 (2.4%)
From 1998 to 2008, the reserves increased from 148 trillion
cubic metres to 185 trillion cubic metres
BUT, the amount of natural gas in South and Central America
decreased from 4.4% to 4.0% of the world total natural
reserve
The amount of oil in Europe and Eurasia declined significantly
from 39.9% to 34.0%

The amount of natural gas in North America decreased by

0.1%
The amount of has in the middle east however, increased from
35.9% to 41.0% and so did the amount of gas in Africa by
0.6%
In 2008, the global reserves to production ratio of natural gas
was 60.4 years

The reserves to production ratio in the Middle East has more

than halved in the last 30 years but it is still significantly
higher than the other regions
As of 2013 the Middle East had 141 more years while the
global average of only 55 years with North America having the
lowest of 13 years

Although the Middle East has the highest reserves to

production ratio, Europe and Eurasia produced the most
natural gas while the Middle Eat comes in 3rd producing only
570 billion cubic metres (BCM) while Europe and co produced
almost double at 1033 BCM

Reserves to production ratio of 2013

Oil production, the Middle East had the highest reserves to
production ratio, almost double of the other regions from 1982
to 2000
As of 2007 according to BP, South and Central America has
the highest reserves to production ratio of 123.83 years while
the Middle East has decreased to 78.11 years
However, the Middles East still produces majority of the
worlds oil, almost 25% of it

B. Coal

Coal production is dominated by the Asia-Pacific region,

accounting for the global total of 61.1%
Majority of that is produced in China, which alone mines
42.5%(2008) of the global total, the remaining coal is mined in
USA 18.0%, Australia 6.6%, India 5.8% and
In 2008, China
Russia at 4.6%
consumed 42.6%
Coal production
of the world coal
Country % of global
% of global
production in
production in
which was a
problem because
they were only
producing 42.5%

China
USA
Australi
a
India
Indones
ia
Russia

2008

2013

42.5
18.0
6.6

46.6
11.7
5.5

5.8
/

7.7
4.9

4.6

4.5

The Asia Pacific

region still
produces
majority of coal
but now it
counts for more
than a third of
global
production at
more than 2600

As the Asia
Pacific region
produced the
largest amount of
coal for more
than 3 decades,
it currently
(2013) has the
lowest reserves
to production
ratio of 54 years,
a 10 year
decrease from 64
years in 2008
China and USA
Extending the Life of Fossil Fuels
there are methods of extended/prolonging the life of fossil
fuels
A. Coal gasification
B. Clean coal technologies

C. Extraction of unconventional natural gas (using

gas instead of coal)
they are important for extending the reserves to production
ratio time before the renewable energy come on-line
Coal is the most polluting source of energy (because it
contains sulfur and also because it produces NOx) so in many
countries, it is a law that coal fired power stations have to
reduce pollutants such as NOx (nitrogen oxides) and SO2
(sulphur dioxide)
There are various methods of doing so:
o Scrubbers which trap sulfur emissions from coal
containing sulfur
o Catalytic units (recombust NOx to Nitrogen gas and
CO2, less toxic to health and environment)
CO2 from coal fired power stations are still continuously
released into the atmosphere (more than 2 billion tonnes
solely from US coal power plants)

A. Coal gasification the process of producing syngas (gas mixture

of CH4, CO, H2, H2O and CO2 from coal, air and water)
Electricity from coal gasification is more expensive than
traditional power plants but if tougher pollution laws are
passed, then all power plants will have to change to coal
gasification and the price will be considered normal
According to Dr Harry Bradbury, founder and chief executive of UK
clean energy company Five Quarters, this process results in 20% of
the CO2 produced from traditional coal mining.

B. Clean coal technology

This new technology has developed forms of coal that burns
with greater efficiency and capture the coals pollutants before
they are emitted into the atmosphere
Could bring back the coal industry as more people might start
to use it
The new coal stations can operate at higher pressures and
temperatures and at higher efficiency levels, 20% higher than
coal-fired power stations constructed in the 1960s
Existing power stations can be upgraded to use the clean coal
technology
C. Unconventional natural gas
Conventional gas is usually found a few thousand metres
below the surface of the Earth and has accounted for majority
of the global supply
But recently, the unconventional deposits have begun to
contribute more to supply, the main categories are
o Deep gas
o Tight gas
o Gas-containing shales
o Coalbed methane
o Geopressurised zones
o Artic and sub-sea hydrates
They are more costly to extract as they are deeper
But rising energy prices coupled with technological advances
could mean that more and more of these deposits are
attracting the attention of governments and energy
companies so the high cost of extraction would be
compensated by the high price that it is sold at to consumers

Nuclear Power
Main concerns about nuclear power:
Power plant accidents could release radiation into the air, land and
sea
Radioactive waste storage/ disposal is required
Rogue state or terrorist use of nuclear fuel for weapons
Fast-breeder reactor technology are very efficient at manufacturing
plutonium fuel from their original uranium fuel load which could
greatly increase energy production but plutonium is the key
ingredient for nuclear weapons
High construction costs
The possible increase in certain types of cancer in areas near the
nuclear plants

In 2008, the USA had the most number of nuclear plants, 103 of
them and was producing 20% of the worlds total, although they
have the most number of nuclear plants and thus the largest ability
to produce nuclear energy, they do not and thus their output has
fallen to 19.4% of the worlds total
France is 2nd in capacity to produce nuclear energy and accounts for
73.3% of the worlds total
Major consumers of nuclear energy are USA (31%) France (9.2%)
and Japan (16.1%)
Capacity (MW)

Nuclear share of
energy production

United States

99,081

19.4%

France

63,130

73.3%

Japan

42,388

1.7%

Russia

23,643

17.5%

South Korea

20,721

27.6%

China

17,978

2.1%

Capacity (MW)

Nuclear share of
energy production

Ranked by capacity
1

Ranked by production
2

France

63,130

73.3%

13

Belgium

5,927

52.1%

23

Slovakia

1,815

51.7%

20

Hungary

1,889

50.7%

Ukraine

13,107

43.6%

Chernobyl disaster (nuclear plant exploded) in the Ukraine in

1986 and the accident at Three Mile Island nearly halted the
growth of the industry
And the Fukishima disaster in March 2011
The advantages of nuclear energy are:
o 0 emissions of greenhouse gases
o reduced reliance on imported fossil fuels
o sort of renewable
Regions with the largest consumers of nuclear energy

Case Study
The earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011 were natural disasters of a
magnitude that shocked the entire world. Although triggered by these cataclysmic
events, the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant
cannot be regarded as a natural disaster
The Great East Japan Earthquake of magnitude 9.0 at 2.46 pm on Friday 11 March
2011 did considerable damage in the region
The large tsunami it created caused much more damage, the15-metre tsunami
disabled the power supply and cooling of three Fukushima Daiichi reactors,
causing a nuclear accident on 11 March 2011. All three cores largely melted in the
first three days
The earthquake was centred 130 km offshore the city of Sendai in Miyagi
prefecture on the eastern cost of Honshu Island (the main part of Japan), and was a
rare and complex double quake giving a severe duration of about 3 minutes. Japan
moved a few metres east and the local coastline subsided half a metre.
The accident was rated 7 on the INES scale, due to high radioactive releases over
days 4 to 6, eventually a total of some 940 PBq.
Four reactors were written off due to damage in the accident
Apart from cooling, the basic ongoing task was to prevent release of radioactive
materials, particularly in contaminated water leaked from the three units.
Eleven reactors at four nuclear power plants in the region were operating at the time

and all shut down automatically when the quake hit.

The reactors proved robust seismically (earthquake resistant), but vulnerable to the
tsunami.
The three units lost the ability to maintain proper reactor cooling and water
circulation functions.

Local effects

Some of the Tepco staff had lost homes, and even families, in the tsunami, and were
initially living in temporary accommodation under great difficulties and privation,
with some personal risk. A hardened emergency response centre on site was unable
to be used in grappling with the situation due to radioactive contamination.
Three Tepco employees at the Daiichi and Daini plants were killed directly by the
earthquake and tsunami, but there have been no fatalities from the nuclear
accident.
The tsunami inundated about 560 sq km and resulted in a human death toll of over
19,000 and much damage to coastal ports and towns with over a million buildings
destroyed or partly collapsed.
There have been no deaths or cases of radiation sickness from the nuclear accident,
but over 100,000 people had to be evacuated from their homes to ensure this.
Government nervousness delays their return.
Official figures show that there have been well over 1000 deaths from maintaining
the evacuation, in contrast to little risk from radiation if early return had been
allowed.
The Fukushima nuclear disaster showed us that nuclear reactors are fundamentally
dangerous.
cause significant damage to the environment
the health of populations and to national economies, the heavy financial cost of a
meltdown is inevitably borne by the public, Millions of people who live near
nuclear reactors are at risk.
The lives of hundreds of thousands of people continue to be affected by the
Fukushima nuclear disaster, especially the 160,000 who fled their homes because
of radioactive contamination
They have only a false hope of returning home, yet the Japanese government is
eagerly pushing to restart reactors, against the will of its people, and without
learning true lessons from Fukushima.
A year after the Wall Street Journal report, TEPCO announced that the Daiichi
plant's meltdown had released 2.5 times more radiation into the atmosphere than
initially estimated.
The utility cited broken radiation sensors within the plant as the main reason for
this deficit and, claimed that 99 percent of the total radiation released from the
Daiichi plant occurred during the last three weeks of March 2011.
A year later, in June 2013, TEPCO admitted that almost 80,000 gallons of
contaminated water had been leaking into the Pacific Ocean every day since the
meltdown.
And last month, TEPCO told reporters that 14 different rice paddies outside

Fukushima's exclusion zone were contaminated in August 2013

Meaning almost a year had passed since emissions had begun to accumulate at
dangerous levels in Japan's most sacred food.
"Japan produces parts for nuclear reactors, like reactor containment vessels," she
said in an interview with VICE. "They're heavily invested in nuclear power, even
though they actually have access to nine times more renewable energy than
Germany."
What separates Fukushima from Chernobyl is the continuous leakage of
radioactive material
"The Japanese government took 3 months to tell the world that there had been
three meltdowns, even though the meltdowns had taken place in the first 3 days,"
"They're not testing the food routinely. In fact, they're growing food in highly
radioactive areas, and there are stories that the most radioactive food is being
canned and sold to third-world countries."
And if it's not money that lies beneath these multi-faceted attempts at obscuring
information about Fukushima, it's the fear of mass hysteria.
it was revealed that the United Nations-affiliated pro-nuclear group International
Atomic Energy Association made a deal with local government officials in
Fukushima to classify information that might stoke public concern (like, observers
speculate, cancer rates and radiation levels),
civilian fears of a cover-up campaign crept out of the mischief associated with
conspiracy and into the gravity of a situation that feels more and more surreal.
TEPCO the Tokyo electrical power company that owns the fukishima plants
Despite these efforts, plenty has come to light. As of August 2014, we know that
radiation levels around the Fukushima area continue to rise, even after three years
of containment attempts.
We know that doctors have found 89 cases of thyroid cancer in a study of less than
300,000 children from the Fukushima areaeven though the normal incidence rate
of this disease among youths is one or two for every million. We know that
Japanese scientists are still reluctant to publicize their findings on Fukushima due
to a fear of getting stigmatized by the national government.
We also know that US sailors who plotted a relief effort in Fukushima immediately
after the disaster have reportedly been experiencing a well-up of different cancers,
that monkeys living outside Fukushima's restricted zone have lower blood cell
counts than those living in other parts of northern Japan
Others believe that Japan needs to look northwest, towards the Kremlin. Chernobyl
gave Russia and Ukraine a level of experience in handling nuclear failures that
stands apart from most of the world.
After the 2011 magnitude 8.9 earthquake and resultant tsunami, the stricken
Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant in North East Japan has suffered core meltdowns,
leaked thousands of tonnes of radioactive water into the ground water of Japan and
the Pacific Ocean, and a series of other calamities.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) responsible for the plant has
appeared unfit to manage the most complex clean-up operation in the history of
nuclear power. TEPCO are about to engage in the removal of highly radioactive,
unstable fuel rods. If they make a mistake, we would witness the worst
radiological disaster in history.
TEPCOs clean-up is estimated to take 40 years and cost 62bn. Worse, it is still
the best case scenario. The Japanese government has just admitted to the 160,000
evacuees of the 12 mile exclusion zone that they will likely never return home.

Contaminating Groundwater and the Pacific Ocean

The disaster in March 2011 pumped 733,000 Curies of radioactive caesium into the
Pacific, the largest discharge of radioactive material into the ocean in history.
Fifteen months later, 56% of all fish catches off japan were contaminated. Since
then, matters have steadily worsened.
When power was cut off during the tsunami, these pumps were lost. So, ever
since, groundwater runs down from the higher land behind the reactors, through
the basements and contaminated groundwater around the tanks, and, this newly
highly contaminated water, then runs straight into the Pacific Ocean.
In efforts to refill the fuel pools and cool the plant, TEPCO workers poured
thousands of tonnes of water onto the reactors. This water then became radioactive
and needed to be stored until it was decontaminated. TEPCO now has 1,000 tanks
and other containers, holding 370,000 tonnes of highly contaminated water on site.
Strontium-90 (a radioactive by product that is easily absorbed by the human body
and causes bone cancer) has been found at 70 times higher than legal limits.
The tanks continue to leak.
Beaches surrounding the area have been closed and all fishing has stopped in this
former fishing region. But concerns are that the contamination is being carried well
beyond the exclusion zone, making it into the drinking water and food being
consumed in Japan by rain water. Radiation has been found in waters off Alaska
and the West coast of the US, having spread over 2000 miles across the Pacific.

Evacuation issues
Some residents were evacuated to high dosage areas because radiation monitoring
information was not provided.
failure over the years to implement adequate measures against a nuclear disaster, as
well as a lack of action by previous governments and regulators focused on crisis
management.
The central government... failed to convey the severity of the accident... Only 20%
of the residents of the town hosting the plant knew about the accident when
evacuation from the 3km zone was ordered at 21:23 on the evening of March 11.
There was great confusion over the evacuation, caused by prolonged shelter-inplace orders and voluntary evacuation orders.
Continuing public health and welfare issues
Residents in the affected area are still struggling from the effects of the accident.
They continue to face grave concerns, including the health effects of radiation
exposure, displacement, the dissolution of families, disruption of their lives and
lifestyles and the contamination of vast areas of the environment.
What is the main difference between the two accidents?
At Chernobyl, explosions destroyed a reactor, releasing a cloud of radiation that
contaminated large areas of Europe.
Fukushima, was damaged by an earthquake, the reactors still have mostly intact
containment vessels surrounding their nuclear cores. Japanese officials point out
that at Chernobyl, the reactor itself exploded while still active. At Fukushima, the
magnitude nine earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant's cooling system,
leading to a partial meltdown of the reactor. Earlier attempts to cool the reactor by
hosing water from fire engines and helicopters left pools of contaminated water
and flooded basements, hampering the containment operation and efforts to restart
the cooling pumps.

To make room for more highly radioactive liquid, the plant's operator, Tokyo
Electric pumped tonnes of contaminated water into the Pacific but stopped after the
move was criticised by South Korea. Tokyo Electric appears to be no closer to
restoring cooling systems at the reactors, critical to lowering the temperature of
overheated nuclear fuel rods.
How much radioactive material has been released at Fukushima?
Japan's nuclear safety commission has estimated that the Fukushima plant's
reactors had released up to 10,000 terabecquerels of radioactive iodine-131 per
hour into the air for several hours after they were damaged in the 11 March
earthquake and tsunami.
emissions since then had dropped to below one terabecquerel per hour, adding that
it was examining the total amount of radioactive materials released. A
terabecquerel is a measure for radiation emissions. The government says the
Chernobyl incident released 5.2m terabecquerels into the air about 10 times that of
the Fukushima plant.
What were the effects of Chernobyl?
Fifty emergency rescue workers died from acute radiation syndrome and related
illnesses 4,000 children and adolescents contracted thyroid cancer, nine of whom
died. More than 100,000 people were immediately evacuated, and the total number
of evacuees from contaminated areas eventually reached 350,000.
The explosions that destroyed the unit four reactor core released a cloud of
radionuclides, which contaminated large areas of Europe and, in particular,
Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, and affected livestock as far away as
Scandinavia and Britain.
Hundreds of thousands of people were exposed to substantial radiation doses,
including workers who took part in efforts to mitigate the consequences of the
accident.

Fukushima and Chernobyl compared

Category

Fukushima Daiichi

Chernobyl

Date of accident

11 March 2011

26 April 1986

Accident details

A magnitude-9.0 earthquake and

resulting tsunami damaged the
plant's power systems, causing
cooling systems to fail. A series
of gas explosions followed

A sudden power output surge during a

systems test caused a reactor vessel to
rupture, leading to a series of blasts. An
intense fire burned for 10 days

Severity rating

Level 7 - major accident

Level 7 - major accident

Number of reactors

Six; but only three of concern,

plus pools storing spent fuel

Four; but only one reactor involved

Radiation released

370,000 terabecquerels* (as of

12 April)

5.2 million terabecquerels*

Area affected

Officials say areas extending

more than 60km (36 miles) to the
north-west of the plant and about
40km to the south-southwest
have seen radiation levels
exceed annual limits

Contamination of an area as far as 500

km (300 miles) from the plant,
according to the UN. But animals and
plants were also affected much further
away

Evacuation zone

20km; 20-30km voluntary zone.

Five communities beyond the
existing evacuation zone have
also been evacuated

30km

People evacuated

Tens of thousands

The authorities evacuated, in 1986,

about 115,000 people from areas
surrounding the reactor and
subsequently relocated, after 1986,
about 220,000 people from Belarus, the
Russian Federation and Ukraine

Related deaths

No deaths so far due to radiation

A UN report places the total confirmed

deaths from radiation at 64 as of 2008.
Disputes continue about how many will
eventually die

Long-term health
damage

Not yet known, but risks to

human health are thought to be
low

Among the residents of Belarus, the

Russian Federation and Ukraine, there
had been more than 6,000 cases of
thyroid cancer reported in children and
adolescents who were exposed at the
time of the accident, and more cases
can be expected during the next
decades

Current status

Engineers have brought the

plant to a "cold shutdown
condition", a key milestone in
bringing it under control. It will
take decades to dismantle it
completely however.

The damaged reactor is now encased

in a concrete shell. A new containment
structure is due to be completed by
2014