Abstract of paper to be presented at theRoyal Swedish Academy of Sciences international energy symposium. Energy2050. to be held on 19-20 October 2009 Fossil fuels are finite resources. In assorted parts of the universe we see that production reached a upper limit and so declined. Merely now we consume around 85 million barrels of oil per twenty-four hours ( mb/d ) or 31 billion barrels per twelvemonth. If we compare this with BP’s estimation of the world’s militias of 1240 billion barrels this is tantamount to constant ingestion at today’s degree for 40 old ages. i. e. until 2050. A changeless degree of planetary oil production is non realistic due to the physical parametric quantities of oilfields. Alternatively. we can anticipate a future upper limit of production. Peak Oil. followed by worsening production.
Today. oil is the natural stuff for the fuel for aircraft. rider autos. coachs. trucks. ships etc. For the last 40 old ages the oil demands of our transit manners have steady increased. During the coming 40 old ages the sums of fossil fuels used for conveyance must be decreased. The political will for this will be tested in Copenhagen subsequently this twelvemonth. but more of import is that limited oil resources will restrict the production of oil. Peak Oil will be the politicians’ best friend when it comes to cut downing CO2 emanations. The IPCC emanation scenarios are based on wrong premises of dodo fuel resources and are. hence. overdone. Future oil production can be divided into six fractions ;
1 ) petroleum oil from presently bring forthing Fieldss. 2 ) petroleum oil from Fieldss yet to be developed. 3 ) petroleum oil from Fieldss yet to be found. 4 ) petroleum oil from enhanced recovery. 5 ) non-conventional oil production and eventually 6 ) natural gas liquids. Harmonizing to the International Energy Agency ( IEA ) publication World Energy Outlook 2008 these will represent a sum of 106 mb/d in the twelvemonth 2030. an addition of more than 20 mb/d compared with today’s production. A production volume for 2050 is non given. A rational analysis by the Uppsala Global Energy Systems group outputs that by 2030 rough oil from presently bring forthing Fieldss will hold declined by 50 mb/d. In 2050 production from these Fieldss will be merely a little fraction of today’s volume. The “to be developed” production fraction consists of little Fieldss compared with today’s elephantine oil Fieldss.
By 2050 this fraction will do merely a fringy part to entire volumes. Discovery rate has declined every decennary since the 1960s and the Fieldss found are smaller and smaller. If new Fieldss. with militias tantamount to what the North Sea had. are in production in 2050 we can anticipate them to bring forth 6 mb/d. Non-conventional oil production might be the largest fraction in 2050 with an estimated volume of 6 to 8 mb/d. In 2030 we estimate that entire oil production will be 10 to 15 mb/d less so today ( i. e. ~70 to 75 mb/d ) . By 2050. depending on enhanced recovery. entire production can be around 50 million barrels per twenty-four hours. Production of fossil fuels is limited by physical and economic factors.
We see that the fraction of the militias that can be extracted yearly is limited. When analyzing coal we see that excavation has ne’er produced more than 4 % of the militias in one twelvemonth. Can an addition in coal usage for transition to liquid fuel combined with CCS be a future option for powering vehicle conveyance or should we turn to greater usage of natural gas? In 500BC Confucius said. “Study the past if you would specify the future” . Using our cognition of the history of fossil fuel find and production we can gauge fossil fuel production for vehicles 40 old ages into the future – until 2050.
