Fossil Fuels

1
Fossil Fuels

• A non-renewable energy resource

2
Outline

• Extrapolating data.
• Modeling consumption and growth.
• Fossil Fuels
• Origins
• Production
• Use
• Future

3
Predicting the Future based on the Past.

• The Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that
  TIME always moves forward, to a point when energy
  is distributed more evenly and at a single
  temperature.
• So we cant know the future!
• But since the way in which energy flows is
  governed by physical laws, can we observe what
  has happened in the past (data) and use those
  laws (analyze) to make predictions about the
  future?
• Lets look at a simple example Population.

4
World Population 1950-2000
year population growth
1950 2.56 billion 1.47
1960 3.04 billion 1.33
1970 3.70 billion 2.07
1980 4.45 billion 1.69
1990 5.28 billion 1.55
2000 6.07 billion 1.41
5
World Population
6
Looking into the future

• There seems to be a trend upwards in world
  population.
• Assuming that this trend continues, we can try to
  predict the worlds population even 50 years from
  now.
• But which prediction is right?

7
The future world population?
8
Exponential growth

• Growth proportional to N .
• The rate of growth, r, is the percentage of N
  added to the total amount, per year.
• Example r 2 growth per year means that .02 N
  is added to N every year.
• When N is big, exponential growth is fast!
• N DOUBLES every DT 70 r years.
• Example r 2 means that N doubles every 70/2
  35 years.

9
Exponential growth of World Population?

• Looking at our exponential curve for world
  population, we find
• r 1.76
• So, .0176 N is added to the population every
  year.
• N 6 billion or 6 x 109, so
• 105 million people are being added per year.
• DT 70 / 1.76 40 years.
• In 40 years, the population will be 12 billion!
• Is it true?

10
US Census Bureaus Prediction of World Population
11
US Census Bureaus prediction, cont.

• The curve doesnt fit as well, because the growth
  rate is changing and probably will continue to
  change.
• The Census Bureau predicts a declining growth
  rate to less than 0.5 by 2050 and a peak in
  population shortly thereafter.
• Exponential growth is NOT SUSTAINABLE over long
  periods of time.

12
Making friends exponentially
Day Kate Anne Day Anne
1 2 1 11 512
2 4 2 12 1024
3 6 4 13 2048
4 8 8 14 4096
5 10 16 15 8192
6 12 32 16 ?
7 14 64
8 16 128
10 18 256
13
Non-renewable resources

• There is a limited number of people at WIU.
• Exponential growth in friends quickly consumes
  all friend candidates.
• People can reproduce, but they depend on many
  non-renewable resources to survive.
• If population grows exponentially, consumption
  will also grow exponentially, and overwhelm the
  available resources.

14
Fossil Fuels

• Exponential growth is a very POOR model for the
  consumption of non-renewable resources.
• M.K. Hubbert in 1957 made a startling prediction
  about the production of oil in the US. Oil
  Production in the US will peak in 1967.
• Assumptions
• Oil is a finite resource.
• Initially exponential growth in demand.
• Eventual halt and decline in production as the
  resource becomes more uneconomical to obtain.

15
The Bell-Curve
16
Our oil future?

• Oil production in the US will essentially halt by
  2040!
• Total oil produced is the AREA under the curve.