Transportation is another sector that has increased its relative share of primary energy use. This sector has serious concerns as it is a significant source of CO2 emissions and other airborne pollutants, and it is almost totally based on oil as its energy source. An important aspect of future changes in transportation depends on what happens to the available oil resources, production and prices. At present, 95% of all energy for transportation comes from oil. (more…)

Federal Excise Taxes placed on specific energy sources tend to reduce energy demand for these energy sources in both the short and the long run. The federal government imposes excise taxes on almost all petroleum products (including petroleum additives) and coal (see Table 1). The federal government also imposes federal excise taxes on many transportation uses of methanol, ethanol, natural gas, and propane and imposes a fee on electricity produced from nuclear power plants and nuclear power electricity. (more…)

Geographers researching the development of nuclear power have shifted emphasis from commercialization, cost, risk, public acceptance, and power plant siting in the 1950s through the early 1980s to reactor decommissioning and radioactive waste disposal since then. With nuclear power development on hold in most countries, attention has also been given to nuclear weapons facilities and weapons proliferation in an increasingly dangerous world. (more…)

Electric utility deregulation offers the great promise of market forces leading to lower electric rates, lower air pollution environment, greater energy (and economic) efficiency, and perhaps greater use of renewable energy sources. Ideally, deregulation involves the restructuring of a previously monopolized or nationalized electric utility into separate generation, transmission, distribution, and marketing companies, and allowing wholesale and retail choice of generation company or power marketer. Deregulation has occurred to varying degrees since 1989 in the United Kingdom, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, and about 20 states in the United States. There have been promising results in a few countries and in some U.S. states in some respects, especially lower rates and lower air pollution problems. In most cases, competitive markets have yet to be realized and lower rates can be attributed to other causes, such as previously planned amortization or retirement of expensive power plants, unexpected surplus in natural gas, rate caps, etc. In addition, deregulation has had only a slight beneficial effect on the use of renewable electricity sources. The promise of electric utility deregulation is thus unfulfilled and deserves further study.

Geopolitical considerations have played a major role in many renewable energy policy decisions, e.g., in domestic debates over gasoline taxes, pipeline construction, radioactive waste disposal, and acid rain control legislation in the United States, and in petroleumrelated violence in Nigeria. The most prominent role for geopolitics in energy policy has probably involved international discussions on controlling greenhouse gas emissions, and in oil markets. In the cases of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change, nations carefully considered their national economic interests, domestic politics, and international trade during the negotiations. European countries, with the lowest rates of population and economic growth along with strong domestic environmental lobbies, have pursued a greater rate of greenhouse gas reduction.

The United States, in contrast, has been stubbornly cautious and backed out of the treaty in 2001 (arguing it is not in its economic best interests), and the oil-rich nations of the Middle East have been least supportive of any emissions controls. In the case of oil markets, with the United States now dependent on imports for over half its supply, energy policy and trade strategy have played major roles in the pursuit of new oil discoveries in Alaska and in warfare in Kuwait, Iraq, and perhaps Afghanistan.

Reductions in carbon intensity, C/E, the carbon emitted per unit of energy generated, reflect the degree to which societies decarbonize their energy sources. The long-term trend has been a shift from coal to oil to natural gas––hydrocarbons with decreasing C/H ratios emitting progressively less CO2 per joule. However, the increasing use of clean low-carbon fuels is not sustainable without somehow disposing of excess carbon because it opposes the trend in the abundance of fossil fuels, with coal resources being the most abundant followed by oil and gas. (more…)

Addressing global warming, however, is a highly complex and daunting endeavor. Many climate experts have urged the world to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere around 450 to 550 parts per million (ppm)—that is, no more than 450 to 550 units of greenhouse gases for every million units of air in the earth’s atmosphere. This approach, experts say, could keep average global temperatures at no more than 3.6° Fahrenheit (2° Celsius) above preindustrial levels, which could avoid some of the worst, irreversible consequences of climate change. (more…)

There are various and somewhat complementary reasons to foster the growth of renewable energy sources in Europe. A major incentive for renewable energy sources policies in the past two decades has been to reduce the environmental impact of energy use both locally (e.g., pollutant emission reduction) and globally (e.g., greenhouse gas and carbon emissions reduction). In some countries, concerns about the safety of nuclear power generation have motivated the search for renewable energy sources. Another motivation for replacing foreign fossil and nuclear fuels with domestic renewable energy sources relates to security issues and Europe’s growing dependency on foreign energy sources. (more…)

At present, in the United States and worldwide, motor vehicles are fueled almost exclusively by petroleum based gasoline (or reformulated gasoline) and diesel fuels. Since the first oil price shock in 1973, efforts have been made to seek alternative fuels to displace gasoline and diesel fuels and achieve energy and environmental benefits. Some of the alternative fuels that have been researched and used are liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied natural gas (LNG), methanol (MeOH), dimethyl ether (DME), Fischer– Tropsch diesel (FTD), hydrogen (H 2 ), ethanol (EtOH), biodiesel, and electricity. Production processes associated with gasoline, diesel, and each of these alternative fuels differ. (more…)

The spark-ignition and compression-ignition engine and internal combustion engines technologies that are currently employed in motor vehicles were developed more than 100 years ago. These conventional vehicle technologies are fueled by petroleum-derived gasoline and diesel fuels (the socalled conventional fuels). Over the past 100 years, the conventional technologies have been dramatically improved, reducing cost and increasing performance. (more…)

The commercialization prospects for fuel cell vehicles depend not only on their performance and cost, but also on how well they can compete with other technology options that address similar market and policy needs. While market forces have not traditionally motivated design change for reasons of environmental performance, customer values and expectations can evolve and such characteristics could grow in importance. However, inherent market conservatism will favor less disruptive ways to address evolving needs, which might be met by improved gasoline and diesel vehicles, including hybrid-electric versions. Yet looking over the long run, particularly the need to substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions, hydrogen fuel cells may well provide a solution that is superior to other alternatives. (more…)