World Energy Resources.

D.Yogi Goswami and Frank Kreith HANDBOOK OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND RENEWABLE ENERGY Tylor & Francis Group New York 2007

With a view to meet the future demand of primary energy in 2050 and beyond, it is important to understand the available reserves of conventional energy resources including fossil fuels and uranium and the limitations posed on them due to environmental consideration.

Conventional Oil.
According to British Petroleum (BP) (2006), total identified or proven world oil reserves at the end of 2005 were 1200.7 billion barrels. This estimate is close to the reserves of 1266 billion barrels from sources listed by IEA (IEA 2004).



Considering the present production rate of over 80 million barrels per day, these reserves will last for 41 years if there is no increase in production.



Natural Gas.
According to BP (2006), the total proven world natural gas reserves at the end of 2004 were 179.5 trillion meter cube. Considering the production rate of gas in 2004, with no increasing in production thereafter, the reserves would last for 67 years. However, production of natural gas has been rising at an average rate of 2.5% over the past four years.

Coal.
According to BP, the proven recoverable world coal resources were estimate to be 909 billions ton at the end of 2004 with a reserve to production ratio (R/P) of 164 years.

Nuclear Resources.
If additional estimate resources (not yet discovered) are also included, then total resources become 5.1 million tons (UNDP2004). Additionally, there are non-conventionally uranium resources, such as sea water which contain about 3 ppb uranium and some phosphate deposit (more than half of them in Morocco).
There are significant concerns about nuclear waste and other environmental impact, the security of the fuel and the waste, and the possibility of their diversion for weapon product.
According to the IEA (international atomic energy agency) 2005, nuclear fission provided 16% (368GW) of the electricity in the world in 2004. The IEA also estimate that the worldwide nuclear power capacity will increase at an average 0.5 – 2.2%

Renewable Energy
Data from IEA, 13.3% of the world’s total primary energy supply came from renewable energy in 2003. However almost 80% of the renewable energy was supply from biomass. It is mostly converted by traditional open combustion, which is very inefficient

Wind Power
Wind energy technology has progressed significantly over the last two decades. The technology has been vastly improved and capital costs have come down to as low $1000/kW. The total worldwide installed wind power capacity that was 39GW in 2003 and reach level 59GW in 2005. The total theoretical potential for onshore wind power for the world is around 55TW.

Solar Energy.
The amount of sunlight striking the earth’s atmosphere continuously is 1.75x105 TW. Considering a 60% transmittance through the atmospheric cloud cover, 1.05x105 reach the earth’s surface continuously. If the irradiance on only 1% of the earth’s surface could be converted into the electric energy with 10% efficiency, it would provide a resource base of 105TW, whereas the total global energy needs for 2050 are projected to be about 25-30 TW.

Biomass
Although theoretical harvestable biomass energy potential is on the order of 90 TW, the technical potential on a sustainable basis is on the order of 8-13 TW (UNDP 2004). This potential is 3-4 times the present electrical generation capacity of the world. The biggest advantage of biomass as an energy resource is its relative straightforward transformation into transportation fuels. Bio fuels have the potential to replace as much as 75% of petroleum fuels in use for transportation in USA today.


Total primary energy demand,
Fossil fuels accounted for about 80%
1. Oil 35.5 %,
2. Coal 23 %,
3. And Natural Gas 21.2 %

4. Biomass 11 %
The renewable energy technologies of wind, biofuels. Solar thermal, and and photovoltaics are finally showing maturity and ultimate promise of cost competitiveness.


World Electricity Production
1. Coal 40.1 %
2. Gas 29.4 %
3. Renewable 17.6 %
4. Nuclear 15.8 %
5. Oil 6.9 %

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