What would you include in an environmental profile of a country? Such a profile might be used for governmental strategic planning, ecomic development purposes, and resource management purposes

• significant natural hazards (earthquakes, flooding, volcanic eruptions).
• insurance profiles for above.
• major environmental liabilities (major contamination sites)
• maps of biomes, physical environment, population density
• resource-reserve estimates for critical materials (especially water).
• consumption behavior.
• cultural attitudes to environmental issues.
• growth projections.
• special sites (e.g. national parks)
• environmental law and government agencies.
• environmental groups.
• again GIS a way to harness all this information.

What are major classes of geologic commodities crucial to modern society?

• energy.
• water: surface and groundwater.
• ores.
• soil.
• sacred or recreational sites.

What are major energy sources?

• traditional fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal).
• nontraditional fossil fuels (tar sands and oil shales.
• coal.
• nuclear.
• hydroelectric.
• biomass.
• wind, solar, tidal, geothermal .

Distinction between reserve and resource estimates for a 'commodity.' Reserve is estimate of discovered deposits, while resource = reserves + yet to be discovered deposits. How to estimate the latter?

Summary of different categories on energy sources with % contribution in overall energy consumption and list of associated environmental traits (DOE 95 #s):

• oil (39.2%)
  • nonrenewable.
  • blowouts, oil spills, emissions and associated climate change (?), groundwater contamination.
  • decades to a century.
• gas (21.4%)
  • nonrenewable.
  • blowouts, explosive, emissions and associated climate change (?).
  • 1-2 centuries.
• coal (25%)
  • nonrenewable.
  • strip mining, mining accidents, acid mine drainage, acid rain, gas and particulate, emissions and associated climate change.
  • centuries plus reserves.
• nuclear (6.5%)
  • renewable or nonrenewable dependent on type.
  • mining wastes, accidents and radioactivity contamination, weapons proliferation, waste disposal.
  • theoretically very long with breeder reactors.
• hydroelectric (7.1%)
  • renewable.
  • dam safety, ecosystem and hydrologic disruption, water loss, reservoir induced earthquakes.
• all others (roughly 1%) - mainly renewable, overall less in way of environmental concerns: e.g.wind

some 86% from fossil fuels!

Energy reserves, resources and the future - when will we 'run' out?

What are the factors that will determine when we run out, that will be involved in making projections?

• existing resources.
• population growth.
• per capita use.
• discovery and recovery rate.
• alternate sources and technologies.

Below tables taken from USGS report at http://www.usgs.gov/public/press/public_affairs/press_releases/pr1183m.html.

Table 1. Volumes of undiscovered world petroleum, by commodity, from this assessment (mean values, exclusive of the United States) and the previous USGS assessment

Commodity	USGS 1993 Assessment (Masters, 1994)	USGS 2000 Assessment (this study)
Undiscovered oil	539 billion barrels	649 billion barrels
Undiscovered natural gas	915 BBOE *1	778 BBOE
Undiscovered natural gas liquids	90 BBOE	207 BBOE
World Total	1544 BBOE	1634 BBOE

*1BBOE = billion barrels of oil equivalent.

Table 2. Volumes of undiscovered oil and undiscovered natural gas by region, including percentages of world totals (mean values, exclusive of the United States).

Region	Undiscovered oil billion barrels	Percent of world total	Undiscovered natural gas (trillion cubic feet)	Percent of world total
1: Former Soviet Union	116	17.9 %	1611	34.5 %
2: Middle East and North Africa	230	35.4 %	1370	29.3 %
3: Asia-Pacific	30	4.6 %	379	8.1 %
4: Europe	22	3.4 %	312	6.7 %
5: North America*	70	10.9 %	154	3.3 %
6: Central and South America	105	16.2 %	487	10.4 %
7: Sub-Saharan Africa and Antarctica	72	11.0 %	235	5.0 %
8: South Asia	4	0.6 %	120	2.6 %
World Total*	649		4669

* Exclusive of the United States

Simple facts and simple-minded extrapolation.

Annual consumption rate - 25 billion barrels/year global consumption. 859 Bb normal reserves. Straight line and simple minded extrapolation - <40 years of reserves left (still resources). 2120 Bb oil left in ground. Perhaps < hundred years of oil resource left.

What factors will likely lengthen this estimate?

What factors will likely shorten this estimate?

U.S. position in the global context (95 DOE #s):

• reserves -> 7% of total.
• resources -> about 110 Bb.
• consumption -> 6.4 Bb, about 25% of the global consumption.
• imports -> oil imports slightly over 50%.
• reserves have been steadily decreasing.

What will likely replace oil?

• coal: plentiful, but signficant associated environmental liabilities.
• seafloor gas hydrates: huge, but unproven technology.
• nuclear? Japan and France think so.
• efficiency: recoverable energy 40-45%.
• green alternates
• many possibilities.

As we shift to other energy sources, there will be geopolitical and environmental repercussions.

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Influence of geopolitical distribution of resources on history and policy.

• obsidian and trade routes.
• colonization and gold rushes.
• the history of price of oil and relationship to geopolitics.
• tiny islands and submarine resources and the EEZ.
• example mentioned in World Herald 11/2/97 between Turkey and Greece.
• Middle Eastern tensions over groundwater.

Lecture Summary

• Georesource distribution is very uneven from a political perspective, and thus this distribution has very important political and economic repercussions
• Energy sources will change by several decades from now if not before
• Differing habits of resource use will have different environmental consequences (e.g. degree of global warming)
• Importance of geology and geologists in all this? Provides basis for exploration models, safe extraction, reserve and resources estimation, and environmental remediation
• If you are interested in international studies, then resource distribution, reserves, and consumption are critical aspects to consider.