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World Energy 2014-2050 (Part 3)

Minqi Li 84 Comments

This is a guest post by Political Economist

Solar Correction

As I reviewed my spreadsheet, I identified a copy and paste error resulting in a mis-calculation of the solar projection.  This affects the projection of annual installation of Solar PV capacity (see Part 2).

The correct projections of annual installation of Solar PV capacity are shown below:

photo SolarCorrection070414_zps407c310d.png

Under the current projection, solar PV annual installation is projected to rise from 38 gigawatts in 2013 to 106 gigawatts by 2020.  Beyond 2020, the growth will slow down.  After 2030, it will plateau and approach 145 gigawatts (not 108 gigawatts as previously stated).

Again, please note this does not imply that solar electricity generation will peak.  Instead, it assumes that the GROWTH of solar electricity generation will peak and plateau.  In other words, it assumes that at some point in the future, solar electricity generation growth will become linear rather than exponential.  (I had an interesting discussion with Dennis on this after the post of Part 2)

I made corrections of the projected primary energy consumption and world GDP in accordance with the solar PV correction.  These are shown below.

Total Primary Energy Consumption

According to BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2014, world primary energy consumption reached 12,730 million metric tons of oil-equivalent, 2.3 percent higher than world primary energy consumption in 2012.  Figure 24 shows the primary energy consumption by the world’s five largest energy consumers from 1965 to 2013.

photo PrimaryEnergy062114-1_zpsf37768e7.jpg
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EIA World Crude + Condensate Production Update

Ron Patterson 161 Comments

EDIT: The EIA updated their International Energy Statistics Monday with their January update. I spent several hours on that update, updating all my spreadsheets, updating the Non-OPEC Charts page, the World Crude Oil Production by Geographical Area page, and creating the post below. Then after I had finished all that they, the EIA, published another International Energy Statistics with the February production data. Sorry but I am exasperated, I will deal with the February update sometime next week. Below is what I prepared before that update. Anyway the emphasis is far more on the yearly numbers than the monthly numbers.
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The EIA finally published an update to their International Energy Statistics. They were over a month late. Last time they were a month late they published two months data. This time no such luck, the data is through January 2014. There was only large revision in the historical data, Canadian December Production was revised up by 298 kb/d. There were several much smaller revisions but World December production was revised up by 273 kb/d to 75,431,000 bp/d in December.

World World C+C was up to 76,662,000 barrels per day, an increase of 231 kb/d over December. Average world C+C production was up only 132,000 bp/d in 2013 over 2012.

OPEC C+C

The Gain was all OPEC however. January OPEC Crude + Condensate production was up by 482,000 bp/d to 32,118,000 bp/d. This is considerably different from what the OPEC Monthly Oil Market Report reported. They had OPEC crude only production up by 147,000 bp/d in January to 29,855,000 bp/d. Understand this is crude only, not C+C. OPEC crude only seems to be holding relatively steady and stood ate 29,765,000 bp/d in May.
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World Energy 2014-2050 (Part 2)

Minqi Li 165 Comments

This is a guest post by Political Economist

Nuclear Electricity

According to BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2014, world consumption of nuclear electricity reached 2,489 terawatt-hours (563 million metric tons of oil-equivalent) in 2013, 0.9 percent higher than world consumption of nuclear electricity in 2012.  In 2013, nuclear electricity accounted for 4.4 percent of the world primary energy consumption.

Figure 16 shows nuclear electricity consumption by the world’s five largest nuclear electricity consumers from 1965 to 2013.

photo Nuclear062114-1_zps59fc6b2c.jpgAccording to the World Nuclear Association, as of January 2014, 375 gigawatts of nuclear electric power plants were operative worldwide.  75 gigawatts were under construction, 187 gigawatts were being planned, and 351 gigawatts were being proposed.  World Nuclear Association claims that most planned nuclear power plants are expected to operate within 8-10 years. Assuming that in 10 years, all of the currently constructed and planned nuclear power plants become operative, then in average the world will need to build 26 gigawatts of nuclear power plants a year in the next 10 years.  In reality, some delays are inevitable.

I assume that from 2015 to 2050, the world will build 20 gigawatts of nuclear power plants each year.  On the other hand, 2 percent of the existing nuclear generating capacity will retire each year.  Under these assumptions, nuclear electricity consumption is projected to rise to 4,648 terawatt-hours (1,052 million metric tons of oil-equivalent) by 2050.

Hydro Electricity

According to BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2014, world consumption of hydroelectricity reached 3,782 terawatt-hours (856 million metric tons of oil-equivalent) in 2013, 2.9 percent higher than world consumption of hydroelectricity in 2012.  In 2013, hydroelectricity accounted for 6.7 percent of the world primary energy consumption.

Figure 17 shows hydroelectricity consumption by the world’s five largest consumers of hydroelectricity from 1965 to 2013.

photo Hydro062114-1_zps02929bac.jpgFrom 2000 to 2013, the average annual growth of world hydroelectricity consumption was about 90 terawatt-hours (20 million metric tons of oil-equivalent).  I assume that world hydroelectricity consumption will rise to 880 million metric tons of oil-equivalent in 2014 and will keep growing by 20 million metric tons of oil-equivalent each year from 2015 to 2050.
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North Dakota and the Bakken by County

Ron Patterson 167 Comments

Looking at North Dakota oil production by county, and historical production by county, gives a better  perspective of what is happening in the Bakken and the rest of North Dakota than just looking at total production.

The data is available here: ND Historical Barrels of Oil Produced by County You will notice it says:(Confidential Wells are Not Included). However the total North Dakota does include confidential wells. And I have made adjustments for the confidential wells. The adjustment for March and April came from the NDIC here: State Summary Report April 2014.
Bakken Counties

The above chart is after adjustment for confidential wells. Even the lowest producer of the big four, Dunn County, outproduces the rest of North Dakota combined.

McKenzie

McKenzie was up 7,168 barrels per day after adjustment this month.
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Oil Field Models, Decline Rates and Convolution

D Coyne 188 Comments

This post is by Dennis Coyne

The eventual peak and decline of light tight oil (LTO) output in the Bakken/ Three Forks play of North Dakota and Montana and the Eagle Ford play of Texas are topics of much conversation at the Peak Oil Barrel and elsewhere.

The decline rates of individual wells are very steep, especially early in the life of the well (as much as 75% in the first year for the average Eagle Ford well), though the decline rates become lower over time and eventually stabilize at around 6 to 7% per year in the Bakken.

What is not obvious is that for the entire field (or play), the decline rates are not as steep as the decline rate for individual wells. I will present a couple of simple model to illustrate this concept.

Much of the presentation is a review of ideas that I have learned from Rune Likvern and Paul Pukite (aka Webhubbletelescope), though any errors in the analysis are mine.

A key idea underlying the analysis is that of convolution. I will attempt an explanation of the concept which many people find difficult.

At Wikipedia there is a fairly mathematical presentation of the concepts which often confuses people.  There are a couple of nice visuals to convey the concept as well see this page.

In the visual below a function f (in blue) is convolved with a function g (in red) to produce a third function (in black) which we could call h where h=f*g and the asterisk represents convolution, just as a + symbol is used to represent addition.

Convolution of box signal with itself2.gif
“Convolution of box signal with itself2” by Convolution_of_box_signal_with_itself.gif: Brian Amberg
derivative work: Tinos (talk) – Convolution_of_box_signal_with_itself.gif. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

I think the best way to present convolution is with pictures. Chart A below shows a relationship between oil output (in barrels per month) and months from the first oil output for the average well in an unspecified LTO play.

This relationship is a simple hyperbola of the form q=a/(1+kt), where a and k are constants of 13,000 and 0.25 respectively, t is time in months, and q is oil output.

Chart A is often referred to as a well profile. The values for the constants were chosen to make the well profile fairly similar to an Eagle Ford average well profile. EUR30 is the estimated ultimate recovery from this average well over a 30 year well life.

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