Welcome to my new blog on Sustainable Energy. 

I wanted to share with you some of the lectures that I have given throughout my graduate and teaching career in the US, Australia and the United Kingdom. I hope you find them useful. Allow me first to tell you about a study in which I was involved from 1976 to 1979 at Stanford University for the US Dept of Energy. It formed my early approach to energy futures.

In 1973, Stanford organised the Institute for Energy Studies to stimulate research and academic programmes within existing schools and departments of the university. You can find and listen to public lectures from the period that were supported by the Institute here: Institute Lectures. Several engineering departments had particularly strong interests, as I recall: Engineering-Economics, Industrial Engineering and Mechanical Engineering were among them. There were others, of course. Stanford, being full of exceptionally bright research faculty offered project proposals wherever it thought useful, mostly to the coal, gas and oil companies. Engineering-Economics in particular had a well-respected Energy Modelling Forum.

During the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, Arab members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to refuse shipment of oil and gas to countries that supported Israel during the war. Countries affected were mainly the US, Canada, the UK, Netherlands and Japan. Proposals went out for research on what to do about the situation. By 1974 the embargo had lifted, but by then the affected countries were very aware that they needed to be thinking about alternative sources of energy.

In 1976, Amory Lovins, a young fellow who had two years before finished a stint as a junior research fellow at Oxford, wrote an article that appeared in Foreign Affairs entitled “Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken?”. It looked at two energy paths through the future for the US: one he called the 'Hard Path', referring to coal, oil and gas; the other, the 'Soft Path', referring to solar, wind and alternatives (see Lovins). He said that the world was at a clear crossroads and ought to consider the alternatives, particularly solar and wind. He was, as we now know, far ahead of his time. 

When the US Dept of Energy saw Lovins article, it contacted Prof. Grant Ireson in the Industrial Engineering dept at Stanford and asked him to take a closer look at Lovin's proposal. The result was a grant to develop three alternative energy futures for the US, stretching out 50 years from 1975 to 2025. I was a Policy Analyst at the time at the independent Stanford Research Institute nearby and was hired away to coordinate the study.

Eighteen Stanford faculty, 29 advisors from around the country, and some 48 students participated over a two year period. Three student editors helped me put together the final report in 1978. We published in 1979. Copies of the report do not seem to exist on-line. You may be able to find it in various libraries; Stanford probably has one in its archives.

      

Three scenarios were depicted: one due to a population holding what we called "Smith" Values; one due to a population holding "Green" values; and one split, half holding "Smith" and half holding "Green".

 

Smith values included emphases on: 

    Individualism, Humans over Nature, Competition/Achievement, Unbounded Material Progress, a Quantitative Orientation, Sequential Rationalism, Outward Material Success, and Centralised Organization.

 

Green values focused on:

    Interdependence, Humans thin Nature, Cooperation, Bounded Material Progress, Qualitative Orientation, Heuristic Rationalism, Inward Success, and Decentralised Organisation.

Clearly, few people hold either of these entirely. Values fluctuate depending upon context and circumstances. Nevertheless, people tend to lean in certain directions in general and make decisions accordingly. We were interested in how large populations would make energy decisions when they espoused these tendencies.

Two target dates were picked, 1990 and 2025. No Smith or Green tendencies were ascribed to the populations before 1990, but since we were interested in knowing what would happen by 2025 if the society were to eventually ascribe to one or the other systems of values, the assertion was made for the years from 1990 to 2025. 

Scenario 1; 95% Smith, 5% Green for the 35 year period.

Scenario 2: Smiths decrease from 75% in 1990 to 50% in 2025.

Scenario 3: Greens increase from 50% in 1990 to 95% in 2025.

Constraints were also implemented. There were three:

1. US reliance on foreign imports must be reduced rapidly;
2. Social and technological changes must occur in a smooth and non-abrupt way;
3. the amenities enjoyed by individuals, viewed within their Smith/Green value mixtures, and the standard of living which these amenities, taken in the aggregate imply, must remain at least at present levels or improve.

The methodologies which the research personnel were required to follow when examining their focus of attention were delimited. Generally, Smith values were not particularly worried about the environment, nor did they seek behaviour that was not economically suggested. Greens were willing to forego energy consumption under circumstances which might help the environment, but were also keen to conserve rather than over consume. Industries and business were assumed to respond in ways consonant with the scenario. 

Students were led by the faculty research teams, grouped to look at six sectors: Industry, Transportation, Residential and Commercial, Agriculture, Utilities and Energy Resources. Each sector had its own unique issues; final production and consumption totals were delivered for each scenario in 1990 and 2025.

Total energy consumption for the three scenarios are summarised in the plot below. The figure compares our predictions with those from other studies. It is interesting that very little solar and wind technology appear in the final result, probably because solar and wind technologies simply had not yet been developed and it was anyone's guess as to how well they would do. Most of the other studies done in the 1970s predicted an uptake of nuclear as an alternative, but also a very large amount of coal. These other studies predicted a large demand for future energy based almost solely on the continuation of current and growing rates of demand. But our research found very little reason for continued high rates of demand, even in the Smith scenario. There simply wasn't that much need for energy suggested by the high rates. Our study was criticised heavily because of it. It turns out that we were more right than they. Nearly all of the reductions due to Green values were deemed to come from conservation opportunities. The conclusions:

1. It appears feasible to devise an energy system that maintains increasing material amenities and still preserves environmental quality.
2. The key to achieving such an energy system lies in improving the EFFICIENCY with which energy resource are utilised.
3. Given reasonably efficient demand sectors and the full array of potential future electricity resources, electricity should not  present a major supply constraint.
4. The most likely energy form to be severely pressed is fluid fuels.

The following diagram estimated demand. The dashed orange line shows actual demand since 1980. Note that our prediction for demand in 1990 was off by 1/2 of 1%. After that, fluctuations depended on the economy. Since the 2008 depression, consumption has been essentially flat and falling below scenario 1. There has also been an increase recently in environmental concerns. Whether concerns for climate change and the impact of increased burning of fossil fuels make any headway under the new Republican administration will be interesting to watch. The 2023 consumption is halfway between scenarios 1 and 2, a Smith tending population with conservation and environmental concerns.

Figure: Predicted Energy Consumption by Scenario