1 00:00:00,012 --> 00:00:04,232 Hello, I'm Dr. Sam Shelton and this is Energy 101. 2 00:00:04,232 --> 00:00:10,762 What I'm going to do today at the first module is to give you an overview of what 3 00:00:10,762 --> 00:00:18,007 we're going to talk about in this class. that's covering the basics of energy. 4 00:00:18,007 --> 00:00:23,852 We'll look at the topics and the discussions that we're going to have. 5 00:00:23,852 --> 00:00:29,249 Hopefully when you, when we're covering one topic and you say gee he didn't 6 00:00:29,249 --> 00:00:34,727 answer such and such a question that you'll know from the topics that I'll be 7 00:00:34,727 --> 00:00:38,562 talking about it later. So let's let's just see why. 8 00:00:38,562 --> 00:00:43,749 Why we're interested in energy here first, and w-, how I cho-, chose the 9 00:00:43,749 --> 00:00:48,734 topics, in order to try to interpret what's going on in energy in the US in 10 00:00:48,734 --> 00:00:53,389 particular today. it's, energy is in the news a lot, almo-, 11 00:00:53,389 --> 00:00:56,542 hardly a day goes by there's not some article. 12 00:00:56,542 --> 00:01:03,708 And in front of any newspaper that you want to pick up, or online edition that 13 00:01:03,708 --> 00:01:08,131 you see that doesn't have an article on energy. 14 00:01:08,131 --> 00:01:12,982 gasoline is approaching four dollars a gallon. 15 00:01:12,982 --> 00:01:18,259 It's bouncing around. Down to the mid three dollars up to four 16 00:01:18,259 --> 00:01:21,751 dollars. that obviously is used, so that hurts 17 00:01:21,751 --> 00:01:27,269 everybody's pocketbook, means they don't have money to spend on something else. 18 00:01:27,269 --> 00:01:32,280 we have the revolutions going on in the Middle East, with dictators and 19 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:37,697 governments being overthrown, and riots in the street, and total destruction of 20 00:01:37,697 --> 00:01:41,232 cities and infrastructure. And we had the. 21 00:01:41,232 --> 00:01:45,628 Fukushima nuclear power meltdown. What does that mean? Does that mean 22 00:01:45,628 --> 00:01:50,607 that's the end of nuclear power and when we look at that closely we say there's no 23 00:01:50,607 --> 00:01:55,467 reason we need to build nuclear power with the kind of risk we're talking about 24 00:01:55,467 --> 00:01:58,641 here. not only from the safety risk viewpoint 25 00:01:58,641 --> 00:02:03,545 but from a financial risk 'cuz because when you're talking about $10 billion or 26 00:02:03,545 --> 00:02:08,317 so for a nuclear plant, that's a substantial economic hit when you lose a 27 00:02:08,317 --> 00:02:12,040 nuclear plant. Shale gas you heard that shale gas will 28 00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:15,554 give us energy independence. Is that true or not. 29 00:02:15,554 --> 00:02:20,748 We'll talk about that and like we saw with the advent of electric cars that 30 00:02:20,748 --> 00:02:26,279 have come out in the last year or two. That electric cars solves our global 31 00:02:26,279 --> 00:02:31,401 warming issue from an automobile viewpoint because they have zero 32 00:02:31,401 --> 00:02:36,511 emissions, co2 emissions. We'll talk about that and find out that 33 00:02:36,511 --> 00:02:41,497 actually is not quite true when we look at, look at that further. 34 00:02:41,497 --> 00:02:46,792 And, the, I'll be presenting a lot of data and a lot of facts that 35 00:02:46,792 --> 00:02:53,108 then lead to conclusions. I don't like before my comments to be the 36 00:02:53,108 --> 00:02:59,780 thought of as opinions to be fact based. I like the old saying that I base my 37 00:02:59,780 --> 00:03:04,225 opinion on facts. And if the facts change, I'll change my 38 00:03:04,225 --> 00:03:07,527 opinion. What do you base your opinion on? So, 39 00:03:07,527 --> 00:03:13,008 don't get too bored with the facts, but try to interpret them in the context of 40 00:03:13,008 --> 00:03:18,123 what it all means when you are looking at questions that come up about oil 41 00:03:18,123 --> 00:03:23,402 independence, energy independence global warming, climate change. 42 00:03:23,402 --> 00:03:28,556 revolutions in the Middle East, oil imports, etc., etc. 43 00:03:28,556 --> 00:03:31,797 So, why is energy so, of such interest to us? 44 00:03:31,797 --> 00:03:37,587 Why is it on the front page every time, every day? Well these are the driving 45 00:03:37,587 --> 00:03:42,997 issues in energy, the reason that we all get so interested in it. 46 00:03:42,997 --> 00:03:47,502 number one we have dollars flowing out of the U.S. 47 00:03:47,502 --> 00:03:52,672 for imported fuels and it's about one billion dollars a day. 48 00:03:52,672 --> 00:03:58,027 That's 1 billion dollars a day flowing out of the US for essentially oil. 49 00:03:58,027 --> 00:04:03,573 It's where you'll find that it's an oil issue and it's not a coal and natural 50 00:04:03,573 --> 00:04:08,452 gas, but it's oil. So, that obviously is an economic issue. 51 00:04:08,452 --> 00:04:14,505 When you have a, it's responsible for half of our balance of payments deficit 52 00:04:14,505 --> 00:04:20,692 that we are running every year, so that's about $400 billion a year that we're, 53 00:04:20,692 --> 00:04:25,880 we're shipping out of this, US, in order to import oil in particular. 54 00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:30,498 National security. We learned about the national security of 55 00:04:30,498 --> 00:04:35,353 depending on certain regions, of the world for oil back in the 70s 56 00:04:35,353 --> 00:04:41,058 when, when OPEC nations in the Middle East didn't like our politics toward and 57 00:04:41,058 --> 00:04:46,574 international stance toward Israel. And they cut off our oil supplies, for 58 00:04:46,574 --> 00:04:51,163 imported oil supplies. And having lived through that era, as a 59 00:04:51,163 --> 00:04:57,112 matter of fact that's when I got into energy, it was a very difficult time, 60 00:04:57,112 --> 00:04:59,799 and we could talk on and on about that issue. 61 00:04:59,799 --> 00:05:04,219 And of course from a security issue, certainly, if we ever get into a war and 62 00:05:04,219 --> 00:05:08,698 that happens to us somebody decides that's a substantial supplier to us to 63 00:05:08,698 --> 00:05:13,043 cut off their oil supplies to us it'll have a great national ins-, security 64 00:05:13,043 --> 00:05:16,790 issue. And finite or, resources, what are, 65 00:05:16,790 --> 00:05:22,028 what's the situation there? You know, we talk about running out of oil. 66 00:05:22,028 --> 00:05:27,127 Are we in danger of running out of oil and if we do obviously we got some 67 00:05:27,127 --> 00:05:32,012 serious problems there. We've got environmental issues that are 68 00:05:32,012 --> 00:05:36,129 mentioned briefly. We got air, air pollution, ground 69 00:05:36,129 --> 00:05:39,435 pollution, climate change, and water issues. 70 00:05:39,435 --> 00:05:44,845 There's a big linkage between water consumption and availability and energy 71 00:05:44,845 --> 00:05:49,249 as we'll learn later on. So, those is the reasons that we're so 72 00:05:49,249 --> 00:05:54,052 interested in energy. This tends to be on our political radar 73 00:05:54,052 --> 00:05:58,962 almost every day. so, just running through some of the 74 00:05:58,962 --> 00:06:04,552 topics in a broad way, we we'll talk about energy and society. 75 00:06:04,552 --> 00:06:09,349 Where we use energy and why we use it, energy and economy, the linkage there, 76 00:06:09,349 --> 00:06:14,165 we'll talk about energy supply type and source, what types of energy do we use 77 00:06:14,165 --> 00:06:19,075 and where do they come from, we'll talk about the pricing of energy, we'll talk 78 00:06:19,075 --> 00:06:23,352 about renewable sources for energy. Ethanol is a renewable source. 79 00:06:23,352 --> 00:06:26,825 wind is renewable. Solar and ocean energy. 80 00:06:26,825 --> 00:06:32,662 We're not getting this, any energies, essentially, from ocean, at this point. 81 00:06:32,662 --> 00:06:38,738 But, ethanol, wind, and solar are sup-, beginning to supply a some energy that 82 00:06:38,738 --> 00:06:42,605 makes some different. We'll look at the physical laws of 83 00:06:42,605 --> 00:06:45,766 energy. What are the limitations that, that laws 84 00:06:45,766 --> 00:06:50,163 of nature put on us about what technologies can we explore and what is 85 00:06:50,163 --> 00:06:53,750 possible and not possible. We'll look at electric power 86 00:06:53,750 --> 00:06:57,056 technologies. When we need all the Power we use for 87 00:06:57,056 --> 00:07:01,443 various things, from lighting, to electric motors, to computers. 88 00:07:01,443 --> 00:07:06,467 where do we get that electricity from, and what's the technologies to produce 89 00:07:06,467 --> 00:07:11,577 that electricity, and wh-, what's the fuel source? Transportation technologies, 90 00:07:11,577 --> 00:07:14,022 that's Mainly oil oriented. 91 00:07:14,022 --> 00:07:17,047 We use most of our oil for transportation. 92 00:07:17,047 --> 00:07:21,852 And then energy efficiencies. Lots of ways we can reduce our energy 93 00:07:21,852 --> 00:07:25,572 consumption by using that energy more efficiently. 94 00:07:25,572 --> 00:07:30,557 So we'll hit that topic also. So, those are some of the topics that 95 00:07:30,557 --> 00:07:35,594 we'll cover in a broad sweep manner. some of conclusions we'll reach, just to 96 00:07:35,594 --> 00:07:40,508 tease you a little bit, is that is that energy use is coupled tight, tightly 97 00:07:40,508 --> 00:07:45,175 coupled to the economy, it's linked. How much energy is coupled to the 98 00:07:45,175 --> 00:07:48,311 economy. If we improve the economy, the energy 99 00:07:48,311 --> 00:07:52,356 consumption goes up. National security is linked to oil 100 00:07:52,356 --> 00:07:56,785 imports specifically. oil is not saved, this might surprise 101 00:07:56,785 --> 00:08:00,277 some people. Oil is not saved by wind energy, solar 102 00:08:00,277 --> 00:08:04,174 energy or nuclear energy. We'll find out why, but just in a 103 00:08:04,174 --> 00:08:09,489 nutshell, it's because we don't use any oil to produce electricity, and all of 104 00:08:09,489 --> 00:08:14,871 those technologies produce electricity. We'll get into that more as we move 105 00:08:14,871 --> 00:08:18,002 through. Electric cars it turns out, do not reduce 106 00:08:18,002 --> 00:08:22,983 CO2 emissions and that's because they may not come out of the tailpipe of the car, 107 00:08:22,983 --> 00:08:27,982 but they get electricity from the grid. That electricity has to be generated back 108 00:08:27,982 --> 00:08:31,499 at the plant, and CO2 emissions occur there. 109 00:08:31,499 --> 00:08:37,392 there are lots of long term options to change that, but for the next 10 or 20 110 00:08:37,392 --> 00:08:43,012 years, that's just the reality. And finally, there's no silver bullet for 111 00:08:43,012 --> 00:08:46,398 an energy solution. So we've got to take a look at all of 112 00:08:46,398 --> 00:08:50,840 these technologies, and all the options, in order to figure out what the best 113 00:08:50,840 --> 00:08:54,704 energy policy should be and develop an energy policy that works. 114 00:08:54,704 --> 00:08:59,419 So that's the, that's the big overview of what we'll be talking about, and I hope 115 00:08:59,419 --> 00:09:02,454 you find it interesting and stay with us. Thank you.