Sustainable Development and Energy

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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND ENERGY

Sustainable development is defined as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (Brundtland, 1987). Applied to energy, it is the ability of a society to continue present energy production and consumption patterns many generations into the future, with a focus on the relationship of available energy resource to the rate of resource exhaustion. A sustainable energy market requires the quantity, quality, and utility of energy to improve over time—energy becomes more available, more affordable, more usable and reliable, and cleaner over time (Bradley and Simon, 2000).

Development and population growth adversely impact the sustainability future by accelerating energy resource exhaustion and environmental degradation. For example, the greater the population growth, the greater the desire for development by the growing population, the greater the desire for short-term exploitation of energy resources for the development (less concern for future generations), and the greater the environmental degradation from the greater development and energy use.

All fossil fuels are considered unsustainable because someday they will reach a point of depletion when it becomes uneconomic to produce. Petroleum is the least sustainable because it is the most finite fossil fuel. Although levels of production are expected to begin declining no later than 2030 (U.S. production peaked in 1970), the U.S. and world reserves could be further expanded by technological advances that continue to improve discovery rates and individual well productivity. The extraction of oils found in shales (exceeds three trillion barrels of oil equivalent worldwide) and sands (reserves of at least two trillion barrels worldwide) could also significantly increase reserves. The reserves of natural gas are comparable to that of oil, but natural gas is considered a more sustainable resource since consumption rates are lower and it burns cleaner than petroleum products (more environmentally sustainable).

Coal is the least expensive and most sustainable fossil fuel energy source (world reserves of 1.2 to 1.8 trillion short tons, or five times the world's oil reserves), but many feel it is the least sustainable from an environmental perspective. Coal combustion emits far more of the pollutants sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particulates, and is the fossil fuel that emits the greatest amount of carbon dioxide—the greenhouse gas suspected to be responsible for global warming. However, advances in technology have made the conversion of all fossil fuels to energy more efficient and environmentally sustainable: fossil-fuel availability has been increasing even though consumption continues to increase; efficiency improvements have saved trillions of dollars, and vehicle and power plant emissions in 2000 were only a fraction of what they were in 1970.

Nuclear energy is more sustainable than the fossil fuels. If uranium is used in fast breeder reactors designed to produce large quantities of plutonium fuel as they produce electricity, the world resources could produce approximately 200 times the total global energy used in 1997. However, concerns about the danger of nuclear power, the high cost of building and maintaining plants, and the environmental dilemma of what to do with the nuclear wastes that result is the reason many consider it less sustainable.

Renewable energy is the most sustainable energy because the sources, such as the sun, wind and water are inexhaustible and their environmental impact minimal. But the problem with renewable resources is that most sources produce intermittently (when the sun is shining, wind is blowing). Except for hydroelectricity, which produces about 18 percent of the world's electricity, all the other renewable energy sources combined produce less than 2 percent. Advances in renewable energy technology, coupled with continued efficiency improvements in energy-using products, may be part of the energy sustainability solution, but the demand for energy from the world's ever-growing population is too great for it to be the only solution.

Over 80 percent of the world's energy consumption comes from nonrenewable sources that cannot be sustained indefinitely under current practices. If technological advances continue to make conventional energy resources plentiful and affordable for many years to come, the transition to more sustainable energy sources can be smooth and minimally disruptive.

John Zumerchik

See also: Efficiency of Energy Use; Emission Control, Power Plants; Emission Control, Vehicle; Oil and Gas, Exploration for; Oil and Gas, Production of.