Sustainable Fossil Fuels

Abstract

More and more people believe we must quickly wean ourselves from fossil fuels - oil, natural gas and coal - to save the planet from environmental catastrophe, wars and economic collapse. In this 2006 book, Professor Jaccard argues that this view is misguided. We have the technological capability to use fossil fuels without emitting climate-threatening greenhouse gases or other pollutants. The transition from conventional oil and gas to their unconventional sources including coal for producing electricity, hydrogen and cleaner-burning fuels will decrease energy dependence on politically unstable regions. In addition, our vast fossil fuel resources will be the cheapest source of clean energy for the next century and perhaps longer, which is critical for the economic and social development of the world's poorer countries. By buying time for increasing energy efficiency, developing renewable energy technologies and making nuclear power more attractive, fossil fuels will play a key role in humanity's quest for a sustainable energy system.

CO2 geological storage — Geotechnical implications

“…(1) (Dooley et al, 2006;Heddle et al, 2003); (2) (IPCC, 2005); (3) (Golomb, 1993;House et al, 2006); (4) (IEA, 2009); (5) (World-Resources-Institute, 2010b); (6) (Brown and Southworth, 2008); (7) (Jaccard, 2005) between political, engineering, and geological time scales add difficulty to short-time decision making. The purpose of this manuscript is to explore geotechnical concepts relevant to carbon dioxide geological storage.…”

“…The trapping mechanisms to keep CO 2 within deep geological formations rely on physical as well as chemical processes (Dooley et al, 2006;IPCC, 2005;Jaccard, 2005). Physical trapping mechanisms include structural and stratigraphic trapping by cap rocks, hydrodynamic trapping by slow aquifer currents, and capillary trapping by interfacial forces.…”

A suggested roadmap for world-wide energy resource planning and management

“…RESTRICTIONS RELATED TO THEIR USE Several popular texts [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] are available describing the various sustainable and nonpolluting energy resources, which are available to us. At least on a trial basis, most of these new technologies are worth incorporating into modern society even when they seem to be uncompetitive.…”

Some future scenarios for renewable energy

“…21 The work on carbon stabilization wedges comes from the Carbon Mitigation Initiative (CMI) being conducted at Princeton University. The CMI identifies that currently, 8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide are being released globally into the atmosphere from industry.…”

“…Both of these issues put pressure on the price of oil to rise [21,35]. Rising oil prices provide a stimulus for new investment to find and develop new national oil deposits.…”