Petroleum Consumption Research Articles

Short- and long-run adjustments in U.S. petroleum consumption

Long-run adjustments in petroleum consumption are not only larger than short-run adjustments. They may also be motivated by entirely different price events. This analysis shows that new price peaks have both short-run and long-run consumption responses, a result that is starkly different than price changes that track previous price paths. It also establishes significant trend effects where gasoline and residual fuel oil consumption decline over time. The analysis explores these adjustments by establishing long-run cointegrating relationships for different petroleum product groupings. An important implication is that price increases above historical levels may be providing substantially greater incentives for significant long-run demand adjustments than would be the case otherwise.

Oil Sands Development: A Health Risk Worth Taking?

As traditional petroleum supplies dwindled and prices soared over the past few years, oil companies have shifted their attention to oil sands, a mix of sand, water, and a heavy, viscous hydrocarbon called bitumen that can be converted to oil. With the plunge in oil prices in fall 2008, many producers began canceling or postponing plans to expand oil sands development projects, but this turn of events could yet reverse, as Canada’s vast oil sands deposits are lauded as a secure source of imported oil for the United States. At the same time, however, oil sands present troubling questions in terms of the environmental health effects associated with their development.

Evaluation of PHEVs Fuel Efficiency and Cost Using Monte Carlo Analysis

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) offer a great opportunity to significantly reduce petroleum consumption. The potential fuel displacement is influenced by several parameters, including powertrain configuration, component technology, drive cycle, distance… The objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of component assumptions on fuel efficiency using Monte Carlo analysis. When providing simulation results, researchers agree that a single value cannot be used due to large amount of uncertainties. In previous papers, we have used triangular distribution, but assuming that all inputs were correlated lead to improper results. Monte Carlo allows users to properly evaluate uncertainties while taking dependencies into account. To do so, uncertainties are defined for several inputs, including efficiency, mass and cost. For each assumption, an uncertainty distribution will be defined to evaluate the fuel efficiency and cost of a particular vehicle with a determined probability.

Petroleum consumption and economic growth: evidence from China and some South Asian countries

The study probes cointegration and Granger causality between economic growth and petroleum consumption, using annual data covering the period 1980–2004, for Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, China, Maldives, Nepal, and Pakistan in a bivariate vector autoregression framework with change in international oil price as exogenous variable. Augmented Dickey-Fuller tests reveal that all the series are non-stationary in nature. Existence of long-run equilibrium relationship has been established between economic activity and petroleum consumption in Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, and Pakistan. Unidirectional long-term causality running from economic growth to petroleum consumption has been found to exist for Bangladesh, Bhutan, and China while long-run bi-directional causality has been found for Pakistan. For countries like Maldives and Nepal, though series are found to be non-cointegrated, there exists bi-directional short-run causality between economic growth and petroleum consumption. For Burma, no causality is found in either direction. The study also highlights the implications of the results and, finally, suggests some policy prescriptions based on empirical findings, which are country-specific.

Energy and the Public's Health: Making the Connection

Rarely does a scientific article come along that begs to be read by a much broader audience than the subscribers of a niche journal. Frumkin and colleagues have achieved such a feat in this issue of Public Health Reports. Their article, Energy and Public Health: The Challenge of Peak Petroleum,1 should be required reading for every public policy leader, business executive, health-care provider, and general public health professional. It makes a connection between an old world where the use of carbon-based was largely related to wood burn ing and simple crop production, and a current world that is growing closer to exhausting the fossil fuel stores created by many millions of years of geologic processes. Frankly, it's quite hard to imagine that we have largely cannibalized the easily obtained carbon-hydrogen bound energy that is as much a part of our planet earth's history as is evolution. But the depletion is happening, just as Frumkin and colleagues have detailed. And yet, petroleum is just one part of the nonrenewable resources that the global population is devouring with an ever-increasing appetite. Coal and natural gas are the other components of the historic photosynthesis-driven bank. Their use will impact both the rate of petroleum consumption over the next several decades and the speed at and extent to which the global climate-change-related greenhouse gases are increasing in our atmosphere. With the simultaneous occurrence of the exploding 21st-century human population and a rapidly growing part of the world evolving from low energy-consumption developing countries into high energy-consumption developed countries, car bon-based use will only accelerate over the next decade. Even under the best-case scenarios, clean renewable sources that can supply a substantial part of our budget are many years off. In the public health prepared ness business, we often say, Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and influenza pandemics occur?we must be prepared. Well, peak petroleum will too occur, and no amount of wishful thinking will change the implications of what this phenomenon will mean to our world as we know it now. Most of us do not understand the depth and complicated intricacies of the connection between

Cost-Effectiveness of Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions from Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

We find that plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) could significantly reduce automotive greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and petroleum consumption, while improving energy security and urban air quality. Widespread PHEV adoption will depend upon technological and economic advances in batteries because the initial fuel savings do not rapidly compensate consumers for the capital costs of batteries today. For PHEV purchases to become economical to consumers, battery prices must decline from $1,300 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to about or below $500/kWh, or U.S. gasoline prices must remain at about $5 per gallon-or the federal government must institute policy innovations with equivalent effects, such as policies to lower battery cost and increase battery lifetimes (e.g. a broad and sustained program of battery RD&D), or those to widen the difference between gasoline and electricity prices (e.g. changes in energy taxes). However, even before PHEVs become cost-effective consumers, their purchase can still be highly valuable to society if their significant GHG reductions can be achieved cost-effectively (using a benchmark price of about $50/t-CO2-eq). Using the GREET model, we determine that in order for PHEVs' reductions to become cost-effective, either their purchase must approach current unsubsidized prices-requiring the same policy innovations described above-or very low-GHG electricity must be used to power them. This requires policies to decrease the GHG intensity of electricity, such as renewable portfolio standards, feed-in tariffs or other measures. Importantly, we find that any carbon price would have to exceed $100/t-CO2-eq in order to render PHEVs' reductions cost-effective, and hence a carbon price alone represents an impractical short-term means of achieving this goal.

Sensitivity Analysis of the Life-Cycle Inventories of Electricity and Hydrogen as Energy Vectors for the Philippine Automative Transport Sector

The Philippine automotive transport sector accounts for a significant portion ofthe country's petroleum consumption and air emissions. Research in alternative fuels for road vehicles is thus an essential element in the country's long-term-electrical environmental management strategy. Two radical vehicle technologies propulsion systems and fuel hydrogen for fuel cells - are widely considered to be the most promising energy vectors from an environmental standpoint. Electric vehicles (EV) and fuel cell vehicles (FCV) are driven by electric motors; the former use electricity stored in batteries, while the latter generate electricity from the oxidation of hydrogen. Potentially, both electric power and fuel hydrogen can be sustainably produced using renewable energy sources, and their use in vehicles generates almost no direct pollution. However, life-cycle assessment (LCA) may reveal significant environmental impacts from the infrastructure required to produce and distribute these energy vectors on a commercial scale. This study quantifies the life-cycle air emissions and energy balances associated with the use of electricity and hydrogen for motor vehicle propulsion in order to determine which fuel offers more environmental benefits. The assessment uses a modified version of the GREET 1.Sa fuel cycle inventory model, with corrections made to account for Philippine conditions. Sensitivity analysis is performed in the model to determine the effect of marginal power generation mix and system transmission losses on the life-cycle inventories of both energy vectors. The results of the simulation indicate that for a given marginal power generation mix, there is no clear-cut advantage in terms of environmental performance for either hydrogen or electricity.

On-Demand Hydrogen via High-Pressure Water Reforming for Military Fuel Cell Applications

Researchers have developed a high-pressure water-reforming (HPWR) process that produces high-pressure hydrogen from a jet fuel feedstock. Converting petroleum-based fuels to hydrogen for fuel cell use is a unique approach to reducing military petroleum consumption by improving petroleum utilization efficiency. HPWR is an attractive option because, unlike traditional steam methane reforming, it does not require postreformer hydrogen compression and storage. A HPWR apparatus was designed and manufactured. Several catalysts were tested for their ability to produce high-pressure hydrogen from jet fuel. S-8, which is a jet fuel derived from natural gas, was used as a model feedstock for initial experiments because the fuel is sulfur and aromatics free. After optimizing with S-8, JP-8 will be utilized for future experiments. The most promising catalyst produced a 4000psi(gauge) product gas stream that contained 54mol% hydrogen. These experimental results show that HPWR is a promising solution for high-pressure hydrogen production as a key step toward reducing military petroleum use.

Production of polyhydroxybutyrate in switchgrass, a value‐added co‐product in an important lignocellulosic biomass crop

Polyhydroxyalkanoate bio-based plastics made from renewable resources can reduce petroleum consumption and decrease plastic waste disposal issues as they are inherently biodegradable in soil, compost and marine environments. In this paper, the successful engineering of the biomass crop switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) for the synthesis of polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) is reported. Polymer production was monitored in more than 400 primary transformants grown under in vitro and glasshouse conditions. Plants containing up to 3.72% dry weight of PHB in leaf tissues and 1.23% dry weight of PHB in whole tillers were obtained. Results from the analysis of the polymer distribution at the cellular and whole plant levels are presented, and target areas for the improvement of PHB production are highlighted. Polymer accumulation was also analysed in the T(1) generation obtained from controlled crosses of transgenic plants. This study presents the first successful expression of a functional multigene pathway in switchgrass, and demonstrates that this high-yielding biomass crop is amenable to the complex metabolic engineering strategies necessary to produce high-value biomaterials with lignocellulose-derived biofuels.

Large eddy simulations of turbulent reacting flows in real burners: the status and challenges

Turbulence is a recurrent and recognised challenge for which the scientific community has not been able to provide reliable methodologies necessary for predictions in complex industrial applications. In fact and throughout the past century, that challenge has been identified as a million dollar achievement simply because of the tremendous impact such a contribution would have on existing industrial processes. Among all industries, the gas-turbine companies are probably the most receptive to new contributions in the field of turbulent reacting flows because of the upcoming new regulations and the existing pressure linked to petroleum consumption and pollutant emissions. From a purely scientific point of view, the treatment of combustion and turbulence yields additional difficulties. However, and because of the advent of high-performane computers providing teraflop capabilities, the fully unsteady, temporally and spatially dependent approach that is large eddy simulations (LES) provides new insights and promises when dealing with these industrial applications. In this document, state-of-the-art LES for complex flows is presented, along with developments and potential challenges that are needed to improve LES in order to yield an efficient and reliable tool for the prediction of real industrial turbulent reacting flows.

Accelerated Testing of Advanced Battery Technologies in PHEV Applications

EPRI and DaimlerChrysler developed a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) using the Sprinter Van to reduce emissions, fuel consumption, and operating costs while maintaining equivalent or superior functionality and performance. The utilization of grid electricity and operating efficiency significantly reduce petroleum consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and criteria pollutants, especially benefiting urban areas.Southern California Edison (SCE) collaborated with EPRI and DaimlerChrysler to evaluate the vehicle and two different battery technologies. This paper documents one of the first published battery test results related to PHEV applications from the beginning of the project, in September 2004.The partners selected two advanced battery technologies, lithium ion (Li-Ion) chemistry from SAFT and nickel metal hydride (NiMH) chemistry from VARTA. The primary goals of the test are to evaluate the performance and cycle life of traction batteries for future PHEV Sprinter Van production using PHEV test profiles. The test profile replicates the most demanding urban driving conditions for the battery (i.e., low speed, high acceleration in charge-sustained HEV mode at low battery state of charge). It also uses a combination of HEV and EV driving modes to represent over 50% of statistical daily trips. One cycle includes three modes: (1) charge depletion mode, simulating the EV operation, (2) charge sustained mode, simulating the HEV operation, and (3) recharge mode, simulating the plug-in operation.The SAFT battery technology shows encouraging results from simulated PHEV tests; one test cycle represents an average daily operation of a PHEV Sprinter Van (i.e., a 2.6-hour, 50-mile drive).

Turkey's Foreign Dependence on Energy

Turkey becomes more dependent on the external countries in energy production every year. As an average of the period 1994–2002 the total primary energy production has been 27.9 Mtoe, and consumption has been 73.06 Mtoe, so Turkey is dependent on external countries in petroleum, natural gas, and hard coal consumption. The external dependency rate of these fuels has been at levels of 89.3%, 96.6%, and 82%, respectively. In the projections of Turkey for 2020, the primary energy consumption is estimated to be 298 Mtoe, production is estimated to be 70 Mtoe, the ratio of production to consumption will be reduced to 23.5%, and this situation will cause serious risks for sustainable development. In other words, Turkey will have to import 76.5% of the energy that it consumes in the 2020s.

The strategic petroleum reserve: U.S. energy security and oil politics, 1975-2005

In 1973, the United States and other western countries were shocked by the Arab oil embargo. Lines formed at gasoline pumps; fuel stations ran out of supply; prices skyrocketed; and the nation realized its vulnerability to decisions made by leaders of countries half a world away. In response, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which was signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1975, has become the nation's primary tool of energy policy. Following its first major use during the Persian Gulf War of 1991, officials and policy makers at the highest levels increasingly turned to the SPR to stave off shortages and mitigate rising energy prices. Author and historian Bruce A. Beaubouef examines, for the first time, the interactions that have shaped the development of the SPR. He argues that the SPR has survived because it is a passive regulatory tool that serves to protect energy consumers and petroleum consumption and does not compete with the American oil industry. Indeed, by the late twentieth century, as American import dependency reached new heights, refiners and transporters increasingly relied upon the SPR as a ready resource to help maintain feedstock when supplies were tight or disrupted. In a time of continued vulnerability, this definitive work will be of interest to those concerned with the history, economy, and politics of the oil and gas industry, as well as to historians and practitioners of oil and energy policy.

Using Tax Expenditures to Achieve Energy Policy Goals

Tax expenditures are a major source of support for energy related activities in the federal budget exceeding direct budget support for energy by a factor of nearly six. Focusing on the policy goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and petroleum consumption, I find these tax expenditures highly cost ineffective at best and counterproductive at worse. The tax credit for ethanol is an example of a cost ineffective subsidy. The cost of reducing CO2 emissions through this subsidy exceeded $1,000 per ton of CO2 avoided in 2006. A change in the way the subsidy is administered provides an opportunity to measure its incidence. I find that the entire subsidy is passed backward to ethanol producers and possibly farmers. Consideration of market structure suggests that farmers receive little of the subsidy.

Importer and Producer Petroleum Taxation: A Geo-Political Model

We derive non-cooperative Nash equilibrium (NE) importer and exporter petroleum excise taxes given full within-group tax coordination, but no coordination between groups, assuming that importers do not produce and exporters do not consume petroleum, and petroleum consumption causes a global externality. The aggregate NE tax is found to consist of an externality component and an optimal tariff component, and exceeds the standard Pigou tax. The environmental component in isolation is however less than the Pigou tax. With Stackelberg tax setting, the leader's tax is higher than in the Ne, and the follower's tax lower, and the overall tax higher. We show that importers prefer to set a tax instead of an import quota, since exporters' optimal response to a quota is a higher tax. An optimal cap-and-trade scheme will thus fare worse than an optimal tax scheme for importers, and will imply greater petroleum consumption and carbon emissions. When exporters behave as a cartel satisfying demand at a fixed export price, exporters' optimal tax is higher, while importers tax rule is Pigouvian. Exporters then gain at the expense of importers.

The effects of biodiesel usage on the components of an engine

In this paper, the research results obtained on the influences of biodiesel on the components of an engine are presented. The study was carried out at the Dumlupinar University in Turkey. Biodiesel has been an alternative fuel for diesel engines since 1900s. However, the use of biodiesel has recently been increasing owing to indelible increase in petroleum price and consumption. Furthermore, the efforts for the environmental protection have been increasing all around the world. Many researches on biodiesel that have concerned engine gas emissions and engine performances have been carried out so far. However, this work was realised to consider the effects of biodiesel on engine components at real time and long-term conditions.

低環境負荷型改質天然ゴムによる高性能タイヤの開発〜石油外資源タイヤの開発〜

The protection movement of the global environment by reducing petroleum consumption and CO2 emission is the important problem for all industries including the car manufacture.Our company decided the concept of developing petroleum-free tire aiming at the following two points to contribute to the society as a tire producer in 2000. One is to increase the usage of petroleum-free materials and the other is to reduce a tire's rolling resistance for reduced fuel consumption.The weight ratio of petroleum-free material is raised from 44% to 70% by replacing synthetic rubber with natural rubber, carbon black with silica, mineral oil with vegetable oil and synthetic fiber with vegetable fiber. The substitution of rubber is important to the weight ratio of petroleum materials and tire performance. The rolling resistance and the grip performance in a wet road were improved by using the epoxidized natural rubber.

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle Control Strategy Parameter Optimization

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) offer a great opportunity to significantly reduce petroleum consumption. The fuel economy of PHEV is highly dependent on All-Electric-Range (AER) and control strategy. Previous studies have shown that in addition to parameters influencing Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs), control strategies of PHEVs are also influenced by the trip distance. This additional parameter makes it even more difficult to manually tune the parameters that minimize fuel consumption. This study uses a pre-transmission parallel PHEV model developed with the Powertrain System Analysis Toolkit (PSAT). A non-derivative based algorithm called DIRECT (for DIvided RECTangles) is used to optimize the main control strategy parameters. The fuel economy and main performance criteria of the PHEVs are compared for the initial design and final optimal design. An optimal control solution resulting from an extensive search of the entire design space can provide physical insight into the PHEV operation.

Cost-Benefit Analysis of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technology

Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) have emerged as a promising technology that uses electricity to displace petroleum consumption in the vehicle fleet. This paper presents a comparison of the costs (vehicle purchase costs and energy costs) and benefits (reduced petroleum consumption) of PHEVs relative to hybrid electric and conventional vehicles. A detailed simulation model is used to predict petroleum reductions and costs of PHEV designs compared to a baseline midsize sedan. The analysis finds that petroleum reductions exceeding 45% per vehicle can be achieved by PHEVs equipped with 20 mi (32 km) or more of energy storage. However, the long-term incremental costs of these vehicles are projected to exceed US$8,000. A simple economic analysis is used to show that high petroleum prices and low battery costs are needed to make a compelling business case for PHEVs in the absence of other incentives. However, the large petroleum reduction potential of PHEVs provides strong justification for governmental support to accelerate the deployment of PHEV technology.

Measuring and Reporting Fuel Economy of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles (PHEVs) have emerged as a promising alternative to reduce fleet petroleum consumption. However, quantifying PHEVs’ expected benefit is more challenging than with other vehicle technologies because they receive energy from two distinct sources and exhibit widely varying per-mile consumption based on the drive cycle and distance driven. This paper reviews various PHEV fuel economy characterization techniques, including the procedure formalized in the SAE J1711 Recommended Practice (issued in 1999). SAE J1711 accurately captures several critical reporting practices, including: using standardized drive cycles; considering charge depleting and charge sustaining operation; and using driving-statistic-derived utility-factor weighting to properly combine the vehicle’s operating modes. The authors’ proposed modifications to J1711 include: separately reporting fuel and electricity use; specifically measuring the vehicle’s charge depleting performance; and applying a once-daily charging assumption. As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) begins implementing changes to window-sticker fuel economy test procedures, and the original issuance of SAE J1711 expires, the authors hope to stimulate discussion and contribute to adoption of consensus reporting metrics. In order for the resulting metrics to be useful, stakeholders must be able to translate the numbers into sound predictions of relative vehicle energy cost, petroleum use, and potential carbon dioxide (CO2) production.