The US Geological Survey’s Energy Resources Program (ERP) will need to recognize and adapt to changes during the last 10 years in the world’s energy production and consumption patterns if it expects to retain its reputation as an objective and reliable information source, a new report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine concluded.
“The past decade has demonstrated the difficulty in predicting US energy production and consumption…[which] are subject to massive change with little notice,” observed Rex C. Buchanan, director emeritus of the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas who chaired a committee of 10 scientists evaluating the ERP’s capabilities and future at the USGS’s request.
“Those changes have sweeping implications for the nation’s economy, environment, and even social behavior. That makes organizations such as the ERP more important than ever. To fulfill its mission, the ERP needs to be nimble, to be responsive, and to anticipate changes in the energy mix,” Buchanan observed in his introduction to the Aug. 29 report.
Changes have included the transformation of the US from a net crude oil importer to one of the world’s top exporters, its emergence as the top global producer of natural gas, and its continued growth in renewable energy use, Buchanan said.
“Some things have not changed,” he said. “Reliable, affordable energy continues to be central to the nation’s economic and social vitality. The environmental impacts of energy extraction and use are of great concern to the public, and good decisions about energy require high-quality information about energy resources and their use.”
Buchanan said the recent US energy transformation’s speed and magnitude have highlighted the need for reliable and timely information about the nation’s energy resources and challenges, especially those related to the subsurface. Amid such a transformation, organizations that provide such information are critical for good decision-making, he said.
Global and US energy markets are changing as demand growth shifts to developing countries, new resource extraction technologies become available, and environmental concerns drive efforts to curb carbon emissions in some parts of the world, the report’s summary pointed out.
“Even so, the US and the world will be reliant on geologically based energy resources for at least the next 10-15 years. The US has become a net energy exporter owing to growing oil and gas production, but demand for and production of renewable fuels could reduce oil and gas demand in the future,” it said.
The summary said that a secure, resilient, environmentally responsible, and economically competitive national energy supply will depend on a collective effort to meet certain energy sector challenges, which include:
• Maintaining a robust understanding of the national resource inventory and its associated uncertainties.
• Exploring and developing geologic energy resources in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.
• Overcoming technical and economic barriers to new resource development processes.
• Adapting to variable power-generation sources (such as wind and solar) and related energy storage.
“The ERP has the competence to help address many of those challenges,” the summary said. It already provides subsurface geologic characterization and basin-scale modeling and assessments to support strategic development and innovation, but also needs to respond quickly to technology advances and anticipate future information needs, it indicated.
ERP recognizes the challenges outlined above and responds to them in scientifically sound ways, the summary said. The program successfully conducts innovative research in emerging areas (such as methane hydrates and enhanced geothermal systems) while generating many critical resource assessments and compiling or producing data to support those assessments, it continued. “Maintaining this diverse portfolio in a continually changing landscape requires flexibility on the part of the ERP,” the summary said.
The committee made 11 recommendations that are focused on research and assessment priorities, products, and processes for the near and more distant future. The recommendations are intended to help ERP capitalize on its strengths and become more nimble and responsive to the changing energy environment and its stakeholders’ information needs. It called on ERP to:
• Focus new and continuing activities on geologic energy resources in a manner consistent with ERP’s mission and the nation’s information needs.
• Give priority to geologically based research and products related to (a) existing and emerging continuous/unconventional oil and gas and produced water, and (b) emerging technologies associated with geothermal energy, methane hydrates, and subsurface energy storage.
• Maintain strategic capabilities in areas such as conventional oil and gas, coal, uranium, and emerging energy sources; while adjusting emphasis on products and research in these and other areas based on demand for information.
• Compile and incorporate data related to environmental impacts of resource development into ERP products.
• Apply full life cycle and full system approaches when considering geologic energy resources: from initial resource assessment to development, waste disposal, and the disposition of depleted or legacy sites.
• Improve assessments of geologic energy resources by quantifying resources according to quality and recoverability.
• Emphasize the development of multicommodity and multireservoir geologic models at regional and basin scales.
• Become the recognized custodian of national-scale, publicly available geologic energy resource data.
• Improve the timeliness of ERP products and related data.
• Establish formal mechanisms for regular engagement with external parties and key stakeholders to identify and prioritize future ERP activities and to determine the impacts of ERP products and research.
• Leverage and partner with other USGS units, other federal and state agencies, and other domestic and international organizations to more efficiently achieve ERP’s mission.
Contact Nick Snow at [email protected].
