Macro-View: US Energy Production - Consumption Through 2040 -- EIA

Many, many story lines.

The most obvious story line -- compare production-consumption of each energy source; the delta is that energy available for export (or wasted).

For example:

• renewable at 18 quadBtu production and 16 quadBtu consumed (unlikely to export much renewable energy, thus wasted)
• nuclear: production exactly equals consumption, as expected
• coal: slight excess production over consumption will allow export 
• petroleum and other liquids: interesting, huh? production remains well below what we consume; looks like about 24 quadBtu produced in 2040 while we will consume 38 quadBtu (still a huge net importer of oil, liquid gas); the question, of course, where will that come from; certainly Saudi will be a net importer by then; Venezuela, Canada, Russia, most likely
• natural gas: as interesting as petroleum but for different reason -- US will produce 42 quadBtu in 2040 (let's say "40 in 40") and will use slightly less, about 38 quadBtu: the delta would be available for export?

It would be interesting to see how much natural gas is needed to "back-up" unreliable/intermittent energy. Could it be as much as four or five quadBtu? I have no idea.

Back to the graphs, for 2015:

• natural gas: production/consumption almost dead equal at 28 quadBtu; if anything, production slightly less than consumption
• oil, liquid gas: huge delta and doesn't really get all that much better over time
• one can see the wastefulness of renewables (despite being entirely "free" [LOL] and completely CO2-emission free [LOL] it is not all used -- despite producing about 10 quadBtu, the US only consumes about 8 quadBtu; one assumes the 2 quadBtu is wasted; generated when it is not required
• nuclear: best balanced; all produced is consumed

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From wiki, the IRS defines a boe as 5.8 x 10^6 Btus = 5,800,000 or about 6 million Btus.

One quadrillion in the US, according to wiki, is 1 x 10^15, or one thousand million million.

 

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Oil and Liquid Gas

2015: production about 18 quadBtus; consume about 38 quadBtus; delta of 20 quadBtus;
2040: production about 24 quad Btus; consume about 38 quadBtus

Percent increase consumption: 38 - 38 = 0 quadBtus
Percent increase production: 24 - 18 = 6quadBtus

6 thousand million million Btus/6 million Btus = 1 thousand million boe per year to be imported / 365 = 3 million boepd? If accurate math, that's well below the 4 million bopd important from Canada currently.

I often make simple arithmetic errors. Boe and bbls of oil were used interchangeably in some of the equations because that's all I had to work with.