Events

Dr. Adam Brandt, Assistant Professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University, will deliver a talk entitled "Hydrocarbon resource quality and the efficiency of energy production: methods and applications" as part of the Claude R. Hocott Graduate Seminar Series.

Abstract:
The energy efficiency of hydrocarbon extraction is a fundamental driver of the economic cost and environmental impacts of our energy supply. Resources that are easily extracted, processed, and transported lead to lower ecological impacts and greater economic returns than more challenging resources. Importantly, the oil and gas sector is intertwined with all other sectors of the economy, and shifts in resource qualities can have impacts across the entire economy. This presentation will describe efforts to understand the societal-scale, economy-wide impacts of changing hydrocarbon resource quality. I will first describe methodological developments used to model economy-wide energy efficiency metrics for oil and gas production (e.g., net energy ratios). Applications of the methodology to a variety of hydrocarbon resources will be illustrated, including conventional oil, heavy oil, oil sands, and oil shale.