Abstract
Petroleum provides about 35% of total primary energy supply and meets about 95% of our transportation energy needs. Some argue that this dominance is short lived due to rapid expansion of electric vehicles, while others argue for a continued role for petroleum well into this century. While visions for the future use of oil vary widely, most model projections suggest that humanity will consume more than 1 trillion barrels of oil between now and the end of the century. Where will this oil come from? What are the impacts of producing, refining, and consuming this oil? How can we make wise choices in the coming decades to minimize the climate impacts of oil use? In this talk I will outline our group’s modeling efforts to understand the current impacts of oil production around the world, as well as our work exploring the benefits of wise choices in resource prioritization, emissions management, and integration of renewables into oil sector operations.
Biography
Dr. Brandt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford University. His research focuses on reducing the greenhouse gas impacts of energy production and consumption. Primary research interests include life cycle assessment of petroleum production and natural gas extraction, with a particular interest in unconventional fossil fuel resources such as oil sands, oil shale and hydraulically fractured oil and gas resources. He also researches computational optimization of low emissions technologies, such as carbon dioxide capture, solar thermal, and solar photovoltaic output prediction. Dr. Brandt received his PhD from the Energy and Resources Group, UC Berkeley.