New trends in physics teaching, v.4; The ... - unesdoc - Unesco

New Trends in Physics Teaching IV
TABLE 5. World nuclear energy supply
Mtce/yr
1979 1990
United States, Canada, Europe, Japan 213 679
Centrally planned economies 25 220
Other 7 57
TOTAL 245 956
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Amongst the developing countries a few, including Argentina, China, India and Pakistan already
have nuclear power while others, such as Brazil and Mexico, are expected to become producers
soon. In developing countries, apart from the usual causes for concern over nuclear power, the
demanding requirements of technical and managerial expertise and the need for plants to be large
to be commercially viable, tend to limit their use to middle income and large countries.
Synthetic fuels and very heavy oil
It is generally agreed that synthetic fuels and very heavy oil wil be important factors in the energy
supply picture for the next few decades. Synthetic fuels include oil from shale, liquids produced
from coal or natural gas, gas produced from coal, alcohol and methanol. Very heavy oil (VHO)
‘is the term used for oil whose primary production requires the use of heat or mining. At the
present, the only large scale production is of alcohol in Brazil, very heavy oil in Canada and
liquid fuel from coal in South Africa.
There are optimistic forecasts that suggest that by 1990 synthetic fuels and very heavy oil will
account for a significant share of oil and gas demand in Brazil, Canada and Venezuela. By 2000,
they are expected to become important world-wide. An Exxon corporation projection (1 980)
is shown in Table 6.
TABLE 6. Synthetic fuels and VHO as a percentage of oil and gas demand
1990 2000
United States
Canada
Venezuela
Brazil
Australia
Others
World, excluding CPE
5 18
15 17
30 55
25 34
3
1
28
2
4 9
These forecasts are optimistic since they require governments to make decisions to embark on
large-scale projects in the early 1980s.
The United States is expected to lead in synthetic fuel development in the 199Os, because of
its vast resources of coal and of oil shale, as well as its desperate need for alternatives to imported
oil.A number of synthetic fuel projects are already at the advanced planning stage.
Production from Canada’s Athabasca heavy oil or tar sands is expected to make that country
the leading producer of very heavy oil by 1985. In Venezuela, the government has already
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