Resumen de Restriccions biofísiques dels sistemes d'energia fòssil: estudi del metabolisme de l'extracció de petroli a l'equador-metodologies i aplicació
The concept of “peak” in the trends of production of high quality oil is now well established. This is reflected by the dynamics towards the extraction of unconventional and lower quality oil reserves that demand greater flows of materials and energy in the metabolic pathway. At the same time, developed countries maintain an onerous but ineffective commitment to the partial or total substitution of fossil sources with renewable energy. This effort requires the generation of a complete new field of research capable of supplying the require information over the biophysical feasibility and viability of these solutions.
This thesis proposes to expand the understanding of the problems related to current energy systems. It does so by analyzing in depth the performance of oil extraction as a primary source of energy and its relationship with society in the production of energy carriers, identifying its biophysical limitations in terms of scarcity and sink.
This thesis presents innovative accounting methodologies based on applications of the MuSIASEM accounting scheme facilitating the understanding of the biophysical implications of oil extraction. The applications are illustrated in a multi-scale and integrated analysis of the Ecuadorian oil sector, avoiding the simplification of information, typical of reductionism, found in similar studies carried out using classic economic narratives.
The proposed approach integrates the characterization of several relevant factors into a multi-criteria definition of the performance of a process of extraction of primary energy sources. It identifies profiles of relevant inputs and outputs of flows and funds described using the concept of “structural processors” that can be defined across different levels of analysis – i.e. field / block / geographical area. Combinations of structural processors are analyzed as functional complexes whose characteristics depend on the quality of the exploited resource – i.e. heavy, medium, and light oil production. In this way, we can study changes in the performance of oil fields due to their aging. Changes in the availability and quality of oil (and the need for freshwater) do affect the levels of environmental pressure in terms of required sink capacity - to absorb polluted water and GHG emissions.
This framing allows to study the present and future relation between the primary source of energy (oil extraction) available to a society and its ability to produce, distribute and use intermediate products to guarantee their end uses in the various socioeconomic sectors. To achieve this task the analytical framework generates future scenarios allowing the metabolic understanding of the activities of the oil extraction systems. That is, it allows the identification of metabolic rates and biophysical constraints both in the supply side (oil extraction system) and in the demand side (energy end uses) in the Ecuadorian society. Due to the integration of the quantitative analysis across different dimensions and levels of analysis, the results of this type of analysis provide salient information to the discussions of energy policy across the technical, economic and environmental domain.
