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After the Great East Japan Earthquake, Japanese energy policy strategies have been directed towards seeking more diversified energy options, especially fuel switching to gas, rapid introduction of renewable energy, and pushing towards a hydrogen economy. While a secure supply of energy, or energy security, is typically argued within the context of energy resources, little consideration for energy policy is given to mineral resources used in various energy technologies. Many studies have addressed the specific mineral elements in technologies by borrowing energy scenarios from authorities (e.g., The International Energy Agency (IEA) energy technology perspectives (ETP)). Some have applied empirical estimation models such as logistic functions for their future demand projections. In this study, we used our own resource balance models incorporating resources of energy, non-fuel minerals, biomass and food, to illustrate future consumption paths for non-fuel minerals (including scarce metals) as well as our own energy and climate policy scenarios. Our approach is complementary, not a substitute, offering more insights to existing studies on energy-mineral nexus approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese energy consumption has been dominated by coal for decades, but this needs to change to protect the environment and mitigate anthropogenic climate change. Renewable energy development is needed to fulfil the Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) for the post-2020 period, as stated on the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. This paper reviews the potential of renewable energy in China and how it could be utilised to meet the INDC goals. A business-as-usual case and eight alternative scenarios with 40% renewable electricity are explored using the EnergyPLAN model to visualise out to the year 2030. Five criteria (total cost, total capacity, excess electricity, CO2 emissions, and direct job creation) are used to assess the sustainability of the scenarios. The results indicate that renewables can meet the goal of a 20% share of non-fossil energy in primary energy and 40%-50% share of non-fossil energy in electricity power. The low nuclear-hydro power scenario is the most optimal scenario based on the used evaluation criteria. The Chinese government should implement new policies aimed at promoting integrated development of wind power and solar PV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes and quantifies characteristic production behavior using historical data from 1084 shale gas wells in the Eagle Ford shale play from 2010 to 2014. Decline curve analysis, using Hyperbolic and Stretched Exponential models, are used to derive average decline rates and other characteristic parameters for shale gas wells. Both Hyperbolic and Stretched Exponential models fit well to aggregated and individual well production data. The hyperbolic model is found to perform slightly better than the Stretched Exponential model in this study. In the Eagle Ford shale play, about 77% of wells reach the peak production of 1644–4932 mil cubic feet per day; the production decline rate of the first year is around 70%, and over the first two years it is around 80%; shale gas wells were estimated to yield estimated ultimate recoverable total resources of 1.41–2.03 billion cubic feet (20 years as life span), which is in line with other studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under pressure toward carbon emission reduction and air protection, China has accelerated energy restructuring by greatly improving the supply and consumption of natural gas in recent years. However, several issues with the sustainable development of the natural gas industry in China still need in-depth discussion. Therefore, based on the fundamental ideas of sustainable development, industrial development theories and features of the natural gas industry, a sustainable development theory is proposed in this thesis. The theory consists of five parts: resource, market, enterprise, technology and policy. The five parts, which unite for mutual connection and promotion, push the gas industry's development forward together. Furthermore, based on the theoretical structure, the Natural Gas Industry Sustainability Index in China is established and evaluated via the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) method. Finally, a conclusion is reached: that the sustainability of the natural gas industry in China kept rising from 2008 to 2013, mainly benefiting from increasing supply and demand, the enhancement of enterprise profits, technological innovation, policy support and the optimization and reformation of the gas market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's current national policies promote high levels of economic growth, transforming China into a "world factory", but at a high cost in terms of energy and the environment. At the same time, this growth and transformation also forms the backbone of China's economy, underpinning social stability. China faces a dilemma to reconcile its economy, energy system and environmental security. Each aspect of this triad is discussed in this study to illuminate the challenges faced by China, and China's dilemma in energy, economy and environment is analyzed from the perspective of its participation in current global supply chains. While China must import a significant proportion of its energy and a large proportion of primary materials, a large share of these imports are returned to the global market as industrial exports. China is bound by its own course of action and unable to radically change its position for the foreseeable future as the road to economic development and employment stability is through policies built on exports and shifting development models, presenting a tough socio-economic trade-off. China's growth challenges are discussed as an example of challenges more broadly faced in the developing world. China's success or failure in achieving a sustainable developmental pattern will inevitably have a significant influence on the global environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Shale gas and conventional oil and natural gas environmental impacts are compared. • Environmental impact per well of natural gas development is large than crude oil. • Natural gas is greener than crude oil per unit of output by calorific value. • Neither reservoir nor well depth is positively correlated with full environmental impacts. China has stepped up its oil and gas development including unconventional resources as foreign dependence for oil and gas increased. Environmental impacts from the development phase has also caused widespread concern. To better understand environment impacts from current oil and gas development in China, a hybrid life cycle analysis (H-LCA) model was used to estimate the impact of six fields at the development stage based on data from 2017. The full environmental impact and full impact intensity (i.e., full environmental impact per unit of output by calorific value) of shale gas, conventional natural gas and oil development in China was compared and analyzed by eliminating well depth. Shale gas has 12.5% more environmental impact than conventional natural gas. Environmental impact of natural gas development is roughly 1.5 to 2 times that of conventional oil. Development of gas in Sichuan Basin have the greatest environmental impact, following southeast coast, Song Liao Basin, and Junggar Basin. However, the full impact intensity of shale gas development is more than five times that of conventional natural gas, but natural gas is still greener than conventional oil. The greatest full impact intensity is found in Junggar Basin, following Song Liao Basin and southeastern coast. From the comparison of full environmental impact and full impact intensity under per well depth, it's found that both of these are not positively correlated with reservoir depth and well depth even in the same basin. More attention should be paid to driving effects of specific reservoir developments and geological conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scenarios and projections are important for decision and policy making. Accuracy of past projections can be useful for both scenario users and developers, for insight on current projection uncertainty, and for guiding improvement efforts. This paper compiles projections of oil production, oil prices and upstream investments from the years 2000 to 2016 from the annual World Energy Outlook by the International Energy Agency, and investigates revisions and accuracy of past projections and implied uncertainty of current ones. Revisions of world oil production, price and investments have been motivated by a combination of demand and supply factors. Downward revisions are mainly allocated to OPEC, while recent upward revisions are due to unconventional oil, in particular US tight oil. Non-OPEC conventional projections have been stable. Price and investments have been revised mostly upwards. Projection accuracy follows the size and directions of these revisions, with high accuracy for Non-OPEC (mean absolute percentage error of 4.8% on a 5 year horizon) and low for OPEC (8.9%) and unconventional (37%). Counteracting error directions contribute to accurate total World oil supply projections (4%) while price projections have low accuracy (37%). Scenario users should be aware of implied uncertainty of current oil projections. In planning and decision making, uncertainty ranges such as those presented here can be used as benchmarks. Scenario developers should focus improvements efforts on three areas in particular: tight oil, OPEC and new technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Substantial increase of metal demand in China's PV sector will happen up to 2050. • The general scarcities of both base metal and byproduct metal have been found. • Uncertainties lead to the furcation of metal requirement in China's PV sector. • Two strategies to lessen metal supply risk have been put forward and discussed. • The energy-metal nexus is essential for China's low-carbon energy transition. Chinese PV industry can be expected to grow rapidly of until 2050, driven by ongoing decarbonization of the energy mix. Such large-scale deployments generate significant increases in metal demand that may induce resource dilemmas. In this study, dynamic material flow analysis is combined with scenario analysis to estimate future metal demand from Chinese PV industry and complemented by a supply risk assessment. It is found that the maximum annual copper and silver demand up to 2050 equals 79.6% and 58.5% of China's annual production in 2019. Similarly, the baseline scenario projects maximum annual demand of Tellurium and Indium corresponding to 598.1% and 161.8% of China's annual production in 2019. Cumulative base metal demand by 2050 for China's PV sector is 17.3–22.8 times that of in 2018, while cumulative silver demand increases by 4.5–6 times from 2018 to 2050. In the baseline scenario, cumulative byproduct metal demand by 2050 is 14–27.3 times larger than in 2018. High annual and cumulative supply pressures indicate not only the general scarcity of base, precious, and byproduct metals but also highlights the importance of building stable trade relationships for future PV developments in China. Two different measures are identified and assessed for reducing short- and long-term supply risks. Prolonging the lifetime from 25 to 30 years can achieve a cumulative metal conservation of 6.7–24.2%, while shorter lifetime will give rise to secondary supply if recycling technologies are implemented. A clean energy shift indicates that metal availability will become an important perspective for assessing energy security, implying that resource constraints should be considered in different planning levels for renewable energy developments. Strong interconnections between energy and metal supply chains indicate that coordination and holistic nexus views are required for achieving simultaneous sustainability in both systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid growth of the digital economy has driven economic development, but the massive demand for electricity from digital reforms, coupled with China's coal-based power generation, has created a significant CO 2 emission problem. Previous studies have assessed digital economy sectors with an incomplete scope and a lack of carbon emissions assessment at the intermediary-side. To fill these gaps, this study assessed CO 2 emissions using input–output modeling of the core industry sector of the digital economy and the industrial digitalization sector at the production, intermediary, and demand sides, and identified key CO 2 transmission centers. The results show the following: (1) Digital economy sectors had a high betweenness and were important CO 2 transmission centers in the economic system, transmitting more than 4.08 billion tonnes of betweenness-based CO 2 emissions; (2) specifically, the industrial digitalization sector transmitted the most CO 2 in the economic system, and the digital product manufacturing sector was the core industry sector with the highest betweenness and a strong transmission effect on the CO 2 emissions in the supply chain; (3) digital economy sectors had large CO 2 emissions on the production, intermediary, and demand sides, and transmitted CO 2 more through the demand-side and key transmission centers. These results suggest that digital economy sectors can decarbonize and reduce CO 2 emissions by (1) improving material use efficiency in the digital product manufacturing sector, (2) reducing the use of carbon-intensive energy and materials in the digital economy sectors, and (3) establishing CO 2 emission disclosure rules, incentives, and penalties. • The digital product manufacturing sector had high betweenness. • Industrial digitalization sector was the largest intermediary-side contributor. • Digital economy sectors had large CO2 emissions from three sides. • Digital economy sectors influenced upstream CO2 emissions more through demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To consider the environmental impacts of energy resource exploitation and better estimate the energy return of investment (EROI), this paper establishes a new emergy-based method (EmEROI) that can capture the essence of energy resource exploitation. The EmEROI method treats environmental impacts and labor as particular forms of energy, and all forms of energy can be quantified by solar transformity, which is expressed in emjoules as a common unit. The Daqing oilfield is used as an example, and the corresponding EmEROI value is calculated via the proposed method. The results are then compared with standard EROI estimates. Our EmEROI result is much lower than the standard EROI result and presents a more pronounced declining trend. Our results also indicated that the EmEROI estimates conform well to actual conditions and are not as affected by industrial energy intensity levels as the standard EROI. Thus, EmEROI has the potential for use as an integral aspect of energy resource exploitation project evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns over anthropogenic climate change and sustainable development motivate rapid expansion of renewable energy in China. This paper explores metal demand caused by projected wind power developments in China up to 2050. Dynamic material flow analysis is combined with explorative energy scenarios to evaluate induced demand of base metals (copper, steel, aluminum, nickel) and rare earth elements (neodymium and dysprosium). The results indicate that annual demand of base metals for Chinese wind power is up to 12 times larger in 2050 than in 2018, and the cumulative demand is up to 23 times larger. Copper and nickel show greater supply pressure than aluminum and steel in the wind power sector. Cumulative copper and nickel demand of wind power sector are 9–11.9 Mt and 2.1–2.8 Mt respectively, which corresponds to 35–45.9% of copper reserves and 74–101% of nickel reserves in China. For rare earth elements demand, more than 18-fold increases are expected for annual demand in 2050 compared with 2020, and cumulative demand of neodymium and dysprosium are 1.6–3.3% and 1.4–2.8% of their reserves respectively. Recycling will play an important role after 2050 as a secondary supply of metal for Chinese wind power, and lacks noteworthy impacts on short-term future outlooks. • Technology uncertainties determine metal demand and influence metal supply risks. • Nickel, copper and REEs play critical role in Chinese wind power deployment. • EoL recycling enables increase of China's long-term secondary supply of metal. • To achieve energy-metal system's co-benefits needs system nexus thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy Return on Investment (EROI) has become a policy analysis tool related to sustainability. However, most EROI studies adopt the standard EROI method, which has two inherent defects. First, standard EROI leaves out energy quality. Second, input factors such as labor, auxiliary services and environmental factors are not considered. Therefore, this paper introduces exergy into the EROI calculation and establishes a new extended exergy-based EROI (ExEROI). ExEROI treats "available energy" as energy quality; with the idea of embodied flows, ExEROI quantifies all the five input factors of the EROI analysis framework. Shale gas exploitation in the Sichuan Basin is used as an example in the case study. The ExEROI result is 9.68, which is much lower than the standard EROI result of 82.95. This is due to the inclusion of more input factors and the fact that the input factors are measured by exergy. Specifically, the auxiliary service input factor accounts for 77.10% of the total inputs, and such inputs are ignored by the standard EROI method. ExEROI makes up for the shortcomings of standard EROI and avoids the possible misinformation caused by standard EROI. ExEROI has the potential for use as an integral aspect of energy resource exploitation evaluations. Image 1 • A new extended-exergy based EROI method (ExEROI) is established. • ExEROI realizes the quantification of all the five input factors in EROI analysis. • For technology-dependent energy resources, auxiliary service has a decisive role. • Shale gas exploitation in Sichuan Basin is used as an example to case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current world capacity of hydrocarbon liquefaction is around 400,000 barrels per day, providing a marginal share of the global liquid fuel supply. This study performs a broad review of technical, economic, environmental and supply chain issues related to coal-to-liquids (CTL) and gas-to-liquids (GTL). We find three issues predominate. First, significant amounts of coal and gas would be required to obtain anything more than a marginal production of liquids. Second, the economics of CTL plants are clearly prohibitive, but are better for GTL. Nevertheless, large-scale GTL plants still require very high upfront costs, and for three real-world GTL plants out of four, the final cost has been so far approximately three times that initially budgeted. Small-scale GTL holds potential for associated gas. Third, both CTL and GTL incur significant environmental impacts, ranging from increased greenhouse gas emissions (in the case of CTL) to water contamination. Environmental concerns may significantly affect growth of these projects until adequate solutions are found.

Two of the most fundamental concepts in the current debate about future oil supply are oilfield decline rates and depletion rates. These concepts are related, but not identical. This paper clarifies the definitions of these concepts, summarizes the underlying theory and empirically estimates decline and depletion rates for different categories of oilfield. A database of 880 post-peak fields is analysed to determine typical depletion levels, depletion rates and decline rates. This demonstrates that the size of oilfields has a significant influence on decline and depletion rates, with generally high values for small fields and comparatively low values for larger fields. These empirical findings have important implications for oil supply forecasting.