Energy Resources

Section IV

Aspects of Energy

Management

The historic and current aspects of energy management at the national

and international levels have been addressed in earlier chapters. This has

included assessments of the current status of various energy resources and

how they have been utilized to meet the ever-growing demand for energy

to this point in time. As a result, what should now be clear is the extensive

interplay that goes into meeting an energy demand and how that interplay

has become extremely complex as the energy markets have evolved. The

world now faces a range of challenges that not only must meet the energy

markets’ individual needs for cooking and heating in remote areas, but also

must provide precise voltage and amperage demands from a wide variety of

sources feeding a centralized power grid. Many processes cannot be turned

off by a switch, further complicating the specic energy demand picture and

the support systems necessary to maintain energy supplies.

This section includes several chapters that will analyze some of the inu-

ences on how energy is managed. One principal question that arises is

whether the United States is in the process of developing an effective plan

for the management of energy. This question also applies to states within

the United States as well as internationally. Answers to the following list

of questions will assist in dening the present state of the plan and lead to

addressing what yet needs to be done to manage energy on local, regional,

and international levels effectively. The questions include

1. What and where are the energy demands?

2. What energy forms are required?

286 Aspects of Energy Management

3. What are current and projected efforts necessary to satisfy energy

demands?

4. Who are the stakeholders in the energy supply chain?

5. What are the stakeholder resources?

6. What are the stakeholder interests?

7. What are their future directions?

8. Where are the resources?

9. Who has controlling interest and how is it being managed?

10. What are the current and future potentials for supplying energy?

11. What are the distribution systems in place, their adequacy, and cur-

rent and projected operational and maintenance issues?

12. What will be the inuence of developing technologies and projected

changes in use patterns and needs?

One should realize from this brief introduction that to function effec-

tively—whatever the proposed solutions to addressing energy demand—the

solution must be designed to t within the local, regional, and international

framework of global energy demand.

This section will concentrate on energy demand and distribution sys-

tems; the roles of conservation, sustainability, and green engineering;

environmental considerations; economic and political considerations; and

future challenges in energy management. This will also serve as back-

ground for and provide the data necessary for postulating and evaluating

energy management solutions. Subject titles for this section and chapter

numbers are as follows:

Chapter 20: Energy Demand and Distribution Systems

Chapter 21: Conservation, Sustainability, and Green Engineering

Chapter 22: Environmental Considerations

Chapter 23: Economic Considerations

Chapter 24: Political Considerations

Chapter 25: Challenges Facing Future Energy Policy Makers