Renewable Energy’s Future?

Life After Oil and Gas — New York Times

From an article by Elisabeth Rosenthal, New York Times, Sunday, March 23, 2013

Increasingly, scientific research and the experience of other countries should prompt us to ask: To what extent will we really “need” fossil fuel in the years to come? To what extent is it a choice?

As renewable energy gets cheaper and machines and buildings become more energy efficient, a number of countries that two decades ago ran on a fuel mix much like America’s are successfully dialing down their fossil fuel habits. Thirteen countries got more than 30 percent of their electricity from renewable energy in 2011, according to the Paris-based International Energy Agency, and many are aiming still higher. Could we? Should we?

A National Research Council report released last week concluded that the United States could halve by 2030 the oil used in cars and trucks compared with 2005 levels by improving the efficiency of gasoline-powered vehicles and by relying more on cars that use alternative power sources, like electric batteries and biofuels.

Just days earlier a team of Stanford engineers published a proposal showing how New York State — not windy like the Great Plains, nor sunny like Arizona — could easily produce the power it needs from wind, solar and water power by 2030. In fact there was so much potential power, the researchers found, that renewable power could also fuel our cars.

“It’s absolutely not true that we need natural gas, coal or oil — we think it’s a myth,” said Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the main author of the study, published in the journal Energy Policy. “You could power America with renewables from a technical and economic standpoint. The biggest obstacles are social and political — what you need is the will to do it.”

Other countries have made far more concerted efforts to reduce fossil fuel use than the United States and have some impressive numbers to show for it. Of the countries that rely most heavily on renewable electricity, some, like Norway, rely on that old renewable, hydroelectric power. But others, like Denmark, Portugal and Germany, have created financial incentives to promote newer technologies like wind and solar energy.

People convinced that America “needs” the oil that would flow south from Canada through the Keystone XL pipeline might be surprised to learn that Canada produced 63.4 percent of its electricity from renewable sources in 2011, largely from hydropower and a bit of wind. (Maybe that is why Canada has all that oil to sell.) The United States got only 12.3 percent of its electricity from renewables in 2011. Still, many experts say that aggressively rebalancing the United States’ mix of fossil fuel and renewable energy to reduce its carbon footprint may well be impractical and unwise for now.

Fatih Birol, chief economist at the 28-nation International Energy Agency, which includes the United States, said that reducing fossil fuel use was crucial to curbing global temperature rise, but added that improving the energy efficiency of homes, vehicles and industry was an easier short-term strategy. He noted that the 19.5 million residents of New York State consume as much energy as the 800 million in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) and that, even with President Obama’s automotive fuel standards, European vehicles were on average more than 30 percent more fuel efficient than American ones.

He cautioned that a rapid expansion of renewable power would be complicated and costly. Using large amounts of renewable energy often requires modifying national power grids, and renewable energy is still generally more expensive than using fossil fuels. That is particularly true in the United States, where natural gas is plentiful and, therefore, a cheap way to generate electricity (while producing half the carbon dioxide emissions of other fossil fuels, like coal). Promoting wind and solar would mean higher electricity costs for consumers and industry.

Indeed, many of the European countries that have led the way in adopting renewables had little fossil fuel of their own, so electricity costs were already high. Others had strong environmental movements that made it politically acceptable to endure higher prices in order to reduce emissions.

But Dr. Birol predicted that the price of wind power would continue to drop, while the price of natural gas would rise in coming years, with the two potentially reaching parity by 2020. He noted, too, that countries could often get 25 percent of their electricity from renewable sources like wind and solar without much modification to their grids. A few states, like Iowa and South Dakota, get nearly that much of their electricity from renewable power (in both states, wind), while others use little at all.

MAPPING studies by Dr. Jacobson and colleagues have concluded that America is rich in renewable resources and (unlike Europe) has the empty space to create wind and solar plants. New York State has plenty of wind and sun to do the job, they found. Their blueprint for powering the state with clean energy calls for 10 percent land-based wind, 40 percent offshore wind, 20 percent solar power plants and 18 percent solar panels on rooftops — as well as a small amount of geothermal and hydroelectric power.

Dr. Jacobson said that careful grid design and coordination of power sources would ensure a stable power supply, although a smidgen of natural gas would be needed for the 0.2 percent of the time that renewables failed to generate sufficient electricity. The report claims that the plan would create 58,000 jobs in New York State (which now imports much of its power), create energy security and ultimately stabilize electricity prices.

The authors say the substantial costs of enacting the scheme could be recouped in under two decades, particularly if the societal cost of pollution and carbon emissions were factored in. The team is currently working on an all-renewable blueprint for California.

Sounds good on paper, but even Europe is struggling a bit with its renewable ambitions at the moment. Germany, which got 20.7 percent of its electricity from renewable energy in 2011, is re-evaluating the incentives it provides to increase that share to 35 percent by 2020, because of worries that its current approach will drive up power prices inordinately at a time of economic uncertainty. It has had trouble ramping up transmission capacity to carry the wind power generated in the blustery North to the industrial South, where it is needed.

Dr. Birol said that natural gas and renewable energy could ultimately be “a good couple” for powering New York State, and elsewhere. But in what mix? If, in 20 years, cars are 50 percent more efficient and New York State could get much of its electricity from wind and solar, should we be more measured in making fossil fuel investments? As Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo considers the boundaries of hydraulic fracturing in New York State and as Secretary of State John Kerry decides the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline, how much we really “need” fossil fuels is worth pondering.

Controlled Nuclear Fusion Research

BY S. THOMAS BOND

We’re Cooked, Ladies and Gentlemen

(This Commentary appeared in the Opinion section, Morgantown Dominion Post, Sept. 30, 2012.)

There was an interesting film called SWITCH shown at the Mountainlair at WVU on Tuesday night. In the guise of an objective analysis of energy options for the future, it was a breezy advertisement for gas particularly, and coal. If you had a billion or two invested in carbon burning fuel, you couldn’t have been more pleased.

The filming was first rate. The star was Dr. Scott W. Trinker, a sort of Marlborough Man cum geologist, who is the Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology (BEG), University of Texas. This is the Texas state geological survey. Trinker spent 17 years with the oil and gas industry previous to starting this quarter of a million a year plus position.

The energy solution is geology all the way, according to SWITCH. Any solution not involving burning carbon compounds doesn’t rate. Conventional nuclear got a grudging nod, but solar and wind are too limited, except in special cases, although some pictures of them were shown.

The switch from coal to gas, nuclear, renewables, solar and wind will come in 2064, according to the film. At this point I leaned over to my companion and whispered “We’re cooked.” Global warming was hardly mentioned. The population is predicted to increase from the present 7 billion to 9 billion by 2045, a 28% increase in 30 years, considerably less than half a lifetime, and SWITCH is still using carbon fuels 20 years beyond that!

The unreality of this kind of discussion of energy is appalling. We Americans demand and expect our news to be happy, but there is no excuse for denying hard facts of the onrushing catastrophe. Only “experts” who are paid to, deny global warming now.

As always with energy discussion, there was a white elephant in the room. You know, the one that nobody sees. It is nuclear fusion, nuclear fission’s big brother. Since World War II, scientists have known the earth would ultimately be powered by the energy which was unleashed by the H-bomb, or go back to the pre-industrial era. That is the real future choice.

Fusion involves putting together sub-atomic particles to make nuclei, rather than breaking apart atomic nuclei. In the early 60′s I remember Dr. Charles Lazelle, Organic Professor at WVU, saying “It’s a shame to burn coal and oil, you can make such wonderful things from them.” Fusion uses hydrogen nuclei available from water, leaves very little radioactive waste, and releases prodigious, cheap energy.

So where is fusion today? Petroleum has maintained a huge presence in Congress and state legislatures, and has benefitted from research and subsidies. It recently came out that the federal government had put $100 M into the research that allowed “fracking” for oil and gas, in fact part of the research was done in Morgantown.

A lot of money is being made by petroleum, so high-tech variations such as deep sea drilling, arctic drilling, shale drilling are being used. Fusion, on the other hand, has no moneyed constituency. There are perhaps four small companies working to develop variations, and a federal budget keeps a rather small contingent of scientists working on it. Other scientists in other countries also work on it, and they keep announcing advances.

Fusion is, however, the “Holy Grail” of energy. There is no mechanism to aggregate money for research. Remember the Manhattan Project, which developed the Atomic Bomb? At one time one-tenth of the electrical production of the United States was devoted to it. The world really needs that kind of effort NOW. Endless energy, no contamination. But huge investment. This would result in a change of our energy paradigm.

What’s the friction? Although this change of paradigm is for the good of every single one of us, it will eclipse the entrenched carbon-burning industry. Investment in extraction and conversion to usable forms will be superseded, career changes for workers will be required, certain educations will be less useful, and others will be needed. Many think-tanks, designed to influence public opinion, would loose their where-with-all. It would be social earthquake. That’s the friction.

Can the U. S. government aggregate sufficient funds, short an emergency like WWII, to do the research? Not without a huge political movement.

But with geology “we’re cooked.”

S. THOMAS BOND is a retired teacher with a doctorate in inorganic chemistry. He is a member of the Guardians of the West Fork and the Monongahela Area Watersheds Compact. He lives on and maintains a 500 acre farm near Jane Lew.

New book on Alternative Energy Sources

Post Carbon Institute has provided the following article:

Post Carbon Institute‘s Fossil Fuels Fellow David Hughes is currently researching and writing Drill, Baby, Drill: Can Unconventional Fossil Fuels Usher in an Era of Energy Independence? Slated for a January 2013 release, the report findings refute fossil fuel industry claims that unconventional supplies of oil and gas in North America will provide vast quantities of useful energy, be environmentally benign, create jobs and provide a robust economic boost.

While impacted communities and environmental activists are raising the alarm over the environmental and health impacts of fracking and production of bitumen in the Alberta tar sands, the key argument used by oil and gas proponents—that these resources can usher in a whole new golden era of energy independence and security—hasn’t really been challenged. That’s where our report comes in.
 
Hughes’ previous report, Will Natural Gas Fuel the 21st Century?, has been downloaded more than 17,000 times by citizens, advocates and government officials. The report states:

Natural gas has increasingly been touted as a “bridge fuel” from high-carbon sources of energy like coal and oil to a renewable energy future. This is based on renewed optimism on the ability of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to access natural gas from previously inaccessible shale gas deposits. A review of the latest outlook (2011) of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reveals that all eggs have been placed in the shale gas basket in terms of future growth in U.S. gas production. Without shale gas, U.S. domestic gas production is projected to fall by 20% through 2035.

Shale gas is characterized by high-cost, rapidly depleting wells that require high energy and water inputs. There is considerable controversy about the impacts of hydraulic fracturing on the contamination of surface water and groundwater, as well as the disposal of toxic drilling fluids produced from the wells. A moratorium has been placed on shale gas drilling in New York State. Other analyses place the marginal cost of shale gas production well above current gas prices, and above the EIA’s price assumptions for most of the next quarter century. An analysis of the EIA’s gas production forecast reveals that record levels of drilling will be required to achieve it, along with incumbent environmental impacts. Full-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from shale gas may also be worse than previously understood, and possibly worse than coal.

Even assuming the EIA forecast for growth in shale gas production can be achieved, there is little scope for wholesale replacement of coal for electricity generation or oil for transportation in its outlook. Replacing coal would require a 64% increase of lower-48 gas production over and above 2009 levels, heavy vehicles a further 24% and light vehicles yet another 76%. This would also require a massive build out of new infrastructure, including pipelines, gas storage and refueling facilities, and so forth. This is a logistical, geological, environmental, and financial pipe dream.

Although a shift to natural gas is not a silver bullet, there are many other avenues that can yield lower GHG emissions and fuel requirements and thus improve energy security. More than half of the coal-fired electricity generation fleet is more than 42 years old. Many of these plants are inefficient and have few if any pollution controls. As much as 21% of coal-fired capacity will be retired under new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations set to take effect in 2015. Best-in-class technologies for both natural-gas- and coal-fired generation can reduce CO2 emissions by 17% and 24%, respectively, and reduce other pollutants.

Capturing waste heat from these plants for district and process heating can provide further increases in overall efficiency. The important role of natural gas for uses other than electricity generation in the industrial, commercial, and residential sectors, which constitute 70% of current natural gas consumption and for which there is no substitute at this time, must also be kept in mind. Natural gas vehicles are likely to increase in a niche role for high-mileage, short-haul applications.

Strategies for energy sustainability must focus on reducing energy demand and optimizing the use of the fuels that must be burnt. At the end of the day, hydrocarbons that aren’t burnt produce no emissions. Capital- and energy-intensive “solutions” such as carbon capture and storage are questionable at best and inconsistent with the whole notion of energy sustainability at worst.

Visit EcoWatch’s FRACKING page for more related news on this topic.