Category: Carbon capture and sequestration

New Book: ‘Water, Energy, and Environment – A Primer’

After a long hiatus from blogging while I worked on a new book, I am pleased to announce that the book ‘Water, Energy, and Environment – A Primer’ will be published by International Water Association Publishing (IWAP) on February 18th (2019). It will be available in both printed and digital form, and the digital version will be downloadable for free as an Open Access (OA) document.

To access the free digital version go to IWAP’s OA website on Twitter: https://twitter.com/IWAP_OA.

Attached below is front material from the book, its preface and table of contents. Designed to serve as a basic and easily read introduction to the linked topics of water, energy, and environment, it is just under 200 pages in length, a convenient size to throw into a folder, a briefcase, or a backpack. Its availability as an OA document means that people all over the world with access to the internet will have access to the book and its 10 chapters.

With the completion of the book I plan to return to a regular schedule of blogging.
…………………………..
Contents
Preface ………………………………….. xi
Acknowledgement ……………………….. xv
Acronyms ……………………………… xvii
Epigraph ……………………………….. xxi
Chapter 1
Water and its global context …………………. 1
1.1 Earth’s Water Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Saline Water and Desalination Processes . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Energy Requirements and Costs of Desalination . . . . . 5
1.4 Demand for Freshwater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.5 Implications of Limited Access to Freshwater . . . . . . . . . 9
1.6 Actions to Increase Access to Freshwater . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.7 Gender Equity Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Chapter 2
Energy and its global context ……………….. 13
2.1 Energy’s Role in Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2 Energy Realities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.3 What is Energy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.4 Energy Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.4.1 Important questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4.2 How is energy used? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.4.3 Electrification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Chapter 3
Exploring the linkage between water
and energy ……………………………….. 23
3.1 Indirect Linkages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.2 The Policy Linkage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.3 The Conundrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.4 Addressing the Conundrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.5 The Need for Partnership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Chapter 4
Energy production and its consequences for
water and the environment …………………. 29
4.1 Impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.2 More on Climate Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.3 Environment and Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.3.1 The theocentric worldview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.3.2 The anthropocentric worldview . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.3.3 Other worldviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Chapter 5
Energy options ……………………………. 37
5.1 Fossil Fuels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5.2 Nuclear Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.3 Geothermal Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.4 The Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
5.5 Energy Efficiency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.5.1 Energy demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
vi Water, Energy, and Environment – A Primer
5.5.2 Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.5.3 Saving energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.5.4 Accelerating implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
5.5.5 Energy Star . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5.5.6 The lighting revolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.5.7 Energy efficiency in buildings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.5.7.1 Zero energy buildings . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
5.5.7.2 Electrochromic windows . . . . . . . . . . . 52
5.6 Energy Efficiency in Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
5.7 Energy Efficiency in Transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Chapter 6
Fossil fuels ………………………………. 61
6.1 Coal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
6.1.1 Carbon capture and sequestration . . . . . . . . . . 63
6.1.2 A conundrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
6.2 Petroleum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
6.2.1 Oil spills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
6.2.2 Peak oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
6.3 Natural Gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
6.3.1 Methane hydrates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.3.2 Fracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Chapter 7
Nuclear power ……………………………. 85
7.1 Nuclear Fission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
7.1.1 Fission fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
7.1.2 Introduction to nuclear issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
7.1.3 Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
7.2 Nuclear Fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
7.2.1 Fusion fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
7.2.2 Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
7.2.3 Barriers to Fusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
7.2.4 Pros and cons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
7.2.5 Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Chapter 8
Renewable energy ………………………… 97
8.1 The Sun’s Energy Source and Radiation
Spectrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
8.2 Direct Solar Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
8.2.1 Photovoltaics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
8.2.2 Concentrating solar power (CSP) . . . . . . . . . . 108
8.2.2.1 Power tower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
8.2.2.2 Linear concentrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
8.2.2.3 Dish engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
8.2.2.4 CSTP history . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
8.2.2.5 Advantages and disadvantages . . . 112
8.2.2.6 Thermal storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
8.2.2.7 Current status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
8.2.2.8 Concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) . 115
8.3 Solar Power Satellite (SPS) System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
8.4 Hydropower and Wind Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
8.4.1 Hydropower . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
8.4.2 Wind energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
8.4.2.1 Onshore wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
8.4.2.2 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
8.4.2.3 An onshore limitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
8.4.2.4 Offshore wind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
8.5 Biomass Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
8.5.1 Sources of biomass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
8.5.2 Wood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
8.5.3 Biofuels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
8.5.4 Algae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
8.5.5 Biochar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
8.5.6 The future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
8.6 Geothermal Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
8.6.1 Sources of geothermal energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
8.6.2 Manifestations of geothermal energy . . . . . . . 135
8.6.3 Uses of geothermal energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
8.6.3.1 Geothermal power generation . . . . . 136
8.6.3.2 Ground-source heat pumps . . . . . . . 138
8.6.4 An unusual source of geothermal energy . . . . 140
Ocean Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.7.1 Wave energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.7.1.1 Wave energy conversion
devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
8.7.1.2 Potential and pros and cons . . . . . . . 143
8.7.2 Ocean current energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
8.7.3 Tidal energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
8.7.3.1 Barrage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
8.7.3.2 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
8.7.3.3 Environmental impacts . . . . . . . . . . . 147
8.7.4 Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) . . 147
8.7.4.1 Barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
8.7.4.2 OTEC technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
8.7.4.3 Other cold water applications . . . . . . 149
8.7.4.4 OTEC R&D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Chapter 9
Energy storage …………………………… 151
9.1 Storage and Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
9.2 Types of Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
9.2.1 Traditional and advanced batteries . . . . . . . . . 153
9.2.1.1 Lead–acid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
9.2.1.2 Sodium sulfur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
9.2.1.3 Nickel–cadmium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
9.2.1.4 Lithium-ion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
9.2.1.5 Supercapacitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
9.2.2 Flow batteries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
9.2.3 Flywheels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
9.2.4 Superconducting magnetic energy
storage (SMES) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
9.2.5 Compressed air energy storage (CAES) . . . . 159
9.2.6 Pumped storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
9.2.7 Thermal storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.3 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9.4 Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
9.5 Fundamental Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Chapter 10
Policy considerations …………………….. 165
10.1 Important Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
10.1.1 Is there a physical basis for understanding
global warming and climate change? . . . . . . 166
10.1.2 Is there documented evidence for global
warming and climate change? . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
10.1.3 Can global warming and climate change be
attributed to human activities, and what are
those activities? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
10.1.4 What are the potential short- and long-term
impacts of global warming and climate
change with respect to water supply,
environment, and health? What is the
anticipated time scale for these
impacts? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
10.1.5 What can be done to mitigate the onset
and potential impacts of global warming
and climate change? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
References ……………………………… 183
Index …………………………………… 189

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Preface
This book springs from my strong conviction that clean water and clean energy are the critical elements of long-term global sustainable development. I also believe that we are experiencing the beginning of an energy revolution in these early years of the 21st century. Providing clean water requires energy, and providing clean energy is essential to reducing the environmental impacts of energy production and use. Thus, I see a nexus – a connection, a causal link – among water, energy, and environment. In recent years we have adopted the terminology of the water-energy nexus for the intimate relationship between water and energy, and similarly we can apply the term nexus to the close connections among water, energy, and environment. Thisuse of the term nexus can be, and has been, extended to include the related issues of food production and health. Dealing with, and writing about, a two-element nexus is difficult enough. In this book, I will limit my analysis and discussion to the three-element water -energy-environment nexus and leave the discussion of other possible nexus elements to those more qualified to comment.

This book also springs from my observation that while there are many existing books of a more-or-less technical nature on the three elements of this nexus, a book addressing each of them and their interdependencies in a college-level primer for a broad global and multidisciplinary audience would be valuable. Consideration of these and related issues, and options for addressing them, will be priorities for all levels of government. They will also be priorities for many levels of the
private sector in the decades ahead, both in developing and developed nations. A handbook-style primer that provides an easily read and informative introduction to, and overview of, these issues will contribute broadly to public education. It will assist governments and firms in carrying out their responsibilities to provide needed services and goods in a sustainable manner, and help to encourage young people to enter these fields. It will serve as an excellent mechanism for exposure of experts in other fields to the issues associated with the water-energy-environment nexus. Further, in addition to the audiences mentioned above, target audiences include economists and others in the finance communities who will analyze and provide the needed investment funds, and those in the development community responsible for planning and delivering services to underserved populations.
The book is organized as follows: the first chapter will be devoted to the concept of nexus and how the three elements, water, energy, and environment, are inextricably linked. This recognition leads to the conclusion that if society is to optimize their contributions to human and planetary welfare they must be addressed jointly. No longer must policy for each of these elements be considered in its own silo. Chapters 2 and 3 will be devoted to spelling out global contexts for water and energy issues, respectively. Chapter 4, on related environmental issues, will address the issues of water contamination, oil spills, fracking, radioactive waste storage, and global warming/
climate change. Chapter 5 will be a discussion of energy efficiency – i.e., the wise use of energy – and its role in limiting energy demand and its associated benefits. Chapter 6 will focus on the basics of fossil fuels – coal, oil, natural gas – which today dominate global energy demand. Chapter 7 will discuss nuclear-fission-powered electricity production, which today accounts for 10% of global electricity. It will also discuss the prospects for controlled nuclear fusion. Chapter 8 will discuss the broad range of renewable energy technologies – wind, solar,hydropower, biomass, geothermal, ocean energy – which are the basis of the now rapidly emerging energy revolution. Chapter 9 will discuss the closely related issue of energy storage. Finally, Chapter 10 will address
policy issues associated with water, energy, and environment, discuss policy history and options, and provide recommendations.

Addressing the Coal Issue – Useful Thoughts

The article by Dr. Maria Zuber that is reproduced below, and appeared recently in the Washington Post, is a thoughtful, intelligent, and realistic approach to addressing coal issues in the United State. It recognizes the realities of our evolving energy system as renewable energy begins to displace energy from fossil fuels, but also recognizes that some people will be adversely impacted as this transition unfolds. As a compassionate nation we must take these impacts into account as we move forward to a clean energy future. Dr. Zuber’s careful thoughts on this issue are well worth reading.

……………………………

How to declare war on coal’s emissions without declaring war on coal communities

By Maria T. Zuber February 24, 2017
Maria T. Zuber is the vice president for research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Chair of the National Science Board.

I grew up in a place named for coal: Carbon County, Pa., where energy-rich anthracite coal was discovered in the late 1700s. By the early 1900s, eastern Pennsylvania employed more than 180,000 miners. By the 1970s — when I left Carbon County for college — just 2,000 of those jobs remained.

For decades, my family’s path traced the arc of the industry. Both my grandfathers mined anthracite. My father’s father died of black lung before I was born. My mother’s father lived long enough to get a pink slip, teach himself to repair TVs and radios and finally get a job on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. He often slept in a recliner because he couldn’t breathe in bed. He had black lung, too.

We faced economic challenges, but thanks to my father’s career as a state trooper, we had more security than most. Still, our neighbors’ struggles left a deep impression on me. When I hear coal-mining communities talk bitterly about a “war on coal,” I understand why they feel under attack. I know the deep anxiety born from years of watching their towns empty out and opportunity evaporate.

I was one of the people who left, in my case to pursue my passion for science. I was lucky: I became the first woman to head a science department at MIT, as well as the first woman to lead a NASA planetary mission.

As a daughter of coal country, I know the suffering of people whose fates are tied to the price of a ton of coal. But as a scientist, I know that we cannot repeal the laws of physics: When coal burns, it emits more carbon dioxide than any other fossil fuel. And if we keep emitting this gas into the atmosphere, Earth will continue to heat up, imposing devastating risks on current and future generations. There is no escaping these facts, just as there is no escaping gravity if you step off a ledge.

The move to clean energy is imperative. In the long run, that transition will create more jobs than it destroys. But that is no comfort to families whose livelihoods and communities have collapsed along with the demand for coal. We owe something to the people who do the kind of dangerous and difficult work my grandfathers did so that we can power our modern economy.

Fortunately, there are ways we can declare war on coal’s carbon emissions without declaring war on coal communities.

First, we should aggressively pursue carbon capture and storage technology, which catches carbon dioxide from coal power plants before it is released into the atmosphere and stores it underground. To be practical, advances in capture efficiency must be coupled with dramatic decreases in deployment costs and an understanding of the environmental impacts of storage. These are not intractable problems; scientific and technological innovations could change the game.

Next, we should look beyond combustion and steel production to find new ways to make coal useful. In 2015, 91 percent of coal use was for electrical power. But researchers are exploring whether coal can be used more widely as a material for the production of carbon fiber, batteries and electronics — indeed, even solar panels.

These avenues hold promise, but even if carbon capture becomes practicable and we expand other uses for coal, the industry will never come roaring back. Globally, coal’s market share is dropping, driven by a range of factors, including cheap natural gas and the rapidly declining costs of wind and solar energy.

That’s why we must also commit to helping the workers and communities that are hurt when coal mines and coal plants reduce their operations or shut down. Policymakers, researchers and advocates have proposed a range of solutions at the federal and state levels to promote economic development; help coal workers transition to jobs in other industries, including renewable energy; and maintain benefits for retired coal workers.

Helping coal country is an issue with bipartisan support. Still, to succeed, strategies such as these may require a champion who, like President Trump, has widespread support in coal country and can address skepticism from coal communities.

Eventually, the practice of burning coal and other fossil fuels for energy — especially without the use of carbon capture and storage technologies — will end. It has to. The question is whether we have the wisdom to end it in an orderly way that addresses the pain of coal communities — and quickly enough to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. Our choices will determine the future not just for coal country, but for all of us.

Revisiting the Keystone XL Pipeline Issue

President Obama’s recent decision to deny Trans Canada’s application for permission to build the national boundary-crossing Keystone XL pipeline raises several questions about my earlier recommendation to the President to approve the pipeline (see my July 6, 2013 blog post ‘Keystone XL Pipeline: A Memorandum to the President’). My first question to myself is what has changed since July 2013 to justify such a decision, at least in the President’s mind?

What I don’t believe has changed is the reality that a U.S. negative decision on the pipeline will not change Canadian intentions to develop and exploit its large tar sands resources, that development of these resources will not have a significant impact on global carbon emissions (the principal argument put forth by some environmental groups opposed to the pipeline), that U.S. dependence on Persian Gulf oil suppliers will decrease if oil is imported from Canada, or that Canada does not lack alternative transportation means to move bitumen to U.S. refineries. Canada will sell its oil resources to us and/or other global trading partners regardless, and will build other pipelines if necessary to export from its east or west coasts. It is true that mining the oil in tar sands will introduce additional carbon into the atmosphere, but this is the wrong battle to focus on – the amount is small in comparison to the much more important global warming issues that require our attention. And the battle against the pipeline, which would probably have been the most carefully regulated pipeline in history, ignores the reality that Trans Canada is already shipping bitumen to the U.S. via railway cars, a dangerous means of transportation with a bad track record, and one that Trans Canada will likely turn to even more now that the pipeline application has been denied.

What has changed is significant: the market price of oil is approximately half of what it was in 2013, Canada has a new federal government that is likely to be more environmentally oriented than the previous Conservative government, and President Obama has decided that an important part of his legacy will be global leadership on climate change issues. The sharp reduction in oil prices, which is likely to persist, has made oil exploration and development more problematic in economic terms, and the switch in Canada from Harper to Trudeau represents an important shift in governing philosophy and approach to environmental issues. Perhaps most important in explaining President Obama’s recent decision is the third factor, his legacy. There was an obvious shift in Obama’s willingness to speak out on climate issues after the 2014 midterm elections when he no longer had to worry about jeopardizing the electoral chances of Democratic House and Senate candidates. His behavior since has been one many of us have long been waiting for, and he has taken the lead in arguing for limits on carbon emissions both domestically and globally, a welcome and needed change. The Keystone decision is of a piece with this new behavior, especially with the Paris meeting on climate change coming up next month. This clearly political decision may be justified for some on the basis that if the U.S. won’t take even small symbolic steps to reduce carbon emissions and global warming, why should other countries striving to improve their economic welfare undertake such efforts?

If the environmental groups opposing the pipeline had made this latter argument in 2013 I could have better understood their opposition. But they didn’t – they incorrectly projected the pipeline issue as having a major global impact on carbon emissions, and completely avoided discussing the dangers associated with shipment of bitumen by railway car.

It was the wrong issue in my view to devote so many resources to, when environmental sensitivity is needed on more important issues such as the need to expedite the transition from a fossil-fuel dependent economy to one increasingly dependent on renewable energy. My views were captured by a Washington Post editorial on November 6th that stated:

“Yet world governments are smart enough to recognize what many activists apparently have not: The Keystone XL fight hardly matters in the grand scheme of the global climate. Perceptions of U.S. climate leadership depend on Environmental Protection Agency rules to reduce emissions from U.S. power plants and cars, not on a domestic political psychodrama.

Some smart environmentalists have excused jettisoning substance and siding with the anti-Keystone XL crowd by emphasizing the symbolic importance of the pipeline. Cultivating enthusiasm with a victory on Keystone XL might lead to meaningful progress in other areas of climate policy, the thinking goes. Not only does this view infantilize environmentalists, its illogic could justify all sorts of irrational, arbitrary decision-making.”

Thoughts On U.S. Energy Policy – Updated

In October 2008, just prior to the U.S. presidential election, I drafted a piece entitled ‘Thoughts on an Energy Policy for the New Aministration’. It was published about a month later and republished as my first blog post in May 2013. I said at that time “What I find interesting about this piece is that I could have written it today and not changed too many words, an indication that our country is still struggling to define an energy policy.” This post is my attempt to look back at what I said in 2008 and 2013 and see if my perspectives and views have changed.

In that piece I started off by listing 14 items that I labeled as ‘facts’ on which most can agree. These ‘facts’ are reproduced below, followed by my comments on what may have changed since 2008.

1. People do not value energy, they value the services it makes possible – heating, cooling, transportation, etc. It is in society’s interest to provide these services with the least energy possible, to minimize adverse economic, environmental and national security impacts.

2. Energy has always been critical to human activities, but what differentiates modern societies is the energy required to provide increasingly high levels of services.

3. Population and per capita consumption increases will drive increasing global energy demand in the 21st century. While not preordained, this increase will be large even if others do not achieve U.S. per capita levels of consumption.

4. Electrification increased dramatically in the 20th century and will increase in the 21st century as well. The substitution of electricity for liquid transportation fuels will be a major driver of this continued electrification.

5. Transportation is the fastest growing global energy consumer, and today more than 90% of transportation is powered by petroleum-derived fuels.

6. Globally energy is not in short supply – e.g., the sun pours 6 million quads of radiation annually into our atmosphere (global energy use: 460 quads). There is considerable energy under our feet, in the form of hot water and rock heated by radioactive decay in the earth’s core. What is in short supply is inexpensive energy that people are willing to pay for.

7. Today’s world is powered largely by fossil fuels and this will continue well into the 21st century, given large reserves and devoted infrastructure.

8. Fossil fuel resources are finite and their use will eventually have to be restricted. Cost increases and volatility, already occurring, are likely to limit their use before resource restrictions become dominant.

9. Increasing geographic concentration of traditional fossil fuel supplies in other countries raises national security concerns.

10. The world’s energy infrastructure is highly vulnerable to natural disasters, terrorist attacks and other breakdopwns.

11. Energy imports, a major drain on U.S. financial resources, allow other countries to exert undue influence on U.S. foreign policy and freedom of action.

12. Fossil fuel combustion releases CO2 into the atmosphere (unless captured and sequestered) which mixes globally with a long atmospheric lifetime. Most climate scientists believe increasing CO2 concentrations alter earth’s energy balance with the sun, contributing to global warming.

13. Nuclear power, a non-CO2 emitting energy source, has significant future potential but its widespread deployment faces several critical issues: cost, plant safety, waste storage, and weapons non-proliferation.

14. Renewable energy (solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, ocean) has significant potential for replacing our current fossil fuel based energy system. The transition will take time but we must quickly get on this path.”

What has changed in my opinion are items 9, 11, and 12. The availability of large amounts of home-grown natural gas and oil at competitive prices via hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of shale deposits has turned the U.S. energy picture upside down. It may do that in other countries as well. Whereas the U.S. was importing over 50% of its oil just a few years ago, that fraction is now under 40% and the U.S. is within sight of becoming the largest oil producer in the world, ahead of Russia and Saudi Arabia. Whereas in recent years the U.S. was building port facilities for the import of LNG (liquified natural gas) these sites are being converted into LNG export facilities due to the glut of shale gas released via fracking and the large potential markets for U.S. gas in Europe and Asia (where prices are higher than in the U.S.).

The phenomena of global warming and climate change due to mankind’s combustion of carbon-rich fossil fuels are also becoming better understood, climate change deniers have become less and less visible, and the specific impacts of climate change on weather and water are being actively researched. An important change is the substitution of natural gas for coal in new and existing power plants, which has reduced the share of coal from 50% just a few years ago to less than 40% today. This has reduced U.S. demand for domestic coal, which is now increasingly being sold overseas.

The second part of the 2008 article was a set of 10 recommendations that are reproduced below:

1. Using the bully pulpit, educate the public about energy realities and implications for energy, economic and environmental security.

2. Work with Congress to establish energy efficiency as the cornerstone of national energy policy.

3. Work with Congress to provide an economic environment that supports investments in energy efficiency, including appropriate performance standards and incentives, and setting a long-term, steadily increasing, predictable price on carbon emissions (in coordination with other countries). This will unleash innovation and create new jobs.

4. Consider setting a floor under oil prices, to insure that energy investments are not undermined by falling prices, and using resulting revenues to address equity and other needs.

5. Work with Congress to find an acceptable answer to domestic radioactive waste storage, and with other nations to address nuclear power plant safety issues and establish an international regime for ensuring nonproliferation.

6. Establish a national policy for net metering, to remove barriers to widespread deployment of renewable energy systems.

7. Provide incentives to encourage manufacture and deployment of renewable energy systems that are sufficiently long for markets to develop adequately but are time limited with a non-disruptive phaseout.

8. Aggressively support establishment of a smart national electrical grid, to facilitate use of renewable electricity anywhere in the country and mitigate, with energy storage, the effects of intermittency.

9. Support an aggressive effort on carbon capture and sequestration, to ascertain its feasibility to allow continued use of our extensive coal resources.

10. Remove incentives for fossil fuels that are historical tax code legacies that slow the transition to a new, renewables-based, energy system.

I still support these recommendations, buttressed by the following observations:

– more public education on global warming and climate change has taken place in recent years, and a majority of Americans now accept that global warming is driven by human activities.

– there is a lot of lip service given to the need for increased energy efficiency, and President Obama’s agreement with the auto industry to increase Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards over the next decade is an important step forward. What is lacking, and slowing needed progress toward greater efficiency, is a clear policy statement from the U.S. Congress that identifies and supports energy efficiency as a national priority.

– with the shutting down of the Yucca Mountain long-term radioactive waste storage facility in Nevada, the Obama Administration is searching for alternatives but believes the country has time to come up with a better answer. This may be true, or may not, and only time will tell. It is not a uniquely American problem – other countries are struggling with this issue as well and most seem to favor deep geological storage. This is a problem we will definitely be handing down to our children and grandchildren,

– net metering as a national policy, as is true in several other developed countries, has gone nowhere in the six years since 2008. It is another example of a lack of Congressional leadership in establishing a forward-looking national energy policy.

– progress has been made on moving renewable energy into the energy mainstream, but we have a long way to go. NREL’s June 2012 report entitled ‘Renewable Electricity Futures Study’ made it clear that renewables could supply 80% of U.S. electricity by 2050 if we have the political will and make appropriate investments. The study puts to rest the argument used by the coal and other traditional energy industries that renewables can’t do the job. The public needs to understand that this canard is inaccurate and not in our country’s long term interests.

– the need for a national grid, and localized mini-grids (e.g., on military bases), has been recognized and appropriate investments are bring made to improve this situation. A national smart grid, together with energy storage, are needed to assure maximum utilization of variable clean energy sources such as wind and solar. Other renewable energy sources (geothermal, biomass, hydropower, ocean energy) can be operated as baseload or near base load capacity. And even intermittent wind and solar can supply large amounts of our electricity demand as long as we can transfer power via the national grid and use averaging of these resources over large geographical areas (if the wind isn’t blowing in X it probably is blowing in Y).

– the carbon capture and sequestration effort does not seem to be making much progress, at least as reported in the press. My blog post entitled ‘Carbon Capture and Sequestration: Is It a Viable Technology?’ discusses this issue in some detail.

– with respect to reducing long-standing and continuing subsidies for fossil fuel production, no progress has been made. Despite President Obama’s call for reducing or eliminating these subsidies the Congress has failed to act and is not likely to in the near-term future. This is a serious mistake as these industries are highly profitable and don’t need the subsidies which divert public funds from incentivizing clean energy technologies that are critical to the country’s and the world’s energy future.

– today’s electric utility sector is facing an existential threat that was not highly visible just a few years ago. This threat is to the utility sector’s 100 year old business model that is based on generation from large, centralized power plants distributing their energy via a radial transmission and distribution network. With the emergence of low-cost decentralized generating technologies such as photovoltaics (PV), these business models will have to change, which has happened in Germany and will eventually happen in the U.S. Keep tuned as this revolution unfolds.

As a final word I repeat what I have said in earlier posts: we need to put a long-term, steadily increasing price on carbon emissions that will unleash private sector innovation and generate revenues for investments in America’s future. This is a critical need if we are to successfully address climate change, create new U.S. jobs in the emerging clean energy industry, and set an example for the world.

Carbon Capture and Sequestration: Is It a Viable Technology?

As mentioned in my previous blog (‘What I Took Away From the Doha Clean Energy Forum’): “three speakers made a strong case for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) as a means of addressing global warming and climate change, especially in heavily carbon emitting industries such as cement production. Lots of questions remain, and will be discussed in a future blog.” This is that future blog on a well trod but still controversial subject.

Wikipedia defines CCS as “..the process of capturing waste carbon dioxide (CO2) from large point sources, such as fossil fuel power plants, transporting it to a storage site, and depositing it where it will not enter the atmosphere, normally an underground geological formation.”

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Considerable literature exists on CCS, exhibiting a wide range of opinions on its viability as a technology to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The principal argument for CCS is that the world today is fueled largely by coal, oil and natural gas and that this situation is not likely to change any time soon. In fact, as many developing nations industrialize and emerge from poverty, the demand for energy increases steadily and it is argued that only fossil fuels can meet that demand in coming decades. It is also argued that while solar and wind and other renewable energy technologies can eventually replace electricity from coal and natural gas power plants this will not occur quickly and people will need fossil energy during the long transition. In addition, some industries like steel and cement are not so easily ‘fixed’ and will continue to use fossil fuels in increasing amounts as global industrialization grows.

These points raised in support of CCS are countered by the following arguments:
– CCS is expensive, whether added to an existing power plant or industrial carbon dioxide source, or included in newly constructed facilities. The energy penalty for operating CCS is also high, requiring a fair amount of parasitic energy that reduces efficiency and revenues.
– When operating, CCS systems require large amounts of water.
– captured carbon dioxide must be liquified and stored for indefinite periods of time in such a way as to avoid leakage and large ‘burps’ that can be toxic. This requires identification and development of storage sites (depleted oil and gas wells, coal mines, underground aquifers), infrastructure to transport liquid CO2, adds additional costs and raises questions of liability if something goes wrong and stored CO2 is accidentally released.
– the time required for development, demonstration and large-scale deployment of CCS technology that can have a meaningful impact on global warming is too long compared to other options.

Proponents of CCS (see http://www.globalccsinstitute.com) argue that CCS costs can be brought down significantly with a sufficient number of demonstration projects and economies of scale associated with large-scale deployment. Nevertheless, at the recent Doha Clean Energy Forum even one of its supporters admitted that an impactful global CCS system will cost an estimated 3.6 trillion USD (and I did say trillion). My immediate reaction was that for $3.6 trillion I can deliver an awful lot of renewable energy that will replace coal, oil, and natural gas use in power generation and transportation. Nevertheless, there is the argument that the CO2 emissions from some industries will still be there in large and growing amounts even with large-scale deployment of renewables and CCS is the only way to limit these emissions.

These are strong arguments for some attention to CCS R&D and demonstration, but, in my view, not at the expense of rapid development and deployment of renewables. This creates a conundrum as CCS demonstrations are expensive, and the money for them would have to come from somewhere. Government funding is at best problematic in current budget situations. Other possibilities are the fossil fuel industries themselves, which have a vested interest in continued purchase of their commodities. Countries with large reserves of fossil fuels – e.g., the U.S., with large reserves of coal – will also see value in CCS allowing extended use of secure domestic energy reserves.

In a world committed to reducing carbon emissions CCS offers a helping hand but not a definitive one. It may offer a partial answer for the rest of this century, but governments are unlikely to provide the needed funds for large-scale deployment. Let’s see if the private fossil fuel sector is willing to step up to protect its vested interests.

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