Category: energy policy

A bit of history – circa October 1995

While going through some files recently I came across several articles from my days in the Bill Clinton Administration, first as Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary and then as Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for DOE’s Office of Utility Technologies (OUT). This Office had responsibility for developing the full range of renewable electric technologies as well as hydrogen and energy storage technologies. In reading these articles twenty years later I am struck by how my words were in many ways the same then as now. What has changed is the development status of the technologies, their costs, the extent of their deployment, and the enhanced understanding of global warming and its implications for climate change. I have selected two of these articles for republishing in this blog. The first, from 1995, is republished below to provide a bit of historical context for the changes that are occurring today in our energy systems. It was part of a newsletter set up to improve communications between the leadership and staff of OUT. The second, from 1997, will be published in my next blog post. In a subsequent blog post I will offer my thoughts on what Donald Trump’s election as U.S. President could mean for U.S. energy and environmental policies and programs.

………………………………………………………….

From the Desk of the ADAS:
Allan Hoffman
October 1995

”A vision helps us stick to our beliefs and keep going in the face of resistance, chaos, uncertainty and the
inevitable setbacks. ”

In thinking about what to say in this piece, I realized that much of what I say in speeches outside of the
Department is often not shared with my OUT colleagues. So, given this opportunity, let me share some of my
thoughts on the “vision thing” and related ideas that I often introduce in my presentations. Your comments
and reactions will be appreciated – whether by e-mail. memo, telephone or hallway conversation.

I sometimes begin my remarks by observing that it has been approximately one generation since the Oil Embargo of 1973, the point at which world attention began to focus intensively on energy issues. An often quoted rule-of-thumb is that it takes about a generation for new ideas to begin to penetrate the mainstream. This is the point we find ourselves at today for non-hydro renewable electric technologies. Considerable progress has occurred over the past two decades in improving technological performance and reducing associated energy costs of wind, photovoltaic, solar thermal, biomass and geothermal energy systems – e.g., at least a five-fold decrease in the cost of PV electricity, and the availability of highly reliable wind turbines that can generate electricity at 5 cents per kilowatt-hour in moderate wind regimes. This has brought us to a point where, under certain conditions, renewable technologies can be the low cost option for generating power, presaging significant deployment of these technologies in developed as well as developing countries. In addition, increased deployment of renewables is being driven by concern for the environment (e.g., global climate change) and energy security, and the recognition that widespread use of renewables represents markets in the trillions of dollars. To put some numbers into the discussion, the World Bank has estimated that, over the next 30-40 years, developing countries alone will require 5,000,000 megawatts of new generating capacity. This compares with a total world capacity of about 3,000,000 megawatts today. At a capital cost of $1-2,000 per kilowatt, this corresponds to $5-10 trillion, exclusive of associated infrastructure costs. It is the size of these numbers that is generating increased interest in renewables by businesses and the in- vestment community. It is also the reason for the increasing global competition for renewable energy markets. In addition, and very importantly, the environmental implications of that much capacity using fossil fuels, even in the more benign form of natural gas, are severe. If we are to minimize adverse local and global environmental impacts from the inevitable powering up of developing nations, renewable or other forms of non-polluting and non-greenhouse-gas-emitting power systems must be widely used. In the minds of some nuclear power offers a solution, but the scale of nuclear power plants is often not consistent with the needs or financial condition of developing nations, and the social issues that come with the associated handling of plutonium and radioactive wastes need to be carefully considered by society before it embarks on this path.

Given these considerations the prospect that fossil fuel supplies will begin to diminish before the middle
of the next century, and the need to move to sustainable economic systems, I see no alternative to a gradual
but inevitable transition to a global energy system largely dependent on renewable energy. Previous energy
transitions, e.g., from wood to coal and coal to oil, have taken 50 to 100 years to occur, and I see no
difference in this case. I also believe that over this time period, hydrogen will emerge as an important energy
carrier to complement electricity, given its ability to be used in all end use sectors and its benign
environmental characteristics. In this vision, all renewables will be widely used: biomass for fuels and power
generation, geothermal in selected locations for power generation and direct heating, and wind, hydro,
photovoltaics and solar thermal (in its various flavors) for power generation. Particular applications will be
tailored to’particular local situations. Large amounts of renewable power generated in dedicated regions
(e.g., wind in the Midwest and solar in the Southwest) will be transmitted thousands of miles over high voltage
DC power lines to distant load centers. And, electricity and the services it provides will be available to almost
every one on the planet.

One final word: why is it important to have a vision? My answer is that at the beginning of a major transition, one that will surely be resisted by well-entrenched and powerful vested interests, there will be a certain amount of chaos, a large degree of uncertainty, and setbacks. In the words of the late author Barbara Tuchman, “In the midst of events there is no perspective.” This places a heightened responsibility on the OUT staff and others to keep up their efforts to continue improving the technologies and reducing their costs. A vision helps us stick to our beliefs and keep going in the face of the resistance, chaos, uncertainty and the inevitable setbacks.
Without vIsion, very few transformational events in human history would have occurred.

President Obama On Energy: State of the Union Adddress

I have waited a long time for a U.S. President to make a strong statement about the need to move away from dependence on fossil fuels and toward a clean energy system. That wait came to an end on January 12, 2016 when I listened to President Obama’s final State of the Union address. His energy-focused comments are reproduced below because I consider them extremely important. Energy issues are critical to our county’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions and to enhance future economic opportunities.

What is striking to me in the current primary election political debates in the U.S. is the lack of discussion of energy issues by candidates of either political party, Democrat or Republican. Admittedly energy issues are complicated and there are many interests at play. Nevertheless, we need energy to be an important issue in the upcoming U.S. presidential debates once the candidates have been nominated by their respective parties. Critical decisions have to be made about U.S. energy policy in the next few years if we are to successfully begin to address global warming and climate change issues and protect U.S. interests in the evolving global renewable energy markets. We need the American public to understand the issues as well as the proposed policies and their implications for our future energy system. The world is in the early stages of a history-changing transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and the U.S. must assume its rightful place in that transition. This requires presidential leadership, Congressional action, and millions of individual and corporate decisions to participate in and support this transition. President Obama’s words are an important step in that direction.

President Obama’s 2016 State of the Union Address (energy comments)

“Medical research is critical. We need the same level of commitment when it comes to developing clean energy sources.
Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You’ll be pretty lonely, because you’ll be debating our military, most of America’s business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it’s a problem and intend to solve it.

But even if the planet wasn’t at stake; even if 2014 wasn’t the warmest year on record — until 2015 turned out even hotter — why would we want to pass up the chance for American businesses to produce and sell the energy of the future?
Seven years ago, we made the single biggest investment in clean energy in our history. Here are the results. In fields from Iowa to Texas, wind power is now cheaper than dirtier, conventional power. On rooftops from Arizona to New York, solar is saving Americans tens of millions of dollars a year on their energy bills, and employs more Americans than coal — in jobs that pay better than average. We’re taking steps to give homeowners the freedom to generate and store their own energy — something environmentalists and Tea Partiers have teamed up to support. Meanwhile, we’ve cut our imports of foreign oil by nearly sixty percent, and cut carbon pollution more than any other country on Earth.Gas under two bucks a gallon ain’t bad, either.
Now we’ve got to accelerate the transition away from dirty energy. Rather than subsidize the past, we should invest in the future — especially in communities that rely on fossil fuels. That’s why I’m going to push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources, so that they better reflect the costs they impose on taxpayers and our planet. That way, we put money back into those communities and put tens of thousands of Americans to work building a 21st century transportation system.
None of this will happen overnight, and yes, there are plenty of entrenched interests who want to protect the status quo. But the jobs we’ll create, the money we’ll save, and the planet we’ll preserve — that’s the kind of future our kids and grandkids deserve.”

A Presidential Campaign Speech from 2052

(Note to my readers: please allow me this ‘indulgence’ as it allows me to discuss what I see coming in the energy field.)

My fellow Americans, I am pleased to announce today my candidacy for President of the United State. We have just turned the corner on the first half of the 21st century, a time of significant change for our country and many other countries. In 2052 it is time to consolidate and reaffirm those changes that are beneficial, and plan for the coming decades. The 21st century has been an American century, but not exclusively – other parts of the world have demonstrated global leadership both economically and politically in these past 50 years – and it is encumbent on a new set of U.S. leaders to continue the American century in peaceful and meaningful cooperation with our global partners. Before discussing my plans for the future I would like to review what I see as the history and the accomplishments of the century’s first fifty years.

The century began as an extension of the 20th century – multiple national conflicts, internal dissension in many countries, and heavy dependence on traditional fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. Global population continued to increase – having grown from 1.8 billion to more than 6 billion in the past century – and is expected to reach as much as 10 billion sometime before the turn of the current century. That number in 2052 is just under eight billion.

Increasing electrification was an important characteristic of the 20th century and will continue to define the 21st century as well. It is allowing increasing numbers of people to enjoy the energy services that access to electricity and other forms of energy brings – lighting, heating, cooling, communication, transportation, and the ability to make things quickly and in quantity. Today, fewer than five percent of the world’s population lacks access to reliable electricity supplies, and this number should reach zero in the next two decades. Essentially all have access to wireless devices that allow widespread communication and access to the world’s store of information.

This access to energy, the closely related access to clean water, and wireless capability have significantly reduced global poverty and greatly enhanced opportunities for learning. The education revolution that has been made possible by universal access to the internet, for both women and men, and the individualized learning that the computer revolution has made possible, together with energy access, has finally allowed a slowdown in the rate of population growth so that a stabilized global population may be achievable in my lifetime.

This century has also seen other powerful changes. In 2008 our country elected its first black President, and then reelected him in 2012 as affirmation of their good judgement four years before. In 2016 the U.S., after a lengthy and often nasty presidential campaign, elected its first female president, who once and for all showed that women can serve effectively at the highest levels of our political life. Together with the military opening all its ranks to female participation in 2015, the so-called ‘glass ceiling’ was finally shattered, never to be restored. That election also saw the election of a Vice President of Hispanic ethnicity, who eventually went on to become the 47th President of the United States. Today I am trying to shatter still another political barrier by attempting to become the first Muslim American to receive the nomination for President of a major political party.

While much has changed in the past five decades, and I will discuss one of the most important changes in detail shortly, not everything has changed, unfortunately. We are still human beings, with all our many shortcomings, and religious and racial intolerance are still major sources of pain and conflict in the modern world. While the threat of Islamic jihadism that arose forcefully in the first few decades of the century has been reduced significantly through the actions of a global coalition of Muslim and non-Muslim governments, remnants are still with us and require careful attention. As our President I would commit all the resources needed, in cooperation with our allies, to keep this threat under control. A major factor in controlling this threat has been the willingness of Sunni and Shiite governments to put aside their religious differences In the name of their overriding commonality, Islam.

Among the other changes we have seen in our lifetime is the establishment of the first human colonies on the moon and on Mars. The moon colony was a joint U.S.-Chinese achievement in 2032, just twenty years ago, and the first Mars colony of four people was established just 8 years ago, in 2044. Both were extraordinary events at the time, and commanded global attention, but as is true of so many achievements in outer space the existence of the colonies is becoming part of the background. That is an OK result as we want space travel to become a routine part of the mainstream.

Other major steps forward have been in the field of medicine. With advances in DNA measurement and manipulation personalized treatment has become routine for many gene-related diseases. It is not unusual today to see people living into their second centuries and still functioning normally. Of course the social security and related safety-net systems in the U.S. have had to be adjusted for this new longevity, and as you might expect, only after long and difficult political battles.

Finally, let me talk in some detail about the most important revolution of the 21st century, one I have worked hard to support in my current position as a U.S. Senator. It is one that I am committed to support and advance if I am privileged to serve as your President. That is the energy revolution that started in the latter part of the 20th century, took flight during the early decades of the 21st, and is today reaching all parts of the globe. It is a transition point in human history.

The 1973-74 Oil Embargo, which took place almost a century ago, was a brutal wake up call for many nations, including our own. The history books tell many stories about how Americans, for the first time, began to look at energy issues in a different light. Prior to the Embargo energy costs were sufficiently low that it was not an area of public concern. Then, one day Americans awakened to the fact that much of their energy, especially for transportation, was imported from abroad, and that such supplies were subject to political uncertainties beyond our control. This was true in the countries of Western Europe as well. We responded by creating the International Energy Agency, a mechanism for sharing oil reserves among countries if another embargo threatened our energy supplies. We also started looking at energy alternatives, with particular emphasis on nuclear power. In fact the public mantra at that time by our political leaders was a doubling every decade of the number of nuclear power plants deployed in the U.S. A few others raised concerns about nuclear power and called for examination of enhanced energy efficiency and renewable energy alternatives. Until that time renewable energy had not been seriously considered except in the case of hydroelectricity. The suggestion related to enhanced energy efficiency was dismissed by economists and others who saw economic growth (GDP) tied one-to-one with energy consumption, and renewables were attacked as too expensive and incapable of meeting the demands of the U.S. economy. These arguments persisted for several decades until it was shown that GDP and energy consumption were not directly linked, climate change associated with combustion of fossil fuels became a major global issue, the costs of renewable energy systems began to decrease, and the ability of renewable energy in the form of electricity, biofuels, and heat were shown capable of supporting large economies. These new realities became the focus of policy debates in the first two decades of the century, and finally came to govern U.S. energy policy in the third decade when the majority of the private sector finally put its full support behind renewables and the battle to limit global warming. All Presidents since the Obama era have supported a move away from dependence on fossil fuels – it was 80% at the turn of the century – and Congress finally placed a steadily increasing cost on carbon emissions in 2020. This created the economic environment needed for investment in clean energy technologies and reduced use of fossil fuels. It allowed the U.S. to finally catch up with the many other countries that had seen the importance of these changes and implemented appropriate policies many years before.

These changes have led to today’s energy situation in the U.S. – 70% of electricity is generated by solar, wind, hydropower, and geothermal, natural gas from fracking peaked in 2040 and is steadily being replaced as an energy source in power plants as renewables take over, petroleum from fracking of oil shale peaked at about the same time and has been used to power aging and disappearing transportation fleets, electric vehicles dominate the automobile and light duty truck markets, all new aircraft and ships are designed to run on alternative biofuels, energy efficiency has been enshrined as the cornerstone of national energy policy, coal has been replaced as a domestic energy source except in a few industries, and nuclear power’s share of electricity generation has been steadily reduced to its current value of 5%. Total national energy demand has been stable even as the U.S. population has increased to 400 million, all new homes are routinely outfitted with solar energy rooftop systems and ground source heart pumps wherever feasible, the U.S. leads the world in wind turbine and wind energy production, we are second only to China in offshore wind energy deployment and production, and battery energy storage has become as ubiquitous as any other household appliance.

The world has turned a corner in these pat 50 years, undergoing an inevitable transition to dependence on energy from the sun and heat derived from radioactive decay in the core of the earth. These clean energy sources will last as long as people populate the earth, unlike fossil fuels which are depletable on any timescale relevant to humankind. We owe much to our fossil fuel resources, the product of millions of years of transformation of organic materials subject to high temperatures and extreme pressures deep in the earth, but the fossil fuel era is coming to an end and will eventually be only a blip on the timeline of history.

My promise to you as your President will be to continue and strengthen this transition in all ways possible so that our children, grandchildren, and their heirs, will live in a world free of global warming and the other harmful impacts of burning fossil fuels. Nuclear fission power had its day as well, but the issues associated with its use – cost, safety, long term storage of wastes, and weapons proliferation – have proved too difficult to accept now that renewable energy has been shown up to the task of meeting societal needs. Nuclear fusion, a much cleaner form of nuclear energy, remains as a long term possibility as well, but progress in taming the process that powers our sun and other stars has been slow and time will tell if controlled nuclear fusion has a future here on earth. I support continued cooperation with other countries in researching this technology that offers unlimited energy availability but so far has always been a few years away. Our investments largely must go into renewable technologies to ensure completion of the transition. This is our legacy to the future.

The Coal Conundrum

A long article in the October 16th Washington Post, ‘U.S. exports emissions – as coal’ by Joby Warrick, points out the conundrum posed by the U.S.’s abundant coal resources. These coal reserves provide a relatively low cost energy resource that can be burned to produce steam and electricity and improve human welfare in both the U.S. and other countries. However, its combustion produces large amounts of carbon dioxide that when added to the atmosphere causes global warming and associated global climate change. The conundrum arises from a clear conflict of values – the need to provide energy services to people around the world, in particular people in developing countries whose per capita consumption of electricity is well below that of developed countries, and the need to address climate change with its many adverse consequences, identified by many as the most serious problem facing the globe. No easy answer exists to satisfy those on both sides of this conundrum.

Several statements in Warrick’s well-researched article captured my attention, including: “Just a dozen nearby mines, scattered across a valley known as the Powder River Basin (Wyoming), contain enough coal to meet the country’s electricity needs for decades. But burning all of it would release more than 450 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – more than all greenhouse-gas emissions from all sources since 2000.” and “The Obama Administration is seeking to curb the United States’ appetite for the basin’s coal, which scientists say must remain mostly in the ground to prevent a disastrous warming of the planet. Yet each year, nearly half a billion tons of this U.S.-owned fuel are hauled from the region’s vast strip mines and millions of tons are shipped overseas for other countries to burn.”

Given the legitimate needs on both sides of this conundrum I can see only one path to follow to bring the benefits of electricity to as many people as possible while minimizing the risks associated with burning coal. This is to promote the use of energy efficiency technologies wherever feasible, to reduce the demand for coal-based electricity, and expedite the development and deployment of renewable electric technologies such as solar and wind as substitutes for coal. This is already happening to some extent as the world slowly begins to come to grips with the climate change problem, but the pace needs to and can be accelerated. The ability of renewables to meet most of the world’s electricity needs has been documented in several recent studies, e.g., the June 2012 NREL report entitled ‘Renewable Electricity Futures Study’, and what is now needed is a commitment on the part of national governments and international institutions to make it happen as quickly as possible. It is a matter not of technology but of political will and financial resources. Admittedly, such a switch from coal and other fossil fuels (natural gas, oil) that also produce carbon dioxide when combusted, to a renewables-based energy economy, will take time, lots af planning, and lots of money. However, when the full costs of using fossil fuels are taken into consideration, including not just market costs but also health and climate change-related costs (such as coastline flooding due to rising seas, changed precipition patterns that adversely impact water availability and agricultural production), and international tensions due to competition for fossil fuel resources, renewables become a much more attractive and even less expensive long-term option. Renewable resources are also insensitive to cost increases once initial capital investments are made, unlike fossil fuels that rely on a depletable resource that produces uncertain and often volatile costs.

Nuclear power advocates will make some of the same arguments since the process of releasing energy via nuclear fission does not produce greenhouse gases, but nuclear technology faces four serious problems: high cost, safety, the need for long-term radioactive waste storage, and proliferation of weapons capability. If these problems can be successfully addressed, then nuclear-powered electricity can be a viable option for the future. Nuclear power also offers the tantalizing option of nuclear fusion, a relatively safer and cleaner nuclear technology with enormous resource potential, but the problem of achieving controlled nuclear fusion on earth (it is the process that powers our sun) is proving to be the most difficult technological challenge the world has faced to date. It can legitimately be labeled ‘the technology that is always a few years away.’

In sum, the choice is ours – we can continue to use our coal resources without limit or we can move more quickly to a clean energy society that provides needed energy services and minimizes global warming and climate change effects. I vote for the latter.

What Will Historians Say About Recent U.S. Congresses?

American history is filled with ugly periods of political confrontation and no-nothingness and recent years are no exception.

Political dialogue between two of our founders, Jefferson and Adams, was vindictive and nasty. It was only as both approached their final years that comity began to appear in their relationship and they died as reconciled friends on the same day, July 4, 1826.

Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States, disregarded an order from the Supreme Court and forced thousands of Native Americans to move from Georgia to the Oklahoma territory, a lasting stain on U.S. history. The Native American Party, renamed in 1855 as American Party and commonly called the Know Nothing movement, was an American political party that operated on a national basis during the mid-1850s. It promised to purify American politics by limiting or ending the influence of Irish Catholics and other immigrants. Mainly active from 1854 to 1856, it met with little success. There have been several other periods of anti-immigrant fervor in American history, dating to the early days of the Republic, and even continuing today.

A number of politicians of both major political parties in the U.S. in the middle of the 19th century continued to support slavery, leading to the formation of the Republican Party in 1854 and the election of Abraham Lincoln as President in 1860. The post-WWII period saw the rise of McCarthyism in the U.S. and it took years for the public and policians to address the damage this ‘ism’ was doing to America. And today we have loud voices taking issue with some of the fundamental tenets of American democracy.

I state all this as my way of getting to what triggered this piece, my concern about the know-nothingness exhibited by people who deny the obvious, that the earth is warming, the oceans are gathering more heat, glaciers are melting, sea levels are rising, and weather patterns are changing as a result of the several greenhouse gases we are adding to the atmosphere, mainly carbon dioxide and methane. The following cartoon by Toles in the Washington Post of 27 September 2015 was the immediate trigger:

By image

It is my firm belief that when historians look back on this period in American history they will be unkind to those politicians and other leaders who disparaged or minimized the reality of global warming and subsequent climate change for their ignorance, short-sightedness, and failure to prepare for the future. My cynical self also believes that many of these ‘leaders’ do understand what science is so clearly saying – it is basic physics after all – but adopt their public positions for political or other self-serving reasons. Even the Pope has enriched this discussion by stating in his recent encyclical: “The warming caused by huge consumption on the part of some rich countries has repercussions on the poorest areas of the world, especially Africa, where a rise in temperature, together with drought, has proved devastating for farming.”

Whatever their reasons they are failing the American public and future generations by failing to act now in prudent ways to forestall greater difficulties and more expensive solutions in the future. A theme I always espouse is that a major responsibility of public officials is to look down the road, anticipate problems, and take steps to prevent problems from developing into crises. In my opinion the U.S. has failed to do this in recent years due to unusual (but not unique) polarization in the U.S. Congress and between the Congress and the President, with a high price attached. Not only is climate change a real, measurable phenomenon that we are still struggling to fully understand with all its consequences, but by failing to take the necessary steps now to move the U.S. more quickly to a clean energy society we are limiting the U.S.’s ability to compete as effectively as it could in future global energy markets. This future is coming, as more and more people around the world are recognizing and incorporating into their plans. Nevertheless, elements of the U.S. Congress still resist change, protect vested interests, and protect their political selves by attacking and denying well documented science. They should be held responsible for limiting the U.S. response to climate change and a changing energy world, and history will surely do so. Unfortunately, they will no longer be in office or responsible for corporate decisions and have to face up to their failure of vision and shortcomings.

The solutions are public education and the ballot box, which in democratic societies can be a slow process. But the understanding of climate change and its impacts on precipitation patterns, animal and plant diversity, storm intensity, public health, and coastline flooding is coming, as is the transition from a fossil-field based global economy to one increasingly dependent on renewable energy. It is Congress’ responsibility to set policies that advance this understanding and movement forward.