Category: energy policy

Energy Efficiency – The Necessary Cornerstone of U.S. Energy Policy

So far in this blog I’ve focused mostly on energy supply, with only a few references to limiting energy demand. I intend to correct this imbalance by now discussing, in more detail, energy efficiency, the wise use of whatever energy supplies we have, and the reasons I believe energy efficiency should be the cornerstone of U.S. energy policy. I will do so in the context of talking about energy security.

A search of the literature reveals that no precise definition exists for energy security. My approach to addressing this topic is to start by recognizing that energy is a means to an end, not an end in itself (except perhaps to those who sell energy or fuels). Fundamentally, energy is important only as its use facilitates the provision of services that are important to human welfare. These energy services include heating, cooling, lighting, communication, transporting people and goods, commercial activities, and industrial processes.

It is often said that energy is the lifeblood of modern societies, but the use of energy in its various forms, particularly fire, has been critical to human activities over the centuries and has helped shape human society. What is true is that modern societies provide a high level of energy-dependent services to their members and are totally dependent on energy sources that go well beyond human and animal power.

In the 20th century population growth, increasing urbanization, and increasing human welfare led to a rapid rise in electrification and dramatically increased global energy demand.

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Transportation proved to be the fastest growing consumer of energy supplies, with well over 90 percent of transportation energy needs provided by petroleum. This pattern is continuing in the 21st century.

Projections by the International Energy Agency, the European Commission, the World Energy Council, the US Energy Information Administration, and others all point to the same general conclusions: there will be increased consumption of all primary energy sources over the next several decades. Specifically, the US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, in its International Energy Outlook 2013, projects that, under business-as-usual, total world energy demand will rise from just under 600 Quads (1 Quad = 1.055 Exajoules) today to just over 800 Quads in 2040. Most of this growth will take place in the developing world.

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These projections mask a central issue: How urgent is it to reduce growth in global energy demand and related emissions of carbon dioxide, other greenhouse gases, and other pollutants? I believe there is an urgency in a world that is powered today mostly by fossil fuels (80%) and is in the obvious early stages of human-induced global warming and climate change that is now irreversible even if carbon emissions were reduced to zero tomorrow. These impacts include deep ocean and ocean surface heating, more intense storms, glacier melting, rising ocean levels, changes in land temperatures and precipitation patterns, and movement of disease vectors to new regions. A sad corollary is that nations and island locations that had little to nothing to do with creating global warming may end end up suffering its most severe consequences.

The ‘good news’ is that limiting energy demand through increased energy efficiency is in most cases the lowest hanging fruit to be harvested in our struggle to balance energy demand with supply while ensuring that people suffering from energy poverty are being provided needed services. Considerable literature exists on how we can make more efficient use of energy in buildings (insulation, more efficient appliances and lighting, ground source heat pumps, passive solar design), transportation (more fuel efficient cars, trucks ans aircraft, alternative fuels, increased use of public transportation), and industry (more efficient manufacturing technologies). What was once wasted, when energy costs were lower and less attention was paid to energy use, can now be seen as a resource to be mined.

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In light of the above I conclude that energy security must rest on two principles: (1) using the least amount of energy to provide a given service, and (2) access to technologies providing a diverse supply of reliable, affordable, and environmentally benign energy. The implications for energy policy are also twofold: (1) priority #1 must be the wise, efficient use of whatever energy supplies are available, whether fossil, nuclear, or renewable, and (2) then, and in parallel with increased efficiency, focus on new energy supplies that meet cost, sustainability and environmental requirements.

The clear message is that energy efficiency, the wise use of energy, must be the cornerstone of national energy policies.

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An Energy Grand Bargain: Something to Consider?

In recent years the term ‘Grand Bargain’ has been used to refer to the possibility of a budget deal on Capitol Hill between Republicans and Democrats. In an earlier context I used the term, on a limited private basis, to refer to a potential deal on energy policy between Republicans and Democrats following George Bush’s election as President in 2000.

Grand Bargain

The thought of a ‘grand bargain’ on energy policy suggested itself to me as soon as it became clear that Republicans would be declared the winners of the 2000 presidential election. Having listened carefully to the energy statements by both sides during the election campaign I expected strong White House support for fossil fuels and nuclear but little support for renewables. My only hope was that President Bush would be sympathetic to wind energy as he seemed to be as the Governor of Texas. This turned out to be a forlon hope as energy policy in the Bush Administration appears to have been under the thumb of Vice President Cheney.

The idea of the ‘grand bargain’ was simple: with the Bush Administration unlikely to provide strong support for renewables, and a Democrat-controlled Congress unlikely to support oil drilling in ANWAR (Alaska National Wildlfe Refuge), the deal would have been to trade enhanced and increasing support for renewables for carefully regulated drilling in ANWAR using modern oil drilling techniques. Federal revenue from ANWAR could help support the increasing support for renewables.

I was willing to consider this kind of tradeoff in light of improved oil drilling techniques in recent years and the possibility of limiting the oil drilling footprint in a national outdoor treasure. Most importantly to me it was the only way I could see to get increasing Congressional funding for progress toward a critically needed and inevitable renewable energy future in the next four or eight years under a Republican Administration.

Well, it didn’t happen and strong support for renewables only began under President Obama and still has a long way to go. The U.S. still lacks an energy policy that would create significant incentives for development and investment in renewables, while legacy incentives still provide large public support for mature fossil and nuclear energy. As a result the U.S. is falling behind other countries in manufacturing, marketing, and deploying renewables – e.g., offshore wind. The U.S. Is also not benefitting as much as it could from the associated job creation and other economic benefits. It will take a less obstructionist and forward-looking Congress to change this situation.

Solar Energy: The Unstoppable Transformative Technology

As most readers of this blog will know solar energy comes in two broad categories: photovoltaics (PV) and concentrated solar power (CSP). The latter category includes concentrated solar thermal power (as in parabolic troughs, …) and concentrating photovoltaics (CPV). This blog will focus on PV; concentrated forms of solar energy will be discussed in a subsequent blog.

PV is a now a well-known and widely deployed form of renewable energy in which radiation from the sun is converted directly into electricity via panels of solar (or PV) cells. They can be roof-mounted or ground-mounted, as shown below, or used in many other ways to provide smaller amounts of electricity to handheld calculators, roadside telephones, battery chargers, remote microwave relay stations, solar lanterns, water pumping, and numerous other applications. It is a modular technology that can be scaled up in kW size as needed. It also lends itself to integration with various building and other materials – e.g., as roof tiles, building facades, blankets, clothing, and other flexible materials. There is an extensive and rapidly growing literature on PV – one hardly knows where to start. One useful starting point I would recommend is
http://wwww.eia.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=solar_home-basics-k.cfm
Another useful source of information is the web site of the Solar Energy Idustries Association: http://www.seia.org

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Roof-mounted PV

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Ground-mounted PV

There are two energy technologies that I consider transformative (some people prefer the term ‘disruptive’), i.e., they change the way we generate and use electricity. These are fuel cells, which use hydrogen as a ‘fuel’ to generate electricity, water and heat (and will be discussed in a future blog), and PV, the focus of this blog.

PV is transformative because it can be used wherever the sun is shining (e.g., in space to power satellites and space stations, and even on Mars to power robotic vehicles), it can generate power where it is needed without the need for power lines, it is modular, and its cost is coming down significantly as more and more PV is manufactured. Our infrastructure is already highly dependent on PV – think about satellites used for wireless telephony and GPS, and terrestrial PV that increasingly is supplying electricity to individual homes and businesses as well as utilities.

i would also note that our use of terrestrial PV is only beginning. An industry that started in 1973 in the U.S. (PV had been used earlier for space applications) now employs more than 120,000 people in the U.S., will add more than 4 gigawatts (yes, I said gigawatts) in the U.S. alone in 2013, on top of 8.5 GW already installed in the U.S. and 102 GW worldwide. Global additions in both 2011 and 2012 totaled 31 GW, and PV today is, annually, a multi-billion dollar industry and growing.

The above discussion clearly indicates that PV is an unstoppable energy technology, as the German electric utilities have learned and U.S. utilities will eventually learn as well. The problem that PV presents to utilities is its decentralized nature and the fact that PV generation is maximum at peak periods of electricity demand when utilities are used to charging higher than average kWh prices. If this peak demand on the utility systems is reduced by home- or business-generated electricity then utility revenues are adversely affected based on current utility business models.

It seems clear that this business model will have to change, and, based on experience, that utilities will resist this change as long as they can. The German utilities faced this problem first because the German government introduced a feed-in-tariff (FiT) for PV in the 1990’s, stimulating a massive deployment of PV in Germany ever since. Today Germany leads the world in PV deployment with about 30 GW installed. I would even note that on one very sunny summer day last year more than half of Germany’s electrical demand was met by PV. When faced with this reality German utilities got into the PV business and are now even offering energy storage services to the German public.

The U.S. federal government has not yet seen fit to offer a FiT to the American public but several states are taking the lead in stimulating PV and other renewable energy use. U.S. utilities are clearly behind the German curve and some are resisting the new PV reality by making hookup to the grid unnecessarily complicated, by proposing extra charges for homes that install PV and battery storage systems, and not incorporating PV into their own generating systems. This will change, hopefully sooner rather than later, as utilities take advantage of these new business opportunities.

The Role of Government vs. That of the Private Sector

This is a topic that applies to more than just the energy sector, but it is one that I wrestled with as a U.S. DOE official with significant budget responsibilities. Where does the government fit into the research, development and deployment (RD&D) of emerging energy technologies and where is it appropriate to turn these responsibilities over to the private sector? Where do government interests differ from and overlap with private sector interests? How does one balance the two?

In some ways addressing these questions were some of the most difficult decisions of my DOE management career. My immediate staff, aware of the decisions I faced, often said: “That’s why you get paid the big bucks.” If only that were true!

My thinking on these issues was strongly influenced by my familiarity with the DOE renewable energy program at the end of the Carter Administration. I had been a political appointee in that Administration until leaving in 1979 but I had kept in close touch after that with my former DOE colleagues. Something that burned into my memory was the experience the DOE wind energy program had with the Boeing Corporation. After the oil embargo in 1973-74 there was increasing attention to and budget support for renewable energy programs like wind, solar and others. Boeing was supported by the wind program to develop wind turbines for commercial application, a logical approach given Boeing’s experience with aviation propellers, turbine generators, and related technologies. The problem was that Boeing put up none of its own money in this effort, being fully supported by DOE. As we like to say: they had ‘no skin in the game’.

With the arrival of the Reagan Administration this funding situation changed and 100% support from DOE was no longer possible. In fact, the Reagan Administration tried its best to eliminate DOE’s entire renewable energy program, and even DOE. When this loss of total support became known to Boeing they dropped their participation in DOE’s wind program, and I drew a conclusion that guided my future decisions when I returned to DOE as a senior manager in 1991: no RD&D funding to companies that will not do cost-sharing with the government, with the degree of cost-sharing being a function of the level of risk faced by the private sector concern in carrying out its RD&D responsibilities. Thus, when I was in a position in the 1990’s to make such budget decisions my guiding rules were: at least 25% cost-sharing by the private sector when the risk was high in the early stage of a technology’s development; 50% during most of a technology’s development; and 75% when a technology was approaching commercial application. With respect to this latter point, I believed that the government could help get demonstration units into the field for evaluation and confidence building but that the government had no role in commercialization.

I also believe that government should work closely with the private sector to expedite transfer of emerging technologies to the commercial marketplace. This does not mean that government goals overlap completely with private sector goals, as some may believe but I do not. I see government’s RD&D role as ‘looking down the road’, seeing what’s coming, and doing what’s necessary to protect the public’s longer term interests. In addition, our economic system has assigned the private sector the role of maximizing financials returns to investors. Given this latter assignment of responsibility, private sector goals are of necessity shorter term in nature than those of the federal government. Thus, I see it as governnment’s responsibility to set policy and create a financial environment in which government and private sector goals can overlap to the extent possible. They will never be the same, but this is one place where government officials can earn ‘the big bucks’.

I will conclude by noting some recent public discussion of the private sector’s role in serving the public as well as its shareholders. This has been motivated by several corporations, e.g., IBM, making public their primary goal of maximizing shareholder returns. I leave a discussion of whether this is appropriate for another time and for others to discuss.

Vulnerabilities of U.S. Infrastructure: We Need To Pay More Attention

U.S. infrastructure is highly vulnerable to natural disasters and sabotage and needs increased attention from all levels of government. It is an issue that first caught my attention in the 1980’s and continues to concern me. This blog is my first attempt to write down my thoughts on what I consider a scary subject.

‘Infrastructure’ is defined by Wikipedia as “basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function. The term typically refers to the technical structures that support a society, such as roads, bridges, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, telecommunications, and so forth.”

My first exposure to the complexities of maintaining infrastructure came in 1985 at a meeting of the Council of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). I was then a staff person at the NAS/NRC. Part of the discussion was in response to a Council member’s suggestion that the NAE undertake a study of the vulnerability of the U.S. power distribution network, in response to several instances of power blackouts. Pros and cons of such a study were discussed for about half an hour until it was agreed that the topic was too complicated to undertake a study. I remember that discussion like it was yesterday and have never stopped thinking about it. Hopefully, lots of people today are giving much more thought to that issue, along with other national vulnerabilities, but is it enough?

Let me be specific about my concerns:
– most of our electricity supply today comes from large, centralized power plants that are not terribly well protected if at all (nuclear power plants are protected, but how well is a good question), and most power is distributed over above-ground power lines that are subject to falling trees, storm damage, or sabotage. In my opinion it wouldn’t take much to disable a portion of our electrical grid that removes power from large numbers of people and other utility customers. This concern is exacerbated by our increasing computer control of the grid and its vulnerability to malevolent hacking. Given today’s level of protection against such hacking I am very worried.

Another vulnerability of our power system, one that has received some increasing attention of late, is the impact that an electromagnetic pulse from a solar flare could have on that system. The power line system can act as a giant antenna that captures solar flare energy that overloads the system and burns out power lines and transformers (Note: this happened in the 1860’s and burned out many telegraph lines). While physical components can be replaced it takes time, during which most people will be without power unless they have a backup generator. This is especially true for replacing the large power transformers in the system that are quite expensive and not routinely inventoried.

– another area of concern is the U.S. water supply. In fact, immediately after I learned of the 9/11/2001 attacks in New York City, and in my capacity as a DOE official, I immediately placed a call to one of DOE’s Power Administrations with responsibility for water reservoirs that serve as hydroelectric power as well as domestic water sources. My question was: What are you doing to make sure nobody is poisoning that water supply? We could not discuss that on the telephone, but it was my first thought about how else can a terrorist disrupt our country. I see our water supplies as poorly protected, with a critical need for sensors that can detect even small amounts of contamination. This latter topic is now getting some attention at DOE’s National Laboratories.

A disrupted water supply also has major implications for food production and public health, along with other potentially impacted areas of national life.

– I will end this blog by mentioning only one other area of concern out of the many others that could be discussed, telecommunications. Our communication systems today (telephone, internet, GPS, weather forecasting, ….) are highly dependent on solar-powered satellite links and any disruption to these links, whether inadvertent or deliberate, can disable critical aspects of our society. As a ‘renewable energy advocate’ I am particularly sensitive to the suggestion that we place large (multi-gigawaat) solar power satellites in synchronous orbit around the earth and beam the power down via microwaves. This concept has some strong advocates but I’m not one of them. While the cost of putting large solar arrays in orbit is an obvious concern, I worry most about the vulnerability of such a large array to technological failure (there are micrometeorites up there and things do break, don’t they) and deliberate military attack. One proposal I read about, and never got over, was to put a 10-gigawatt array in orbit above New York City, whose peak demand is about that size. In my opinion, and apparently that of many other people, that’s crazy and I don’t mind saying so.

Nevertheless, reasonably-sized earth-orbiting solar-powered satellites are an important part of today’s world and provide unique and invaluable services. Their vulnerability to failure due to wearing out, micrometeorites hits and solar flare radiation place many services on which we depend at risk.

I see this issue – the vulnerability of our infrastructure systems – as requiring significantly increased national attention, debate and financial support. Please join me in being part of this debate.

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