Category: Global warming

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.

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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.

An Interesting Interview with President Obama’s Science Advisor

Dr. John Holdren has served as President Obama’s Science Advisor and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy throughout the eight years of the Obama presidency.  I found the following interview of Dr. Holdren of great interest and reproduce it here for the benefit of this blog’s readers. It was conducted by Kiley Kroh, Senior Editor of the e-journal ThinkProgress and first published in that journal on December 21, 2016.

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Can the world fight climate change in the era of Trump? Obama’s science adviser thinks so: Dr. Holdren weighs in on climate science, denial, and why every president needs a science advisor.

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Dr. John Holdren and President Obama

When asked what has kept him in his job for so long, the longest serving presidential science adviser in history answered without hesitation.
“What kept me in the job is working for the most science savvy president since Thomas Jefferson,” Dr. John Holdren said. “And in a situation where there’s a lot more science to be savvy about today than there was when Thomas Jefferson was president.”
Holdren was clear that the man in the Oval Office, that man’s respect for science and innovation, and his desire to elevate those fields across government all made the past eight years a once in a lifetime opportunity.
“I would not have jumped off this ship for anything,” said Holdren.
But the winds of change are blowing hard. President Barack Obama will vacate the White House in a month and the tenor of the group assembled to replace his administration, particularly with regard to science policy, could not be more different. President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax” and recently said “nobody really knows” whether climate change is real. (In reality, scientists are quite certain it is both happening and largely the result of human activity.)
Trump has already amassed an alarming number of people who reject the scientific consensus regarding climate change, have deep ties to the fossil fuel industry, and are quite clear regarding their intent to undo or weaken the Obama climate legacy. His transition team has asked the Department of Energy to name staff who worked on Obama administration climate policy, and pressed the State Department about its international environmental spending.
In the face of this dramatic shift, the scientific community is bracing itself for an administration that could be dismissive, or outright antagonistic, towards science — some are even going as far as to copy government climate science data on independent servers to ensure its preservation.
Holdren is nevertheless optimistic that the forces moving the world toward progress on climate change are stronger than the pull of denial, and that the advancements made in the past eight years will serve as building blocks rather than targets. While as a political appointee he’s prohibited from discussing the policies of the president-elect, he had a lot to say about climate denial, the importance of his position, and where we go from here. Read on for the highlights from our recent interview.
So much of what you were able to accomplish seems driven by a president who really prioritized science and gave it the funding and attention it deserves, so what happens to all of these initiatives moving forward?
I can’t speculate about the next administration but I will say this: First of all, the issue of addressing the climate challenge should not be a partisan issue. It’s about the economy, public health and well-being, national security — these are not fundamentally partisan issues, so one has to hope that that will increasingly be recognized.
The second thing I’ll say is that a lot of the progress is being driven by forces that are not fundamentally policies of the federal government. I think the two biggest drivers of progress on climate change around the world today are that the symptoms of climate change, the damages from climate change, are becoming ever more apparent. And the opportunities to do something are also growing — in substantial part because clean energy is getting cheaper. That’s going to be extremely important moving forward, regardless of what government policies do or don’t materialize in the United States.
If the U.S. is no longer at the forefront pushing climate commitments at the international level, is it your sense that China is going to step up? Are there other countries you’re looking to?
Let me be clear, I very much hope the United States will continue to carry out these forward-leaning actions to reduce emissions and build preparedness and resilience, because I think it makes great sense environmentally and economically. But if we don’t, I do believe most other countries will continue with their efforts in this domain because, again, they understand it’s in their interest to do so. China’s already stepping up.
But I don’t think for a minute that if, for one reason or another, the U.S. reduced its level of activity in this space, that China would reduce its [activity]. I expect that the European countries, who are themselves experiencing the impacts of climate change, will stay the course; I think Canada will stay the course; I think many of our friends in Latin America will stay the course; I think India will stay the course.
Everybody is suffering from climate change, and no matter how much hand-waving a few folks may want to continue to do about how it’s not all proven, the fact is everybody around the world now understands that it’s real, that human activities are causing it, and that aggressive action is required to fix it.

You mentioned your belief that several major countries will continue to stay the course on climate action. Can you talk about the course we’re on globally? Obviously, the Paris agreement was a significant achievement, but how do you view that in terms of what we need to be doing to stave off the worst impacts of climate change?
First of all, as you know, it’s not enough. Everybody who looks at this problem realizes Paris is a down payment on a longer term strategy to reduce emissions much more drastically. By the end of this century, we have to be at zero emissions; in fact, we should be at zero emissions, net, before the end of this century if we want to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. The key point about Paris, really, is that it is the biggest step in the right direction the world has ever taken, and it was taken much later than those of us who watch this problem closely would have wished. After 2030, when the most far-reaching of the Paris targets occur, we’re going to need a very powerful encore; we’re going to need much deeper reductions going forward, we’re going to need better technologies to do it.
One of the things I’ve found a little irritating about the climate science discussion over the years is the discussion about when will we reach dangerous human interference in the climate system. I think it’s very difficult to argue climate change isn’t already dangerous. We’re not really in the business any longer of trying to avoid dangerous climate change — we’re already in dangerous climate change. We’re trying to avoid catastrophic climate change and I think it would be better to be clear about that.
“We’re not really in the business any longer of trying to avoid dangerous climate change… We’re trying to avoid catastrophic climate change.”
I know you can’t speculate on the incoming administration, but it’s my sense the tide was turning over the past few years to make it less acceptable for a public figure to deny climate change. What is it about climate denial that makes it so difficult to overcome?
I think it’s a misconception that’s driven a lot of the expressions of doubt about the science — that folks don’t want to accept the science because they think accepting it is tantamount to accepting a draconian regulatory regime on our energy choices. The reality is that there are many ways to skin this cat. As economists from all parts of the political spectrum tell us the most efficient ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be a market-based approach, putting a tax on carbon emissions that could be offset by reductions in other taxes.
If you accept the science, you might prefer to accept a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade approach, which does more or less the same thing under different administrative arrangements. Either can be adjusted over time to get the emissions result that you want. And that’s basically a market-based approach rather than a regulation-based approach; it should make Republicans happy.
I’m sure you’ve seen the various efforts to sell Republicans and conservatives on the solutions — clean energy, even a carbon tax — without emphasizing or asking them to accept the climate science component. Do you think that can work?
I think ultimately we will not do enough without accepting the reality of climate change and the need to address it in a more serious way going forward than we have in the past. We will do a lot of things that go in the right direction based on market forces alone — as I noted before, basically, clean energy in many of its manifestations is getting cheaper. But I don’t think the market alone, without a price on carbon or its less efficient equivalent in a regulatory approach, will get us as far as we need to go.
In light of the reports regarding the fear in the scientific community about a potentially hostile environment ahead, what is your advice for scientists trying to preserve their ability to do their jobs?
Climate scientists should keep doing their science and they should keep publishing the results, and keep talking about the implications of the results. And they should keep making their data available so others can check their results. But coming back to a question you asked earlier about what continues to drive so much of the rejection of scientific consensus, the phrase has been around for some quite time: “do you believe in climate change?”
The notion that this is a matter of belief rather than respect for the conclusions of an expert community — this is not a matter of belief. Climate change doesn’t care whether you believe in it or not. It’s going to keep going.
In terms of big signs of climate disruption, what’s happening in the Arctic is one of the most alarming stories of the year. Can you talk about that, and any other major signs you’re following?
The Arctic is not only experiencing climate change much more rapidly than the rest of the world, but the consequences don’t stay in the Arctic. As we thaw permafrost, we are increasing the release of carbon dioxide and methane from the decomposition of organic matter. Wildfires in the Arctic are burning unprecedented areas; even the tundra is burning now. Sea level rise, combined with loss of sea ice protection from waves, is causing drastic coastal erosion around the Arctic, and the mainly indigenous peoples who live in villages on the vulnerable coastlines are in many cases having to relocate. I will tell you now from rather extensive experience meeting with the people who live in the Arctic, there are no climate deniers up there.
“This is not a matter of belief.”
There are some other things that are starting to get the attention they deserve. One is wildfires; there’s really an extraordinary story, and a very dangerous one going forward. A second is the danger from extreme heat, and the circumstance that there are parts of the world where, already in the hottest months, in the hottest parts of the year, it’s not possible to work outside without dying because of the heat stress. You’re seeing larger and larger areas of the world, as we’re moving further into this century, where it’s going to be impossible to do outdoor labor for much of the year. This is really a stunning result.
The other one that I think is helpful in explaining to people that, despite the complexity of this system, there are certain things that can be understood in pretty intuitive terms, is the relationship between warming and torrential downpours. That was long predicted, but we’re now seeing these increases in torrential downpours and associated flooding across much of the world. People who have experienced flooding of a sort that never previously occurred in their lifetime are generally not among the deniers.
As you’re reflecting on your legacy and work, can you tell me why, from your perspective, it’s important for a president to have a science adviser and receive objective scientific advice?
First of all, the president needs a source of science and technology advice that’s independent of the agendas of individual departments and agencies. It’s very important that there be somebody close enough to the president to tell him or her scientific and technological insights that may not agree with the prior preferences of the president.
Being able to work for this president on these issues has been the highlight of my career, and I expect that a lot of what we have done will survive as building blocks of progress going forward.
(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)

 

Living With A Trump Presidency – An Interview.

The article attached below was written by Roy Hales, editor of the e-journal ECOreport (www.theecoreport.com). It is based on a 30-minute telephone interview that Roy conducted with me on Tuesday, November 15, 2016, one week after the U.S. presidential election in which Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.. The audio recording of the interview, broadcast on Wednesday as a podcast, is embedded in the original article posted on The ECOreport web site. Photos in the original article are not reproduced here, but can be found in the original article as well.
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LIVING WITH A TRUMP PRESIDENCY
NOVEMBER 17, 2016
The ECOreport interviews Dr Allan Hoffman, a former senior analyst with the D.O.E., about living with a Trump Presidency

By Roy L Hales

The American people have spoken. Donald Trump is not Dr Allan Hoffman’s choice for President. While it is still possible that Trump will be more reasonable than his pre-election rhetoric suggests, this is unlikely. Hoffman described Trump as a demagogue who appears to be a climate denier, whose statements about energy were “uninformed, ignorant and terrible.” Never-the-less, he has been elected and, for the next four years, “the American public is going to have to live with that.” Hoffman spoke about the realities of living with a Trump presidency.

Living With A Trump Presidency
“If you go on the basis of what he said, it is going to be a very difficult period for those of us concerned about clean energy and (the) environment … (Trump) has made some statements that are terribly critical of solar energy and wind energy, but then there are contradictory statements that he makes at other times, if you look at his website … The bottom line is that it is really hard to know what he is going to do as President. An important clue is who he will put into the 4,000 positions he has control over in the new government,” said Hoffman.

“The next few years are going to be a real test of the American system of checks and balances. Democracies are always vulnerable to the rise of demagogues. … When demagogues arose in Europe in the 1930s, in the form of Mussolini and the form of Hitler, things got rapidly out of control as these people basically took over countries in a non-democratic way. The United States is now in the position where a demagogue has been elected President … but the U.S. President is not a dictator. He cannot just decide what happens in this country and if you go back to the record of other presidents, you see that many of them tried to do certain things but were unsuccessful.”

Ronald Reagan tried to get rid of the departments of energy and education – but failed. Unlike Trump, President Reagan faced a Democrat controlled congress. Trump will initially have the support of a republican controlled House and Sevnate, but it is by no means certain that he can count on them to attack the nation’s energy and environmental sectors.

“I have to believe that not all Republicans are going to back what he has said. A lot of them were very concerned by Trump’s statements during the campaign and there will be opposition to some of his extreme positions,” said Hoffman.

United States Energy System Is Highly Decentralized
Trump’s attempts to hinder renewable development will be hindered by the fact the nation’s energy system is highly decentralized. For example, the federal government does not make the decisions governing utility policies. Those are set by individual states.

“Wind and solar are now price competitive with fossil fuels and certainly competitive with nuclear, which tends to be quite expensive. Decisions are going to be made not just on an ideological basis, but on a pragmatic basis of how we can generate our energy in the most cost effective way and all of that will be in the context of trying to reduce carbon emissions and other emissions that impact our climate – and that includes CO2, that includes methane, natural gas, and that includes nitrogen oxide, which is a residue from agricultural activities,” said Hoffman.

He dismissed the arguments against global warming as simply “dead wrong.”

“The temperatures deep in the oceans are changing, they are going up. A lot of the heat that is being generated by global warming going into the ocean and we are measuring that. That is not a debatable point; that is a measurement.

“Global sea levels are rising. That’s measurable as well, it’s not debatable. When sea levels rise, coastal communities get flooded. Salt water infuses into fresh water supplies and contaminates them so you cannot drink the water without cleaning it up with desalinization.”

“Insects are moving from one location to another because of changing temperatures on land in a manner that is obviously faster than historical trends suggest. That’s all real, you cannot deny that stuff.”

“A lot of things that are going to come into play here. You can certainly not expect California and other states to change what they are doing now to reduce global warming and carbon emissions. You should certainly not expect other countries ou to change what they are doing.”

The Real Price For the United States
“There is a real price for the United States because the future energy system is going to be highly dependent on clean energy. The United States would like, and should be, a major player in the economy that supplies those technologies. Other countries have been moving ahead for years while the United States held back under previous presidents. That means economic growth, that means jobs, reduced environmental health, improved (public) health and so on. There are lots of reasons for moving forward … and if the United States decides to bail on this because of Trump and his administration, it will have an impact but not the horrific impact that some people have anticipated.”

“China is moving actively into the renewable field not for ideological reasons but because it is important for their country to reduce the pollution they get from fossil fuels, particularly coal. India is moving in the same direction ….” he said.

“The United States can impact the pace at which some things happen, but it is not going to stop other nations from moving forward.”

Forty Years Of U.S. Renewable Development
Few Americans possess Dr. Allan Hoffman’s insight into the development of the nation’s renewable sector. His dismissal of Trump’s allegation that climate change is a hoax, invented by the Chinese, as “untrue” arises from personal experience. In 1978, Hoffman presented President Jimmy Carter with the interdepartmental energy plan that would have launched the nation’s adoption of renewable energy decades ago.

Hoffman resigned late in the Carter Administration, out of frustration with insufficient budget support for renewables, but subsequently served under four other presidents. He watched in further frustration as succeeding administrations let the United States’ leadership in solar and wind energy development dissipate. Hoffman was 71-years-old by the time Barack Obama was elected in 2008 and a senior analyst in the Department of Energy. He finally retired in 2012.

“There are a lot of things that are happening now that are moving in the right direction and it’s not going to stop.”

He added that Trump can slow down America’s adoption of renewable energy, but he cannot stop it.

“When people start seeing all the jobs going to other countries, it is going to have an impact back here in the United States because there is a tremendous amount of manufacturing that is going to take place and the United States should be a center of that.”

Is There Still A Place For Fossil Fuels?

Dr. Hoffman argues that there is still a place for fossil fuels, and with proper regulation and enforcement it is possible to reduce fracking incidents to an acceptable level.

“If we don’t do that job well, then there is no benefit to natural gas over coal.”

Asked if adequate regulations are in force anywhere in the United States, he replied some claim they are. He mentioned Pennsylvania’s legislation adding, “We will have to see” if it works.

The fossil fuel sector will continue to expand because people want the energy (and money), but the eventual transition to a fossil free economy is inevitable.

“I am very concerned about the increase in (global) temperature because I think a lot of the impacts are going to be very adverse. For example, climate change will change precipitation patterns. We aren’t going to have the same water supply system that we’ve had for the last 200 years. It is a very uncertain future.”

What Can We Do?

“The first thing is to recognize that a President cannot do just anything that he wants. So, calm down a little bit. The initial reaction is that he is going to do this on day one of his administration. He can’t do that, he just can’t do that,” said Hoffman.

“The other thing is to be eternally vigilant. A long time ago somebody said the price of liberty is eternal vigilance – well that is absolutely true … We are going to have to watch this administration as carefully as we can.”

“We also have to recognize that a lot can be done on the state level. … If you cannot do it on the federal level because of Trump and his people, you can do it on the state level and that is (already) happening in lots of different ways.”

For example, the United States does not have any federal policy for net metering, so close to 40 states have adopted their own net metering laws.

“We should keep pushing on our state legislators and decision makers to promote the increasing use of clean energy.”

The business community needs to be part of this dialogue. One of the strongest arguments for the adoption of renewables is economic.

“A lot people in the private sector, who presumably have the ear of the Trump administration, will simply say it makes a lot of sense to go this way.”

Hoffman says that If it had the political will, and made appropriate investments, reports show that America could obtain 80% of its’ electrical energy from renewable sources by 2050.

(Listen to Dr. Hoffman describe these issues in more detail – as well as topics like the United States’ attitudes towards a woman President, the keystone XL pipeline, and oil by rail – in the podcast embedded in the original version of this article).

 

More History – Circa 1997

This is the second of the two articles from the 1990s mentioned in the previous blog post. It was published in the November-December 1997 issue of Asia Pacific Economic Review.

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Why We Must Move Toward Renewable Energy
by Allan R. Hoffman

Rapid economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region has been and will continue to be mirrored by a rapid increase in energy demand. Between 1970 and 1995 primary energy demand in the region increased from 19 to 70 Quads (quadrillion BTUs). This figure is expected to increase to 135 Quads in 2010 and to 159 Quads in 2015 (Source: Energy Information Administration International Energy Outlook, 1997). The World Bank has estimated that developing countries alone will require 5 million megawatts of new electrical capacity over the next four decades to meet the needs of their expanding economies. The world’s current total installed capacity is just under 3 million megawatts. Thus, even if the World Bank’s estimate is too optimistic, installed world generation capacity will essentially have to double during the next 40 years. This much new capacity will require trillions of dollars of new investment.

What does this mean for renewable electric technologies – I.e., electricity generated from solar, biomass, wind, geothermal and hydropower resources? Fossil fuels are likely to remain the dominant energy source through the middle of the next century, while renewables can anticipate capturing only a fraction of that market. Every one percent of the emerging market in developing countries represents $50-100 billion of investment. If renewables can capture several percent of that market, the potential exists for several hundred billion dollars of renewable technology sales worldwide over the next four decades. Why are renewables important? They are the most environmentally responsible technologies available for power generation. Most renewable technologies have proven effective and reliable. Efforts are underway to further improve their technological performance, which may be the easiest problem to solve.

Providing Access to Renewables for Developing Countries
The more difficult problems are how to get renewable technologies into people’s hands, how to pay for them, and how to set up the non-technological infrastructure needed for widespread deployment of renewables. In many applications, 
renewables are the least cost energy option. 
Thinking on energy costs is distorted in the 
United States because of relatively low 
energy prices. Outside the US the story is 
very different. Average electricity prices in 
Germany and Japan approach or exceed 
20 cents per kilowatt-hour. Even in remote 
parts of the US, such as Alaska, electricity prices range from 40 to 60 cents per kilowatt-hour. In many parts of the world, including remote areas of the Asia-Pacific 
region, it is hard to put a price on electricity because there is no access to it. The current world population is 5.8 billion people. 
It is estimated that more than 2 billion of 
those people have no access to electricity. 
In China alone that number is 120 million. 
At least another half billion people around the world have such limited or unreliable 
access to electricity, that for all intents and 
purposes they have no electricity. If we are 
to make a difference in these people’s lives, 
we have to make available to them free-standing power sources suitable for off- 
grid applications – i.e., renewable electric 
technologies. When people have no access 
to electricity, even a 35 watt photovoltaic 
panel or a small wind machine can make a 
very large difference in their lives. Where 
the alternative is to extend expensive electrical transmission and distribution systems, use of these technologies can be cost 
effective.

What is the status of renewable 
technologies today? Costs for photovoltaics, the use of semiconductor materials to 
convert sunlight directly into electricity, 
have come down from approximately $1 per kWh in 1980 to 20-30 cents per kWh 
today. With increasing scales of manufacturing and increasing emphasis on thin-film devices, electricity costs from photovoltaics are expected to fall below 10 cents 
per kilowatt-hour early in the next decade. 
Current annual world production has just 
exceeded 100 megawatts, and is growing 
at more than 20 percent per year. This corresponds to a doubling time of less than 4 
years. Current US. production capacity (40 
megawatts per year) is fully subscribed, 
and half a dozen new or expanded manufacturing plants are scheduled for operation within the next 18 months. Roughly 
70 percent of US. production is currently 
exported.

The “3- Flavors” of Solar Thermal 

Another form of solar energy, solar thermal technology, concentrates sunlight to 
create heat that can then be used to generate stearn and/or electricity. This technology comes in 3 “flavors”: troughs that con
centrate sunlight along the axis of parabolic 
collectors; power towers that surround a 
central receiver with a field of concentrating mirrors called heliostats; and dish-engine systems that use radar-type dishes to 
focus sunlight on heat-driven engines such 
as the Sterling engine. Electricity costs from 
the parabolic trough units are in the 10 to 
12 cents per kilowatt-hour range, but can 
be reduced. Costs of electricity from the 
other two solar thermal technologies are 
expected to be even lower than those of the 
parabolic trough systems, and could reach 
4 to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour when manufactured in commercial quantities.

The world has large resources of organic 
material, called biomass, which occurs in a 
variety of forms (wood, grasses, crops and 
crop residues). Biomass can be converted 
into energy in a number of ways. As wood-burning fuel, it has been used extensively 
in developing parts of the world, often resulting in widespread deforestation, soil 
loss, declining farm productivity, and increasing likelihood of seasonal flooding. In 
future, the most effective way to use biomass is likely to be gasification, where the 
resulting gas can either be used as fuel for 
high efficiency combustion turbines, or as 
synthesis material for producing liquid fuels. The US Department of Energy (DOE) 
has a series of projects underway to determine how to most effectively use biomass 
for energy production. DOE is experimenting with biomass-coal co-firing in New 
York state, biogasification with bagasse 
(the residue from sugar cane) in Hawaii, 
with wood in Vermont, with switchgrass 
in Iowa, and with alfalfa in Minnesota. Biomass-based electricity has the advantage 
of being a baseload technology (i.e., it can 
be operated 24 hours a day) and is carbon 
dioxide neutral – i.e., the carbon dioxide 
released during its use is recaptured by the 
biomass during its growth. The revenue 
derived from the sale of biomass resources 
can be an important component in rural 
economic development. Costs for biomass-generated electricity are expected to be 
competitive as long as biomass resource 
costs remain reasonable.

Europe “Blows with the Wind”
Many locations offer wind resources. Wind 
is the fastest growing energy technology 
in the world today. Most ofthe 17,000 wind 
turbines in the United States are located in 
California, but a dozen U.S. states (from the 
Dakotas south to Texas) have greater wind 
potential. Today’s highly reliable machines 
(typically available 95-98% of the time) provide electricity at 5 cents per kilowatt-hour 
at moderate wind sites. The next generation of turbines, currently under development, should provide electricity at half that 
cost. Use of wind energy is expanding rapidly in many parts of the world, with 
Europe’s installed capacity now exceeding 
that of the United States (4,000 megawatts 
compared to 1,700 megawatts). India ranks 
third with 800 megawatts of wind generated capacity. Large wind generation 
projects are also being planned for China and other parts of the developing world. 
Geothermal resources – i.e. hot water or 
steam derived from reservoirs below the 
surface of the earth – were first used to generate electricity in Italy in 1904. Today, more 
than 6,000 megawatts of geothermal power 
are installed world wide, with about half of 
that in the United States. Rapid expansion 
of geothermal power is taking place in several places around the world, most notably in Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico 
and Central America. Geothermal power 
is a baseload technology. It can be a low 
cost option if the hot water or steam re
source is at a high temperature. One California geothermal project produces electricity at 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Limit to Fossil Fuels?
Given the world energy situation, one can
not project today’s energy system into the 
long-term future. Fossil fuels will continue 
to be the primary fuel source for years to 
come. As history has shown, the transition to a different energy system is likely 
to take 50 to 100 years. The world cannot 
continue to be dependent on fossil fuels. 
Transportation issues are a good example 
of this misplaced reliance. If a reasonable 
fraction of the large and growing populations of China and India start driving cars 
as people in the developed world do, demand and prices for petroleum resources 
will grow rapidly, causing serious international supply problems and political ten
sion; unacceptable environmental consequences will affect us all. There is a limit 
to the Earth’s fossil fuel reserves. Whether 
it takes 50 years, 100 years or longer, these 
reserves will run out. The head of Shell 
UK, Ltd., a highly respected oil industry 
planning organization, has said: “There is 
clearly a limit to fossil fuels. Fossil fuel resources and supplies are likely to peak at 
around 2030, before declining slowly. Far 
more important will be the contribution of 
alternative renewable energy supply.” For 
many reasons, financial and otherwise, 
nuclear power is not likely to meet the energy needs of developing countries. Hydro
power is the most mature form of renewable energy and already provides a significant share of the world’s electricity. Though 
potential exists for further hydropower developement in many parts of the developing 
world, significant hydropower expansion in 
developed countries is unlikely to occur 
because of environmental concerns. With 
limited choices, the world is entering the 
early stages of an inevitable transition to a 
sustainable world energy system dependent 
on renewable energy resources.
_____________________________________________________________
Dr. Allan R. Hoffman is Deputy Assistant Secretary of 
the Office of Utility Technologies, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. 
Department of Energy in Washington, D.C.

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.