Doing the Math
March 6th, 2009Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
In his speech earlier this week U.S. chief climate negotiator Todd Stern said:
[W]e must be willing to follow the numbers wherever they lead
And admonished us to “do the math.” So lets do some math.
Yesterday, before the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources Howard Gruenspecht, acting administrator of the US Energy Information Agency, testified, and presented a preview of the numbers that will appear in the 2009 EIA Annual Eenergy outlook (testimony here in PDF). From these numbers I have calculated the implications of the EIA business as usual scenario (which includes polcies now in place) for carbon intensity of total primary energy use, which is shown by the blue curve below. I have also graphed the implications of a plan to reduce emissions 15% below 2005 levels (as proposed by the Obama Administration) for carbon intensity of primary energy use shown by the brown curve. The brown curve assumes that energy use will increase as projected in the BAU scenario, though this is of course a variable.
For anyone interested in actually doing the math, here is your challenge:
Describe how the US is going to achieve a rate of decarbonization of total energy use as shown in the graph through a combination of (a) reduction in energy use, and (b) carbon free energy supply. Please explain not just the numbers, but the actions that will lead to the numbers. The starting numbers from EIA BAU are as follows:
Total energy use (quads)
2009 102.9
2020 108.4
Renewable + Nuclear energy supply (percentage)
2009 15.4%
2020 19.4%
Carbon dioxide emissions (MMt)
2009 6,023
2020 6,225
2020 Target of 15% below 2005 levels (MMt CO2)
5,095
Please show your work!
March 6th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Roger, something is wrong with your renewable energy percentages. The Annual Energy Review 2007 showed 2.4% of energy consumption from hydroelectric, 3.6% from biomass, and 0.7% from other renewables. That’s a total of 6.7% from renewables. There’s no way it will be 15.4% in 2009. Maybe that is the percent of electric-power generation?
March 6th, 2009 at 9:08 am
-1-Mike
Thanks, I should have explained that nuclear is included, I’ll clarify:
“Howard Gruenspecht, acting administrator of the Energy Information Administration, told the Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee that renewable and nuclear energy currently accounts for about 15 percent of U.S. energy production, with the rest coming from fossil fuels. EIA — the statistical arm of the Energy Department — expects that amount to grow to about 21 percent by 2030.”
http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily/2009/03/06/12
March 6th, 2009 at 10:21 am
We could always throw green custard at a politician, that will produce a great reduction.
From the Times:
“The peer had just emerged from his chauffeur-driven Jaguar after arriving at a low-carbon summit in Central London, when Leila Deen approached with plastic cup in hand. After exchanging a few words with Lord Mandelson she emptied its contents – cornflower paste and green food dye – directly over him.
“He hunched over in apparent shock as a broad-shouldered aide pushed away Ms Deen, a member of Plane Stupid, the anti-aviation protest group. As he hurried inside, the protester shouted a final insult before slowly walking away from the building with another Plane Stupid demonstrator, who was clutching a second – unused – cup.”
Senior member of the British Cabinet, this happened to.
March 6th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I’m not going to have any math either but you seem to focus too much on the generation side as opposed to consuption. While I am a skeptic in the AGW debate I am all for improvements in efficiency. (This efficiency push is actually one of the things I like about Chu but I discount his carbon dioxide alarmism.)
In my book, the greenest company in the US these days is Walmart. They made an aggressive commitment to reduce their deisel fuel usage by 25% per ton of goods moved in about 5 years. For a company that watches every penny already, that is a tall order. But they took a comprehensive approach and elminate idling when unloading, pushed for more concentrated compact packaging for many of the consumables they sell, pushed truck manufacturers to make more fuel efficient vehicles and look at load distrubution in each truck specifically and the distribution system in general and they are on track to make their target. The US uses nearly double the energy per dollar of GDP than Japan does. Even with a much more dispersed population, I think an emphasis on efficiency in every aspect of our lives from the insulation in our houses, the size of our houses, the efficiency of our appliances, the proximity of our homes to where we work, the fuel efficiency of the cars we buy, etc. will pay us dividends in short and long term. (How about this for an old fashioned idea, put in good safe sidewalks in your community, extend the distance that kids can walk or ride a bike to get to school. How many bus miles will be eliminated for school transportation while attacking juevenile obestiy, saving money and saving fuel?) Businesses and industries will have to do the same.
I suspect that if the AGW alarmism loses its bite, that Walmart will continue its pursuit of saving energy because it saves them money. This is true sustainability. Lose the subsities and laws mandating biofuels and their market collapses. The same might be said for some other forms of renewable energy. A more rational, market driven approach pushing efficiency first might actually make the case for renewables more palatable and give ourselves breathing room to develop truely market competative renewable energy solutions.
March 6th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
-4-Sean
Thanks … in this math exercise, it is fine to play around with both energy use as well as energy supply (both numbers are give) . . .
So far no takers . . .
March 6th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Simple political math:
The current non emission energy use is about 15% of the total
The emission goal is about a 15% reduction.
All we have to do is double the energy without emissions and come up with a policy that will pay for the new Renewable energy sources and stop any growth in the GDP.
A policy of cap and trade will lower GDP and transfer some hundreds of billions of dollars to green firms as directed by venture capital firms but the increase in renewable energy will be limited by available physical resources.
Assume a minimum of corruption as a trillion or so dollars passes through the government (yeah, yeah) and energy from renewable sources can double in eleven years.
The math may require some hand waving and blaming previous administrations to cover up the lack of growth in the economy.
March 6th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
A tongue-in-cheek solution: From 1979 to 1983, U.S. energy usage went down by about 10%. Everyone says that this recession is going to be worse — maybe much worse — than that one. So our problem is solved! All we have to do is make sure the economy doesn’t bounce back after the recession…
March 6th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I’m working on mine. When is the homework due? I’m thinking about taking the weekend off.
Mike, there are organizations that use the ‘performance’ during this time period as a benchmark against which the necessary adjustments going forward are measured. Here’s one: http://www.architecture2030.org/home.html.
March 6th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
In the business as usual the carbon intensity projection should be reduce by 1.9% yet the total emission should be up by 3.3% from today.
To obtain the objective of 15% lower than 2005 a total reduction of co2 production by 33% is required by 2020. Or put up more clearly by 2020 every US citizen and company must produce 28% less co2 than they are producing right now.
This objective is still over, or maybe equal, the 6% below the 1990 level of the Kyoto protocol.
The math is not that hard (even though it is not my stronger point) but the policy option aren’t as easy. Even more is that it is unknown if they effect would be noticeable.
There are 3 mains source of human Co2
Farming 33%
Electricity production 33%
Transportation 33%
Farming is the hardest to act upon without endangering the total food production.
Transport can be easily restricted for cars but the vast majority is produced by big rig which would required new technology to make those big truck more efficient.
That leave electricity production which is the easiest to act upon.
I have some policy idea although I have no idea what their effect would be.
First, any house that consume more than 10% of the national average in electricity should have a very severe tax for the supplemental energy they require (enough that it would be worthwhile for the owner to invest in personal solar or wind system).
A tax or rebate on cars. Rebate for the most efficient and severe tax for the most inefficient.
It would require law that disable the right to contest the building of wind-farm, or nuclear plant.
Massive investment in air capture technology, clean coal, etc.
Other than that maybe a carbon tax
But I don’t believe that those measure would be sufficient to achieve that goal.
March 6th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
What, pray tell, is a “climate negotiaor”?
When did climate become negotiable.
I mean I’ve been making requests (albeit not to a person of that name or title), but “negotiating” never worked–outright pleading only marginally better.
March 7th, 2009 at 12:21 am
The only practical solution is raising prices through progressively rising taxation. Price of transport fuel, agricultural chemicals, heating oil, solid fuels and electricity — all energy consumption — all need to rise by some large percentage, say 10-25% a year indefinitely. We would then see consumption fall by amounts which should be predictable according to elasticity curves.
This would really be the touchstone of hypocrisy. It sounds appalling and draconian, but if this is the price of saving human civilization, lets go to it. If you are not prepared to do that, are you really so sure about the scale and timing of the problem?
March 7th, 2009 at 1:24 am
Re#9: “any house that consume(s) more than 10% of the national average”
Taking a national average as a guide-line for taxing is unfair and stupid: You just can not compare energy needs of say cold high mountain locations and very temperate ones, even if at both locations you do your best in thermal insulation. These primitive “average” criteria should be left aside, and replaced by a “best possible” one, defined on regional patterns.
March 7th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Here’s a zeroth-order cut at the numbers. All corrections will be appreciated.
I’ll not address effects of population growth and improvements in GDP energy intensity and will likewise ignore the leakage of our CO2 emissions into Asia. If the improvement in GDP energy intensity that have been shown in the US continue, maybe that’ll compensate for the population growth ( a hand-arm-wave approach ). The leakage, somewhat like cap-n-trade and offsets, is someone else’s problem
I’ll also focus on electricity production because the systems that make electricity are generally large centralized systems and thus represent good targets for displacement of CO2 emissions. I’ll take the approach that we need to displace the CO2 emissions from electricity production by plants that use coal for fuel.
The numbers given in the problem indicate that we need to displace 928 MMt CO2 from 2009 levels by 2020 or 1130 MMt CO2 from the BAU projections for 2020.
A medium-sized 500 MW coal-fueled plant produces between 3.2 and 4.0 MMt CO2 per year; I’ll use the average value of 3.6. I also found a source that said 1 Quad of energy produces about 60.4 MMt CO2. I have not yet reconciled these two numbers. And of course there are several provisos / caveats associated with each. As an aside, I also estimate that a 500 MW coal-fueled power plant consumes about 0.036 Quads of fuel per year. In view of the enormous numbers of Quads that fuel our lives and economy, this seems to be an extremely tiny number.
So, to displace the 928 MMt CO2 from 2009 levels requires that about 258 power plants each producing 500 MW of electricity be replaced by ‘carbon-free’ fuel. To displace the 1130 MMt CO2 from the BAU projections to 2020 requires that about 314 power plants be replaced. If the plants produce 1000 MW, these numbers are reduced by half.
I’m sure you’ve seen these kinds of numbers scaled to the numbers of installations required if wind and solar are the carbon-free fuel sources. I won’t do that here. But to give some idea of the magnitude of the problem, there are about 150 coal-fueled power plants planned / under-construction in the US at the present time (I can refine this if needed). These plants have very long life times. The Capitol Power Plant that was recently in the news has existed for about 100 years. I’ve read that China adds a coal-fueled power plant to its systems every day. The closer the numbers are considered, the problems seem to grow without bound.
What this does not address includes (1) selling the necessity of the approach, (2) the politically possible and feasible, (3) the economic feasibility, and (4) very likely a number of other critical issues.
More importantly, I have not addressed the physical-realizability aspects, most notably the timing, but also very likely the skills and manufacturing aspects. Are the people and systems required to carry out the projects available? Optimistically, if the work was started today, more than a decade would pass before any impact whatsoever would be realized. In the mean time, the problem becomes more acute and over 90% of the work would remain to be done in the last 10% of the time schedule.
Most importantly, if an ultimate goal is to stabilize the concentration of CO2 in the Earth’s systems, the presented target does not begin to address this extremely large and difficult problem.
March 7th, 2009 at 7:15 am
I said:
“As an aside, I also estimate that a 500 MW coal-fueled power plant consumes about 0.036 Quads of fuel per year. In view of the enormous numbers of Quads that fuel our lives and economy, this seems to be an extremely tiny number.”
Thinking about this I suspect I’ve dropped one of those SI prefixes. I’ll check it Monday
March 7th, 2009 at 7:19 am
EDaniel — Regarding the CO2 emissions from a quad of energy… I have some numbers that I collected a few years ago and do not have time to check right now, but I’ll pass them along. These were based on averages for 2002 from an Annual Energy Outlook report (not sure which one right now).
Petroleum: 64 MMt CO2
Natural Gas: 52 MMt CO2
Coal: 93 MMt CO2
Overall ave: 59 MMt CO2
As I said, I don’t have time to check these right now, but you can see from this why people talk about switching from coal to natural gas (as a short-term measure).
March 7th, 2009 at 8:11 am
I think it is a trick question. The math says we can’t do it, as proposed. A parameter not included in these grandiose reduction schemes is the energy life-cycle. An exampe is that a nuclear rod-assembley has an expected lifetime of about 20 years. Another, tubes in the coal boilers are expected to last about 30 years or more. The planned economics are based on life-cycle. The recent paper of Roger’s is the only paper I have seen that even comes close to trying to take into account life-cycles. Due to regulatory oversight (hinderance may be a more apt description), here in South Carolina, two nuclear plants are planned to be built to handle just the increase in demand covering the time period from now to the expected life-cycle end of the units’ initial nuclear rods. This will put us closer to the desired levels, but through obselence, rather than active replacement. The proposal, of making it too expensive to run coal plants for many, ignores that costs will be by law, regulation, and necessity passed to the consumer. Thus the econoics of replacement and its costs have not been started and enunciated in a meaning way. That is why I think it is a trick question. The numbers:
2016 and 2019 for completion dates. Current peak (2006) 4665 megawatts and 1% anticipated electric demand per annum for 1.35 increase in 30 years. 2234 total but SCE&G’s share of 55% is 1288.7 MW. The percent that these nuclear plants represent for SCE&G 2039 is 19.5% of projected loading. Whether it is 50% reduction or 80% reduction by 2050, at 2039, it is at 19.35% projected for year 2039, but with capacity to perhaps meet the 20% with a change of regulations. With 11 years to go and it takes about 11 years to get one approved and built, the next step looks impossible. Note it is assumed that the older reactors will not be allowed to contine, such that new reactors for replacement will only be replacement.
These reactors are meeting a lot of resistance. For the next part, of the math, this is one third of typical CO2 production transportation and food the other 67%. Thus the effect of adding in electric transportation would be beyond the two plants capacity 4665*2=9330 MW. Thus even if farming could somehow change, the prorated effect is 0.1954/2=9.8% of the 20% goal. Counting farming makes it just that much bleaker .1954/3=6.5% of the 20%. Local newspapers and opponents refer to SC as the nuclear state. Even being gung-ho nuclear and already trying to reduce carbon, the answer is 6.5% of the 20%. I also believe that this is close to what Roger indicated was typical %replacement by 2020 … trick question?!?
March 7th, 2009 at 9:08 am
What is sometimes lost in the discussion of changing technology to reduce emissions is inertia. The US vehicle fleet is over 200 million. The average age of passenger vehicles is 9 years and growing. It will take along time to impact overall efficiency. Much of America is disperse over suburbia. This mandates commuting and the use of a car for every day necessities. The horse is out of the barn and it will be very hard to put it back.
March 7th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Actually, I think Google has already done the math (although their abatement calculation is restricted to two key sectors: energy and transportation). While their reference case ties to the year 2030, the projected CO2 reduction under their plan at year 2020 gets very close to the 5,095 target. See http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/15×31uzlqeo5n/1#
Presumably additional efficiencies and reductions could be obtained by including additional sectors in the scenario.
March 7th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
-18-lgcarey
Thanks, Here is the2030 Google plan:
” We can achieve these results in 2030 by:
* Deploying aggressive end-use electrical energy efficiency measures to reduce demand 33%.
o
Baseline EIA demand is projected to increase 25% by 2030. In addition, the increase in plug-in vehicles (see below) increases electricity demand another 8%. Thus, our efficiency reductions keep demand flat at the 2008 level.
* Replacing all coal and oil electricity generation, and about half of that from natural gas, with renewable electricity:
o 380 gigawatts (GW) wind: 300 GW onshore + 80 GW offshore
o 250 GW solar: 170 GW photovoltaic (PV) + 80 GW concentrating solar power (CSP)
o 80 GW geothermal: 15 GW conventional + 65 GW enhanced geothermal systems (EGS)
* Increasing plug-in vehicles (hybrids & pure electrics) to 90% of new car sales in 2030, reaching 41% of the total US fleet that year
* Increasing new conventional vehicle fuel efficiency from 31 to 45 mpg in 2030
Optionally,
* Accelerating the turnover of the vehicle fleet, resulting in maximum new vehicle sales of 21.5 million per year in 2020, a 30% increase over the baseline, and boosting fleet average fuel efficiency by 7.5 mpg.”
March 7th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
re: #15
Thanks Mike. It looks like I picked up a number between petroleum and natural gas. The 2002 value for coal will pull my calculations of MMT CO2 for 500 MW to be 3.34. That’s now in the range that I found in some literature.
re: #16
John, I don’t think it’s a trick question. If it is I guess I just made an F.
I think part of the problem is that the reality of the situation has never been discussed in sufficient detail. Instead, the precautionary principle is invoked and a giant leap over an enormous amount of work is made so that Just do something becomes to be an acceptable approach. For me Just do something is iron-clad proof that the wrong answer has been made acceptable and the potential for extremely bad outcomes is damn near 100%. Failure is almost certainly guaranteed. Even if Just do something is invoked in order to get just anything out the starting gate, it is not at all clear that the problem is not in fact being made worse. Ineffective approaches applied over years of trying have a way of ensuring that the root cause continues to make the true underlaying situation even worse.
In no job have I ever been told, Just do something. I suspect this applies to everyone reading this. Instead, the root cause of the problems are identified, and more importantly, several approaches to the solutions of the problems are investigated, and those that make the short list are prioritized.
Then lots of additional work is necessary to determine the effectiveness and feasibility relative to the many criteria that generally enter these situations of the each of the short-list approaches. Finally one or more will make the cut and start to be implemented. Note that failure is still not eliminated and the process might have to be started over using the next candidate. Just do something avoids all the hard work. Note, too, that a more reasoned approach might in fact conclude that little, or even nothing at all, might be necessary.
March 7th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Googles’s numbers just don’t add up.
First, energy efficiency has always been improving but it tends to lead to more consumption as more uses for electricity are found. Finding a 33% saving in efficiency that is not offset by increased usage in other ways is unlikely unless the price of electricity from all sources was increased significantly as well – increases that would have to be large enough to impact standard of living which would make themn politically impossible.
Secondly, Denmark has carpeted the country with windmills yet they still don’t meet more than 10% of their needs with it. The excess capacity needs to be exported to its neighbors who happen to have flexible hydro-electric installations that can be adjusted to match the excess production from Denmark. This unique situation means the Denmark experience cannot be easily applied to the US and any plan that includes more tha 10% from unreliable sources has no chance of success given current technology.
Third, the adjustments for plug in vehicle electrical consumption don’t look right since electrical vehicles consume batteries as well as electricty. The production and disposal these batteries will emit large amounts of CO2 that will conveniently be ‘off-the-books’ because they would be manufactured in countries with no price on CO2.
The point illustrates why all government ‘market based’ attempts to limit CO2 are doomed to fail because the the market will most likely seek out the cheapest way to emit CO2 by relocating production rather than finding ways to reduce total production.
March 7th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Roger
Good point on doing the math.
The long term issue is that population is increasing about 2%/year.
People want global economic growth of 4% per year or higher. (China has settled for 8%/year during this economic downturn.)
Consequently there is an underlying “demand growth” of 6%/year to 10%/year or higher.
To achieve 80% reduction in emissions over 40 years requires at least 2%/year straight line. Consequently that would require an 8%/year to 12%/year decarbonizaton with growth. Then consider that power plants typically require 8 years to construct and last for 40 years.
Furthermore, China has been installing about one GW coal fired power plant per WEEK. Who is to say that the developing world is not entitled to achieve strong economic growth?
The only way “decarbonization” will happen at a rapid pace is to make renewable energy with storage cheaper than coal fired power.
Climate change is the highly politically correct issue, but has little impact on our economy in the near future. (Other than a major economic decline due to misdirection of investment.)
Of far greater importance is the near term challenge of Peak Oil.
Peak oil indicates there is insufficient conventional oil for IPCC’s growth curves. See:
Fire or Ice? The role of peak fossil fuels in climate change scenarios
Ugo Bardi on March 6, 2009 – 12:50am in The Oil Drum: Europe
Much more critical is the decline of global exports due to production decline coupled with growing internal growth. See Khebab’s
graphoilogy
Exporting country production vs consumption Fig. 16.
The drastic consequences are for rapidly declining oil exports. See:
Forecast oil exports Fig. 17.
Heavy oil and coal exist, as does solar energy.
These can be tapped for alternative fuels.
However the critical issues are that focus is on “chicken little’s” global warming with massive funds into spending to “stimulate” the economy.
With a full war time effort focused on alternative fuels starting 20years ago, we might have been able to provide alternatives.
See Hirsch Report Robert L. Hirsch
With climate change smoke screen, we are now in serious trouble of major reduction in available liquid fuels that will cause far greater economic reduction. See:
# Hirsch, Robert L. (February 2008), “Mitigation of maximum world oil production: Shortage scenarios”, Energy Policy 36 (2): 881-889, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/03014215
March 7th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Corrected link: Fire or Ice? The role of peak fossil fuels in climate change scenarios Posted by Ugo Bardi on March 6, 2009 – 12:50am in The Oil Drum: Europe.
March 7th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
It seems to me that Rogers models for air capture should be applied. It avoids all of the difficulties of making massive changes to the way we generate and use energy. It also meets Obama’s desire to create new jobs. Certainly there are no commercial jobs in this area, Does anyone know why this isn’t being discussed by politicians?
March 7th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
#20 I agree. Your concerns of “”Instead, the precautionary principle is invoked and a giant leap over an enormous amount of work is made so that Just do something becomes to be an acceptable approach. For me Just do something is iron-clad proof that the wrong answer has been made acceptable and the potential for extremely bad outcomes is damn near 100%. “” is what I was pointing out with the math and thus said “trick question”. From my POV, the precautionary principle is just your typical engineering principle with an exception. Engineering principles are two-way, as in, if I am right I get credit and keep my job; if I am wrong I get fired (trashed, spurned, made fun of, encouraged to commit professional suicide, etc.). The present AGW precautionary principle assumes that being wrong will not have negative effects. Not only is this contrary to everything an engineer knows or has been trained to know, but as Michael Crichton has abley pointed out, this is simply untrue. I can’t remember where right now, but one of the funniest blog commentaries I have read in a long time was where someone was trying to “figure out” Roger; and no matter how others or himself expressed the most likely conclusion as to why Roger was as he was, this one directional gate that he believed in kept him from realizing that life, Roger, and most choices are most often two-directional gates, AND NEED TO BE TREATED AS SUCH. I had no problem understanding what and why Roger said what he did. It took a degree of re-reading and humour to understand the other POV. Roger was accused of trying to take over the whole AGW debate and make himself the czar of negotiation and reconciliation. All I could conclude is that if Roger is that good I WANT him to be that czar of negotiation and reconciliation. I don’t think they would have appreciated this POV.
#22 maurmike Air capture has problems on the physical side. However, Roger’s point about how it should be prioritized according to the logic of the AGW crowd is correct and also shows the logical or practical inconsistencies that are proposed/denied by the AGW crowd. I could be wrong, perhaps Roger could weigh in on my conclusion. As someone whose profession includes such units, I can tell you, capture is not some cheap, easy deal. Oxidation units were not designed this way, and unless one uses a “pure” oxygen system, there is just too much nitrogen in the way to make it work well. Also, don’t forget that one of the major factors is that you have to keep the airstream above about 360F to prevent condensation which wreaks havoc on the materials of construction rasing an expensive proposition to an even more expensive proposition.
March 7th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
A few years ago I did a little looking at studies that had been made of the potential for saving energy through improvements in efficiency. The best one I found at that time was called the Clean Energy Futures study, which was done by Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and came out in 2000 (see http://www.ornl.gov/sci/eere/cef/). I imagine there are more recent studies out there, but let me summarize some of the CEF results here. A good thing about that study is that they estimated the effects of an array of specific policies that could be instituted by governments. Of course it all has to be taken with several grains of salt, but at least it isn’t totally vague or vacuous pie in the sky. The Google link in #18 above is interesting. I’ve only skimmed through it quickly, but they did anticipate some of my questions, and it does seem to have some thought behind it. Their assumptions about the feasibility of rapid increases in wind and solar electical generation seem rather optimistic to me (see, for example, the comments in #21).
CEF didn’t present their results this way, but I have converted them to percent annual reductions below a “business as usual” baseline. They presented numbers for CO2 emissions as well as for energy usage, so I’ll report numbers for CO2. The annual CO2-emission reductions below baseline ranged from 0.4% to 1.7% for the various scenarios they considered. I think it’s important to note that their “advanced” scenarios included imposition of a carbon tax of $25/tC or $50/tC, and the assumptions they used to estimate the effects of those taxes would certainly need to be examined carefully (by someone who knows more than me). The numbers presented by Roger imply an annual CO2-emission reduction below baseline of 1.8% for the next 11 years. This is close to the high number for the CEF study, so perhaps it is plausible — though it is certainly aggressive and I think a lot rests on how effective a CO2 tax would be. Roger has made it clear that he doesn’t think an effective CO2 tax (or cap & trade) is feasible politically, and he may very well be right. It is also worth noting that current CO2 emissions are actually lower than the projected emissions in the CEF study for their “moderate” scenario, and quite a bit lower than the projection for their BAU scenario (their projections started from 1997). This shows that their BAU scenario was overly high, and they state that CO2 emissions in their BAU scenario were lower than the EIA’s BAU projection. This fits with my opinion that the EIA projections have tended to be high (that is, overestimating energy usage and CO2 emissions). The big recession we have going now will undoubtedly make actual emissions quite a bit lower than the EIA projections for the next few years, but the effects might cancel out by 2020 if we’re lucky.
March 8th, 2009 at 9:30 am
#25 John Pittman. I’m not suggesting CCS at coal or gas utilities. Geo engineering is the only plausible solution. Looking at the math would be a good excercise. In the the carbon cycle 96% of the CO2 flux is natural. Photosynthesis does an admirable job handling that. Of the 4% of anthropogenic CO2 half of that is recycled. To my simply way of looking at it you need to enhance global photosynthesis by 2%. It’s has been shown that iron fertilization in the oceans can cause substantial increase in phytoplankton. We have vast deserts/arid areas on the planet. Greening them with deslalinize water could produe a huge draw CO2. Places like sub-Sahara Africa could greatly benefit. Some of the biomass might be harvested converted to fuel or stored.Nulclear or renewal energy could provide what is needed for desalinization. What also makes this more plausible is it’s something the wotld could agree on.
March 8th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Maurmike, desalination is expensive whether by steam distallation with energy costs, or with reverse osmosis with pressure gradients, cost of infrastructure, and fouling.
The problem with CO2 in the atmosphere is that you need an atmospheric solution similar to the size of the problem. As diffuse as the CO2 is and as diffuse as the biosphere is, I do not know that you could make sizable headway if you made the whole of the Sahara green.
It simply pays to control where the concentrations exist.
March 8th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Re-engineering the entire global energy process and agriculture isn’t cheap. The iron fertilization has been done on large scale. There a number a groups (planktos comes to mind) with ships that believe it can be done. It would financed with carbon credits. Consider for a moment the amount carbon sunk in the predominately wood frame house of North America. Is there a biologist on the blog to help? In non woody plants glucose is the predominte building block. It’s about 40% carbon. Anthropogenic CO2 I bel;ieve is about 7 gigatons. This would require a dry biomass of 17.5 gigatons. Global corn/maize production is almost a gigaton to give it some prospective.
March 8th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
correction#29
……Anthrogenic CO2 I believe is about 7 gigatons as carbon.
March 8th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Just a quick shout out of thanks to the commenters on this thread, _very_ useful comments.
I will have a follow up to this post first thing Monday . . . Thanks all!