One of These Perspectives is Reality Based
May 7th, 2009Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
From EURACOAL (PDF via Euractiv h/t BP):
Global hard coal production in 2008 increased by some 200 million tonnes (Mt) or even more; China alone increased its production by 160 – 170 Mt. This will once more result in an increased share of coal in global electricity generation. Coal reserves are abundant and, due to the higher energy prices and modernized production technologies, resources also become more abundant. USA, China and Russia have the biggest coal resources in the World, so their participation in post-Kyoto commitments is essential for the world to have any chance of mitigating the effects of climate change; any unilateral CO2 abatement efforts by other countries will be useless.
From Crikey (via CEJournal), a group of six Australian climate scientists join the anti-coal campaign:
It is our considered view that no new coal-fired power stations, except ones that have ZERO emissions, should be allowed to be commissioned in Australia. Furthermore, we need an urgent program to replace existing coal plants with zero-carbon energy sources and energy efficiency programs as soon as possible. We understand that this will require a significant social and economic transition that will need to be managed carefully to care for coal sector workers and coal-dependent communities and to meet Australia’s energy needs both through the transition and in the longer term. However, given the climate change imperative, this transition needs to proceed with the utmost urgency.
The unfortunate reality is that genuine action on climate change will require that existing coal-fired power stations cease to operate in the near future. We feel it is vital that you understand this and we are happy to work with you and with governments to begin planning for this transition immediately.
At some point these well-meaning scientists and their international colleagues will realize that shutting down coal plants is just not in the cards in the “near future.” The realities of global energy supply and geopolitics necessarily implies that capture and sequestration will have to be developed and deployed, if carbon dioxide emissions from coal are to be addressed.
Scientists acting as advocates is fine, as they are citizens as well. But is it too much to ask that their advocacy be well-informed and practical, rather than naive and impossible? Advocating faster progress on capture and storage technologies would be a good place to start.
May 7th, 2009 at 8:36 am
The role of impractical advocacy as part of the process of reform is pretty well established. The abolition of slavery seemed impractical in 1830. We don’t know what will become practical in the near future, and even if it isn’t what they seek, their actions may help redefine what is practical.
Btw, have folks heard that China has tripled its plans for wind energy by 2020, to 100 GW. See http://www.macaudailytimesnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26826&Itemid=31
May 7th, 2009 at 8:49 am
“…is it too much to ask that their advocacy be well-informed and practical, rather than naive and impossible?”
The obvious answer is yes. The truth is that scientists as a group are just as subject to magical thinking as any other profession. The proportion of scientists who actually go about life with an entirely scientific mindset is probably quite small. Rational, evidence-based decision-making is difficult work, and few people want to carry the system to its logical conclusion in all aspects of their lives. Given that science work is, by definition, 98% boredom and 2% excitement, it’s no surprised that so many are seduced by the thrill of apocalyptic movements. Western culture has been subject to cycles of religious frenzy for a thousand years. Just because you eliminate God, that doesn’t mean that the needs served by such movements has gone away. Marx provided a replacement for a while, but since the world Marxist enterprise collapsed, trotting out that silliness has become an embarrassment. So just in time, right after the fall of the Berlin Wall, comes global warming. Handy, that. History cares not for details – when a cause is needed, any cause will do.
May 7th, 2009 at 8:51 am
-1-dean
Yes, a very good point. From 1830 to 1865 was 30 years. From 1865 to the 1960s was 100 years. Over timescales of 35 to 100 years, I think that weaning off of coal is possible, and perhaps even practical.
However, this is certainly not the “near term” that these scientists are talking about. So if calling for the ending of slavery in 1830 is to be equated with calling for the ending of coal in 2009, then that underscores my point.
On China and wind, EIA is projecting China’s energy consumption to exceed 100 Quads by 2030. 1 Quad = ~33 GW. So if China is successful they will have 3% of their final energy from wind in 2030.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/world.html
May 7th, 2009 at 9:27 am
dean,
Quoting wind power growth figures does no mean much since multiplying a tiny number by 3, 10 or even a 1000 is still a tiny number.
There is ZERO comparison between coal and slavery since slavery eliminating slavery did not change the amount human labour available – it only changed who benefited. On the other hand, the issue with coal is technology/thermodynamics – there are no alternatives that can deliver the same amount of energy at the same cost.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:45 am
The advancement of technology did more to end slavery then all other reasons combined and then some. The steam engine, cotton gin, grain harvester, railroad, etc. set in motion the end of slavery. The role of technology in ending slavery is generally completely ignored.
May 7th, 2009 at 10:25 am
If wood is used to replace coal, existing plants can continue to operate for their designed life-times, with sharp reduction in their CO2 footprints. IF THE WOOD IS HARVESTED SUSTAINABLY.
CAREFUL, ‘policed’ harvest of fallen trees in old-growth tropical forests could provide about 1 to 2 GtC/yr (1 to 2 wedges/yr) of CO2 mitigation because these trees otherwise quickly decay and add the same amount of CO2 to the atmosphere as if they were burned. This strategy is certainly sustainable, especially if the wood-ash-equivalent of the wood harvested is returned to the sites of harvest.
Similar VERY CAREFUL harvest of up to another 2 o 3 GtC/yr might also be sustainable – and would permit us to leave all the rest of the coal in the ground forever!
This strategy could be implemented over a rather short time-span, much shorter than trying to convert to CCS – and MUCH cheaper.
May 7th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Don’t these “advocates” stay current on their “science?” If they did, they should have noticed by now that there has been no significant warming for over 12 years and a definite steep cooling for 5-6 years. Where’s the problem for which we are offering all these draconian solutions? They are looking sillier and sillier as time goes on…
May 7th, 2009 at 10:43 am
Len: It would be very costly to convert to wood, even if the wood supplies were available. The heating value of wood (50% moisture) is only 4,500 Btu/lb. Even the poorest coal (lignite) has a heating value almost twice that. Thus, the transportation and harvesting costs for wood would be much higher. Of course, it still might be a better bet than wind and solar.
Besides, we are generating quite a bit of energy from wood residuals, normally in co-generating facilities, presently. This is possible where there is a large supply of “waste” wood and bark, such as at sawmills.
May 7th, 2009 at 11:08 am
dean: China’s wind farms are badly underperforming. All power installations have a ‘capacity factor’, which is calculated by dividing the energy actually produced by what the installations could maximally generate. According to data from the Beijing branch of London’s New Energy Finance, a consultancy firm that advises investors on developments in renewable energy, on-shore turbines in other leading wind power countries have capacity factors of around 30%. China’s is just 23%.
Moreover, China’s rapid expansion has caused delays down the line. Turbines often have to sit idle — on average for four months — before they get hooked up to the grid. The backlog is huge. Of the 5.7 gigawatts of turbine capacity installed by the end of 2007, only 4 gigawatts was plugged into the grid.
More information on this, see:
Renewable energy: Beijing’s windy bet
David Cyranoski
Nature 457, 372-374 (21 January 2009) doi:10.1038/457372a
May 7th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Google “whole tree energy”. There’s nothing new under the Sun.
May 7th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Roger – My point is not that I think that anybody advocating for no new coal power plants will be successful, nor am I willing to guess at what point in the future we will (1) stop building new ones, and (2) not have any at all operating (or all on CCS
.
But I do think that whatever those numbers end up being, they would be somewhat longer without impractical advocates pushing the envelope now.
God forbid that everybody be practical – though of course some people have to be. Both have a role in a complex and in the end, highly political process.
PS – I’m not arguing that slavery and coal power are highly analogous (and I agree that technology played a major role in the decline of slavery). And in fact many impractical causes were never implemented and are long forgotten. But we don’t really know which are which right now.
May 7th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Len,
Aren’t old growth forests good for something other than soaking up CO2 and being burned? Please don’t suggest tearing down these amazingly rich and complex ecosystems. They cannot be sustainably harvested, because their very complexity ensures that we cannot rebuild them. All we will have in their place are near-sterile rows of crop-trees. How sad that mitigating CO2 takes precedence over preserving the beauty of the natural world.
May 7th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
-11-dean
I hear you, and certainly agree. However, I am wondering, who are the scientists advocating for more rapid expansion of CCS? And if advocating for a coal phase out will lead to it occurring sooner than otherwise, would it be fair to also conclude that a lack of advocacy for CCS would lead to a delay in its deployment?
May 7th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Tamara:
Hmm. Can you define “old-growth” for us?
May 7th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
jae
I suppose this would do:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_forest
Why?
May 7th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
I’d like to see a reality show where these jokers try to live without fuel and electricity for a few months. We could have two teams, the well-meaning scientists and the planet-saving enviros. Might be a giggle.
You can still use coal and be enviro-friendly by converting it to natural gas, which by the way, China is already trialing. Methane power plants save about 50 to 70% carbon emissions and are cleaner. The conversion process produces CO2 but you can capture that and maybe sell it to coka cola
or use it as a refrigerant should these HFC restrictions ever kick in or stick it down stripper well to push the oil up. Cheaper by far then carbon capture and possibly cheaper than drilling for it if this Boston CEO (link below) is to be believed.
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/18119/
An engineers solution that should satisfy everyone I’d have thought.
May 7th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
“The abolition of slavery seemed impractical in 1830.”
In fact, Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush founded the first anti-slavery society in 1774.
PA and MA abolished slavery in 1780. CT and RI did so in 1784. NH in 1792. VT in 1793. NY in 1799. NJ in 1804.
So the abolition of slavery in the U.S. was a much, much longer process than 1830 to 1865. It was more like a “four score and seven” (or thereabouts) process.
May 7th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
P.S. Oh, and of course slavery wasn’t completely abolished until a Civil War was fought. Hopefully, no one is recommending that kind of sacrifice to reduce CO2 emissions.
May 7th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
“Btw, have folks heard that China has tripled its plans for wind energy by 2020, to 100 GW.”
Even if the capacity factor is 40% (very generous), that would make 40 GW of wind power. Over one year (8766 hours) that would be 350,000 GW-hours.
In 2007, China consumed 3,256 terawatt-hours…or 3,256,000 GW-hours, and 88 percent of that was from coal.
http://pid.adb.org/pid/LoanView.htm?projNo=42117&seqNo=01&typeCd=3
So at most, China will probably produce less than 10 percent of its electricity from wind in 2020.
P.S. Note that the article to which you linked said that only 18 months previously, the goal for power from wind in China was 30 gigawatts. So they increased their goal by more than a factor of 3 in 18 months. (So it seems like they may just be hoping, rather than trying to come up with a realistic number.)
May 7th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
Roger – I don’t see that CCS has a lack of advocates, our president among them, along with a well-funded coal industry and coal-state politicians. There are no lack of powerful advocates for this particular impractical solution.
May 8th, 2009 at 3:43 am
Jae:
Dried wood chips would be the coal replacement. Waste heat is used to dry the chips, at essentially no added cost (grinding coal and chipping wood have similar costs).
Tamara:
The careful removal of fallen trees, and their replacement with ash is both eco-neutral and sustainable.
The most careful removal would be with lighter-than-air ships, like Boeing’s SkyHook, moving logs to rivers – with no new access roads (that might encourage the rape of the otherwise untouched forest).
May 8th, 2009 at 4:26 am
Len:
It sounds very interesting. How do we know what quantity of this downed wood is available? How quickly would it be regenerated, once we have harvested what is available at the starting point. I would have to quibble that it is not completely eco-neutral, since fallen logs provide habitat as well as nutrients. But, I suppose that if we are truly that concerned about CO2, then we can accept a certain amount of disturbance to the ecosystem.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:22 am
Tamara:
“But, I suppose that if we are truly that concerned about CO2, then we can accept a certain amount of disturbance to the ecosystem.”
LOL. It’s beginning to look like we will not accept all those windmills and solar cells all over everything. What then?
May 8th, 2009 at 6:42 am
jae:
Sometimes a trace of sarcasm gets muted in blog comments.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:14 am
jae
The answer to your question is that some enviros want everyone to be responsible for their own household energy production. ie geothermal pipes underneath you and solar panels on your roof. So far so good and no extra transmission lines. Of course you can add that woodchip system too though you’d need a big hopper and big storehouse. Maybe they’ll let us have gas too.
But regarding wind energy here’s a story from the implausible-but-true department about George Bush being a champion of wind energy:
http://www.practicalenvironmentalist.com/energy-efficiency/perhaps-al-gore-should-ask-george-w-bush-for-help-in-making-his-house-more-energy-efficient.htm
“Pat Wood, a friend of the president, was chairman of Texas’s Public Utility Commission when the push for wind energy started.
“At the end of a meeting on transmission policy in mid-1996,” he recalled, “I was on my way out the door of the governor’s office, when Governor Bush said to me, ‘Pat, we like wind.’ He was at his desk. I said, ‘We what?’ He said: ‘You heard me. Go get smart on wind.’ ”
Mr. Wood, his fellow commissioners and the Texas utilities did just that. They conducted polls and were stunned by the results: Texas electricity customers were ready to pay a little extra to get more clean renewable energy. So Mr. Bush instructed Mr. Wood to work on wind with the utilities and the environmentalists. Together, they created the Texas Renewable Portfolio Mandate, which Mr. Bush got passed by the Texas Legislature in 1999, as part of a power competition bill. The mandate stipulated that Texas power companies had to produce 2,000 new megawatts of electricity from renewables, mostly wind, by 2009.
What happened? A dozen new companies jumped into the Texas market and built wind turbines to meet the mandate — so many that the 2,000-megawatt goal was reached in 2005. So now the Texas Legislature has upped the mandate to 5,000 megawatts by 2015. Everyone knows they’ll beat that, too, because all this investment has driven down the costs and made wind power in Texas competitive with clean coal, nuclear and natural gas, even without the temporary tax break. Mr. Wood says he thinks Texas could be producing 15 percent of all its energy from renewables by 2015.”
So experience says that up to 15% of the total supply, wind energy is competitive and people like it. Not competitive with dirty coal I notice but I already mentioned the best plan to make dirty coal clean at little cost.
May 8th, 2009 at 7:44 am
-20-dean
It is interesting that the IPCC, IEA, EPA, G8, UK, Australia, US, EU, and others all say that CCS is absolutely necessary for rapid decarbonization, and scientists often endorse the ends of such policies, but then oppose the means to achieve them
So it must be the case either that (a) these policies prescriptions are all fundamentally flawed, or (b) they are not flawed and CCS must be made practical.
I don’t know if CCS will prove practical or not, but I am willing to support finding out rather than taking off the table prematurely. You can’t beat something with nothing, and empty advocacy is just that, and probably counter-productive.
May 8th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Tamara:
There are publications that have demonstrated that most fallen trees in the Amazon can be readily spotted by satellite. In the Amazon and Congo basins, such fallen trees average around 1% of biomass/yr (but that’s a very variable value). That’s where the 1 to 2 GtC/yr comes from for the harvest of logs only. The variation suggests that harvesting of a bit more, on an uneven aged basis, and near the fallen-tree sites – to increase gap light-levels, and really goose local understory growth – may be almost as eco-neutral.
When a log is harvested, about 1/3 of the above-ground mass is left behind as well as all the below-ground mass. Also, the distribution of fallen trees is sort of random. So from a nutrient- and eco-point-of-view, when you add ash fertilization, the impact of removal of such logs is pretty small.
May 8th, 2009 at 10:02 am
jasq: Well, Texas has a LOT of space where there is hardly anything except wind.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I’ve never understood CCS. I don’t understand why so many people seem to support it.
I also don’t understand why people don’t try to come up with a list of characteristics of the “perfect” energy source, and then try to move towards that energy source.
My list of characteristics of the “perfect” energy source would be:
1) Potentially low cost,
2) Low air pollution, water, pollution, and solid waste,
3) Very “dense” (a large amount of power can be concentrated in a very small space,
4) Fuel source is available from anywhere, particularly free nations,
5) Fuel source is not intermittent,
6) Energy can be located near demand (e.g, the amount needed to power a city can be located near or even inside a city).
Coal with CCS doesn’t even come close to being even in the neighborhood of being a perfect energy source. It is horrendously dirty; it’s much more polluting of air and generates more solid waste than any other energy source (except perhaps oil from tar sands).
Here would be my list of top energy sources, in their nearness to “perfection”:
1) Fusion,
2) Thorium fission,
3) Traveling wave reactor fission,
4) Natural gas/photovoltaics (tie).
How much money is being spent researching the top 3? Or even the ones tied for 4th? (For example, how much money is being spent to study methane hydrates as a potential energy source?)
I’ll bet the total worldwide research on items 2 and 3 is less than $100 million each…and maybe even 2 and 3 *combined.* In other words, the world spends over $1 trillion on energy, but it doesn’t even spend 0.01 percent of that amount on researching these potential nearly “perfect” energy sources.