Gore's Move
Nobel Prize winner Al Gore this week called for the United States to move all electricity production to a zero carbon-emissions energy base within 10 years.
This is not only a bold statement. It is also quite ingenious, in at least three dimensions: selection of target, legislative and regulatory implications, financial possibilities. Although I have communicated with Al on this topic, he hasn't authorized what I'm posting here; this is my thinking about the corollaries of his very important statement.
First, Al decided not to focus directly on transportation. His stated goal is replacing electricity generation by carbon-emitting techniques with zero carbon footprint sources.
By contrast, others have called for the replacement of the hydrocarbon automobile and trucking industries by electric vehicles. Such proposals would have a very large tail wag a very big dog. We would have to junk nearly 300 million operating cars in the United States that of course use gas and diesel. (Even the few that do use some ethanol always use mostly gasoline, since ethanol cannot amount to more than a fraction of fuel in today's engines.) By making this move, we would place a very large new burden on the electricity-generating utilities and also need a revamping of the electricity distribution grid. And so indirectly and in a roundabout way those who call for changes in transportation end up where Gore has started -- focussing on the grid.
It is in any case certain that in order to maintain and increase economic growth, Americans need an increasing amount of energy. The more efficient the energy -- that is, the cheaper it costs to create and deliver it -- the greater our economic growth is likely to be. The goal, then, is efficiency, with two conditions. We don't want to be dependent on foreign-controlled oil, because we want to escape the costly and dangerous foreign entanglements that are entailed and also because we don't want to be subjected to the upward-trending and apparently unpredictable pricing of oil in global markets. In addition, we want to abate carbon emissions, because we don't want to run the staggering risks that stem from global warming. The most direct way to achieve efficiency without carbon emissions or foreign dependency is a total overhaul of the nation's electricity generation and distribution industry.
A tremendous industry already advocates that we pursue energy independence by means of intensifying our use of coal and natural gas. (T. Boone Pickens loses environmental cred by selling the idea of reliance on gas.) But unless coal and gas usage is to cinch the case for a much hotter planet, their emissions must be scrubbed and sequestered. As explained by an expert at CAP, Bob Sussman, this is a practical project.
Gore embraces "cleaning" coal and gas. But he effectively pits that sort of electricity generation in marketplace competition against wind, solar, tidal, nuclear, and geothermal technologies. The most efficient sources would prevail. We would end up with the most efficient (cheapest) electricity that also met the independence and zero emissions goals.
If we also distributed that electricity widely and wisely, then the automobile industry could be assured that electric cars would easily find electric "pumps" and homeowners would readily be able to afford charging up their vehicles. The auto industry would follow the success of Gore's plan. Similarly, households that use heating oil (80% of the stock in New England) would move to electricity as prices signalled the wisdom of the change.
In the meantime, industrial processes, lighting and building cooling and heating would remain dependent on electricity as is largely the case today. By choosing electricity generation as the target, and letting transportation and home heating follow, Gore has chosen the simplest, clearest, and most important means for achieving the twin goals of energy independence and abating carbon emissions.
Second, by focussing on electricity generation Gore has sidestepped the legislative and regulatory obstacles presented by the special interests protecting the existing oil, gas, transportation and home heating markets. These different markets are not well-regulated. In particular, the long history of attempts to improve gas mileage by regulation is a chronicle of frustration. We are not even successful in publicizing correctly gasoline usage in automobiles. To inform purchasers of what matters in buying a car, we should require a published statement of the price of an average thousand mile trip in a type of car based on baseline price for a gallon of gas, instead of telling them the large and wildly oscillating ranges of alleged mileage per gallon.
Electricity (other than in self-generated industrial processes) has long been much more amenable to sensible regulation. The same state agencies that regulate local telephony generally also regulate electricity. The issues are very similar -- how do natural monopolies obtain investment with reasonable rates of return, generate efficient outputs, fulfill social goals such as universal service at affordable prices, and operate as reliable businesses that produce necessary inputs to all social and economic activity. As state regulators sometimes put it, they are in the business of regulating electrons -- down power or phone lines.
At the federal level the regulatory situation is more incomplete. The FCC has adequate authority to govern the communications business, although in recent years it has abandoned far too much of its authority in favor of depending on consolidated market structures to generate communication services. But FERC has always been more hamstrung by inadequate authorizing legislation and ineffective Congressional oversight. A glaring example was the unwillingness and inability of federal authority either to protect against, or to sanction, the manipulation of the California electricity market a number of years ago. Nevertheless, a clear federal mandate to FERC could in concept resemble the allocation of authority jointly to federal and state authorities that for the telephony side of the electron business has worked reasonably well for many decades.
The wise mandate, if the Gore goal were pursued, would be for federal authority to use eminent domain and license auctions, among other powers, to clear the way for a build-out of the electric grid to new sources of generation. In particular, the federal authorities need to build pathways from optimal locations for wind and solar to metropolitan regions.
The state regulators, meanwhile, should be empowered to order utilities under their jurisdiction to stop emitting carbon on a year-by-year basis, and to license alternative energy generation with two basic conditions: (1) the most efficient energy source for a particular region should be first in time and scale, and (2) investors in the new energy sources must get a fair return on their investment.
A new law is necessary, but its contours would resemble existing structures of regulation and existing regulators could be called upon to implement the new law.
Third, the Gore goal raises interesting possiblities for financing. Utilities, such as Duke under Jim Rogers, are already aware that the move from carbon must come, and we can expect that they will embrace the new opportunities provided that fair returns are assured. In this respect, a federal lending facility would very likely to useful, so as to permit adequate low-price borrowing with federal guarantees of the more unpredictable ventures, such as geothermal. A new infrastructure bank that underwrites the switch from carbon-emitting electricity to zero carbon footprint electricity is very likely an effective means to the achieve the Gore goal. That new bank, if properly capitalized, could attract substantial foreign investment, since it remains true that nothing is safer in the world than investing in America's future. It is more than a little appealing to think that the funds Americans have sent abroad for oil might come back in the form of investing in our switch away from foreign oil, but that money would indeed flow back faster than the oil now ships from the Gulf States.
How much money is required? What would be the total cost for the change-over? At present about 30% of electricity comes from non-carbon sources, and the bulk of that is nuclear. To swap out the remaining 70% with zero carbon footprint electricity generation, it will be necessary to invest at least a trillion dollars in capital expenditures. The exact number really ought to be debated in detail in the blogosphere, since the answer is too important to be left to more private discussions. But let's say that the capital expenditures amounted even to two trillion dollars. And since these expenditures for the most part have to occur at the inception of the projects, let's say that the two trillion were to be spent at a rate of half a trillion a year for four years. That represents an investment in the order of 3-4% of the GDP of the United States per year. In terms of the total capacity of the economy to generate investment, this is very reasonable level.
All investment is a cost that has to be recovered from someone. If a business fails, the investors bear the cost. For the generation of electricity, failure is not an option. Even a bankrupt utility, and there have not been many examples, has to keep running, and so the taxpayers end up bearing the cost. For the sake of simplicity, we can assume that the American citizens will bear the cost of the changeover. And we the people will also enjoy the benefits, which will include a safer planet in all respects as well as very low cost energy on a long term basis. This latter point should be underscored. Oil and gas are either past or soon will be at a peak of supply, as far as we can reasonably determine. Oil prices have risen with alarming speed, but they may well be higher on average for many years to come. Nor is coal shale, for instance, going to be cheap to acquire and convert to electricity.
By contrast, once installed, solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear, are very likely to provide electricity with low long-term operating expenses. If the capital expenditures are done efficiently, with the low cost of capital that should come from a modicum of federal debt support, then over time energy efficiency should go up.
During the early years of the changeover, it may be necessary to adopt programs that mitigate price increases for some, since the early costs of capital expense will be higher than later costs of operation and repair. A sort of energy safety net may need to be deployed. But unlike Social Security or health care, where support is desirable forever, any energy safety net, such as price protection for the poor, can be phased out over time. Moreover, state regulators have experience in such programs from their mostly successful efforts to guarantee affordable telephone service to every American.
Not surprisingly for a Gore acolyte, and one who got to the FCC because of Al Gore and Bill Clinton, I am quite taken by the Gore plan for the other kind of electrons -- the ones for electricity as well as the Internet ones -- to be created and distributed in a wholly new way. It's the eminent practicality of the goal, in addition to its long-range wisdom, that I find admirable.
....the Netroots Nation, an ever-widening group of progressive bloggers whose major interests — the war in Iraq, the environment and technology — mesh well with Mr. Gore’s current pursuits. Indeed, many in the crowd of about 3,000, most of whom are supporting Senator Barack Obama, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, were overheard saying they wished Mr. Gore were running for president.
July 20, 2008 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I'd rely upon Amory Lovins before I'd rely on Al Gore -- at least for policies and solutions.
Politics? Well, that's a different matter, entirely.
July 20, 2008 10:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can rely on Lovins if you want. Neither Lovins nor Gore provide workable solutions. But at least Gore's not a demagogue.
July 21, 2008 3:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
The plan to completely eliminate fossil fuels, hopefully with NO expansion (and ideally with the rapid elimination) of nuclear energy, is a sound one. It is quite a feat to discuss the future of electric utilities while sidestepping the 800 pound gorilla of nuclear energy and its many mainstream as well as rightwing peddlers.
Also, we have to keep in perspective the relative hazards of natural gas and of oil and of coal in terms of 'carbon footprint' per unit of energy produced. If anyone has specific and reliable relative figures for emissions (pre-sequestration) especially of natural gas first in relation to oil (worse than natural gas but not nearly so bad as coal) and coal itself, I would really like to see it posted here, with a link. It is my impression that the difference per unit of electricity generated by state-of-the-art technology in CO2 emissions between gas and oil is at least an order of magnitude (worse for oil), and that the difference between oil and coal is yet again another order of magnitude (worse for coal). Thus for every unit shifted from coal to natural gas in electricity generation, CO2 emissions are cut by something over 90%, possibly well over that number. It isn't perfect, but as an interim step it should be kept in mind (transitionally).
Further, I note that the discussion of the great shift in electric production makes no mention of conservation. But "flat rates" (proposed in MA unsuccessfully over 30 years ago by ballot measure), if instituted nationally , with offsetting tax breaks on the basis of production or better yet, of employment by the affected industries, could radically encourage energy conservation to a degree that sources I've seen over the years say could, in a relatively few years, easily equal the existing production of electricity from 'nucular' power.
Also, we ignore transportation in the short run at our peril. It seems to me that the issue is first and foremost -- rather than talk of "junking' 300 million existing vehicles -- insuring that there is a rapid increase in the mileage efficiency per gallon for new manufactured vehicles; further, the rapid development and encouragement of such uses as metallic hydrides, which have been feasible both as an energy medium and as an auto technology (though the MSM insists otherwise) with off-the-shelf technology even 30 years ago, which can only have improved over time. (In particular, the key technological problem, cheap mass production of hydrogen as an energy source medium has recently undergone massive advances). There was an article back in 1981 which the NATION has made it hard to access, but which could well be reprinted here, called "Somebody doesn't like hy-fuel". It details how easily hydrogen could be used to run easily converted automobiles even then.
One way to rapidly increase the mileage of gasoline, as well as simultaneously encouraging alternative technologies, is a massive tax-and-subsidy scheme. I have discussed this for years at TPM Cafe and elsewhere:
First, every new car, whether imported or domestically produced, is assigned a credit of say $3000. Then, for every mile per gallon (mpg) equivalent (eg ratings for hybrids and hydrogen based upon fossil fuel and other nonrenewable usage) less than, say, 60 mpgs, that subsidy would be reduced by say $150. In this example, at 40 mpg, the effect would be neutral -- neither tax nor subsidy. But for passenger vehicles (not commercial trucks) getting LESS than 40 mpgs, especially for new SUVs, the tax would rise rapidly, with even IMPROVED SUVs paying taxes in the thousands of dollars for their gas guzzling. Consumers would be driven to the more efficient vehicles, while the rigidity of regulation (which should supplement this tax scheme) would not have to be relied upon in toto.
After the initial scheme is fully in force, it could be cranked up after 5-6 years to starting at say 70mpgs, an even higher universal subsidy (say $6000) and with an even HIGHER per gallon reduction for each mpg (maybe $300). Now, new cars getting less than 50 mpgs, some ten years from the first legislation being put into effect would pay a very steep tax -- indeed a full $3000 tax for a new car getting 40 mpgs, which today is considered highly efficient. (The time frame and figures might vary based on actual results and concrete analysis of technology -- but I am suspicious of ALL claims that this is somehow unfeasible, as that has ALWAYS been claimed in the past, and NEVER turned out to be true, while the "experts" also promised the feasibility of nuclear energy, which even now cannot be insured and for which no solution to the waste problem (let alone terrorism!) is even likely in the foreseeable future, after 30 years of protestations from the proponents of nukes.
Bottom line, as with the Commission that tried to palm of Persian Gulf War Syndrome as psychosomatic (and we don't even need to mention the intelligence estimates' manipulation in the current Iraq War), "expert" opinion seems mainly to merely be a credentialling of elite, typically invidious, agenda.
July 21, 2008 12:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Presently we have about 1000 gigawatts (GW) of capacity in the USA. Let's assume that whatever additional electricity we want to add within the next ten years could be offset by increased energy efficiency (which it can, see California for a concrete example). Nuclear and hydro currently supplies about 180 of that 1000 GW.
Now let's take a look at two of the biggest wind farm projects currently in the news: that of T. Boone Pickens and the Meerwind North Sea wind farm that the Blackstone Group allegedly is looking to sink a billion Euros into. When looking at their expected output, you have to figure in the capacity factor of the wind turbines, i.e. how much it can actually be expected to produce vs. its rated output. Based on wind farms in California and Florida, Pickens' wind farm can be expected to have a capacity factor of about 21%, give or take a percent or two. Meerwinds will probably do a bit better since it'll be offshore, but the best we've seen anywhere yet is on another offshore wind farm off England that gets 23%. So be generous and figure a capacity factor of 25% for Meerwinds.
If you look at the investment, from Pickens' and Blackstones own figures, the price tag for these projects will be about $15 billion per gigawatt. Given that these are both the newest projects on the drawing board and both large enough to benefit from economies of scale, we can figure the costs per GW probably won't be appreciably better for any other projects. So let's just say that we wanted to fill our approximate 800 GW shortfall with wind power. That'll cost us a cool $12 trillion, about six times the high estimate suggested here as affordable (albeit very expensive even at that).
So how much could it be expected to cost us if we built the new passive safety nuclear plants by Westinghouse and GE, the AP-1000 and the ESBWR. Westinghouse is building some AP-1000s for China and the ESBWR is in the final stages of licensing. These are modular designs, unlike past nuclear plants, so the units can be made in the factories and then installed on site. They are also passive safety systems, meaning they rely on physical systems like gravity to prevent accidents rather than operator intervention and multiple pumps. Thus they are considerably simpler and cheaper, with the AP-1000's projected price tag of $1 billion/GW, and GE's slightly higher at $1.3 billion. Let's figure $1.5 to be on the high side, fully 50% higher than the AP-1000's price tag. Even at that, the bottom line is that it would cost one tenth as much as wind power for the same capacity, AND you don't have to wait for the wind to blow, the juice is always there when you need it. Safe, no GHGs, and economical.
Yes, the waste issue. I was coming to that. All we have to do is to begin building PRISM reactors, which also rely on passive safety systems and can burn nuclear "waste" as fuel. We'll be able to burn up all the spent fuel from both the new reactors and all the old ones.
So it looks like for about $1.2 trillion we could make up the shortfall that the other renewables don't provide with existing hydro and these two nuclear plant designs, easing into the PRISM era to clean up all the old and new "waste." Of course if we decide to spend ten times the amount on more wind farms or who knows how much on massive solar arrays that $1.2 trillion will quickly climb. But we don't have to. Some of our current nuclear plants are going to be reaching the end of their lifetimes soon, though, so we should figure on replacing them too. Still, we'll easily be able to beat the $2 trillion number.
No, I have no connection with the nuclear power industry. If you consider the new nuclear technologies and understand passive safety principles as they apply here and the means of using nuclear "waste" as fuel, nuclear looks like the obvious answer to meeting Gore's goal. Of course in his entire speech Gore didn't once utter the word "nuclear." He left the actual solution for somebody else to sort out.
July 21, 2008 3:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Lindsay, ever heard of peak uranium? Using your numbers of 820 new nuclear plants and estimating that each of those would require 200 tonnes of uranium per year, that's an extra 164 kilotonnes per year, about double the current world demand.
BTW, the US already imports a lot of uranium from Russia. I wonder which countries we'd be invading in your brave new world. Do they have any muslims in Kazakhstan?
July 21, 2008 6:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Miguel, with a conversion to PRISM-type reactors we could burn not only spent LWR fuel but depleted uranium as well, which we already have out of the ground in abundance. How much abundance? Well, worldwide we have enough to power the entire planet for nearly a thousand years. Uranium use is so efficient in fast reactors that the economically recoverable uranium resources of the planet would last us about 50,000 years. It is, in essence, unlimited. You can stop sweating peak uranium now. You're welcome.
July 21, 2008 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, you had originally mentioned conventional reactors. If instead you want to develop new unproven technologies your cost estimates go out the window.
July 21, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
They're not unproven technologies. There are over 300 reactor-years of experience with fast reactors. Russia has them, India and China are building them now. We ran one for thirty years at Argonne National Laboratory and worked out all the kinks. The cost estimates are pretty solid, not least because of their modular design. That way they can be built in a factory with the attendant quality control and cost benefits. It's completely different from the way reactors used to be built in the States.
July 21, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with President Lindsay!
Nuclear power? Bring it on. Of course, no government subsidies.
President Lindsay will just have to await Blackstone and T. Boone adopting his peculiar fantasy.
July 21, 2008 8:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bringing up cost for capacity, what a wet blanket. We might have to pass on universal health care to afford wind powered electricity. Perhaps thats not the best trade off.
July 21, 2008 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Abdul,
Why is it necessary to forego health care for carbon-free energy? The economic boon from such a large and sustained infrastructure investment is quite significant. Then there are the cost savings from not having to patrol the Middle East to assure a ready supply of oil. Additionally, operating costs of energy production (or conversion to electricity) will be substantially lowered.
Will it be expensive? Yes.
But it won't be as expensive as Little Georgie's and The Big Dick's misguided attempts at hegemony in the Middle East and our misbegotten invasion of Iraq.
Will it be worth it? Yes.
First, it will save us from the ravages of global warming.
Second, it will free us from the utter dependence on foreign oil.
Third, it will power my electric car - and I really, really want my electric car.
July 21, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
The economic boon from such a large and sustained infrastructure investment is quite significant.
You kind of lost me here, Jim. Isn't it sensible to invest a small amount in highly efficient infrastructure rather than a large and sustained amount? Inefficiency doesn't translate into an economic boon. Abdul's point wasn't that we have to forego universal health care in order to have carbon-free electricity. He was pointing out the high cost of wind power.
July 21, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your blithe dismissal of the issue of nuclear waste is a bit disengenuous.
It is not only the actual uranium and its fissile byproducts that constitute the radioactive waste that is generated by nuclear reactors. Much of the entire plant is radioactive and will remain so for a very, very, very long time.
We do not need to generate more radioactive waste. Even though I have immense faith in the work of theoretical-, particle-, and quantum-physicists I don't believe we'll have a real solution for de-radiating all of our waste for some time to come.
Regardless of when, or if, de-radiating will ever be possible, you are ignoring the hidden costs of nuclear power generation, regulation, risk, and disposal costs.
I love the idea of cheap, easy, and plentiful electricity but nuclear power is none of these.
BTW... just what is your relationship with GE?
July 21, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jim, I have no relationship with GE. They are simply the lead player in the PRISM project which involved a whole group of companies.
Ultimately we have to switch over to fast reactors, in which case the waste issue becomes almost moot. We'd use up all the actinides and the much smaller amount of waste we'd have left would be radioactive for a few hundred years, embedded in glass which would assure it not leaching out for thousands of years. Nothing in it could be used for weapons (except dirty bombs, though such bombs would have to be built remotely and thus even that is hardly something a terrorist would be able to do), and it wouldn't leach into the environment even if you just dumped it into a deep spot in the ocean. As for the radiated plant site, do you consider that a deal-breaker? How so? It's not like the whole plant is irradiated. Only the reactor vessel would be, and that's low-level radiation we're talking about. Again, no danger of weapons or terrorism use. Just close the plant and let it cool down, or bury it where it is. Nothing's going to get into the groundwater, all of the fissile material would be gone.
You brought up risk. What sort of risk? Passive safety systems are extraordinarily safe in terms of an accident, unless gravity and the laws of physics decide to fail. We don't do miracles at nuclear plants. Terrorism? It is way easy to harden a nuclear plant to such threats if you design it in from the get-go. Easiest way: bury the thing in the earth and use blast doors for ingress. Obviously we could go into great detail here, but you get the idea.
Disposal costs? For the waste, you mean? As I said above, they're about nil. The small amount of waste generated could easily be kept on site for the life of the plant, then disposed of at sea or buried. Either way it's inert and won't pollute the environment, and in a few hundred years it's no longer radioactive.
Regulation? Ah, there's a very good issue! This is where the politicians have to get their act together. As long as we leave fissile material in the hands of private companies and potentially crazy governments we run the risk of proliferation (though to get good quality plutonium for weapons you really can do it much easier just with a small research reactor, the stuff you get out of LWRs is pretty low grade, weapons-wise). My solution (which you can read about next month when my book comes out) would be an international nonprofit nuclear energy consortium patterned after the AREVA/EDF group in France, where one international organization runs the entire enterprise in every country, with nuclear plants and their environs granted the same status as embassies. This group would control the entire process, from mining to plant design to construction and operation, and ultimately to disposal of the small amount of waste. It's only a matter of political will, which would be greatly encouraged by the reward of unlimited energy for all, which would be the result of such cooperation and the utilization of fast reactors.
I love the idea of cheap, easy, and plentiful electricity but nuclear power is none of these.
Yes, it can be all of those. You just have to do it the right way.
July 21, 2008 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
If the "passive safety" systems are as sure and foolproof as you claim, you should have no problem obtaining private insurance for new nuclear plants utilizing those systems.
Let us know when that happens.
July 22, 2008 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reed,
You said:
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All investment is a cost that has to be recovered from someone. If a business fails, the investors bear the cost. For the generation of electricity, failure is not an option. Even a bankrupt utility, and there have not been many examples, has to keep running, and so the taxpayers end up bearing the cost. For the sake of simplicity, we can assume that the American citizens will bear the cost of the changeover.
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This portion of your proposal has some problems. In particualr, we have ample evidence that large scale business failures are having their losses transferred to taxpayers rather than investors. It will take some very hard negotiation to assure taxpayers aren't forced into accepting the costs of the inevitable overruns and mistakes of the project. Too many times taxpayers are taken to the cleaners because our lawmakers didn't take pains to incorporate language into laws that places the full burden to deliver a product upon the provider. A plan such as this has to be absolutely rock solid in establishing who is responsible for what and where the liabilities rest. And the law has to stipulate that it cannot be changed after the fact. If the U.S. taxpayer contracts for this as planned then it mst be stipulated contractors must deliver without reservation. If they screw it up, it is on their dime.
I say this because, and I've said this before in these forums, right now federal revenues run about 84% individual taxpayer funded and 16% business. Those numbers were almost a dead even split in 1950. Business must shoulder the responsibility for the success of this program because their risk exposure as a function of taxes is way less than that of individual taxpayers. Either that or change the tax system to make the exposure to business more equitable. There must be a strong incentive for the participants to deliver. The liability for failure cannot be disproportionate. It must be equalized between taxpayers and business.
July 21, 2008 6:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dmitry Orlov proposes what Gore might have said:
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2008/07/boondoggle-to-end-all-boondoggles.html
July 21, 2008 8:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
And once we've done all these things, we will realize what sort of country we are now: ...an older, poorer, troubled country...
Oh, yeah, that'll be an easy one to sell to the American public. This sort of thinking is obsolete. We can have a world where we enjoy virtually unlimited energy and painlessly recycle virtually everything. Far from being poorer, we can elevate the standard of living of everyone on the planet without diminishing our own standard of living. Sorry it's not quite published yet, but late in August check out Amazon for Prescription for the Planet. It'll show you a whole new way of thinking. I don't mean to shamelessly promote it, but the dreary desperation here warrants an antidote. Mondays are tough enough without such a downer.
July 21, 2008 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even if the new nuclear is as awesome as you say, under your plan we would simply be swapping our old energy dependency for a new one that could be arguably worse. Production would be highly centralized and control over it would be highly restricted. What is that saying about absolute power corrupting? or the road to serfdom?
There is certainly a place for your prescription in future energy production but you go out of your way to mock others' ideas and concerns. That's not a good way to sell an idea either.
July 21, 2008 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see how reporting on costs of various systems and responding to questions and assertions qualifies as mocking. Okay, I'll admit to a bit of sarcasm at Orlov's gloomy bit, but that was low-hanging fruit. If anything the mocking is being directed at me, not coming from me. That's okay, I'm a big boy, I can take it.
As for my proposals just shifting energy dependency, that would hardly be an issue since fuel would be unlimited. And actually it's free too, except for the cladding and fabrication of the fuel assemblies. The uranium itself is already out of the ground and refined. So there would be absolutely no fuel price volatility for hundreds of years.
The reason we'd have to do this with a global organization controlling all of it is mainly to avoid nuclear proliferation. If that organization were to be set up as a nonprofit, then everyone would benefit and we would be able to avoid the plethora of problems that are part and parcel of private energy companies. (A bit of alliteration there) If there is any other feasible way to both spread nuclear power technology and avoid proliferation risks, I'd be open to hearing it. Otherwise we're caught on the horns of a dilemma: Either forswear nuclear power or risk nuclear terrorism. I don't believe we can afford to forswear nuclear power if we hope to get the climate change genie back in the bottle, and nobody wants to risk nuclear terrorism. A single international controlling, nonprofit energy organization in charge of all nuclear power could solve the problem to the benefit of all humanity.
July 22, 2008 3:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's bold about ignoring roughly 2/3 of American energy input from oil/gas in transportation, industrial, and domestic applications and focusing on the 1/3 of energy that's either already low-carbon (hydro/nuclear) or improving (coal)? Especially when everyone agrees that the whole world needs to reduce projected CO2 outputs by more than half within 50 years to halt the increase in atmospheric CO2?
It's not bold, it's a cop-out to avoid criticisms that he'll raise prices at the pump in whatever form a plan would be to shift Americans into more efficient vehicles, public transit, and electric vehicles. Not to mention raising utility rates on everyone by forbidding burning the natural gas that's right under their feet. Those are the sorts of reforms that are absolutely needed -- Gore undersells the problem and his "bold" generational challenge isn't nearly bold enough to fix it.
If we recognize increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 as a problem (education re: this point has been Gore's focus for years, and I think he's succeeded) the next step is to educate and persuade the public on how to fix the problem. This requires a GLOBAL commitment to bring CO2 output within very strict limits as quickly as possible; converting American electricity generation to be carbon-free is a small part of this that alone won't make a dent in the problem. He's right to propose it, but absolutely wrong to mention foreign oil in the same breath (this will just displace coal use) and wrong to imply that if only we can come together to meet this challenge, we'll fix the planet. If Gore's not going to tell the hard truth on this, someone else needs to do it.
July 21, 2008 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Zach, I'm with you. I am sick to death of hearing goals described by the press and others as "bold" when they're just goals without any realistic proposals of how to reach them.
July 21, 2008 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
It seems to me that the main problem with Gore's proposal is that it's filled with lots of good sounding proposals, which, however, are extremely problematic.
Folks, the technology to burn coal and capture the CO2 emission and store it underground do NOT exist, yet. It's extremely dangerous to rely on something like this.
According to a scientific paper by Hansen et al. (to be found via the scientific archive arXiv), we can probably afford to burn all the remaining oil on the planet without risking a run-away CO2 increase. That's sort of good news, even though it is too tempting to really just burn the stuff.
The bad news is that Hansen et al. warn very clearly against burning coal. If humanity started to burn off all coal reserves on the planet, we'd be doomed - unless we manage to find out how to capture the CO2 emissions, which currently is technologically not feasible.
The soundest and easiest and most immediate way to avoid disaster would be to start cutting back our energy use and then to think about realistic ways to reduce CO2 emissions.
Unfortunately, while most people shrug off spending (wasting) three trillion dollars in Iraq, spending money on this issue is still seen as a problem. And even deep into Democratic circles, all proposals still have to avoid anything that'll hurt people just a little bit. With that approach, we won't get anywhere - grandiose Gore speeches or not.
July 21, 2008 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also, Hundt's wrong when he says this:
From the 2002 Energy Review, we can see this isn't the case: https://eed.llnl.gov/flow/02flow.php
18% of industrial energy input is electrical; about 1/3 if you include the energy losses from electricity generation and transmission.
43% of residential/commercial-classified energy is electrical.
Basically, everyone uses gas because it's cheap and converts directly to heat. The phrase, "building heating remains largely dependent on electricity" is completely wrong. Even more so for "industrial processes" ... I'll hand it to you that you're right about lighting, though!
July 21, 2008 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
"We would have to junk nearly 300 million operating cars in the United States that of course use gas and diesel."
This is just silly. Serious progress can be made on all fronts by replacing, say, 15% of the operating autos.
Which, as it happens, is somewhere in the neighborhood of the amount of electricity which is available right now for time-shifting, IOW, charge at night (while existing baseload is underused), drive during the say.
Replacing the whole fleet means replacing the most capabable vehicles, able to carry loads, with a range in the 100's, etc. Replacing 15% means a vehicle which does around town, to the office, to the school, to the grocery store, to the gym driving, IOW, something for which a rechargeable with a range of 50 miles would be fine.
The number of vehicles which can reasonably go that route can expand as battery capacity expands and alternative, non-traditional-grid, means of charging are established.
We don't have to solve the whole problem at once to make a huge dent.
July 21, 2008 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Australia has about 1/4 of the world's known uranium reserves.
July 21, 2008 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes. Additionally, the Australian uranium reserves aren't very well charted -- there's strong suspicion that they're sitting on more than they claim to keep the price from bottoming out, DeBeers-style. Point being, we're a long, long way from running out of U.
July 21, 2008 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
ummm...
The bold part is that transportation is moving towards electric powered vehicles independently. By installing a more diversified power-grid, transportation will move even faster towards electric power.
Toyota is cleaning up with its Synergy Hybrid system. Even though GM lost its lead when it destroyed the EV-1 it is still working very hard to develop a plug-in hybrid. Toyota has one on the drawing board too. Why now? Seen the price of gas???
The bold move is acknowledging that consumers are moving to electric power and to not give the naysayers (Big Oil shills) anything to stop the advent of electic powered transportation.
July 21, 2008 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
In the short-term, mandating a switch to carbon-free electricity from coal (which beats anything for price/joule in America) means more expensive electricity or massive subsidies for clean electricity -- how does that help make electric vehicles more feasible? You're right that, in America, electricity is cost-competitive with gasoline (see calculations at the end of this post) right now for powering vehicles. We'll need increased electricity generation (sort of implies revamping distribution) to displace gasoline-powered vehicles, but how does mandating that the source of electricity be carbon-free at all promote this response?
There's zero connection between meeting Gore's challenge to convert electricity generation to carbon-free technologies and a switch to electric vehicles in the absence of other pressures to do so -- taxing gasoline/subsidizing electric vehicles, directly subsidizing electricity, etc. Gore's challenge doesn't include any of these elements, and it's not justified to credit him with a plan that gets gasoline-powered cars off the road when this challenge doesn't do that.
...
The lack of an electric grid with more capacity isn't what's stopping us from having electric vehicles today; it's a problem for the government if we want to enforce/coerce a big switch to electrically-powered cars, but it's not a problem for any individual manufacturer wanting to break into the market.
Gas @ $3/gallon ~= $3/1.3x10^2 MJ
Electricity @ $0.10/kWHr ~= $0.10/3.6 MJ
Gas = 2.3 cents/MJ (last year's prices)
Electricity = 10 cents/MJ (today's prices)
This takes into account generation/distribution inefficiencies for electricity, but not for gas. When you consider that gasoline engines are only 25% efficient, you find that right now gasoline and electricity cost the same per energy equivalent.
July 21, 2008 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is obvious that people who have been thinking about this have picked their favorite for Big Oil's replacement and the winner is electricity.
What they can't seem to agree on is "the best way" to generate it. That's the great thing about electricity. There are so many good ways to produce it and really no good reason to settle for only one. The biggest downside is that electricity is really difficult to store.
Given these factors and electricity's growing importance to our everyday lives, isn't the best, but not only, investment for taxpayers an infrastructure that connects producers and consumers and that is open it to all varieties of generation?
These are exciting times. It is beyond a once in a generation field of opportunity. More like once in 100 or 500 year opportunity. Why rush to settle on one system. There is so much experimentation going on. Maybe the next Tesla has worked out the kinks in the Wycliffe Tower.
July 21, 2008 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, it's Wardenclyffe Tower, not Wycliffe. Memory isn't what it used to be. Too much internet clutter.
July 21, 2008 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I too was intrigued with Gore's advocacy for building out the Electrical Grid as a first large project in a new energy, no-carbon program.
But if we are to debate costs -- perhaps we need to factor in some of the rewards of R&D that currently exists -- and I would add, look at areas where R&D should be funded and encouraged.
I am intrigued with the implications of a new 3M product, a composite ceramic/metalic power line that would replace the long lines in our transmission systems (about 100 miles of this is apparently in place in Minnesota, and has been a test bed for about 5 years). The current initial cost of this product is about three times that of traditional copper, but it has much less resistance, and does not expand and sag in summer, with the result that about 4 times the efficiency can be achieved compared with traditional copper long lines. The end result is that about 4 times the amount of electrical power can be punched through a composite line compared to a copper one. There are obvious advantages here -- any major retrofit of existing transmission lines would minimize the need to build new transmission corridors, with all the political problems of eminent domain and all. Likewise, some of the disadvantages of distributed generation would be addressed.
My point is not that we should immediately give 3M some sort of massive contract to manufacture new transmission lines -- it is simply that this new product is available, large scale manufacture might reduce product costs, yet we have little understanding of it -- how it would fit into the whole sweep of rebuilding the grid for greatest long term efficiency, and we certainly have no strategy for long term investment and depreciation of such a move -- one where the interests of both producers and end consumers is addressed. It could be that this 3M product is just the first stage in creating a transmission product of much higher efficiency -- additional R&D could result in one that pushes even more power through a single line. It seems to me that without consideration of the planning process -- one which probably would need to be led by Government at the Federal Level, but involve the state electrical regulators, rational deployment might be very difficult. On the other hand, the electrons currently lost in contemporary transmission could well be what we drive on in the future.
A little more blue sky at this point, I call attention to work being done at the Agricultural College at the U of Minnesota -- growing Kelp in glass tubes in a medium of sewage water. Kelp can apparently be refined by a simple process to make bio-diesel. Sewage can be separated into solids and liquids -- the solids burned to generate electricity to run the full system after the methane is extracted for commercial uses, and the liquids are the growth medium for the Kelp, with the process sufficently cleaning the liquid so it can be used in agriculture, industrial processes, etc, or safely released into the Mississippi. The bio-diesel would then power trucks, busses, farm machinery, heavy construction equipment, and diesel cars and existing railroads using diesel engines.
The key to making efficient this potential technology seems to be building it to proper scale, for it would be true distributed power generation system. A small town of perhaps 25000 could adapt its water treatment system to this technology, producing adequate diesel for most of its own requirements, thus eliminating from the overall "cost of power" transport, many pipelines, petro-chemical refinery plants, with their carbon releases. Likewise the system would replace many current water treatment processes. For large cities, rather than treat and release, sewage would be a valued commodity to be pumped to a "Kelp City" for exploitation. (One can imagine, for instance, large glass Kelp growing towers in various places around Washington DC's metro area -- it would change the landscape to say the least.) Whether such a technology should be ramped up or not -- it would afterall preserve the existing bus, truck and railroad technology --would be a huge planning issue. It would have to factor in the advantage of eliminating the expense of waste water treatment using current techniques, against the value of the byproducts of the systems. And yes, apparently what is left of Kelp once refined is a rich fertilizer.
These two technologies are just two possibilities of how to replace oil and natural gas. What it would take to do the large scale planning for what would be entirely new industries -- how to finance R&D and ultimately roll out, how to distribute both costs and the end products -- these are all unanswered questions.
July 21, 2008 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Sara, thanks for that tip about 3M's new cable. I hadn't heard about that, it's a pretty major thing to be able to double existing capacity without building new towers. I read several articles about it and it looks like it can carry about 1.5 to 3 times the juice, depending on who's talking. That's a major development. I wasn't able to find any figures about line loss, though, which with current lines is about 7% on average. Hopefully it's as good or better.
July 21, 2008 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Amory Lovins is in love with the hydrogen car, which is just plain stupid.
July 21, 2008 1:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
And he continually vilifies nuclear using the most outdated information. As with hydrogen, he cherry picks and deceives, whether from ignorance or dishonesty or a combination of both, to further his agenda. Did you see Amy Goodman's piece last week on Alternet that was essentially a rehash of Lovins' antinuke screed? It was pathetic.
July 21, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
So I'm pledging, here, that the house I own will be entirely off the grid, self-generating, for all electrical load, within the next ten years. (I'll probably do it in five.) I'm in an urban setting (Los Angeles,) and see this three ways:
1) Making my own, not relying on the power company for it, and cheaper in the long run. And I'll run my future plug-in hybrid for free.
2) Therefore, ready when the earthquake hits (I was here on MLK'94. Yikes!)
3) Following off of #2, if every roof is a generator, that removes an entire class of terrorist threat. Can't take a city's power down...too many houses to blow up to do it.
So, I'm a cheap, scared, patriotic environmentalist. With a hell of a lot of 6V batteries under the floor....
Not burning anything, including kelp...
July 21, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
May I be so bold as to inquire how much your solar panels cost you? Do you have enough for everything: refrigeration, A/C, heat, cooking, washer, dryer, plus your plug-in car and all your other electrical needs? Was the price of your solar panels subsidized? By whom? Do you see this as a viable option for everyone on the planet?
July 21, 2008 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
4) If you can generate extra, maybe your house can work and you won't have to.:)
July 21, 2008 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you have the numerator and denominator confused in your understanding of how much ethanol is in the E85 fuel usable in flex-fuel vehicles - of which there are over 6 Million currently on the road in the US. E85 refers to 85% ethanol, 15% gasoline. so while you are technically correct that 85% is only a fraction of fuel being, I don't think it was what you were trying to imply.
As to the much larger number of vehicles that can only use E10, they can be converted for a few hundred dollars and all new vehicles would only increase in cost by a few dollars were they all to be made capable of running E85 - something a federal mandate could ensure would be done for all cars being produced as soon as the 2011 model year.
July 21, 2008 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
President Lindsay and the other nukeheads here suspiciously neglect solar thermal electricity generation technologies, and sadly, Reed fails to mention them either.
The only significant difference between gas-fired or nuclear-"fired" electrical generation and solar-thermal electrical generation is that heat from solar radiation substitutes in for the nuke.
All a nuke does, in the end, is heat water to spin a turbine.
A solar thermal system uses mirrors to concentrate solar radiation and heat a fluid (of several types, from water to various molten salts) which spins the turbine. Once construction is complete, waste is virtually zero. Heat storage is well understood and cheap, far cheaper than electrical storage (batteries, capacitors); which means that excess heat can be stored during the day and used at night. Therefore, unlike photovoltaic and wind generation, solar thermal systems are non-intermittent.
July 22, 2008 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
This "nukehead" hasn't ignored solar thermal, though in this thread we haven't gone there till now. Are you familiar with the Solar One project currently being constructed in the Nevada desert? That's considered state of the art at the moment, and it'll cost about $3 billion/gigawatt, plus grid upgrades that would over a trillion dollars if we're planning on producing a large proportion of our electricity that way.
An article in the esteemed journal Science by a proponent of solar concentrator technology, as exemplified by the aforementioned Nevada Solar One, estimated that to supply 50% of the USA’s present energy requirements would require 15,000 square miles of solar panels in the desert southwest. Not to be outdone, Scientific American touted a plan to provide 69% of America’s electrical needs by 2050 with a plan to cover 30,000 square miles with solar panels! Construction of such a system would require completely covering 2 square miles per day with solar panels and all their supporting infrastructure, every single day for over forty years. And don't forget that they have to be pressure-washed frequently (every ten to twenty days, for example, at a large trough reflector system in California) to keep them operating efficiently. Even if you take that extra cost into account, where are you going to get that much water in a desert? At what cost?
You write: "The only significant difference between gas-fired or nuclear-"fired" electrical generation and solar-thermal electrical generation is that heat from solar radiation substitutes in for the nuke."
That is NOT the only significant difference between nuclear and solar. The critical difference is that solar energy is extremely diffuse and nuclear is extremely concentrated. All the energy that you'll use in your entire lifetime—for your transportation, electricity, heating & cooling, the energy that goes into the things you buy, all of it—could be generated by a lump of depleted uranium the size of half a ping pong ball (if burned in fast reactors). It's not because "nukeheads" have some death wish or are irresponsible. It's because nuclear power is the only means of providing prodigious amounts of clean energy that isn't so diffuse as to make scaling up to planetary size a practical impossibility.
July 22, 2008 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
July 21 2008 (LPAC)--Despite the genocidal Al Gore's widely advertised claims to the contrary, there are no improvements in solar conversion energy technology significant enough to make his solar power proposal into anything but a greenie wet dream--and, for basic scientific reasons, there never will be. If implemented, the great achievement of solar power would be the needless death of hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, around the globe.
The basic problem with using solar power as a source of electrical power is the low density of energy flux from the Sun. Measured in watts received per square meter of land area at the Earth's surface, the yearly averaged solar flux varies across the United States from about 160 in New England to 240 in Albuquerque, NM, for a nationwide average of 200 watts per square meter. If all that solar energy could be converted directly into electricity, you could light two 100-watt bulbs for every square meter (about 11 sq. feet) of land area--during the day, that is.
Of course, all the Sun's heat cannot be converted into electricity. Take the latest solar plant to be brought on line, Nevada Solar One, a solar concentrator plant near Boulder City, NV which incorporates the latest German-built parabolic mirrors to focus the Sun's heat on specially designed vacuum-insulated steel and glass receivers produced by Germany's Schott firm. Although rated at 64 megawatts peak generating capacity (that is at full Sun), the actual averaged generating capacity of the plant over the 24-hour day is somewhat under 15 megawatts. This is produced on a land surface area of 1.3 million square meters (321 acres) , bringing the actual electrical generating
capacity of the plant to 11.4 watts per square meter. Thus it takes about 9 square meters, or 96 square feet of plant area to generate enough electricity to light a 100-watt bulb--during the daytime.
What is really under attack in the proposal by Gore, the front man for the Anglo-Dutch oligarchy's wish to return to a new Dark Age, is science itself. Having largely destroyed the nuclear capability of the United States, the intent is to channel what remains of the next generation's scientific impulse into the pursuit of better solar cells, climate frauds, and cataloging extinct species of which the fastest accelerating is mankind.
http://www.larouchepac.com/news/2008/07/21/gores-solar-proposal-kills-some-elementary-facts-about-solar.html
President Lindsay i personally applaud your defense of nuclear energy! For your further advocacy of reprocessing and breeder reactors in future, which is commendable, i hope you come to know why LaRouche has always placed nuclear energy at the forefront of EVERY economic development and recovery program, and also to fill out some of what you elaborated, look into our report:
The Beauty of Completing the Nuclear Fuel Cycle
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/economy/phys_econ/2006/beaut_nuke_cycle.html
Good Luck!
July 22, 2008 10:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
As much as I appreciate your kudos, dd, I can't help but be concerned that I'll be tarred by guilt by association because of your LaRouche connection. As an example of why, here's something he said a couple months ago:
We can increase the potential population density of his planet in the next 50 to 60 years by a factor of 10.
He seems to think that if we just use nuclear power to provide oodles of energy for mankind's use that we can just breed and breed until we're all bumping elbows. While I don't doubt that we can provide ample energy for everyone through the sensible use of nuclear power, I could not disagree more with his absurd views on population. What was that about a stopped clock being right twice a day?
July 24, 2008 3:16 AM | Reply | Permalink