Vaclav Smil on the the scale and difficulty of executing an energy transition for the civilization. “Calculate with me!” he says, before diving into a bunch of order-of-magnitude demonstrations that this is all much harder than we might like to think. He’s very pessimistic about the large-scale integration of intermittent resources, and also about humanity’s ability to initiate a change voluntarily. Would like to understand those positions better… and still continue to disagree with them. The talk is long and rambling, but he’s so clearly engaged and emphatic that it doesn’t matter.
Tag: energy
Energy Intensity and Boulder’s Climate Action Framework
With this year’s expiration of the Kyoto Protocol and our Climate Action Plan (CAP) tax, the city of Boulder is looking to the future, trying to come up with an appropriate longer term climate action framework, and the necessary funding to support it. To this end there’s going to be a measure on the ballot this fall to extend the CAP tax. I’m glad that we’re talking about this within the city (and county), because at the state and national level, the issue seems to have faded into the background. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean the problem has gone away. This year’s wildfires, the continuing drought that’s decimating the corn and soybean harvests, and the phenomenal 2012 arctic melt season are just appetizers. If the last decade’s trend holds true, we’ll have an ice-free arctic ocean some September between 2015 and 2020.
The major sources of emissions, broadly, are electricity generation, transportation, the built environment (space heating, cooling, hot water, lighting), agriculture, and industry (the embodied energy of all the stuff we buy, use, and then frequently discard). The extent to which local government can impact these areas varies. We interface with embodied energy most directly when it comes to disposal and at that point, the materials have already been made. Similarly, most of our food comes from outside the region. Our most ambitious project so far has been the exploration of creating a low-carbon municipal utility. We’ve also potentially got significant leverage when it comes to transportation, land use, and the built environment, since cities and counties are largely responsible for regulating those domains in the US.
Continue reading Energy Intensity and Boulder’s Climate Action Framework
Cost Effectiveness of Renewable Energy in Michigan
In the 2011 annual report to the state legislature on the cost effectiveness of Michigan’s Renewable Energy standard, it was revealed that wind bids have been coming in far cheaper than anyone expected they would. In fact, even without the federal production tax credits, they’re far cheaper than new coal fired generation ($61/MWh for wind vs. $107-133/MWh for new coal). Interestingly, Xcel’s 2011 resource plan lists the cheapest new generation option in Colorado as being natural gas combustion turbines… at $60/MWh. So wind is cheap. It’s also very low risk. So how do we get more of it?
The Zero Carbon Compendium 2010
The UK has one of the world’s most aggressive building energy efficiency targets: all new homes to be zero carbon by 2016, and all new buildings to be zero carbon by 2019. They’ve got a ways to go toward realizing this goal, but they’re doing what they can to learn from other countries in the meantime. The Zero Carbon Compendium 2010 is a compilation of zero carbon building strategies and progress being made by nations all over the world. A good look at what was already possible a couple of years ago… and it’s a lot more than we’re talking about doing here today.
Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by David MacKay
What does a world without fossil fuels look like? There are lots of different options, but none of them look much like the rich developed nations of the world today. David MacKay’s approach in Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air is to hold our rate of energy consumption constant, and explore the kinds of carbon-free energy systems that could satisfy that demand. The uncomfortable conclusion he comes to is that if we want to run our world on renewables, the energy farms have to be comparable in scale to nations. Comparable in scale to our agricultural systems. This is because all renewable energy is very diffuse, and we use a whole lot of energy.
Just as an example, of all the renewable power sources solar is the most concentrated, and PV farms like the ones cropping up in Bavaria because of Germany’s generous feed-in tariff average about 5W/m2. With better siting (the Sahara, Arizona) you can do a bit better, and there’s a little more efficiency to be eked out of the panels, but for large scale deployments, you’re not going to get above 10W/m2. If you’re an average citizen of the EU or Japan, your 5kW of power thus demands 500m2 of land. Multiply that by 700 million people in the EU, and you get the total area of Germany. An average North American’s 10kW requires 1000m2. Multiply that by 300 million people, and you get an the entire area of Arizona.
Continue reading Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air by David MacKay
Arizona Public Service Diversifies Generation Sources | Renewable Energy Project Finance
Arizona has decided to include externalized costs like water use and pollution in their utility resource planning process, with the predictable result that they’ve selected a resource portfolio heavy on renewables and energy efficiency, and light on coal. Hopefully other states will follow their lead!
Like Water for Electricity
Union of Concerned Scientists gives an overview of how water is used in the generation of electricity. I came across this Op-Ed at the NYT that claimed more water is used for electricity than agriculture, and just could not believe it, but apparently if you look at surface water withdrawals, it’s true (power: 41%, ag: 37%). “Withdrawal” just means the water is taken from the river/lake/whatever. Usually most of it is put back (hotter), which means it can be used again for agriculture. In any case, the Texas grid came very close to shutting down 10% of its generation in 2011 because of the drought, right as it was experiencing its highest ever loads. Yet another fun climate-energy feedback.
Discounting Fuels
It’s often been said that “time is money,” and it turns out to be more than an aphorism.
I’m going to try and tell you a story about discounting, which is one of the ways that we convert between time and money. The story has broad implications for the energy investments we choose. It’s not entirely straightforward, and if it’s going to make sense there are some background pieces you’re going to need. The background is important because the ending depends not only on understanding what is being done, but why. This story happens to be about Xcel Energy and Colorado, but the same thing happens in other places, with other companies, and in other contexts too.
To greens my argument may seem circumspect. I’m not going to challenge the doctrine of Everlasting Economic Growth. I’m not going to look at the large externalized costs of burning fossil fuels. I’m not going to argue against the monopoly electrical utility model. Those are important discussions to have — they’re just not the one I’m having here. What I’m trying to do is show that a minor change in the way we calculate the cost of future energy can drastically alter what kind of power we decide to invest in for the next century, even if we only look at the decision in selfish financial terms.
To the finance geeks among you, much of the background will be familiar, but the situation may seem strange unless you’re familiar with how regulated monopolies work. I haven’t been able to find anyone familiar with energy finance who thinks what we’re currently doing makes sense, but if you’ve got a thoughtful rebuttal, I’m genuinely interested to hear it.
Powder River Basin coal leasing prompts IG, GAO reviews
A piece from WaPo on Powder River Basin coal leasing practices. Finally some mainstream coverage of this $30 billion giveaway.
The Obama Administration’s Disconnect on Coal
A good quick look at how administration policies differ from implementation on the ground. Includes a short discussion of the lease by application vs. competitive leasing issue in the powder river basin, and the lawsuits that have been filed against BLM.