The scale of US renewable energy production, broken down by type.

[NNadir]

Often people have a knee jerk reaction in which they announce their expectation that renewable energy will save the day. What is typically missing in these discussions, which often begin with accounts of the installation of renewable capacity reported in in peak power units of "kilowatts" or "megawatts," is a sense of scale.

To the extent that renewable technologies are available, one can applaud them without imagining that they are anywhere near sufficient in scale to address our actual requirements.

This link gives the break down of all types of renewable fuels produced in the United States. It includes hydropower, biomass, wind, geothermal and solar energy:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/rea_data/table2.html#fp

Note that the links give energy units in Quads, which is 10^15 BTU's. For reference I have provided the conversion to exajoules, the SI unit, by multiplying by 1059 and dividing by 10^18 to account for the "exa" prefix.

Note also that in the link the use is broken down by sector, ie, industrial, commercial and residential. Note that in each heading the "biomass" heading is not independent of the wood, landfill gas, municipal solid waste and (curiously) burning tires, but instead represents the sum of these sources.

Some striking, but not surprising - at least to me, features. The renewable industry is dominated by hydroelectric power, with 2.7 Quads, or 2.9 exajoules. The next most important renewable source is, unsurprisingly, biomass, accounts for 2.124 Quads, or 2.25 exajoules, excluding the ethanol business in the transportation sector, which produces 0.22 quads, or 0.22 exajoules, a completely trivial amount of energy given all the hype and subsidies that the ethanol industry entails.

The much hyped solar industry is too tiny to even be discussed seriously. It is just this side of useless in the crisis at hand. Wind power, at 0.108 quads (0.114 exajoules) does better than thermal and PV solar, but it's impact on US energy production and consumption is still way too small to account for much of an impact.

All tolled, the total renewable energy output of the United States, including hydroelectric power, and burning biomass, accounts for 6.131 quads, or 6.5 exajoules. Note that there isn't much more available to the biggest player, hydroelectric power, nor in my opinion, should there be.

The United States, the world's largest energy consumer, consumed 98.8 quads, or 105 exajoules of energy in 2003.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tablee1.xls

Personally I would be thrilled if all of our renewable fantasies were achievable, but it is time to think very seriously about energy and the environment. There will be no future without a sober, rational, and realistic assessment of our options. There are renewable technologies that can help but none in the immediate future can do more than scratch the surface. The crisis is NOT in the immediate future. It is NOW.

[umass1993]

1. Yes, I've given this some thought

and coal gasification with carbon sequestration is the way to go for now.
This builds upon science and technology that we know well. People are quite comfortable with CO2 compared to plutonium. We can and should do this now.

There was an interesting article in Scientific American about nuclear fission technologies that would allow for minimal hazardous waste.. I did not realize that the really bad radioactive material only comprises 1% of all nuclear waste. In fact, the waste that exists could be recycled to last for a long time, without any new uranium mining necessary. Considering the options, not bad. This technology should be accelerated because it will take time to put in place

Long, long term we should think about building a civilization that is not nearly so energy intensive, power down. The above should be seen as stepping stones to this goal.

Just my $.02

[hunter]

2. Carbon sequestration is another fantasy technology.

Coal is an exceptionally dangerous energy source.

[NNadir]

3. You know I am going to emphatically agree with your remarks.

:hi:

Coal is very clearly the most dangerous source of energy there is.

[umass1993]

9. Sequestration is not a fantasy

It just isn't. So y'all are wrong on this one. Sequestration, as a technology, really exists. Let's not deny something exists because "we don't like it."

I am no fan of coal, but for now, it is the only choice. No renewable source of energy is available to replace fossil fuels without a global catastrophe. No other energy source is currently available, period.(Which is the lesson of this thread.)

I would suggest that coal mining in Appalachia be terminated. We should confine our mining to the West where environmental impacts may be more successfully mitigated. Most coal comes from Wyoming already anyhow.

The key is to mitigate the destructive nature of energy generation, it cannot be eliminated right now. So if the choice is between coal carbon sequestration or cutting down the Congo rain forest, the Amazon rain forest, Siberia, and Borneo.... I choose coal carbon sequestration.

[NNadir]

11. Please describe to us the existant carbon dioxide sequestration facilities

their scale and the plans for further enlargement. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Coal is not the only alternative. The use of coal is wholly unnecessary. It is without a doubt the worst energy alternative of all, bar none.

www.externe.info (Click on "results".)

[umass1993]

12. You asked for it.

I did the research. Although, I have a Scientific American article right here, as well. (SciAm July 2005, pg 55).

Additionally on the web, here is one source. Note that it sounds a lot like what I wrote. I had not seen this literature when I wrote my first post.

From http://www.co2captureandstorage.info/what_is_co2.php4 ....


What is the status of CO2 storage?

Underground storage of CO2 has taken place for many years as a consequence of injecting CO2 into oil fields to enhance recovery. Now, for the first time, CO2 is being deliberately stored in a salt water reservoir under the North Sea for climate change reasons. The potential capacity for underground storage is large but not well documented. Other geological storage schemes are under development and plans to monitor them are well advanced.


Methods to capture and store CO2

There are many ways in which CO2 emissions can be reduced, such as increasing the efficiency of power plant or by switching from coal to natural gas. However, most scenarios suggest that these steps alone will not achieve the required reductions in CO2 emissions. The capture and storage of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion could play an important part in solving this problem. Widespread use of this technique could be achieved without the need for rapid change in the energy supply infrastructure.
In the long-term the world's energy system may have to be based on non-fossil energy sources. Decarbonising the use of fossil fuels, by capture and storage of CO2, would help the transition to a future carbon-free energy system.

[NickB79]

15. The US alone produced 7 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2004

Current plans for carbon sequestering are woefully underscaled compared to what we'd have to put underground. Not only do we have to sequester at least 7 million tons per year just to break even, but we should be sequestering many millions of tons more than this to reverse the centuries worth of CO2 we've released since the Industrial Revolution. If we simply break even on carbon sequestering, global warming would still proceed, albeit at a slower pace.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/19/AR2005121900934.html

[NNadir]

16. This reference, as noted by Hattrack elsewhere is off by a factor of 1000

It's 7 billion tons, not 7 million.

The WashPost fucked up.

[NickB79]

19. Holy crap

That is a huge fuck up, and a depressing one at that.

[NNadir]

18. This is research, not broad industrial practice.

The point of this thread is to address issues of scale. There are lots of things that sound good, but fewer that demonstrably work on scale.

One can, in theory, use PV cells to produce electricity and some people actually do this on a demonstration scale. This is not quite the same thing as saying that PV power is a solution to global climate change.

The existence of some small sequestering operations of putative success does not mean that we should run off whole hog into more coal abuse.

Scientific American has produced some breathless articles on alternate energy strategies. Not all of them, sadly, pan out.

[umass1993]

21. I didn't say it was broad industrial practice..

I said that the technology was not fantasy.

Moreover, the possibility of scalability is what makes it attractive..to Canada, Norway, the UK, possibly China and India. It would be an evolutionary change from current practice, building upon existing infrastructure, to achieve a better outcome.

Evolutionary is much more realistic than revolutionary ideas like PV cells and such.

BTW, you make it sound like it's hard as time travel. If you think about it, all we would be doing is mining coal, extracting the energy, and putting the carbon back where it was, but in CO2 form.

Look, we are going to need to powerdown gradually. It took us 200 years to get here and we aren't going to be able to turn things around in one day. That's just reality. People, like yourself, who do not come up with options that allow for this fact of life will simply be ignored. You won't even be a part of the conversation. How does this help the animals and the trees? It doesn't. It just gives you the comfort of being "principled."

[umass1993]

13. this link tells me little....

It seems to talk about the external costs of energy. To me, this isn't a question of dollars and cents. In the future we will pay more for energy, there's no way around it.

When you say the "worst", what the hell does that mean? The most expensive? The most toxins released? The most CO2?

Come on NNadir, you're smarter than this.

[NNadir]

17. I think if you look more carefully at the methodology, your objections...

will be addressed.

Irrespective of whether or not I am smarter or dumber, the ExternE methodology simply translates all environmental effects into their financial cost. The real unit is not money, it is lives lost, damage sustained, land destroyed, etc. I hope that you do not need to be walked through some imagination of how environmental damage can actually be translated into units of money. This is a convenient unit, money, easily understood, IMO. It is, in fact, a measure of how much it would cost beyond direct costs, to ameliorate particular forms of energy.

I note that if the cost of using coal were successfully addressed, there would be no need to address global climate change.

I stand by my claim that coal is the worst form of energy.

[umass1993]

23. that's what I thought it was....

This "research" doesn't mean much. Since their economic models must be hypothetical. How do they calculate the error on their numbers?

I mean, can they really figure out the cost of changing the world to wind energy? If they did, how would they demonstrate their calculations were accurately predictive? invent another Earth and put windmills on it?

In other words, I don't put much credence into this research. Economic models have a tendency to fall flat.

I didn't want to have to explain all of this, but the above is what I meant when I said, "this link doesn't tell me much."

Moreover, you would still prefer cutting down all of the rainforests of the world for biofuel over coal mining in the Great Plains? I differ from you in this respect.

[NNadir]

24. Well, if you are smarter and better informed that the ExternE people,

a rather large team commissioned by the EU and funded by them, with teams in over 20 countries, I really can't argue with you, can I?

I do not prefer cutting down all of the rainforests, and I am not a tremendous fan of biological fuels, which I regard as having limited utility. That said, I believe that some biofuels, in particular biodiesel, have some things to recommend them under certain circumstances.

I do have some hope for some renewable technologies, especially wind power. I also am a fan of solar thermal plants in suitable places. I often malign solar PV power as "rich toys for rich boys" but I also encourage anyone who can afford such technology to use it where appropriate.

Many of the long termers here at this forum know that mostly I am rabidly pro-nuclear. Your suggestions that I favor destroying rain forests for agricultural land designated to produce biofuels does nothing but demonstrate that you are not familiar with my positions.

Recently I returned to a website where I was once a regular contributor and had, for old times sake, a confrontation with a rabidly anti-nuclear biofuel advocate, one of the "ethanol will eliminate oil imports" crowd. This thread, replete with my usual nastiness, can be found here: http://www.smirkingchimp.com/viewtopic.php?topic=60845&forum=3. It is a somewhat tedious thread, having degenerated into a shouting match, but my positions on biofuels can be gleaned from this thread.

I went over there because I am missing some of my regular opponents here. One of them, as I understand it, is off in a remote portion of the world demonstrating that familiarity with nuclear engineering is obtained by micropipetting tritiated nucleotides from a 10 ml bottle, provided by GE nuclear (formerly Amersham), into small tubes. (One doesn't need to know the radioactive decay law to this - GE provides a handy chart from which you can read off any numbers you need.) I expect this opponent will return here soon, wherein I will revert to my normal confrontational debate - thus leaving me uninspired to visit Smirking Chimp.

Irrespective of your confidence in coal and sequestering and irrespective of your self confidence in dismissing the ExternE report financed by 100's of millions of Europeans, I regard coal as an extremely dangerous fuel, the use of which threatens the continued existence of life on earth. I am furious about the coal waste that drops on my head - and my family's heads, wastes which finds its way every damn day into our lungs and into our blood streams and tissues. I am not alone in this opinion. In general I oppose the continued reliance on all fossil fuels. I will, with due respect to your opposition to my position, continue to agitate for an end to the use of fossil fuels, beginning with the most dangerous, coal.

[amandabeech]

20. Here is some information from "The Oil Drum" website.

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2005/12/12/18171/178#more

The gist of the author's argument is that by pumping CO2 down oil wells, more oil is produced, offsetting any carbon sequestration.

My own view is that it is too soon to tell whether the actual total amount of oil produced (Ultimately Recoverable Reserves, "URR"), or whether the URR is just produced more quickly.

The post really doesn't address whether the CO2 may substitute for other material forced down wells in secondary and tertiary production, nor does it discuss sequestering in depleted gas wells, underground coal mines or even much more seriously depleted oil wells.

Nonetheless, there is quite a bit of information and additional links for the perusal of more scientific types.

I recommend TOD in general for those interested in energy, oil in particular.

[umass1993]

22. I see your point...

and I tend to agree. The thing about oil is...it's just so valuable. I have a hard time imagining people not consuming all of it.

My guess is that all of the recoverable oil will eventually be used. This means that hybrid cars don't mean dick. Why? Because if all of the oil is used, then that much CO2 will be released no matter what people are driving, whether it is done by 200 million dump trucks or 2.3 billion hybrids.

In fact, the hybrid is probably more destructive because that many more cars will be on the road, causing greater ancillary environmental damage due to development and roads and such. It is counter-intuitive, but so is special relativity. That's how life is sometimes.

So, I think that from an environmental standpoint, oil is a lost cause. I can see us leaving coal in the ground, particularly in sensitive areas.

So I think that environmentalists should focus on getting the most responsible use of coal possible...less destructive mining, clean burning, and carbon sequestration. If they can get people to pay the extra cost to do those three things, it will be a miracle.

[skids]

4. Hrm, what's the holdup on the 2004 (release 2005) report...

...I wonder. They've got precious little time left in the year...

[NNadir]

5. Why, do you expect that renewables now dominate our energy supply?

I note that the total renewable energy value was smaller in 2003 than it was in 1999, probably because Western droughts - which may be a function of global climate change, reduced the flow to hydroelectric plants.

The entire renewable business thus far has advertised itself largely through lumping itself with hydroelectric power. The beauty of this link is that it fleshes out the details and prevents that dodge. (Of course, one still can't really flesh out the "other" biomass from the burning tires, but that's a small matter.)

I am always taking flak from people who lecture me on the fabulous benefits of PV electricity as if I were a credulous rube. And yet we see from this data that the PV industry is, in fact, completely moribund, flat lined from 1999-2003. In order to have a meaningful effect on the immediate crisis of global climate change, this industry would have to grow by 10,000 percent in a short time and solve the energy storage problem too boot. It ain't gonna happen, any more than it happened as predicted in the 1970's. There is no way to state this subtly: 0.005 quads (electrical production) is uncomfortably close to zero, as is the figure that is more than 10 times larger for "residential" use of PV systems, most of which belong to members of the guilt assuaging jet set. Put another way, in 2003, unit one of the Palo Verde nuclear station, just one of three units at the plant, almost produced more energy than all of the US PV production for the entire United States. In fact, on an annualized basis, PV for the residential and electrical sector combined produced 1,845 Megawatts, the equivalent of two or three coal fired plants.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/palo_verde.html

I know if I'm supposed to be impressed, but I'm not.

Of course, our "solar-will-save-us" crowd, rather than focusing on replacing coal with their distracted toys (PV cells) want instead to shut nuclear power, talking rather loudly - like dumb school yard brat bully wannabes - about whose block they can knock off. In fact though, the PV industry is rather wimpy and weak. For all the bravado, it has no punch. It delivers very little for so much noise. It doesn't, in fact, even measure on the radar screen, if one is talking more than three significant figures.

The fact is that there is essentially very little renewable energy available - in spite of 40 years of breathless hype, snake oil sales, subsidy and empty promises. Many people prance around like idiots announcing the arrival of the solar/renewable nirvana, but it never actually arrives. This is, as I said, because few of the "solar-will-save-us" crowd have any conception of scale. They all think that energy comes from magic. It doesn't.

This - global climate change - is, I repeat, a crisis. It calls for sober, rational, careful analysis by grown-ups.

[skids]

6. Nope. Just curious.

Just wondering what could the hold-up be. I for one would like to see newer numbers. It's handy for tracking industry growth trends.

[NNadir]

7. OK. Solar backsliding. Wind up. Garbage burning up.

Wind is growing exponentially and has increased by 250% since 2000. At this rate it is sure to measure at a single exajoule within a decade.

Solar power is falling off slightly from insignificant to slightly more insignificant.

This data comes from the provisional figures here. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table1.html

The dying dead failed useless dangerous deadly horrible incredibly evil dastardly nuclear industry generated more energy than ever, 8.2 quads or about 8% of all US energy for all purposes.

[Kolesar]

8. Do you ever write letters to the editor or to Congress?

I hope so. You certainly can compose, and you just might wake up some sleepy busniess or energy editor at the paper or a staffer in Washington. That could make more difference than chatting with the "band of pessimists" in the E&E Forum. Even if your letter does not get published, it does affect the way the paper reports. I have actually received replies from reporters at my paper and local public radio, and a note from the editors at US News, so I know they are listening. (I got a letter in Time Magazine when I was 24, but that just gives me bragging rights).

[NNadir]

10. Thank you for your kind words. As for this "band of pessimists,"

I note merely that I am a member of that band. I am decidedly not optimistic. More and more I feel like Cassandra. I am telling the truth but people don't believe me.

Well some people don't believe me...

I don't feel at all that my ranting among this "band of pessimists" is useless. On the contrary, I feel that I've made good progress here and on some similar websites where I have posted. Since I've been doing this shtick on the internet many people have written me publicly and privately to tell me that they have changed their opinions of how we should proceed as a result of what I have written. This is most gratifying and it allows for some slivers of hope where otherwise there would be none.

The internet in general, and DU in particular, presents a grand opportunity for grassroots community thinking. As dire as things are, I am sure they would be far more dire without the agency of places like the E&E forum at DU. The problem with my bete noire about which I most often write here, nuclear energy, is one of perception. The problems of nuclear energy are not technical, nor are they really even environmental. My view is that perception is often best changed by person to person interaction than it is by grand scale media. Sometimes this is hard to believe, but it is nonetheless true. Some of the people who have been convinced by arguments have gone on to convince other people. I note, with some satisfaction - although I think that it might be too late - that public attitudes toward nuclear energy are rapidly changing as a whole. I am proud of my small part in this, much of which, to my mind, took place in places like this.

My style is, I know, controversial, but I think it is reasonably effective, if not always entertaining and pleasant. In this connection I will say that I am not really opposed to renewable energy. I support it. I want it to be developed. I want to be proved wrong. Still, I have observed that the renewable panacea is more remarkable for producing complacency than it is for producing energy. I feel that I must be aggressive in pointing out the shortfalls and realities - hence threads like this one.

I do write my congress creatures, and I do write letters to the editors of various outlets, some of which have been published from time to time. Many of these letters have little to do with the subject of energy and the environment, although others do.

I am especially fortunate to have a congressperson who is also a first rate scientist, Rush Holt. Before being elected to the House of Representatives, Dr. Holt was the Assistant Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, a national laboratory working on nuclear fusion technology. I often write Congressman Holt with an "Attaboy!" but I am confident that - whatever his public political statements on energy might be - that he understands energy reality. (I wrote our Governor-elect many times to urge the appointment of Dr. Holt to the Senate to fill Mr. Corzine's unexpired term, but I was disappointed.) In my conversations during phone calls to Dr. Holt's office I do note that his staff monitors websites like this one. We know for a fact that many powerful people or people with access to powerful people have logged on to DU. Thus it is worthwhile to keep one's views up and current here.

Again, thank you for your kind comments. I appreciate them.

[rustydad]

14. Correct

Renew-ables cannot ever come close to replacing the energy we get from oil and gas, both of which for all practical purposes are in world wide decline. Perhaps there is some brake through coming like a Star Trek drive engine that uses some new molecular drive force and makes energy essentially free. But if we only have what we have we as a culture are doomed. The only response is to go way way backward as in go back to the pre-industrial era. That means reducing the population by a factor of 10 or more. We are a ship of fools with the water lapping at the gun rails. And still we eat on adding more and more weight to the ship as it slowly sinks. What is positive is that without the collapse of modern society the planet is doomed to bake to death. With the collapse the planet may survive as home to some critters, maybe even a few homo sapians. Bob

[NNadir]

25. I am inspired to kick this thread for a certain purpose.

[NNadir]

26. Somewhere on this forum is a Fox News type push pull with a lecture

before voters are asked to ansywer. I certainly am not going to dignify this low level meaningless crap with a vote, but others may, just as some people answer polls of this type: "Is George Bush the greatest President since Abraham Lincoln because of his wonderful confrontation with the terrorists, or is George Bush the greatest President since George Washington because of the wonderful way he has provided for healthy forests, no child left behind, and a tax structure that allows the economy to grow."

This poll, an exercise in the "thinking" (such as it is) of the bad guys, is full of the ususal mindless crap, including a story about a 500 MW solar stirling generator in the southwestern desert.

Anyone who thinks that a 500 MW (magical peak solar "watts," not physicist watts) unit in a desert is going to materially affect global climate change had better learn something about the scale of energy demand. Last year the United States injected 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

This thread already covers - with bald naked numbers - how productive the renewable energy business is likely to be.

The push poll of which I am speaking - filled with the usual misrepresentations - lists as an environmental option, under one heading, for "population reduction." Actually ethical population reduction should be a goal of environmentalists: Ethical population reduction uses all of the liberal principles: Increased health care, especially for children, respect for women, the elimination of poverty, the construction of a rule of law, etc, etc to create an environment in which population is reduced by attrition, as in Finland.

The other form of population control, endorsed by diddling elitists, members of Greenpeace, the Republican Party and other dogma embracing religious organizations, is death by genocide of the populations of poor countries.

I think it behooves us to be clear on this subject, especially the ethics of the last two paragraphs.