This post in in response to a personal challenge to me on a number of threads. "The Google Plan" was based on analysis done by and was written by Jeff Greenblat, Google's point man on energy. The challenger here on DUEE is a proponent of ethanol and insists that I support my assertions regarding the falsity of claims he has made that Google's plan to move away from a carbon based energy infrastructure gives evidence that PHEVs are not the technology we should be focusing on in the personal transportation sector.
The argument as stated goes like this:
1) James Hansen has said that (as quoted elsewhere on DUEE) "we've got 4 years" to do something about global warming.
2) There is a "need to get some appreciable reductions going within, at most, the next ten years."
3) According to the argument's proponent Google says "PHEG (sic) usse (sic) they estimate about a 24% reduction in gasoline consumption in 20 years."
4) Again, according to the argument's proponent Google says "GHG emissions will be proportional, probably about 20% due to Coal and Nat gas mix for power plants."
5) Therefore there will not be enough "PHEGs" (sic) on the road rapidly enough.
6) Therefore we should target our scarce incentive funding towards ethanol in order to realize the most desirable GHG reductions in the personal transportation sector. I think I have that right, but the details of the argument change a great deal from moment to moment depending on what study is being misquoted or what information is being taken out of context. If I've misrepresented any positions in items 1-6 I would preemptively lay the blame on the general incoherence of the proponent's manner of discussion.
Item 1) Hansen has said this, it is true. However what Hansen is referring to is the window of opportunity offered by the Obama administration and the need for enacting legislation that will
comprehensively address the issue of carbon based energy use. Hansen is not saying that the main element by which technologies should be judged is how quickly we can start displacing fossil fuels. If that were the case, we could easily justify cutting down all of our forests for use as combustible biomass since as most coal plants could also burn wood, that would allow us to immediately shut down the coal plants. Of course that is a silly argument, but it is an accurate parallel to the use of ethanol as an alternative to petroleum. Associated concerns dictate that such a commitment to biomass would be a disaster in its own right and that the approach would ultimately fail to provide a long term solution to our carbon related problems.
The Hansen statement as used in the argument is intended to convey an alternative meaning supporting the notion that short term urgency regarding efficacy is the prime determinant in selecting the next personal transportation technology; and as such, it is totally false.
Item 2) This popped up after it was earlier pointed out to the ethanol proponent that Hansen's intent was not as portrayed by the appeal to urgency created when selectively quoting the 4 year remark by Hansen. I have no idea of the basis of the claim nor the standards by which "appreciable reductions" might be judged. Like item 1) this is intended to convey the statement that short term urgency regarding efficacy is the prime determinant in selecting the next personal transportation technology and as such, it too is totally false.
Items 3) and 4) are mangled kernels of truth around which the larger falsehood is built. While the specific numbers are not included in the Google plan, the fuel reduction projection is generally in line with figures that could be derived from larger aggregate numbers. However, as noted by the challenger, the attempt to derive the GHG emissions reductions that are attributable to PHEVs is complicated by the energy mix; and I maintain is therefore unlikely to be accurate. Since the plan calls for a 95% reduction in baseline GHG emissions from the electric grid by 2030, the "proportional" number of 20% is almost certainly nothing more than wild guess.
Item 5) Of course this is a return to the theme of urgency being the main determinant for evaluations of the relevant transportation technologies. In a perfect world we would recognize the issue of climate change and its relationship to the vast array of other problems associated with fossil fuels and we would aggressively pursue all available options to transition from carbon as rapidly as we physically could. Unfortunately that isn't an option and every dollar spent on encouraging deployment of an emerging technology in one area takes money away from attempts to deploy technology in another area.
To date, efforts to address carbon based energy problems have been largely ineffective by design; with support going to programs that have little hope of actually being a meaningful contributor to a real solution. Much more important was the political forces that these technologies were able to muster. Since farming is such a backbone industry the green political bone thrown to climate focused Democrats by the Reagan legacy had a nuclear marrow surrounded by the shell of ethanol subsidies. Both of these technologies can be defended when arguments are narrowly crafted to highlight their strong points, but contemporary, *comprehensive* analysis of the totality of their functional characteristics shows that in comparison to other available technologies they are very poor choices.
Item 5 is the insidious lie in the 1-6 argument presented above as it is the attempt to narrowly define the criteria by which lay people judge the potential of the options. It is the lie of omission that is guarded against in court by the pledge to "tell the truth, the
whole truth, and
nothing but the truth."
Item 6) The Google plan repeatedly makes clear that they believe the best alternative to fossil fuels in the personal transportation sector is the Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle. The entire effort described is one that is focused on the success of moving from internal combustion to battery electric. The proponent of ethanol presents data from a single point in the trajectory of this transition as evidence that we are not able to meet the false test of urgency that was dishonestly constructed.
So what does the data actually show?The prediction made is that:
2010 will see about 100,000 sales of PHEV vehicles for a 0.7% share of the new vehicle market;
2020 delivers annual sales of 3,500,000 vehicles for a 20% market share with 4.4% of the total fleet now electric;
2030 total electric percentage of our fleet is now 41%, and 9 out of every 10 light vehicles sold are PHEVs/EVs.
By 2030, Google's energy analyst predicts that 9 out of every 10 vehicles sold are either Plug-in Hybrids or full electric vehicles. Don't forget, the planned electric grid now uses 88% less fossil fuels and generates 95% fewer GHG emissions than baseline EIA estimates.
Another salient set of facts (from the same table 1 of the plan) is the overll MPG rating of the fleet versus the average MPG rating of of the new conventional vehicles:
.......overall...new conventional...PHEV % of fleet
2010: 20.7 ...... 23.0 .......... 00.7%
2020: 27.0 ...... 34.0 .......... 04.4%
2030: 51.3 ...... 45.0 .......... 41.0%
Notice the effect on overall fleet efficiency as penetration of PHEVs rises. The paper also looks at the longevity of vehicles within the fleet (vehicle survival function Fig. 6). The average age of a vehicle is shown to be 8 years with total of 50% of new vehicles being retired within 15 years. The study is predicated on a price of $3.00 per gallon and doesn't take into account the effects of fuel prices beyond 2030. I believe that is extremely conservative.
What the data shows is that the more rapidly conventional vehicles are replaced by battery electric drive vehicles, the greater the overall benefit in the transportation sector. With 2030 market share at 90% PHEV technology is just reaching its full potential and the pace of change is as fast as is practically possible and the per unit benefits are the greatest possible. This is the type of strategy that Hansen is calling on Obama to implement within 4 years. This is they type of strategy that MUST be pursued if we are going to alter the trajectory of the massive CO2 juggernaut that is our dependence on fossil fuels.
If we look outside the Google plan, there is abundant evidence that there is little to no benefit gained from investing scarce public funds for further support of current generation biofuels in the transportation sector. Narrowly crafted arguments can be made supporting such investment, but, as evidenced by it's non-presence in the Google plan those arguments are not persuasive to analysts tasked with evaluating the overall contributions of the competing technologies. Here is the beginning statement of the Google plan:
Summary
Right now we have a real opportunity to transform our economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on clean energy. Technologies and know-how to accomplish this are either available today or are under development. We can build whole new industries and create millions of new jobs. We can cut energy costs, both at the gas pump and at home. We can improve our national security. And we can put a big dent in climate change. With strong leadership we could be moving forward on an aggressive but realistic time-line and an approach that offsets costs with real economic gains.
The energy team at Google has been analyzing how we could greatly reduce fossil fuel use by 2030. Our proposal - "Clean Energy 2030" - provides a potential path to weaning the U.S. off of coal and oil for electricity generation by 2030 (with some remaining use of natural gas as well as nuclear), and cutting oil use for cars by 44%.
President-elect Obama announced his New Energy for America plan this past summer that is similar to ours in several ways, including a strong emphasis on efficiency, renewable electricity and plug-in vehicles. Similarly, the Natural Resources Defense Council, McKinsey and Company, and the Electric Power Research Institute have issued proposals that share all of these same elements. Al Gore has issued a challenge that is even more ambitious - getting us to carbon-free electricity by 2020 - and we hope the American public pushes our leaders to embrace it. T. Boone Pickens has weighed in with an interesting plan of his own to massively deploy wind energy, among other things. Other plans have also been developed in recent years that merit attention.
Google's proposal will benefit the US by increasing energy security, protecting the environment, creating new jobs, and helping to create the conditions for long-term prosperity. Some of the necessary funds will be public, but much of it will come from the private sector -- a typical approach for infrastructure and high technology investments.
Our goal in presenting this first iteration of the Clean Energy 2030 proposal is to stimulate debate and we invite you to take a look and comment - or offer an alternative approach if you disagree. With a new Administration and Congress - and multiple energy-related imperatives - this is an opportune, perhaps unprecedented, moment to move from plan to action.
In closing I offer another example of such an evaluation:
http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990cEnergy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy securityMark Z. Jacobson
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.
Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.
Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.
Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.
Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.
Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.
Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.
The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.
Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.
The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.
The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.
The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.
In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.
Link to Greenblat's Google plan:
http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/15x31uzlqeo5n/1#Personal_Vehicle_Sector
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