Honest Assessments of Our Energy Future

[kristopher]

Honest Assessments of Our Energy Future

by Daniel Kammen, Sam Borgeson, and Kevin Fingerman
Wednesday, June 29, 2011

At long last, scientists, governments, and significant elements of the business community are in agreement that we can build a low-carbon, sustainable, global energy economy. That was the finding of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which released its Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources last month, stating that 80 percent of global energy needs could come from renewable energy by 2050. The constraint in making this a reality is not technology, land area, or resources, but willpower. The IPCC found that what is required is the leadership to coordinate the needed policy measures.

Unfortunately, misinformation is being propagated by interests favoring the status quo. The June 7, 2011, op-ed, The Gas is Greener by Robert Bryce in The New York Times is a sad example. Using rhetorical arguments and faulty calculations, Bryce argues that renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar are somehow more environmentally destructive than natural gas and nuclear energy. This opinion is at odds with the analytic findings of the several hundred analysts who developed the IPCC report and the community of nations who reviewed and then endorse the report.

Can we build this new energy economy? Consider the example of California, where detailed and extensively reviewed assessments have shown that with integration and coordination we can readily meet the mandate that one-third of the state’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2020. In projecting the impact of this mandate, Bryce makes several errors, each substantially increasing his estimate of its difficulty. He first ignores the 18 percent of California electricity that already comes from renewable sources, and then inexplicably bases his calculations on peak historic demand rather than the total annual consumption that is subject to this mandate. This selective lens allows Bryce, like many nay-sayers, to overestimate new infrastructure requirements by over 400%. Moreover, both wind and solar are compatible with many other land uses and neither can be said to spoil the land they sit on in any way analogous to fossil fuel extraction or nuclear waste storage. The wind and solar industries face enormous market incentives to minimize their environmental impacts and both have impressive track records of ongoing innovation in this area.

Meeting a 33 percent renewable electricity mandate nationwide would require on the order of 800 square miles of total area–much of which could be on the tops of buildings or in the case of wind, integrated into existing farmland (as is already the case in many windfarms). This is less than twice the size of Edwards Air force base, and less than one third of the area of forest estimated by EPA to have already been destroyed by mountaintop removal coal mining.

Critics of the green energy economy often omit key information ...

http://blog.rmi.org/HonestAssessmentsOurEnergyFuture


Daniel Kammen is the Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency at the World Bank, and is on leave from the University of California, Berkeley where he is the Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy.

[XemaSab]

1. "In all likelihood, this will include the natural gas and nuclear power that Bryce advocates..."

.

[kristopher]

2. I'm pretty sure he is talking about your habits...

"Unfortunately, misinformation is being propagated by interests favoring the status quo..."
I'm pretty sure when you examine the situation in detail, he is talking ALSO about peope online who habitually misrepresent information related to wind and solar.

As for the inclusion of natural gas and nuclear, that is a simple political reality, not a technical endorsement. He also wrote, "Moreover, both wind and solar are compatible with many other land uses and neither can be said to spoil the land they sit on in any way analogous to fossil fuel extraction or nuclear waste storage. The wind and solar industries face enormous market incentives to minimize their environmental impacts and both have impressive track records of ongoing innovation in this area."

[kristopher]

6. Who is D. Kammen besides the IPCC point man on energy?

Field of specialization

Science and technology policy focused on energy, development and environmental management. Technology and policy questions in developing nations, particularly involving: the linkages between energy, health, and the environment; technology transfer and diffusion; household energy management; renewable energy; women; minority groups. Global environmental change including deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption. Environmental and technological risk. Management of innovation and energy R&D policy. Geographic expertise: Africa; Latin America....


Professor Kammen’s research interests include: the science, engineering, management, and dissemination of renewable energy systems; health and environmental impacts of energy generation and use; rural resource management, including issues of gender and ethnicity; international R&D policy, climate change; and energy forecasting and risk analysis. He is the author of over 90 journal publications, a book on environmental, technological, and health risks (Should We Risk It?, Princeton University Press) and numerous reports on renewable energy and development. He has been featured on radio, network and public broadcasting television and in print as an analyst of energy, environmental, and risk policy issues and current events. His recent work on energy R&D policy appeared in Science, and Environment, and has been featured on PBS, KQED, CNN, and in many newspapers via the Reuters news service.

Ongoing projects in the following specific areas
* The technical development, use, and market for photovoltaics and small-scale wind energy systems in developing nations.
* The energy, ecological, and health issues surrounding large-scale battery use as an early stage in electrification in developing nations.
* The energy efficiency, health impacts, and relationship to forest and biomass management of household cooking stoves. Related projects include the health impacts of small-scale commercial combustion activities, such as charcoal production (Kenya); and, pottery production and glazing (Mexico).
* The prospect for biomass-based electrification as a component of national energy plans in developing nations, with an initial pilot study of a 10 MW biomass integrated gassifier in Zimbabwe.
* The economics of innovation and ‘learning by doing’ for renewable energy technologies.
* The technical, economic, and political determinants and constraints on large-scale energy systems based on distributed fuel-cell technologies, including the potential to move entirely away from a central-station power generation society and to implemented a distributed energy supply and demand network.
* Development and analysis of policies to reduce global warming through the use of renewable energy technologies and the adoption of globally equitable greenhouse gas emissions policies.
* Policies to enhance the efficiency and utility of investments in energy R&D, both in developed and developing nations.
* Analysis of dose-response profiles for a variety of natural and anthropogenic compounds, and the development of a general theory for dose-response behavior at low doses.The Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL)

Professor Kammen directs the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, which is a unique new research, development, project implementation, and community outreach facility based at the University of California, Berkeley. RAEL, housed in Etcheverry Hall with a solar roof laboratory atop Wurster Hall focuses on designing, testing, and disseminating renewable and appropriate energy systems. The laboratory’s mission is to help these technologies realize their full potential to contribute to environmentally sustainable development in both industrialized and developing nations while also addressing the cultural context and range of potential social impacts of any new technology or resource management system...

*******************************************
A. B. Physics , Cornell University, 1984
M. A. Physics . Harvard University, 1986
Ph.D. Physics , Harvard University, 1988

He is faculty at the UC Berkley Dept of Nuclear Engineering.

http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/People/Daniel_Kammen

[txlibdem]

3. We can get to 33% renewables without including energy storage; what about beyond that?

There can be no other logical conclusion but that solar, wind, tidal power, and wave power need to feed into an energy storage system, be it on site, local, regional, or national it does not matter to me (perhaps a mix of all of those will be needed). Energy storage is the must have piece of the energy puzzle, our future energy mix will depend on fossil fuels forever if we have inadequate energy storage for renewables.

That is a fact. On March 28, 2010, the wind farms in the Texas panhandle had to be shut down because they were generating too much energy and the electric delivery company that owns the lines was afraid the lines may melt. Too much energy coming from the wind so they shut 'em down. How would that story differ if there were a pumped hydro or CAES energy storage system near those wind farms, one that they all could send their excess power to for use at some other time.

Energy storage is a must. Unless you like fossil fuels (ahem).

[XemaSab]

9. The wind farms along the Columbia River

pay utilities to take their power.

[kristopher]

10. The nuclear reactors in Fukushima Japan suffered meltdowns and explosions.

[txlibdem]

11. Renewable energy needs energy storage, or we'll be stuck with fossil fuels till it's too late

There can be no other logical conclusion but that solar, wind, tidal power, and wave power need to feed into an energy storage system, be it on site, local, regional, or national it does not matter to me (perhaps a mix of all of those will be needed). Energy storage is the must have piece of the energy puzzle, our future energy mix will depend on fossil fuels forever if we have inadequate energy storage for renewables.

That is a fact. On March 28, 2010, the wind farms in the Texas panhandle had to be shut down because they were generating too much energy and the electric delivery company that owns the lines was afraid the lines may melt. Too much energy coming from the wind so they shut 'em down. How would that story differ if there were a pumped hydro or CAES energy storage system near those wind farms, one that they all could send their excess power to for use at some other time.

Energy storage is a must. Unless you like fossil fuels (ahem).

[kristopher]

12. As renewable penetration rises so will the amount of storage.

Storage is a viable and effective technology that has much greater opportunity in a distributed renewable grid than in a centralized large-scale thermal grid. It will eventually equal about 4% of installed generating capacity IIRC.

If you have a reference for the story about Texas I can possibly analyze the situation, but with the information you've provided it tells us nothing about the topic of storage. It sounds more like a problem associated with the conflict between renewables and centralized generation or a problem with the transmission capacity.

[txlibdem]

13. Limiting renewable energy storage to 4% of installed generating capacity will be disastrous

The sun only shines so many hours in a day and only some of those hours produce adequate quantities of energy. The wind blows either far more or far less from season to season. Look at the wind maps and the solar maps. There is no way to sugar coat it or deny the truth. We are going to need closer to 50% energy storage in order to end the use of deadly fossil fuels (Coal, Oil and Fracking Natural Gas). We are also going to need excess capacity in wind and solar of at least 50% to make up for their respective times of reduced output.

With only 4% storage capacity we will be dependent on fossil fuels forever, and continue to suffer the health, environmental and national security consequences of that fact. Now that's not what you *really* want. Is it?

[kristopher]

14. No one is limiting anything. That is the projected amount that will be needed for 100% renewables.

I've told you your claims are wild exaggerations.

[txlibdem]

16. Projected by whom? The Koch Brothers and Natural Gas, Inc.???

I project that you will live forever. And then I project that you will grow to 200 feet tall. :dunce: My projections aren't very accurate are they?

"I've told you your claims are wild exaggerations?" Right back at ya?

Have you ever actually *looked* at the wind maps for summer, autumn, winter and spring??? Please do so... asap... because you need some facts.

[kristopher]

17. No, I said a 100% renewable grid will only require about 4% of capacity as storage

I've repeatedly shown you that you are wrong about your claims regarding huge amounts of storage, but you keep promoting misinformation. You will not find any expert like Kammen or Kempton or Jacobson that supports your ridiculous claims about mating storage with generation; the only place such tripe is peddled is on the blogs of nuclear promoters. Your mistake is the same one the nuclear industry makes when it tries to claim we need "baseload". All you've done is to take that completely discredited "Baseload Myth" and turn it on its head with an absurd claim about storage. You really don't even have a grasp of the actual role of storage in the grid.

Does Wind Need Storage?
Storage is almost never “coupled” with any single energy source—it is most economic when operated to maximize the economic benefit to an entire system. Storage is nearly always beneficial to the grid, but this benefit must be weighed against its cost. With more than 26 GW of wind power currently operating in the United States and more than 65 GW of wind energy operating in Europe (as of the date of this writing), no additional storage has been added to the systems to balance wind. Storage has value in a system without wind, which is the reason why about 20 GW of pumped hydro storage was built in the United States and 100 GW was built worldwide, decades before wind and solar energy were considered as viable electricity generation technologies. Additional wind could increase the value of energy storage in the grid as a whole, but storage would continue to provide its services to the grid—storing energy from a mix of sources and responding to variations in the net demand, not just wind.

As an example, consider Figure 7 below, which is based on a simplified example of a dispatch model that approximates the western United States. All numerical values are illustrative only, and the storage analysis is based on a hypothetical storage facility that is limited to 10% of the peak load and 168 hours of energy. The ability of the system to integrate large penetrations of wind depends heavily on the mix of other generation resources. Storage is an example of a flexible resource, and storage has economic value to the system even without any wind energy. As wind is added to the system in increasing amounts, the value of storage will increase. With no wind, storage has a value of more than US$1,000/kW, indicating that a storage device that costs less would provide economic value to the system. As wind penetration increases, so does the value of storage, eventually reaching approximately US$1,600/kW. In this example system, the generation mix is similar to what is found today in many parts of the United States. In such a system with high wind penetration, the value of storage is somewhat greater because the economic dispatch will result in putting low-variable-cost units (e.g., coal or nuclear) on the margin (and setting the market-clearing price) much more often than it would have without the wind. More frequent periods with lower prices offers a bigger price spread and more opportunities for arbitrage, increasing the value of storage.

In a system with less base load and more flexible generation, the value of storage is relatively insensitive to the wind penetration. Figure 8 shows that storage still has value with no wind on the system, but there is a very slight increase in the value of storage even at a wind-penetration rate of 40% (energy). An across-the-board decrease in market prices reduces the incentives for a unit with high fi xed costs and low variable costs (e.g., coal or nuclear) to be built in the first place. This means that in a high-wind future, fewer low-variable-cost units will be built. This reduces the amount of time that low-variable-cost units are on the margin and also reduces the value of storage relative to the “near-term” value with the same amount of wind.

The question of whether wind needs storage ultimately comes down to economic costs and benefits. More than a dozen studies analyzing the costs of large-scale grid integration of wind come to varying conclusions, but the most significant is that integration costs are moderate, even with up to 20% wind-energy penetration, and that no additional storage is necessary to integrate up to 20% wind energy in large balancing areas. Overall, these studies imply that the added cost of integrating wind over the next decade is far less than the cost of dedicated energy storage, and that the cost can potentially be reduced by the use of advanced wind-forecasting techniques.

You can download the full document by clicking the pdf link below and you'll be able to see figure 7. You should also take note of figure 3.


Wind Power Myths Debunked
november/december 2009 IEEE power & energy magazine
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2009.934268
1540-7977/09/$26.00©2009 IEEE

By Michael Milligan, Kevin Porter, Edgar DeMeo, Paul Denholm, Hannele Holttinen, Brendan Kirby, Nicholas Miller, Andrew Mills, Mark O’Malley, Matthew Schuerger, and Lennart Soder

http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf


The Kochs are opponents of natural gas according to Pickens. He was on MSNBC yesterday promoting wind and the conversion of tractor trailers to natural gas when someone asked him something that caused him to say that the Kochs are making their money by importing oil and that they have been working against his efforts in Congress.

[txlibdem]

18. You keep on using the same links that have already been proven wrong, false

When I last checked, the UK has 2.3 GW of pumped hydro energy storage to go along with their approximately 5 GW of wind power... and they are building more pumped hydro.

"A spokesman for the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), described this situation as "unusual" and said more electrical storage was needed, adding: "In future we need greater electrical energy storage facilities and greater interconnection with our EU neighbours so that excess energy supplies can be sold or bought where required."<99>

"In June 2011 several energy companies including Centrica told the government that 17 gas-fired plants costing £10 billion would be needed by 2020 to act as back-up generation for wind. However as they would be standing idle for much of the time they would require "capacity payments" to make the investment economic, on top of the subsidies already paid for wind.<104>"
... from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom#Variability_and_related_issues

Also, Morgan Stanley is putting up 3 Billion Euros for a wind farm project that includes pumped hydro storage:
"Project leader Graham O’Donnell said he is planning to export the power generated by 600 windmills to the UK through a network of cables. Natural Hydro will use some of the wind power to pump sea water into a dammed up glacial river valley.

"Should the wind drop, water will be released to run back into the sea, powering a turbine to keep electricity flows constant: wind farms which run out of puff have been a big problem for the British Isles over the last year."
... from http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2011-04-06/morgan-stanley-wants-to-raise-billions-for-renewable-project-in-ireland

[kristopher]

19. How silly of me.

Thinking I should look to the world's leading experts on grid integration of renewables when I have a resource like you on hand.

[txlibdem]

20. The California Air Resource Board relied on its "experts" when they voted to kill the electric car

"Experts" can have their own agenda. "Experts" can have a financial interest in the area they are studying. You pick and choose which "experts" you consider to be "right" and which are secret agents of the nuclear secret society (Nuke Masons? The Skull & Fuel Rod Society? The Illumina-nukers?).

Throwing around the opinions of people with degrees in areas other than energy policy or energy production as "the only accepted experts according to Kristopher" means nothing to me. Stated another way, not all experts are created equal. You cite the ones who agree with your particular point of view.

I cite logic, reason, truth, and facts. And the knowledge of history based on experience with the outcomes when "experts" are allowed to twist public policy for their own purposes.

You call them "the world's leading experts on grid integration of renewables?" What the heck does that even mean at a time when there is almost no integration of the grid with renewables. When wind farms are told to shut down because their power is not needed. When solar farms are only just beginning to be constructed in any significant size and generating capacity.

By your standards, I am the world's leading expert on grid integration of renewables. But you will say no because I do not share your ultimate goal, which remains shrouded in mystery.

[kristopher]

21. Riiiiight.

I'm pretty sure I've heard that same rant trying to discredit academics on Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck every time I've had to listen to them in a waiting room somewhere.

Here is a tip for assessing the validity of a statement by an academic in a journal - they don't lie. They may shape the research by highlighting a piece of information that is valuable to a special interest they believe in, for an exampe see Wang's comparison of ethanol and gasoline's energy balance. Or they might shape the research by omitting pertinent information that is essential to the stated purpose of the paper - for an example see MITs 2003 paper on the Future of Nuclear Power where they failed to compare nuclear to the alternative low carbon technologies available.

But one thing you DON'T see is flat out lies. When they make a statement of fact, you'll very seldom find that fact to be wrong.

Another clue to look for is a large group of authors, it tends to be very difficult for one individual to insert biase into a paper when it has another persons name and reputation attached, for an example see
Wind Power Myths Debunked
november/december 2009 IEEE power & energy magazine
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2009.934268

By Michael Milligan,
Kevin Porter,
Edgar DeMeo,
Paul Denholm,
Hannele Holttinen,
Brendan Kirby,
Nicholas Miller,
Andrew Mills,
Mark O’Malley,
Matthew Schuerger, and
Lennart Soder

You can download it for free with this link:
http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf

[Confusious]

22. Academics are human. They have their own agenda, and sometimes

they lie. Cold fusion comes to mind. A south Korean researcher who said he cloned a human comes to mind also.

If you believe they don't, you are either naive or stupid.

I used to work for a person who had a PHD. Talk about someone with an agenda.

Oh, and a really, really really large ego. That was soft and easily scarred.



Reminds me of someone else around here who claims to be in academia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_misconduct

[kristopher]

23. So you are on the side of the Rush Limbaughs who reject the process of science?

Your criticisms are aimed at trying to undermine the process by focusing on the problem the process is designed to address.

Yes, scientists are human.
Yes, they have biases.
BUT the part of the process of research played by publication is designed to minimize the effect of those biases.

As I said, in the earlier post, there are ways that scientists can shape their research to serve special interests, but they don't lie outright because doing so results in their being ostracized from the scientific community.

In other words, when/if they lie there are severe consequences. However, when a "researcher" from the Nuclear Energy Institute or the American Petroleum Institute lies, they are given a raise and a promotion.

Yet you embrace and promote the latter while rejecting and undermining the former.

[Confusious]

24. You have a very myopic view and see things in black and white

Simplistic linear thinking.

You seem to think I can't criticize the system and support it at the same time. I must support it without reservation or else I'm against it. I must support it without reservation or else I'm undermining it.

Your view is the reason that problems with the system persist and nothing gets better.

Unbelievable.

[GliderGuider]

25. I suspect a lot depends on what one thinks about their position. For instance:

http://nuclearinfo.net/

This website was developed by a group of Physicists from the School of Physics at the University of Melbourne in Australia. The aim is to provide authoritative information about Nuclear Power. The group has no particular vested interest in Nuclear Power other than to ensure that people fully understand the risks and benefits of both employing or not employing Nuclear Power for energy generation. The information has been obtained with quantitative analysis and has been subject to peer-review following the Scientific Method. To this end Scientists and Professionals from different fields were invited to review the site. We have strived to make our conclusions as transparent as possible and have made sure that readers can obtain the source materials and can repeat the calculations that underlie our text. This site is under continuous revision and is updated as more information becomes available.

And on one of the pages of this "scientific" site we find:

The Benefits of Nuclear Power

The audited environmental product statement of the Vattenfall Energy utility shows that their Nuclear Power Plants emit less than one hundreth the Greenhouse Gases of Coal or Gas fired power stations. If the Nuclear Power Industry lives up to it's promises for modern, 3rd generation plants, the total levelised cost of Nuclear Power including contruction, operational, waste disposal and decommissioning costs is in the range 3 - 5 cents per KiloWatt-Hour depending on the interest rate obtained for the construction. Nuclear Power plants pay back the energy required to build them in less than 2 months of operation. Current world proven reserves of Uranium are sufficient to supply current world demand for 50 years. Speculative reserves provide an additional 150 years of supply. The cost of Uranium Ore is a very small fraction of the operating costs of Nuclear Power. Fourth Generation Nuclear Plants can fully utilize all the energy in Natural Uranium. There is sufficient Uranium and Thorium on Earth for Fourth Generation reactors to supply the total World demand for energy for hundreds of centuries.

There is world-wide concern over the prospect of Global Warming primarily caused by the emission of Carbon Dioxide gas (CO2) from the burning of fossil fuels. Although the processes of running a Nuclear Power plant generates no CO2, some CO2 emissions arise from the construction of the plant, the mining of the Uranium, the enrichment of the Uranium, its conversion into Nuclear Fuel, its final disposal and the final plant decommissioning. The amount of CO2 generated by these secondary processes primarily depends on the method used to enrich the Uranium (the gaseous diffusion enrichment process uses about 50 times more electricity than the gaseous centrifuge method) and the source of electricity used for the enrichment process. It has been the subject of some controversy. To estimate the total CO2 emissions from Nuclear Power we take the work of the Swedish Energy Utility, Vattenfall, which produces electricity via Nuclear, Hydro, Coal, Gas, Solar Cell, Peat and Wind energy sources and has produced credited Environment Product Declarations for all these processes.

Vattenfall finds that averaged over the entire lifecycle of their Nuclear Plant including Uranium mining, milling, enrichment, plant construction, operating, decommissioning and waste disposal, the total amount CO2 emitted per KW-Hr of electricity produced is 3.3 grams per KW-Hr of produced power. Vattenfall measures its CO2 output from Natural Gas to be 400 grams per KW-Hr and from coal to be 700 grams per KW-Hr. Thus nuclear power generated by Vattenfall, which may constitute World's best practice, emits less than one hundredth the CO2 of Fossil-Fuel based generation. In fact Vattenfall finds its Nuclear Plants to emit less CO2 than any of its other energy production mechanisms including Hydro, Wind, Solar and Biomass although all of these processes emit much less than fossil fuel generation of electricity.

Are there any lies or erroneous facts on display by these scientists?

[kristopher]

26. There are good and bad aspects of your example.

The discussion has been focused on a specific article that has been peer reviewed. You've provided a website that is derived from peer reviewed information but which has not, in itself, been peer reviewed. This means that there is an issue of the way the peer reviewed information is used, rather than the process of peer review itself.

That leads us to the answer for your question. The second quoted section is a single piece of the puzzle - one study that has examined the question of life-cycle emissions from nuclear with a certain method that was clearly articulated. That method of measurement produced one result that is, within the parameters of their work, true. However, there are a number of other studies that have looked at the same question of life-cycle emissions and used different methods which have yielded different results.

Additionally, there is an issue related to the scope of the research that must be considered. In the case of the Vattenfall research, the full range of the problem has not been identified for study; nor should it have been. They have examined the question as conditions now exist. What happens if/when those conditions change is a proper question for future research (this has in fact been done, with a substantially different result).

When we looking at a the venue where the Vattenfall research is being presented, though, we see a non-peer reviewed website that is in the category of "special interest science" in that it uses peer reviewed data and it doesn't make false, direct statements. What it does do, however, is to strongly shape its arguments by omitting relevant information (data trimming). That is, of course, an analysis based strictly on what you posted as I didn't visit their website.

This is what happens when Vattenfall's research is placed in the context of the broader body of knowledge that has been developed. It is specifically a criticism of the type of argumentation this website seems to be engaging in.

Sci Eng Ethics (2009) 15:19–23 DOI 10.1007/s11948-008-9097-y

Data Trimming, Nuclear Emissions, and Climate Change

Kristin Sharon Shrader-Frechette


Abstract

Ethics requires good science. Many scientists, government leaders, and industry representatives support tripling of global-nuclear-energy capacity on the grounds that nuclear fission is ‘‘carbon free’’ and ‘‘releases no greenhouse gases.’’ However, such claims are scientifically questionable (and thus likely to lead to ethically questionable energy choices) for at least 3 reasons. (i) They rely on trimming the data on nuclear greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGE), perhaps in part because flawed Kyoto Protocol conventions require no full nuclear-fuel-cycle assessment of carbon content. (ii) They underestimate nuclear-fuel-cycle releases by erroneously assuming that mostly high-grade uranium ore, with much lower emissions, is used. (iii) They inconsistently compare nuclear-related GHGE only to those from fossil fuels, rather than to those from the best GHG-avoiding energy technologies. Once scientists take account of (i)–(iii), it is possible to show that although the nuclear fuel cycle releases (per kWh) much fewer GHG than coal and oil, nevertheless it releases far more GHG than wind and solar-photovoltaic. Although there may be other, ethical, reasons to support nuclear tripling, reducing or avoiding GHG does not appear to be one of them.

Let's break that down sentence by sentence:

Ethics requires good science.

Many scientists, government leaders, and industry representatives support tripling of global-nuclear-energy capacity on the grounds that nuclear fission is ‘‘carbon free’’ and ‘‘releases no greenhouse gases.’’

However, such claims are scientifically questionable (and thus likely to lead to ethically questionable energy choices) for at least 3 reasons.

(i) They rely on trimming the data on nuclear greenhouse-gas emissions (GHGE), perhaps in part because flawed Kyoto Protocol conventions require no full nuclear-fuel-cycle assessment of carbon content.

(ii) They underestimate nuclear-fuel-cycle releases by erroneously assuming that mostly high-grade uranium ore, with much lower emissions, is used.

(iii) They inconsistently compare nuclear-related GHGE only to those from fossil fuels, rather than to those from the best GHG-avoiding energy technologies.

Once scientists take account of (i)–(iii), it is possible to show that although the nuclear fuel cycle releases (per kWh) much fewer GHG than coal and oil, nevertheless it releases far more GHG than wind and solar-photovoltaic.

Although there may be other, ethical, reasons to support nuclear tripling, reducing or avoiding GHG does not appear to be one of them.



ETA a bit more of the paper:

The nuclear-fuel cycle has 13 stages:
(1) uranium mining, (2) milling, (3) conversion to uranium hexafluoride (UF6), (4) enriching UF6, (5) fuel fabrication, (6) reactor construction, (7) reactor operation, (8) waste-fuel processing, (9) fuel conditioning, (10) interim waste storage, (11) waste transport, (12) permanent storage, and (13) reactor decommissioning and uranium-mine reclamation. When proponents of the climate-necessity argument claim nuclear energy is ‘‘carbon free,’’ they err by trimming GHGE data. Even under optimum conditions, only one or two nuclear-fuel-cycle stages—often (7)—s carbon free <12>.

If one excludes all fuel-lifecycle GHGE analyses that rely on secondary sources, are unpublished, or fail to explain GHGE estimation/calculation methods, 103 fuel- lifecycle, GHGE analyses remain. These calculate nuclear-fuel-cycle GHGE ranging from 1.4 to 288 g carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions per kWh of electricity (gCO2/kWh). Nuclear-industry studies give total GHGE as 1.4 g but consider only one/two nuclear-fuel-cycle stages. Environmental groups give total GHGE as 288 g but appear to double-count some emissions. The mean total GHGE calculated by these 103 studies is 66 gCO2/kWh—roughly what independent university scientists (funded by neither industry nor environmentalists), at places like Columbia, Oxford, and Singapore, calculate <13–15>. These university analyses use current, refereed, published, empirical data on facilities’ lifetime, efficiency, enrichment methods, plant type, fuel grade, and so on. Their calculations (fairly consistent across universities), show the COAL:COMBINED-CYCLE NATURAL GAS:NUCLEAR:SOLAR PV:WIND ratio—for mean, fuel-lifecycle GHGE—is 1010:443:66:32:9—a ratio of 112 coal : 49 gas : 7 nuclear : 4 solar : 1 wind. If reasonably correct, these calculations show nuclear emits about 16 times fewer GHG than coal; about 2 times more than solar; and about 7 times more than wind <5>.

[kristopher]

4. By Daniel Kammen: The `how-to' of renewable energy

The `how-to' of renewable energy
Submitted by Daniel Kammen on Wed, 06/01/2011 - 14:42

Last month, I blogged about the Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for which I was a coordinating lead author. In that report we found that by 2050, roughly 80 percent of global energy demand could be met by tapping renewable sources. The IPCC’s best-case prediction is contingent on a big caveat, however. It is that government policies must “play a crucial role in accelerating the deployment of Renewable Energy (RE) technologies.”

Fair enough, but which policies work best? Which can be replicated widely? Which sectors need more radical new approaches? Given the complexity of energy technologies, and markets, modes of power generation, transmission, distribution, consumption, metering and billing, and the multiplicity of policies—feed-in tariffs, subsidies, ‘feebates’, renewable portfolio standards, and so on— policy makers are often scrambling for guidance.

As author for the Policy and Deployment chapter of the IPCC report, as well as a member of the Summary for Policymakers’ team, I am pleased to suggest a useful source: a recent Discussion Paper No. 22 produced by my World Bank colleague Gabriela Elizondo Azuela, along with Luiz Augusto Barroso, Design and Performance of Policy Instruments to Promote the Development of Renewable Energy: Emerging Experience in Selected Developing Countries.

Elizondo and Barroso studied grid-connected RE policy options used in six countries—Brazil, India, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Sir Lanka and Turkey. They find that sound governance is an essential condition for the success of policy incentives that aim to accelerate the integration of renewable energy. “For example,” Elizondo says, “legal and regulatory frameworks for grid connection and integration have to be in place before RE policy is introduced.” In the IPCC report we called this the ‘enabling environment’.

Not surprisingly...

http://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange/how-renewable-energy

[kristopher]

5. Kammen recommends: "Renewable Energy's "Footprint" Myth" by Amory Lovins

Land footprint seems an odd criterion for choosing energy systems: the amounts of land at issue are not large, because global renewable energy flows are so vast that only a tiny fraction of them need be captured. For example, economically exploitable wind resources, after excluding land with competing uses, are over nine times total national electricity use in the U.S.i and over twice in Chinaii; before land-use restrictions, the economic resource is over 6× total national electricity use in Britain and 35× worldwide—all at 80-meter hub height, where there’s less energy than at the modern ≥100 m.iii Just the 300 GW of windpower now stuck in the U.S. interconnection queue could displace two-fifths of U.S. coal power. Photovoltaics, counting just one-fifth of their extractable power over land to allow for poor or unavailable sites, could deliver over 150 times the world’s total 2005 electricity consumption,iv The sunlight falling on the Earth every ~70 minutes equals humankind’s entire annual energy use. An average square meter of land receives each year as much solar energy as a barrel of oil contains, and that solar energy is evenly distributed across the world within about twofold.v The U.S., “an intense user of energy, has about 4,000 times more solar energy than its annual electricity use. This same number is about 10,000 worldwide<, so> ...if only 1% of land area were used for PV, more than ten times the global energy could be produced....”vi

Nonetheless, many nuclear advocatesvii argue that renewable electricity has far too big a land “footprint” to be environmentally acceptable, while nuclear power is preferable because it uses orders of magnitude less land. If we assume that land-use is an important metric, a closer look reveals the opposite is true.viii

For example, Stewart Brand’s 2010 book Whole Earth Discipline cites novelist and author Gwyneth Cravens’s claim that “A nuclear plant producing 1,000 megawatts takes up a third of a square mile.” But this direct plant footprint omits the owner-controlled exclusion zone (~1.9–3.1 mi2).ix Including all site areas barred to other uses (except sometimes a public road or railway track), the U.S. Department of Energy’s nuclear cost guidex says the nominal site needs 7 mi2, or 21× Cravens’s figure. She also omits the entire nuclear fuel cycle, whose first steps—mining, milling, and tailings disposal—disturb nearly 4 mi2 to produce that 1-GW plant’s uranium for 40 years using typical U.S. ores.xi Coal-mining to power the enrichment plant commits about another 22 mi2-y of land disturbance for coal mining, transport, and combustion,xii or an average (assuming full restoration afterwards) of 0.55 mi2 throughout the reactor’s 40-y operating life. Finally, the plant’s share of the Yucca Mountain spent-fuel repository (abandoned by DOE but favored by Brand) plus its exclusion zone addsxiii another 3 mi2. Though this sum is incomplete,xiv clearly Brand’s nuclear land-use figures are too low by more than 40-foldxv—or, according to an older calculation done by a leading nuclear advocate, by more than 120-fold.xvi

This is strongly confirmed by a new, thorough, and authoritative assessment ...

Renewable Energy's "Footprint" Myth
AUTHOR: Lovins, Amory
DOCUMENT ID: E11-07
YEAR: 2011
DOCUMENT TYPE: Journal or Magazine Article
PUBLISHER: The Electricity Journal


You can download the author's prepublication copy here: http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/2011-07_RenewableEnergysFootprintMyth

[kristopher]

7. Good interview with Kammen.

http://grokscience.wordpress.com/transcripts/daniel-kammen/

Ever since humans discovered fire, there has been demand for energy and the resources that provide it. Their various form have included wood, coal, oil, and nuclear energy. Over the years, a host of technologies and industries have been developed to tap these resources and distribute them. But at the same time, our demand for energy has grown and wars have been fought over these resources. One of the most pressing questions these days is what kind of energy policy should we formulate? What kind of alternative sources of energy should we pursue? And how can we best protect the environment at the same time?

Joining us to talk about these issues is Dr. Daniel Kammen who holds several appointments at the University of California. He is Professor of Energy and Society, Professor of Nuclear Engineering, and Professor of Public Policy. Professor Kammen is also director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL).

Below is an edited transcript of the interview. Frank Ling (FL) talks to Daniel Kammen (DK):...

...DK: The Energy and Resources Group (ERG) is my initial appointment here on campus and I work through them mainly on energy sustainability questions so we would look at a whole range of issues about how renewable energy can contribute to our overall energy mix. What are the technical barriers? What are the policy options? What are the economics of it? And then through the School of Public Policy, I work sort of more directly on national and international energy policy questions. So for example, I testified last week in front of the House Science Committee on what’s the future of nuclear power which also ties into my third appointment in Nuclear Engineering. So, the goal for my lab is to work on all aspects of energy policy and science from basic labwork. And we do basic labwork on wind, solar systems, all the the way through the economics and policy aspects of these technologies.

FL: And could you give us your views ...

http://grokscience.wordpress.com/transcripts/daniel-kammen/

[bananas]

8. Not to be confused with Dean Kamen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Kamen

[kristopher]

15. Interesting coincidence.

I never saw the attraction of the Segway myself.

[kestrel91316]

27. My honest assessment? We're completely fucked.

[kristopher]

28. Control has always been an illusion.

No person knows the future, and working to make tomorrow as good as you hope it can be only makes sense. Anything else is participation in a self-fulfilling prophecy of the worst sort. Waiting to get hit by a truck tomorrow would make as much sense as focusing only on the possibility of doom.

http://dbanach.com/sisyphus.htm

[GliderGuider]

29. So is most people's understanding of the current situation.

Most of us are trapped by a pernicious set of psychological traits:

• Our judgement about the state of the world tends to be limited in time and space by our direct experience.
  
• We believe that the future will be more or less like the past.
  
• We have an evolved tendency to follow leaders, rarely questioning whether their interests are aligned with ours.

The trends that pose the greatest challenges are typically long, slow, and geographically diffuse (environmental and infrastructural changes like resource depletion fall into this category). These are precisely the sorts of trends that most individuals find hardest to detect, and even harder to become emotionally aroused over.

Leaders' interests are fundamentally different from those of their followers. Leaders tend to be risk-takers whose primary motivation is to retain leadership, while followers are largely interested minimizing personal and collective risk so as to get on with their daily lives in comfort and safety.

These traits cause enormous distortions in our collective judgement. We tend to define "better" as "more secure and more comfortable", and to define "working to make tomorrow as good as we hope it can be" in narrow terms of immediate security and comfort. We tend to minimize any perceptions that make achieving this goal seem difficult. Any interfering trends that can be denied because they are not obvious in the moment and/or are being denied by those in authority, tend to be discarded. This applies to processes like climate change, resource depletion, overpopulation and social destabilization.

Because these trends are minimized or ignored, they cause people to make decisions that will have negative consequences in the long term. Two prime examples are overconsumption and supporting the loss of personal freedoms. Recognizing which way the wind is blowing and taking that into account when making life decisions isn't necessarily a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom. Sometimes it's realistic, responsible stewardship.

In other words, working to make the future as good as we hope it can be while not having a realistic awareness of the current situation is a recipe for making the problem worse over time. This is precisely the path that the world is following.

[kristopher]

32. It takes some really huge leaps of logic

To go from my post to your response.

I dub thee "King of the Straw Men". May you rule your kingdom wisely.

[GliderGuider]

33. Only those who are intellectually strong enough can make such leaps...

Sorry I couldn't dumb it down enough.

[kristopher]

34. Your leap was emotional, not logical.

It is healthy to experience a pessimistic outlook sometimes, and having a considered opinion on the pessimistic side of an issue is certainly a reasonable state of being. However when you can't allow room in life for the healthy existence of hope there is a high likelihood that either your emotional conditioning is leading your reasoning, or that you are writing fiction.

[GliderGuider]

35. Stop wriggling.

You said "leap of logic", not me.

What evidence is there that anyone in this convo "can't allow room in life for the healthy existence of hope"? You might be having an emotional reaction to statements like "we're completely fucked", but even that bit of hyperbole doesn't speak to what room there is for hope. There's plenty of room for hope, but I feel it's in different places than you.

[kestrel91316]

30. Well, I do what I can to make this a better world, being car-free and child-free.

But when I see how governments choose to do nothing, corporations choose to do nothing, and most Americans choose to do nothing to help the environment I realize what we are up against.

[GliderGuider]

31. Going child-free is the key. One Canuck has saved almost 1000 tonnes of CO2 over 40 years:

In 1970, when I was 20, I decided not to whelp.

In the 40 years since I made that decision, my non-existent replacement offspring has not consumed 150 tonnes of oil, 120 tonnes of natural gas and 50 tonnes of coal; and has not produced 975 tonnes of CO2.

The same applies to my three child-free wives (one deceased, on ex, one current).

When I die the situation will become even better.

There is nothing more convincing than leading by personal example...
:evilgrin:

[4dsc]

36. And no mention of peak oil

or the ramification peak oil production will have on EVERY SINGLE so called alternative energy source.

How sad everyone wants to ignore the elephant in the room.

[kristopher]

37. Are you under the impression...

that the most informed view of petroleum's future isn't part of this modeling and analysis?

These are motived and honest experts that spend their lives working on addressing climate change; do you really think you possess some secret wisdom they have missed?

[GliderGuider]

39. I saw no mention of it, either in this blog post or the entire 28 MB IPCC report.

If they considered it, they're keeping it a well-hidden secret.

I find it entirely comprehensible that a consensus document (as all IPCC publications are) would not have considered Peak Oil - which is, after all, a topic even more controversial than climate change. So it's understandable that we would possess knowledge the IPCC did not, for one reason or another, include in the study. It's not "secret" knowledge, but it's fairly cutting edge. Similarly the IPCC barely gave mention to the "methane gun" of clathrates and permafrost for the same reason, though anybody with half a brain knows we're looking right down its barrel.

Any analysis of how we get from here to there that doesn't factor in Peak Oil and global recession is not an "informed view", it's a joke. It's a faith-based statement of possibilities, not a realistic road map.

[kristopher]

40. Just because they don't use the term dear to the heart of consiracy theorists...

doesn't mean they didn't project petroleum supply and consumption.

Your claim is absurd nonsense.

[GliderGuider]

42. Point me to some evidence.

I looked for evidence, and didn't find any. Without it, your position is as faith-based as theirs.

[kristopher]

44. Search for "business as usual"

That should give you a starting point as it deals with increasing demand juxtaposed against known production, reserves and the full range of alternatives that might be exploited as economics of petroleum change over time.

However, since the idea of a societal collapse due to a sudden unanticipated collapse of oil production is demonstrably false; if that is what you are looking for you should probably go rent some more Mel Gibson films.

[GliderGuider]

45. Nuh-uh. Point me to some evidence that the people who did the analysis factored in PO.

You're mis-characterizing PO and the speculations about its effects, as usual.

I don't think PO will suddenly cause the collapse of western civilization. I think the combination of PO and economic recession/depression will trigger a long-drawn-out decay of civilization. What John Michael Greer calls "catabolic collapse" or other call a "stairstep decline". It's going to take us a hundred years or more to burn all the furniture.

[kristopher]

46. I just did.

"Peak oil" as used the way you did originally in this thread is all about sudden collapse - otherwise it is known simply as the economics of a declining natural resource for which we have alternatives.

I'd suggest you review the background of the 164 models used to which focused on BAU and then delve into the details of those (including the work they are based on) in order to give us a detailed accounting of where they have failed to do a proper analysis of the physical resources involved.

The anti-intellectualism on this forum is getting worse every day the nuclear industry is under threat...

[Terry in Austin]

48. You have a sensationalized notion of the term

Peak oil: 90 mbd production, max, ever. If even that. Then 4.5 % decline per year -- and that's from the oil industry cheerleaders.

That's serious enough, without getting hysterical.

Working out the implications is left as an exercise for the student.

[kristopher]

49. You're the one talking up a crisis - that's the definition of "sensationalized"

You then pretend you're actually talking about natural resource economics. I say pretend because if you were actually and really talking about natural resource economics instead of playing Internet Chicken Little, you'd also takes into account alternatives to dwindling resources the way the studies behind the modeling did.

You pretend there are no alternatives, when in fact there are. You might consider the possibility that you don't understand the topic as well as you think.

[4dsc]

52. There are no alternatives to oil

simple put any so called alternative to oil is dependent upon oil to produce.


Peak oil has been described transportation problem and no alternative will ever replace it.

[kristopher]

53. That isn't true.

Petroleum is an energy carrier with a given set of characteristics. Most applications rely on a subset of those characteristics. When petroleum use is examined application by application it is easy to show how petroleum can be replaced. Electricity is (by far) the most valuable energy carrier. Very few applications actually require the properties of liquid fuels, and the amount needed for those that do can be met by biofuels.

[4dsc]

50. You are correct sir

I too have to wonder why peak oil is not being mention at all in any of these reports.

[GliderGuider]

38. The reason no one will mention it

is because there is no way around, over, under or through it. Peak Oil poses fundamental dilemmas that are simply declared "out of scope" by the people doing these analyses. The idea that we can get from here to there despite Peak Oil and a deepening global recession (both of which are foregone conclusions) is purely an article of faith. Because taking those factors into full consideration would lay bare the lie at the heart of our dream of sustainability. Reality never lies though, and all the whistling past the graveyard won't make the nightmare go away.

[kristopher]

41. Mel Gibson wants his taxi back...

[GliderGuider]

43. That's all you've got? Really?

At least paste me some Jacobsen or something.

[4dsc]

51. People, like kristopher, are in denial

there is no other way to explain why they refuse to acknowledge PO and its ramifications it will have on our energy future.

[kristopher]

54. People like Kristopher are just more informed on the topic than you are.

[Terry in Austin]

47. Oh, we dont EVER mention peak oil

This is polite company.

Besides, peak oil is just some kind of conspiracy theory, isn't it?

:eyes: