In this overheated political season, everyone is focused on the short run and even our reasonably thoughtful president continues to succumb to the mantra of the moment. The president is trying very hard to focus on jobs and the economy, and the more immediate the benefit the better. On Friday the 13th President Obama used his executive authority to form an interagency working group to encourage hydrofracking. According to the president's order:
"In 2011, natural gas provided 25 percent of the energy consumed in the United States. Its production creates jobs and provides economic benefits to the entire domestic production supply chain ... with appropriate safeguards, natural gas can provide a cleaner source of energy than other fossil fuels... To formalize and promote ongoing interagency coordination, this order establishes a high-level, interagency working group that will facilitate coordinated Administration policy efforts to support safe and responsible unconventional domestic natural gas development."
It is obvious that we will be using more natural gas in the United States than ever before, and it would be nice if this gas was extracted without destroying vital ecosystems and groundwater sources. It is true that natural gas burns cleaner than coal and oil, but it still pollutes and emits greenhouse gasses. All of this emphasis on extracting fossil fuels from the earth needs to be seen as a short to medium term solution to our energy needs.
Just as we are in the midst of a transformation from land line phones to cell phones, we will someday find ourselves in a transformation from a fossil fuel based economy to a post fossil fuel economy. Naysayers beware -- the fossil fuel free energy future will come. The only thing we don't know is when it will come and what technologies will fuel it.
Why am I so confident? First, the modern economy is built on energy. We need lots of it and India, China and eventually Africa will need even more than we do. The motivation to develop new sources of energy is incredibly high. Second, fossil fuel extraction damages ecosystems, and human life depends on well-functioning ecosystems. Third, fossil fuel use emits greenhouse gasses that cause climate change, and climate change disrupts human settlements, agriculture and infrastructure. These disruptions are expensive and climate change provides a strong motivation to develop alternatives to fossil fuels. Fourth, fossil fuels are finite and will eventually run out. As fossil fuels become scarce they will become more expensive, creating an even stronger motivation to develop lower cost alternatives. Fifth, fossil fuels are expensive to transport. All of these factors are stimulating a world-wide technological race to replace fossil fuels with other sources of energy.
As I've written before, somewhere in a garage in America or in basement in China, some teenager is working on a low-cost solar cell and battery that will make her a billionaire and reduce the cost of energy for everyone. OK, maybe it won't be a single teenager, but a team of older folks; and maybe it will be a series of inventions from a world scientific community that has never been more interconnected or in closer constant communication. But it will happen and when it does, the powerful interests that control the fossil fuel supplies will either get with the program, or get wiped out. Kodak was slow to recognize the end of the film business and ended up bankrupt. Borders couldn't survive the decline of the paper book. The oil companies use politics to fight dirty, so they will continue to promote fossil fuels, but the global clean energy business will not be stopped by campaign contributions and high-priced lobbyists. My guess is that these companies are smart enough to adapt to the fossil fuel free energy future.
Which brings me back to hydrofracking: We will be mining fossil fuels for the next several decades and since its going to happen we need to do it in a way that is as safe as possible. Mining should take place in the least fragile ecosystems and should be tightly governed by an aggressive regulatory regime. Damage will take place, but effective policing will reduce the destruction and the costs of regulation will not be ruinous. There will be plenty of short-term profits to be made by exploiting these natural gas resources, and a few percentage points of profit devoted to safety can be easily afforded. We just need to make sure we don't get too greedy for our own good.
Many of our economic and environmental problems stem from our dependence on fossil fuels. Nevertheless, we will be using lots of these fuels until alternatives are developed. When these alternatives come, fossil fuel use will continue for many decades and so we need to develop the technology of carbon capture and storage and we also need to learn to mine fossil fuels without damaging the environment. That is why I support the president's initiative to encourage and coordinate "unconventional domestic natural gas development." We need to learn how to effectively regulate fossil fuel extraction. The idea that we can simply stop mining fossil fuels is not realistic.
All of us are addicted to energy. It is more than a little hypocritical to oppose the use of fossil fuels while typing on our computers, listening to our iPods and communicating over the Internet. The jobs and economic growth so central to the presidential election campaign now underway depend on the availability of plentiful and reasonably priced energy. We use energy so frequently in the course of the day, that most of the time we are not even aware we are using it. We can use energy more efficiently than we do, but our real energy future will require much more energy than our energy present. The only question is the degree and intensity of the environmental damage that will result from our use of energy. We have the ability to contain that damage. Do we have the political will required to do so? That's a very good question.
Follow Steven Cohen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/earthinstitute
Gabe Elsner: The Class of Talkers Playing Down the Cost of Fossil Fuel Dependence
Rev. Jim Ball: POTUS Can't Remain Silent on Climate
Frank Stewart: America's Energy Future Hinges on New York, Ohio, Other States' Leadership
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 |
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| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Electoral Votes (270 to win) |
332 | 206 |
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 65,899,660 | 60,932,152 |
| Percent | 51.1% | 47.2% |
| Democrats* | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Current Senate | 53 | 47 |
| Seats gained or lost | +2 | -2 |
| New Total | 55 | 45 |
| Democrats | Republicans | |
|---|---|---|
| Seats won | 201 | 234 |
Here's a quote from Cohen:
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"Somewhere in a garage in America or in basement in China, some teenager is working on a low-cost solar cell and battery that will make her a billionaire and reduce the cost of energy for everyone. OK, maybe it won't be a single teenager, but a team of older folks; and maybe it will be a series of inventions from a world scientific community...but it will happen"
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In fact as Sloan shows in his paper, this quote is an intellectual fallacy...it assumes that the same type of innovation in software/computers will work in other industries, like Energy. It's simply not true.
The energy problem is utterly unlike the rest of the high-tech industry, which is why essentially ALL of the much-hyped energy "startups" have failed miserably.
Sorry folks, I know everybody is hoping for some magic green solution to pop up. It isn't happening, time to get real.
The Magic green solution is here NOW.
Rooftop solar, offshore wind, efficiency, waste bio char and fuels and commuter hybrids can solve all our energy problems, cheaper, faster, clean, safe and forever.
The MAGIC we need is for people to realize it, wake up, and force their politicians to remove the huge 500M$ per reactor per year and similar for clean coal, ngas and trillion dollar wars for oil...
rooftop solar, offshore eff, wind waste and commuter hybrids. That is the combination that works.
Get real.
Fossil fuels are so filthy, and nuclear is so radioactive. Like most people I really wish green energy was more viable.
But it's not, and wishing for it won't make it so. This isn't a Disney movie where wishes magically come true.
Why do you keep repeating the claim that green is too expensive?
More importantly, however, it raises electricity prices to astronomically levels, year by year.
Imagine, carbon capture and storage had been introduced 5 years ago. Today's electricity consumer would pay for the monitoring and maintenance of a 5 year storage facility. In 5 years, that customer will pay for the monitoring and maintenance of a 10 year storage facility, and so forth and so on.
That is unworkable or as we say here these days, that's a no brainer. Better check out what they're testing in Germany, with RWE amonst others: Use CO2 to make polyurethane foams.
That would be a far better way to consume CO2 instead of wasting energy trying to hide it. Using CO2 as a growth enhancer for algae biofuel operations is another method of getting the most return on CO2 collection. It is time for advancement in the energy industry, not retreat into old comfort zones, while ignoring the real costs of using dirty power.
Oh goodie, here's another one.
Sydney University had successfully made hydrogen from seawater and sun energy - but somehow we still hear about coal. It sounds like a default position, research and discuss - and then come back to coal and nuclear. Why do the big boys love it so much? Their grandchildren will also have to breathe (I guess) and the higher the CO2 content, the more difficult breathing becomes and underground storage can never be leakproof I guess, apart from the costs accumulating year by year. And all discussions always leave the accumulating costs out!?!? So I felt I had to mention it.
Waste bio char is the only good way to capture atmospheric carbon and store it in stable sold form.
Meanwhile the radioactive heavy metals also continue.
Fossils and nukes are dead ends.
Modern factory produced nuclear is cheaper than natural gas and far cheaper once gas exports begin.
Note that studies have shown gas to be a worse GHG producer than coal because of system methane leaks.
International gas prices are now up to $18/mcf as much as 8 times US cost. Big Oil's spokespersons never wonder why we aren't building LNG plants when the gas is only a $2/mcf LNG ride to the international market.
Can it be that Big Oil is holding off construction, dumping gas as fast as they can pump and paying our politicians and Big Media to deny LNG licence until coal plants get converted to gas instead of the feared nukes? Why is that enormous LNG plants are being built in Australia where paid off governments have antinuke legislation?
Already nuke hydrogen or natural gas based Shell Qatar type GTL plants make diesel cheaper than tar sands petrol can.
Stop the nuclear industry welfare programme | Bernie Sanders and Ryan Alexander | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
French court finds nuclear too expensive - News - Renewables International
Economics of nuclear power
But you keep leaving out the capital cost of the reactors and the 500M$ in breaks per reactor per year.
For example, the hydroelectric fuel cell invented in Vietnam. You add only water: fresh or salt.
A 2,000 watt generator for homes is headed for production at a price of $1,600.
See Moving Beyond Oil and Cheap Green at www.aesopinstitute.org to learn more about this and a few others in the gathering flock.
Top Threat on that site will explain why superseding nuclear power now has extraordinary urgency.
Wise action in that regard will sharply accelerate decentralized renewable energy beginning with rooftop solar.
It can boost the economy and generate jobs!
The academic world is no less out of touch with reality today.
However, arrogant ignorance has become far more dangerous.
Solar or Nuclear or Hydroelectric
Hydroelectric is shrinking...not expanding, because dam sites are being dis-approved for environmental reasons.
So, what's left is Nuclear.
Right?
Otherwise, good point.
Maybe "we" don't, but there is a perfectly good plan: rooftop solar, offshore wind, efficiency, plug in electric commuter hybrids and waste bio char bio fuels....
Can supply many times the energy we need even with first world energy use for all 9B people peak.
Chepaer than nukes, clean coal and aproaching ngas asnd dirty coal, 24/7 using waste bio fuels in existing fossil plants, but clean without the radiactive heavy metals, and carbon negative if you use the char as fertilizer.
Forever. safe clean, faster to install. and doubling every year or so now, and ready to replace fossils and nukes within 7 years if we pushed it.
If we dumped all the huge breaks that fossils and nukes still get into green energy.
Solar cheaper than nukes and energy source amounts: http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/23/solar-power-intro-3-key-solar-power-points-top-solar-power-news/ Note the fossil and nuke numbers are totals, the solar wind and waste are PER YEAR!
http://www.ncwarn.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/NCW-SolarReport_final1.pdf
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Comparative_electrical_generation_costs
shows overlap in solar and nukes costs at around 13 cents.
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/05/29/ge-solar-power-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels-in-5-years/
http://nukepimp.blogspot.com/p/renewable-and-energy-efficiency.html 3 cents
Offshore wind now tariffed at 25 cents a kwh still isn't producing any power in the US since first proposed in 1991
NREL tells us rooftop PV can provide at most 3% of US energy requirements.
Ontario's tariff of roughly 60 cents a kwh for solar is the actual cost of providing it with another 20 cents a kwh for 8 times sized transmission builds and 100% name plate gas backup providing close to 100% of the power from the solar/gas backup scam. Add green storage add another buck a kwh. For wind subtract 40 cents a kwh from that
Real solar install in service Jan 2011 by expert engineers at Duke Energy using real solar panels not the Walmart quality Chinese junk that Big Oil's not so greed media pushes with the same service life as everything else you buy at Walmart.
http://www.pv-tech.org/project_focus/davidson_county_solar_farm_north_carolina
$43 a watt average, 65 cents a kwh at Dukes discount rate.
Waste biomass can supply only a tiny percentage of energy needs at enormous cost.
Real cost of nukes
Units 26 and 27 of Candu technology.all on time in 4 years and on budget at $2B/Gw or less than 3 cents a kwh.
Google cnnc 168 candu
This guys "facts" are so ridiculous he just proves he not honest.
25 TWh of Wind Power Idled in 2010 in US – Grid Storage Needed - CleanTechnica
Wind Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) at All-Time Low - CleanTechnica
Google, Citi Invest Lots More In Wind Power
The Internet is the fastest-growing energy expenditure of the modern world.
Of course, you won't see articles honestly discussing this, on any green web sites. They hate to think that they ARE the problem.
If we do not know what technologies that will fuel it, why are we giving billions of dollars to solar cell companies and other green technologies that may never produce enough affordable power to power the economy?
OH! That right. We give them billions of dollars because they contribute to the Obama campaigns!
Duhhh!
HOPE and CHANGE!