A deeper dive: State's environmental review of Keystone XL tar sands pipeline shows it is not in the nation's interest | Anthony Swift's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/aswift/a_deeper_dive_states_environm

Why President Obama?s Natural Gas ?Bridge? May Be On The Verge Of Collapse]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/01/30/3224951/obama-sotu-natural

Methane Leaks in Gas Fields Offsets Benefits Says Study | The Energy Collective

A major new study in Geophysical Research Letters by 19 researchers — primarily from NOAA and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) — suggests natural gas may be more of gangplank than a bridge.
http://theenergycollective.com/josephromm/258771/bridge-or-gangplank-s

President Obama acknowledges Keystone XL not a job creator and that tar sands pipeline decision rests on climate impacts | Elizabeth Shope's Blog | Switchboard, from NRDC

Elizabeth Shope, Advocate, Washington, D.C.: This blog was jointly written with Danielle Droitsch, Senior Attorney and Canada Project Director at NRDC. In an interview last week with the New York Times, President Obama outlined in remarkable detail how the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would...
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/eshope/president_obama_acknowledges_

New open-source lifecycle analysis tool for oil production using field characteristics

Schematic chart showing included stages within OPGEE. El Houjeiri et al., Supplemental Information. Click to enlarge.

A team from Stanford University and the California Air Resources Board (ARB) has developed a new open-source lifecycle analysis (LCA) tool for modeling the greenhouse gas emissions of oil and gas production using characteristics of specific fields and associated production pathways. The team describes the Oil Production Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimator (OPGEE) in a paper in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Existing transportation fuel cycle emissions models are either broad-i.e., lacking process-level detail for any particular fuel pathway-and calculate nonspecific values of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from crude oil production, or are not available for public review and auditing, the authors note.

Emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) from crude oil production vary significantly depending on production practices and crude oil qualities. The use of energy-intensive secondary and tertiary recovery technologies can have significant impacts on emissions. Other major factors are venting, flaring and fugitive (VFF) emissions, which are difficult to measure and estimate. Previous studies show that upstream, well-to-refinery gate (WTR) emissions vary by a factor of 10 from low emissions to high emissions fields. This variability highlights the importance of having the capability to assess the different types of crude oil production operations and under different conditions.

Regulatory approaches, such as the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and European Fuel Quality Directive (EU FQD), seek to regulate the life cycle GHG emissions for transport fuels.

...To advance the modeling of crude oil production GHGs in a transparent manner, the Oil Production Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimator (OPGEE) has been developed. OPGEE is built with the goals of achieving more accuracy and better transparency in the assessment of life cycle GHG emissions from crude oil production. OPGEE calculates the energy use and emissions from crude oil production using engineering fundamentals of petroleum production and processing. This allows the model to flexibly estimate emissions from a variety of oil production emissions sources.

-El-Houjeiri et al.

In their paper, Hassan El-Houjeiri and Adam Brandt from Stanford, and James Duffy from ARB, introduce OPGEE and its structure, modeling methods, and data sources, then run it in default mode and on a small set of fictional fields (based on real California fields) selected to have varying characteristics and meant to represent a variety of possible operations. These serve to anchor the sensitivity analysis. The results show the GHG emissions breakdown and the sensitivity of emissions to selected input parameters.

The functional unit of OPGEE is 1 MJ of crude petroleum delivered to the refinery entrance (a well-to-refinery, or WTR system boundary), with emissions presented as gCO₂ equiv GHGs per MJ of crude at the refinery gate. This functional unit is held constant across different production processes included in OPGEE. The energy content of crude oil at the refinery gate is calculated based on API gravity (no account of effects of other crude oil characteristics such as sulfur content). OPGEE defaults to lower heating value (LHV) basis for all calculations, but model results can also be presented on higher heating value (HHV) basis.

Basic structure of OPGEE. Credit: ACS, El-Houjeiri et al. Click to enlarge.

OPGEE calculations use a bottom-up engineering-based approach. OPGEE relies on dozens of calculations across all stages of oil production, processing and transport.

Data for the four fictional fields used in the paper (A, B, C, D) are derived from the online production and injection database and technical reports from the California Department of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR).

Field A uses steam injection to decrease crude viscosity. Field B is characterized by very high water-oil ratio (WOR), which represents an inefficient lifting process and significant energy use to manage large amounts of water at the surface (e.g., treatment and re-injection). Field C is characterized by average depth and moderate WOR. Field D is characterized by low depth, low WOR, and higher gas‚àíoil ratio (GOR). The "generic" case uses only the default parameters used to run OPGEE when no data are available.

WTR GHG intensity of California fields compared to OPGEE default. Field A has high GHG because of the use of energy-intensive steam injection. Field B is depleted, with WOR = 40 (e.g., it produces 40 bbl of water per bbl oil). Lifting and handling this amount of fluid is inefficient and consumes large amounts of energy. The water produced is assumed to be re-injected into the reservoir to maintain pressure, increasing the energy intensity of production. Fields C and D have relatively low GHG intensity because they do not use energy-intensive secondary and tertiary production technologies and have moderate to low WOR. Click to enlarge. Credit: ACS, El-Houjeiri et al.

The researchers explored variation in GHG outcomes due to WOR; field depth; oil production volume; steam-oil ratio (SOR); application of a heater/treater in surface oil‚àíwater separation; and flaring rate. OPGEE found that that upstream emissions from petroleum production operations can vary from 3 gCO₂/MJ to more than 30 gCO₂/MJ using realistic ranges of input parameters. Significant drivers of emissions variation are steam injection rates, water handling requirements, and rates of flaring of associated gas.

Results from OPGEE show clear evidence that assuming a single value for the GHG intensity of oil production is problematic because of significant variation in emissions from different operations. This is particularly the case for regulations aiming to reduce WTW GHG intensity of fuels. Future efforts to better understand and characterize this variation are clearly required. Additional efforts will also focus on improving data availability and the data basis for model defaults.

Future work on OPGEE will address scope limitations and coverage of technologies. Coverage will expand to include oil sands operations, as well as heavy oil and other EOR technologies. Supporting technologies, such as hydraulic fracturing and stimulation, will be included to better represent modern production practices.

-El-Houjeiri et al.

The work was funded by ARB.

Resources

• Hassan M. El-Houjeiri, Adam R. Brandt, and James E. Duffy (2013) Open-Source LCA Tool for Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Crude Oil Production Using Field Characteristics. Environmental Science & Technology doi: 10.1021/es304570m

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/05/new-open-source-lifecycle-anal

Illinois' fracking and coal rush is a national crisis

What happens in Illinois doesn't stay in Illinois -- especially when you're dealing with the national ramifications of a combined fracking and coal mining rush unparalleled in recent memory.
As a sit-in movement continues at the office of Gov. Pat Quinn in Springfield, Ill., besieged southern Illinois residents who have been left out of backroom legislative negotiations over a controversial and admittedly flawed regulatory fracking bill are calling on the nation to contact Gov. Quinn and Lt. Gov. Lisa Madigan to "put a moratorium on drilling to investigate its full climate and health impacts."
Residents are also asking for concerned supporters to call members of Illinois' legislature to vote against a bill that health expert Sandra Steingraber has denounced as unscientific and unsafe.
Continue Reading...

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/25/illinoiss_fracking_and_coal_rush_is_a_

Researchers demonstrate electrochemical synthesis of ammonia from air and water under mild conditions

Researchers from the University of Strathclyde and the University of St. Andrews have demonstrated that ammonia can be synthesized directly from air (instead of N₂) and H₂O (instead of H₂) under a mild condition (room temperature, one atmosphere) with supplied electricity which can be obtained from renewable resources such as solar, wind or marine. In addition to providing a less carbon-intensive pathway for ammonia, their process could also reduce the pressure on renewable energy storage, they note.

Their paper appears in Scientific Reports, the open access journal from the Nature Publishing Group.

Globally 131 million tons of ammonia were produced in 2010. The dominant ammonia production process is the Haber-Bosch process invented in 1904 which requires high temperature (~500¬∞C) and high pressure (150-300 bar), in addition to efficient catalysts. Natural gas or coal is used as the energy source of the ammonia industry. 1.87 tons of CO₂ is released per ton of ammonia produced. Globally 245 million tons of CO₂ were released by the ammonia industry in 2010 equivalent to about 50% of the UK CO₂ emissions (495.8 million tons) in that year. In the Haber-Bosch process, the presence of ppm level oxygen may poison the commonly used Fe-based catalysts. In industry, extensive purification of N₂ and H₂ is needed and this remarkably increases the overall cost of the process. Therefore researchers have been seeking a simpler way for synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen separated from air.

...It is well known that some higher plants can synthesize ammonia or its derivatives directly from air and water at room temperature. The ammonia produced by plants is normally directly used as fertilizer by the plants. To the best of our knowledge, there is no report on artificial synthesis of ammonia direct from air and water. It has been a dream for researchers who can imitate this natural process to synthesize ammonia under similar conditions.

...In most reports, H₂ and N₂ were commonly used as precursors for electrochemical synthesis of ammonia while H₂ production and N₂ separation are essential. H₂ production can be bypassed if H₂O was used as a precursor; however, the reaction between H₂O and N₂ to form ammonia is thermodynamically non-spontaneous under normally pressure; however, this can be achieved through electrochemical process because the applied voltage provides extra driving force.

-Lan et al.

In their study, they first fabricated an electrochemical cell for ammonia synthesis. H₂ (or water) and N₂ (or air) were passed through room temperature water first then filled into the chambers of the cell. The DC potential was applied by a Solartron 1470A electrochemical interface controlled by software for automatic data collection.

A maximum ammonia production rate of 1.14 √ó 10^‚àí5 mol m^‚àí2 s^‚àí1 was achieved when a voltage of 1.6 V was applied. Potentially, this can provide an alternative route for the mass production of the basic chemical ammonia under mild conditions, they concluded.

Resources

• Rong Lan, John T. S. Irvine & Shanwen Tao (2013) Synthesis of ammonia directly from air and water at ambient temperature and pressure. Scientific Reports 3, Article number: 1145 doi: 10.1038/srep01145

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/01/ammonia-20130130.htm

ExxonMobil predicts electrified vehicles will be mainstream by 2040

http://www.torquenews.com/1075/exxonmobil-predicts-electrified-vehicles-will-be-mainstream-2040

ExxonMobil predicts mainstreamed use of electrified vehicles by 2040 leads to efficiency improvements and a leveling off of emissions.

http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/energy_outlook_view.aspx

ExxonMobil Energy Outlook 2011

White roofs do little to stop global warming, solar panels do more, says Stanford's Mark Jacobsen

A couple years ago an idea was circulating that just painting your roof white or even silver colored would stop the heat island effect.  The urban heat island is the observation that urban areas, with lots of parking lots and buildings and very few trees and green areas, have a build-up of heat.  Go a little way out of town and temperatures cool off because the vegetation and shade and whatnot naturally acts to keep temperatures cooler.  The thinking goes that many things in urban areas, like Asphalt, are dark colored and therefore high school physics says it'll absorb heat.  The solution seemed to be that simply painting things white would cut the temperature and resolve the heat island.

Cities release more heat to the atmosphere than the rural vegetated areas around them, but how much influence these urban "heat islands" have on global warming has been a matter of debate. Now a study by Stanford researchers has quantified the contribution of the heat islands for the first time, showing that it is modest compared with what greenhouse gases contribute to global warming.  The team included Mark Jacobsen who's quoted saying "Between 2 and 4 percent of the gross global warming since the Industrial Revolution may be due to urban heat islands."

Some global warming skeptics have claimed that the urban heat island effect is so strong that it has been skewing temperature measurements that show that global warming is happening.  "This study shows that the urban heat island effect is a relatively minor contributor to warming, contrary to what climate skeptics have claimed," Jacobson said. "Greenhouse gases and particulate black carbon cause far more warming."

Although his study showed that urban heat islands are not major contributors to global warming, Jacobson said reducing the effect of heat islands is still important for slowing the rise of global temperatures.

The "paint roofs white" idea was described as "geoengineering" and found that white roofs did indeed cool urban surfaces, but that they also caused a net global warming, largely because they reduced cloudiness slightly by increasing the stability of the air, thereby reducing the vertical transport of moisture and energy to clouds.

Another idea that has been circulating is that because solar panels are dark color that they'd contribute to the heat island, and that perhaps we shouldn't use solar panels.  Jacobsens study can be taken to refute this idea, and give us a green light to using solar panels.  First, solar panels generate electricity hence offsetting electricity generated from fossil fuel powered plants.  Second, they reduce sunlight absorbed by buildings (assuming the panels are installed on the building) by shielding the building while being installed on the building.  Third, solar panels do not reflect the sunlight back into the air, meaning that light won't be re-absorbed by the atmosphere pollutants.

Jacobson is the director of Stanford's Atmosphere/Energy Program and a senior fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and the Precourt Institute for Energy. Graduate student John Ten Hoeve contributed to the research and is coauthor of the paper. Funding for the research was contributed by NASA and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/Others/HeatIsland+WhiteRfs0911.pdf

Urban 'heat island' effect is only a small contributor to global warming, and white roofs don't help to solve the problem, say Stanford researchers

A Switch From Coal To Natural Gas Won't Help The Climate: Study

"Natural gas might burn much cleaner than coal, but getting it has its problems: leaky pipes. And those leaks spray gasses that are worse for the climate than carbon."  Natural Gas is widely thought to be better than coal, even though it's a fossil fuel.  As a fossil fuel burning natural gas releases carbon into the atmosphere which had been sequestered eons ago.  This increase of carbon in the ecosphere is bad for climate change.  But burning natural gas causes fewer side effects than coal (look up the constituents of fly ash sometime) and has smaller greenhouse gas effects.

The problem is leaky pipes.  Natural gas and methane are essentially the same thing.  A difference between natural gas and methane is that natural gas was formed over eons of time underground, whereas methane is simply the byproduct of decomposition of current organic matter in places like swamps or peat bogs or landfills or even cows (cow farts are a source of greenhouse gas causing methane).  Both natural gas and methane are potent greenhouse gasses; more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2).

According to a computer simulation study from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), a partial global shift from coal to natural gas would still accelerate climate change through 2050 without methane leaks.

 

Source: A Switch From Coal To Natural Gas Won't Help The Climate: Study

Does PG&E's Climate Smart program help you make it "Earth Day" for 365 days a year?

My electricity provider is PG&E and last week they sent me an email suggesting that I can make it Earth Day for 365 days a year just by joining their Climate Smart program. A quick look over their website and what I see is a modern form of the medieval indulgences where one can pay a fee to the priest to offset the evil of ones sins. In this case their Climate Smart program is all about donating money (tax write-off, cool!) that PG&E will funnel into programs that supposedly mitigate the effects of burning fossil fuels.

As they say: "The energy used to power our homes can also emit greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere," and participation in the program "helps to balance out your home’s GHG emissions through environmental conservation, restoration and protection projects right here in California."

Maybe if there's a real effect from "environmental conservation, restoration and protection projects" then funneling money to them is a good idea. To me the sort of projects they're funding are the equivalent of bolting the barn door after the horses have already escaped.

That is, "environmental conservation, restoration and protection projects" supposedly removes harmful chemicals emitted by burning natural gas. But, wouldn't it be better to not burn natural gas in the first place?

In California we used to be able to select our electricity provider rather than be forced to buy power from the monopoly utility. But somewhere in the middle of the brownout energy crisis nearly 10 years ago (the one which forced Gray Davis out of the Governorship) we lost that ability to choose our electricity provider. As a result we can no longer choose companies like Green Mountain whose business was to operate solar or wind power plants.

What counts here is the actual projects they're funding. (See ClimateSmart Projects) They're a bevy of planting-trees-in-forests that are meant to provide carbon capture and services. Two more programs are methane capture at landfills and dairy operations. The last is diversion of refrigerators (and other appliances) from landfills to recycling operations.

Each of them have good environmental utility that I support. I do not want to diss the projects themselves.

Instead what I see is that there is no attempt at real fundamental change. These programs paper over the core issue, that PG&E's core business emits greenhouse gases. That to properly change the situation requires changing that fact.

Technosanity #20: World Energy Outlook 2008

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

The World Energy Outlook is a yearly publication from the International Energy Agency giving the official projection of the future energy outlook. They just released the 2008 report and there are a couple slide decks available giving some hints of what is contained in the report.

WEO 2008 Presentation at COP 14 Side Event

Launch of World Energy Outlook 2008

World primary energy demand in the reference scenario - they say it's "unsustainable" without explaining why. World energy demand expands by 45% between now and 2030, a very rapid rise, an average rate of increase of 1.6% per year, with coal accounting for more than a third of the overall rise.

Demand for coal has been growing faster than any other energy source & is projected to account for more than a third of incremental global energy demand to 2030

World oil production by source is very scary. The IEA figures show a decline in crude oil production from the currently producing fields begining in 2008. er.. That decline has already begun? There is a growing gap in production of the currently producing fields and their claimed future oil production. What makes up that gap is crude oil from fields that are yet to be developed, and this includes use of enhanced oil recovery techniques. They further explain that 64 million barrels per day of capacity needs to be installed between 2007 and 2030, which is six times the current capacity of Saudi Arabia. From where will the money come to pay for this infrastructure even if the oil is there to fill the demand?

97% of the projected increase in emissions between now & 2030 comes from non-OECD countries –three-quarters from China, India & the Middle East alone

OECD countries alone cannot put the world onto a 450-ppm trajectory,
even if they were to reduce their emissions to zero

These last two slides show that the problem is coming from the developing countries, primarily China and India. They are of course where the hugest quantity of industrialization is occuring.
World primary energy demand in the reference scenario - they say it's "unsustainable" without explaining why. World energy demand expands by 45% between now and 2030, a very rapid rise, an average rate of increase of 1.6% per year, with coal accounting for more than a third of the overall rise.

Demand for coal has been growing faster than any other energy source & is projected to account for more than a third of incremental global energy demand to 2030

World oil production by source is very scary. The IEA figures show a decline in crude oil production from the currently producing fields begining in 2008. er.. That decline has already begun? There is a growing gap in production of the currently producing fields and their claimed future oil production. What makes up that gap is crude oil from fields that are yet to be developed, and this includes use of enhanced oil recovery techniques. They further explain that 64 million barrels per day of capacity needs to be installed between 2007 and 2030, which is six times the current capacity of Saudi Arabia. From where will the money come to pay for this infrastructure even if the oil is there to fill the demand?

97% of the projected increase in emissions between now & 2030 comes from non-OECD countries –three-quarters from China, India & the Middle East alone

OECD countries alone cannot put the world onto a 450-ppm trajectory,
even if they were to reduce their emissions to zero

These last two slides show that the problem is coming from the developing countries, primarily China and India. They are of course where the hugest quantity of industrialization is occuring.

Current energy trends are patently unsustainable —socially, environmentally, economically

Oil will remain the leading energy source but...

-- The era of cheap oil is over, although price volatility will remain

-- Oilfield decline is the keydeterminant of investment needs

-- The oil market is undergoing major and lasting structural change, with national companies in the ascendancy

To avoid "abrupt and irreversible" climate change we need a major decarbonisation of the world’s energy system

-- Copenhagen must deliver a credible post-2012 climate regime
-- Limiting temperature rise to 2°C will require significant emission reductions in allregions & technological breakthroughs
-- Mitigating climate change will substantially improve energy security

The present economic worries do not excuse back-tracking or delays in taking action to address energy challenges

Technosanity #20: World Energy Outlook 2008

Links: 

World Energy Outlook

Links: 

International Energy Agency

Links: 

WEO 2008 Presentation at COP 14 Side Event

Links: 

Launch of World Energy Outlook 2008

AASIN: 

World Energy Outlook 2008

Technosanity #20: World Energy Outlook 2008

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

The World Energy Outlook is a yearly publication from the International Energy Agency giving the official projection of the future energy outlook. They just released the 2008 report and there are a couple slide decks available giving some hints of what is contained in the report.

WEO 2008 Presentation at COP 14 Side Event

Launch of World Energy Outlook 2008

World primary energy demand in the reference scenario - they say it's "unsustainable" without explaining why. World energy demand expands by 45% between now and 2030, a very rapid rise, an average rate of increase of 1.6% per year, with coal accounting for more than a third of the overall rise.

Demand for coal has been growing faster than any other energy source & is projected to account for more than a third of incremental global energy demand to 2030

World oil production by source is very scary. The IEA figures show a decline in crude oil production from the currently producing fields begining in 2008. er.. That decline has already begun? There is a growing gap in production of the currently producing fields and their claimed future oil production. What makes up that gap is crude oil from fields that are yet to be developed, and this includes use of enhanced oil recovery techniques. They further explain that 64 million barrels per day of capacity needs to be installed between 2007 and 2030, which is six times the current capacity of Saudi Arabia. From where will the money come to pay for this infrastructure even if the oil is there to fill the demand?

97% of the projected increase in emissions between now & 2030 comes from non-OECD countries –three-quarters from China, India & the Middle East alone

OECD countries alone cannot put the world onto a 450-ppm trajectory,
even if they were to reduce their emissions to zero

These last two slides show that the problem is coming from the developing countries, primarily China and India. They are of course where the hugest quantity of industrialization is occuring.
World primary energy demand in the reference scenario - they say it's "unsustainable" without explaining why. World energy demand expands by 45% between now and 2030, a very rapid rise, an average rate of increase of 1.6% per year, with coal accounting for more than a third of the overall rise.

Demand for coal has been growing faster than any other energy source & is projected to account for more than a third of incremental global energy demand to 2030

World oil production by source is very scary. The IEA figures show a decline in crude oil production from the currently producing fields begining in 2008. er.. That decline has already begun? There is a growing gap in production of the currently producing fields and their claimed future oil production. What makes up that gap is crude oil from fields that are yet to be developed, and this includes use of enhanced oil recovery techniques. They further explain that 64 million barrels per day of capacity needs to be installed between 2007 and 2030, which is six times the current capacity of Saudi Arabia. From where will the money come to pay for this infrastructure even if the oil is there to fill the demand?

97% of the projected increase in emissions between now & 2030 comes from non-OECD countries –three-quarters from China, India & the Middle East alone

OECD countries alone cannot put the world onto a 450-ppm trajectory,
even if they were to reduce their emissions to zero

These last two slides show that the problem is coming from the developing countries, primarily China and India. They are of course where the hugest quantity of industrialization is occuring.

Current energy trends are patently unsustainable —socially, environmentally, economically

Oil will remain the leading energy source but...

-- The era of cheap oil is over, although price volatility will remain

-- Oilfield decline is the keydeterminant of investment needs

-- The oil market is undergoing major and lasting structural change, with national companies in the ascendancy

To avoid "abrupt and irreversible" climate change we need a major decarbonisation of the world’s energy system

-- Copenhagen must deliver a credible post-2012 climate regime
-- Limiting temperature rise to 2°C will require significant emission reductions in allregions & technological breakthroughs
-- Mitigating climate change will substantially improve energy security

The present economic worries do not excuse back-tracking or delays in taking action to address energy challenges

Technosanity #20: World Energy Outlook 2008

Links: 

World Energy Outlook

Links: 

International Energy Agency

Links: 

WEO 2008 Presentation at COP 14 Side Event

Links: 

Launch of World Energy Outlook 2008

AASIN: 

World Energy Outlook 2008

Jeremy Leggett - Peak oil meets climate change

URL: 

Jeremy Leggett - Peak oil meets climate change

Description: 

Jeremy Leggett Lecture in the Cultivate Centre, Dublin where he discusses Peak oil and its effects on climate change

extvideo: 

Amory Lovins: Expanding Nuclear Power Makes Climate Change Worse

Amory Lovins has a very intriguing proposal... Increase of Nuclear Power use would cause an increase in Global Warming. That's kind of a puzzler but it turns out he has an interesting analysis. And, to be real, Officialdom is presenting increased nuclear power as a method to solve some of the 'energy' problems the U.S. is facing. Not just Washington Officialdom but some head scratchers like Stewart Brand and other environmentalists have been suggesting nuclear power because it doesn't emit carbon. Since nuclear power doesn't emit carbon it's thought to be a safe energy source in terms of global warming. But of course nuclear power has tremendous problems with disposal of the left over nuclear material, and increased use of nuclear power would lead us to perhaps using nuclear weapons again.

Before Amory Lovins began talking they quoted President Bush, and Senators McCain and Obama, all talking about the need to invest in (or explore investing in) new nuclear power plants. This makes it appear that no matter who is chosen President this year, we will have Nuclear Power on the table for discussion, debate, and possible approval by Congress.

First point

electricity and oil have essentially nothing to do with each other, and anybody who thinks the contrary is really ignorant about energy. Less than two percent of our electricity is made from oil. Less than two percent of our oil makes electricity.

Yup.. there are very few nuclear powered vehicles. Except in the military, who have nuclear powered ships of various kinds. But there are a couple ways nuclear power could help offset the use of oil..

I looked into this a couple years ago -- Examining nukes to replace oil -- The electricity or heat from a nuclear reactor can be used to extract hydrogen from water, or can be used to drive a coal-to-liquids plant. Coal-to-liquids is specifically a curious technology in that it's a way to make a liquid fuel starting from what are essentially rocks (coal). The Germans used this technology during WWII to drive their war machine even though they had no indigenous oil supplies. There happens to be huge coal deposits in the U.S. and further the same technology can be used with tar sands and other very sludgy oil deposits, and there are large tar sands deposits in Canada (Alberta).

This means there are a couple ways to make liquid fuels by way of using nuclear power to drive the machines that do so.

President Bush was quoted discussing "You know, one of these days, people are going to be using battery technologies in their cars." ... uh, yeah, look at my driveway. Since nuclear power creates electricity the use of electric cars could be powered by nuclear reactors. In todays arrangement most vehicles are driven by liquid fuels (oil) but if most vehicles were driven by electricity the electricity could come from a wide range of sources. Solar panels, wind power, tidal power, biomass, and, uh, ah, nuclear power.

But let's move to his next point:-

The costs have just stood up on end lately. Wall Street Journal recently reported that they’re about two to four times the cost that the industry was talking about just a year ago. And the result of that is that if you buy more nuclear plants, you’re going to get about two to ten times less climate solution per dollar, and you’ll get it about twenty to forty times slower, than if you buy instead the cheaper, faster stuff that is walloping nuclear and coal and gas, all kinds of central plans, in the marketplace.

If you have 'n' dollars to put into climate change and environmental benefits don't you want the best return on investment? That's where Amory Lovins has been working for years.

It's cheaper to not build a power plant which isn't needed because efficiency improvements caused a decrease in what would have been the power demand. Amory Lovins invented this term negawatts which is power which isn't needed to be generated because of efficiency improvements.

Another thing he points at is how improvements in wind and solar power technology has made them far more economically attractive than nuclear power. Nuclear power plants have a very high cost to build (that is, to build safely) and wind/solar technology has been improving to the point where it's directly competitive with the usual technologies. The market is responding, as he points out, by investing in wind and solar power plants while ignoring investment in nuclear power plants. Wind/solar installations have increased at a huge rate while nuclear installations have been essentially flat.

He claims this is due to costs and the unwillingness of "Wall Street" to make investments in costly power systems. Uhm, that is probably true, that Wall Street isn't investing in nuclear power due to the costs, but isn't there also a moratorium in the U.S. against nuclear power? It might not be an explicit moratorium, but ever since 1978 when the Three Mile Island power plant almost melted down the U.S. public has been against building more nuclear power plants.

That's what the cost difference means.. if you spend dollars to build nuclear plants you'll get less power per dollar spent than if you instead use the dollars to build wind power plants.

The way this turns investments into nuclear power would increase global warming...? It's that because there are 'n' dollars and there is a certain sized problem to solve, the U.S. will solve that problem more slowly if we depend on nuclear power to solve it. Likewise if we use technologies like solar or wind power the problem would be solved more quickly than if we depended on nuclear power.

The core problem is the ever-increasing demand for power. The numbers I've seen indicate huge huge huge needs for massive investment in new power plants. If those investments are primarily in coal, well, that means burning a lot of coal and we've seen the result of that. The choice in technologies to invest in to provide that power will be with us for decades into the future. We must make this choice with the long view in mind.

NO NUKES!!!

Article Reference: 

Amory Lovins: Expanding Nuclear Power Makes Climate Change Worse

The Rocky Mountain Institute

http://media.switchpod.com/users/democracynow/ftp/dn2008-0716-1.mp3

http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2008/july/video/dnB20080716a.rm&pr...

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