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On After Keystone: Fight Coal and Accelerate Innovation
Technology stagnation is the problem, not coal per se. If we could come up with a scalable way to cut coal emissions (CO2, mercury, ash) coal might meet power demand while the search goes on for a real alternative. A real alternative would be something we have not developed yet, such as cold fusion at utility scale. Wind, solar, and biofuels -- aka "non-hydro renewables" -- are small players that can't possibly scale to supplant coal, especially not for baseload generation, and especially not in China and India in the next 20 years. .
The reason for the continuing technology stagnation is that vested interests in academia, government, and incumbent industries limit the search to timid steps from what they already know and have based careers on. Like the drunk looking for his lost keys under a streetlight because the light is better there. "We have all the technologies we need" is an article of faith common to purported experts on the left and right. So there is no support for looking in new directions.
On Energy Facts: How Much Water Does Fracking for Shale Gas Consume?
The water use figures from 8 years ago (before fracking) are not the best evidence of fracking's water footprint today. The USGS site says: "Water-use data has been reported every five years since 1950, for years ending in "0" and "5"." What happened to the data from 2010? What about the water-energy nexus report that DOE was ordered (2005) to prepare? With so much material existing water use evidence unavailable, whether by negligence or design, maybe that's the real story here: conveniently missing evidence allowing energy policy to trump water policy in a drought.
On Debunking Claim that Wind Energy Increases Emissions
Why go ad hominem on a learned gentleman like Willem Post? I find his comments factual, well stated, and rational, and his judgment well-supported. The fact that you misspelled his name indicates to me that you either: (1) deliberately did so out of spite; (2) didn't care and guessed; or (3) cared but were too lazy to check. That and the persistent "it's" error hurt your credibility.
I too question the ambition of wind to supplant coal and nuclear for baseload generation. Wind is mostly available at night, when nobody wants it. So now you can hate me, too, along with Willem, for speaking the inconvenient truth that wind needs to look for another job.
On ARPA-E: Cleantech Innovation and the Pursuit of Decarbonization
ARPA-E has a 20% cost-sharing requirement. For example, if the research project has a budget of $1M, the applicant will have to put up $200,000. That may seem like lunch money to policymakers accustomed to trillion dollar deficits, but it is an insurmountable hurdle to startups. Funding opportunity announcements have extremely short deadlines after they are published (3 days), so if you have not been tipped off you won't have time to submit your application. And really you shouldn't bother if you're not rich enough to spare $200,000.
The technology merits don't seem to matter, since DOE maintains no database of technology assessment nor any real outreach. There is no way for the public to engage in a discussion about what gets chosen as a topic for research proposals. ARPA-E does no research, it only decides (arbitrarily) who gets money. Scalability and water impact don't seem to matter either. Case in point: the $1B CO2 underground storage project known as FutureGen 2.0, which can't scale and will push salt into the groundwater. If ARPA-E is what President Obama wants to cite as one of his proudest achievements, he needs to take a closer look, and so should his nominee for DOE.
New technology does not come from the well-connected corporate moochers who scavenge ARPA-E grants. Consider this list of what got funded and who got the money: http://gigaom.com/2012/11/28/arpa-e-backs-66-projects-energy-beets-fabric-wind-blades-dust-devils/
In his farewell letter, ex-DOE Secretary Chu said that some ARPA-E projects had made second base. After four years of a program that was supposed to hit home runs, that should be cause for remorse.
On Solutions to the World Water Crisis Requires International Cooperation
James, the consumption is evaporation of cooling water into the atmosphere. In closed-loop systems, the cooling water is recirculated in the plant; in once-through systems, the plant withdraws cooling water and returns it to the environment, heated, so it evaporates as well. Not from a cooling tower but from a streambed. Once it's clouds in the atmosphere, the water is gone.
Depleted reservoirs will not be enough for CCS, so deep saline aquifers will be needed. Petroleum engineering professors dispute DOE's optimistic pore space estimates, which are based on inapposite experience with depleted reservoirs whereas deep saline aquifers are full. Which means displacement of a lot of salt water. Where does the salt water go?
Here is a quote from the following cite: "Water displacement could be particularly problematic. As Burruss pointed out in congressional testimony, the lifetime emissions from one large coal-fired power plant would displace water equal to the volume of about 4.1 billion oil barrels -- the size of a "giant" oil field." http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/04/28/28greenwire-the-big-question-how-much-co2-can-the-earth-ho-73719.html?pagewanted=all .
On Consortium Established to Forge Workable Rules for Fracking
It's too easy to be cynical about sincerity after what the BP blowout revealed about best practices being overruled by management. Still, it's a good start. An open exchange of information and some minimal and aspirational standards for environmental stewardship are needed, even though the cowboys will probably disregard them, with impunity.
On Solutions to the World Water Crisis Requires International Cooperation
The biggest water consumer is evaporative cooling of turbine exhaust steam at coal and nuclear power plants. Water pollution from oil and gas operations is a major constraint on the responsible development of fossil fuels. These big water issues don't get the attention they deserve, even in a drought, so thanks for this post. DOE still has not produced the report on the water-energy nexus that Congress ordered in 2005. Siloed science may be the reason: experts in energy know only small specialties and tend not to have any cross-disciplinary interest. We need a Department of Water, of equal rank to the Department of Energy, so we don't ruin our water supply by ignorance and greed. The gravest threat to the groundwater is the plan for geological storage of CO2.
On How Serious Are President Obama and Congressional Republicans About an Energy Security Trust Fund?
Bell Labs offers a model of a creative technology institution funded by a regulated monopoly. The story is told in an excellent new book by Jon Gertner entitled The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation (Penguin 2012). Bell Labs gave us radar, lasers, transistors, communications satellites, information science, and the wired world. So they put a good face on a company that wore a big black hat. When the AT&T monopoly was broken up, and Bell Labs in 1984 was spun off as a separate public company subject to quarterly earnings pressure, it lost its mojo and focused on incremental improvements rather than breakthroughs. Soon it withered.
In exchange for government tolerance of its monopoly over telephone service and equipment, the phone company produced some good work. So let's see the oil companies (a regulated oligopoly) step up and do some meaningful and ambitious R&D on something other than drilling and exploration. For example, tailpipe emissions, batteries, and cleaning up water -- especially the water they use and pollute. Otherwise, if they continue to swagger around in their black hats without producing transformative technology, they may become targets, like AT&T. Then we wouldn't be talking chump change, like this niggardly $2B biofuel fund.
On Energy Security Trust Fund an Important Policy Pilot for Supporting Innovation
Two billion over ten years is a small step in the right direction, but compared to oil company profits last year it's a pittance. Not a moon shot effort, and earmarked for life support to known losers like biofuels. If this is quid-pro-quo for the Keystone XL pipeline, shame. Let's hope this turns out better than ARPA-E and the stimulus package.
On Debunking Claim that Wind Energy Increases Emissions
Wind for baseload generation requires backup fossil fuel capacity for when the wind is not blowing. Wind is mostly available at night, when power is cheap and demand is low. Lots of wind is curtailed, wasted because of lack of storage. Cycling the backup aggravates backup emissions and stresses the equipment so it wears out faster. This recent analysis explains, in case anyone stlll has an open mind on this political issue: http://www.powermag.com/issues/features/Rethinking-Winds-Impact-on-Emissions-and-Cycling-Costs_5406.html
On Can Tar Sands Development Continue Without Keystone XL?
Since it's going to China whatever the route, pipeline or rail makes no difference to American energy security. The unwillingness of Big Oil to clean up the mess they leave behind by their primitive and carbon-intensive bitumen extraction technology has eroded public sympathy to where it now seems better to just leave oil sands in the ground. Alberta faces a $3B budget deficit, so it appears that trickle-down prosperity has failed again. Niggardly R&D expenditures by rich oil companies for pollution control, and their rip-and-ship piratical business model, reinforce the perception that the custodians of national resources are failing in their public trust.
"Remember the Alamo," was the battlecry of Sam Houston and the Texans at their decisive victory over the minions of Santa Anna at San Jacinto, "Remember Keystone XL" may become the battlecry of US and Canadian patriots in the coming fights over bookable reserves, energy security, high gas prices, and environmental stewardship. Like the Alamo (a Pyrrhic victory of Santa Anna over outnumbered and outgunned Texans who defied his demand to surrender and were massacred) Big Oil's insulting proposal for a dilbit pipeline intended for export, and their intended humiliation of President Obama by a display of lobbying firepower, may turn out bad for them in the end.
On The Solution Is Finding New Answers
Seeking comes before finding. Established industry leaders are not seeking. They have an inventory of the old stuff and customers who want business as usual, so what's the motivation for finding new answers? New is bad. Wall Street accounting punishes expenditures for R&D and rewards managers who cut costs. Government is staffed by industry experts and trainees who expect a job in industry, so don't expect ambitious seeking from programs like ARPA-E. The hostile incumbents and their enablers in finance, academia, and government feel threatened by disruptive innovation, so they are not really seeking new answers. But history teaches us to hope as it teaches them to fear. Steve Wozniak's plywood personal computer was sneered at by the priesthood of stupidity.