The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future

by Laurence C. Smith

  123 Drawn from remarks by José Goldemberg, National Academies Summit on America’s Energy Future, Washington, D.C., March 2008.

  124 This forecast is not an extrapolation but is based on the number of ethanol plants licensed and under construction in Brazil, National Academies Summit on America’s Energy Future, Washington, D.C., March 2008.

  125 José Goldemberg, Suani Teixeira Coelho, Patricia Guardabassi, Sugarcane’s Energy: Twelve Studies on Brazilian Sugarcane Agribusiness and Its Sustainability, Energy Policy 36, no. 6 (June 2008): 2086-2097. Multiple files available for free download from UNICA (Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association) at http://english.unica.com.br/multimedia/publicacao/; also personal interview with Dr. Matthew C. Nisbitt, Columbus, Ohio, April 18, 2008.

  126 Fig. 7.3, summary from National Academies Summit on America’s Energy Future, Washington, D.C., March 2008.

  127 “Brazil Ethanol Sales Pass Petrol,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 31, 2008.

  128 M. E. Himmel et al., “Biomass Recalcitrance: Engineering Plants and Enzymes for Biofuels Production,” Science 315 (2007): 804-807.

  129 Ethanol studies are all over the map in terms of net greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits or penalties, hinging notably on whether or not “coproducts” are included in the accounting. When these factors are considered, the GHG benefits of corn ethanol over petroleum become negligible, about a 13% reduction when the benefits of coproducts are included. But ethanol produced from cellulosic material (switchgrass) reduces both GHGs and petroleum inputs substantially. A. E. Farrell et al, “Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals, Science 311 (2006): 506-508.

  130 Drawn from remarks by José Goldemberg, National Academies Summit on America’s Energy Future, Washington, D.C., March 2008.

  131 C. Gautier, Oil, Water, and Climate: An Introduction (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 366 pp.

  132 “Food Crisis Renews Haiti’s Agony,” Time, April 9, 2008; “Looters Running Wild in Haiti’s Food Riots,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 10, 2008; “Hunger, Strikes, Riots: The Food Crisis Bites,” The Guardian, April 13, 2008; D. Loyn, “World Wakes Up to Food Challenge,” BBC News, October 15, 2008.

  133 Provided that areas currently used for grazing are converted to agriculture, especially in South America and the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa. E. M. W. Smeets et al., “A Bottom-Up Assessment and Review of Global Bio-energy Potentials to 2050,” Progress in Energy and Combustion Science 33 (2007): 56-106.

  134 A. E. Farrell et al., “Ethanol Can Contribute to Energy and Environmental Goals,” Science 311 (2006): 506-508.

  135 For example, advanced conversion technologies like enzymatic hydrolysis, and new yeasts and microorganisms to convert five-carbon sugars. Energy Technology Perspectives—Scenarios and Strategies to 2050, International Energy Agency (2006), 483 pp.

  136 The ecological footprint is a measure of environmental impact converted to units of land area. Holden and Høyer calculate ecological footprints of four different energy regimes and found that hydropower reduces ecological footprint by -75%, natural gas by -45% to -75% (highest for fuel cells), and oil by -15% to -30%, but cellulosic (wood) biofuel by 0% to +50%. E. Holden and K. G. Høyer, “The Ecological Footprints of Fuels,” Transportation Research Part D 10 (2005): 395-403.

  137 G. Fischer, L. Schrattenholzer, “Global Bioenergy Potentials through 2050,” Biomass and Bioenergy 20 (2001): 151-159; and Energy Technology Perspectives 2008: Scenarios and Strategies to 2050, OECD/International Energy Agency (2008), 643 pp.

  138 Up to 26% liquid biofuels by 2050. Ibid.

  139 Table 9.1, “Nuclear Generating Units, 1955-2007,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/nuclear.html (accessed March 11, 2009).

  140 A. Petryna, Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 264 pp.

  141 The recovery workers now suffer a cancer rate several percent higher than normal, with up to four thousand additional people dying (over the expected one hundred thousand) by 2004. By 2002 about four thousand children had contracted thyroid cancer from drinking radioiodine-contaminated milk in the first months after the accident. The Chernobyl Forum: 2003-2005, “Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and SocioEconomic Impacts,” 2nd rev. ed. (Vienna: IAEA Division of Public Information, April 2006). Available from http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Chernobyl/chernobyl. pdf. The Chernobyl Forum is an initiative of the IAEA, in cooperation with the WHO, UNDP, FAO, UNEP, UN-OCHA, UNSCEAR, the World Bank, and the governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine. The mortality figures in this report are decried by some as being too low, but this comprehensive UN-led effort does represent a conservative assessment of the disaster.

  142 M. L. Wald, “After 30 Slow Years, U.S. Nuclear Industry Set to Build Plants Again,” International Herald Tribune, October 24, 2008; “EDF Nuclear Contamination,” The Economist, November 21, 2009, 65-66; “Obama offers loan guarantees for first new nuclear power reactors in three decades,” USA Today, February 16, 2010; S. Chu, “America’s New Nuclear Option: Small modular reactors will expand the ways we use atomic power,” The Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2010. A record 62% of Americans surveyed in a March 2010 Gallup poll favored the use of nuclear power, the highest since Gallup began polling on the issue in 1994. “Public support for nuclear power at new peak,” The Washington Post, March 22, 2010.

  143 The other being hydropower.

  144 The white gas is water vapor, see note 120.

  145 Energy Technology Perspectives: Scenarios and Strategies to 2050 (OECD/International Energy Agency, 2008), 643 pp.

  146 S. Fetter, “Energy 2050,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (July/August 2000): 28-38.

  147 Of particular promise are new “light water” reactors designed to be safer than today’s nuclear plants, with core-damage probabilities lower than one in a million reactor-years. Ibid.

  148 Conventional meaning “once-through” nuclear reactors of one thousand megawatt capacity each, with no spent-fuel recycling, thorium, or breeder reactors. The Future of Nuclear Power: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003), 170 pp.

  149 Global electricity production from nuclear power was 2,771 TWh/yr in 2005, capturing 15% market share. By 2050, based on a range of global decision scenarios modeled by the International Energy Agency, it could fall as low as 3,884 TWh/yr and 8% market share (“Baseline 2050” scenario, with few new reactors built) or rise to as much as 15,877 TWh/yr and 38% market share (“BLUE HiNUC” scenario, with maximum expansion of nuclear power). Table 2.5, Energy Technology Perspectives 2008: Scenarios and Strategies to 2050 (OECD/International Energy Agency, 2008), 643 pp.

  150 Geothermal, ocean waves, and tidal energy are all carbon-free energy sources with high potential in certain places on Earth. However, none is foreseen as becoming more than a niche energy source by the year 2050.

  151 Hydropower currently supplies about 2,922 TWh/yr, capturing 16% of the world electricity market. Based on a range of global decision scenarios modeled by the International Energy Agency, it will grow so slowly that it will actually lose market share, rising to between 4,590 TWh/yr and 9% market share (“Baseline 2050” scenario) to 5,505 TWh/yr and 13% market share by 2050 (“BLUE hiOil&Gas” scenario). Table 2.5, Energy Technology Perspectives 2008: Scenarios and Strategies to 2050 (OECD/International Energy Agency, 2008), 643 pp.

  152 C. Goodall, Ten Technologies to Save the Planet (London: Green Profile, 2008), 302 pp.

  153 As of 2006, Germany, the United States, and Spain were leading the world in wind power with 22,247, 16,818, and 15,145 megawatts installed capacity, respectively. India and China had 8,000 and 6,050 megawatts, respectively. The United States is now installing more turbines per year than any other country. Table 10.1, Energy Technology Perspectives 2008: Scenarios and Strategies to 2050 (OECD/International Energy Agency, 2008), 643 pp.

  1
54 Technological advances, increased manufacturing capacity, and bigger turbines have helped to lower the cost of wind energy at least fourfold since the 1980s. Efficiency has steadily increased and the turbines themselves have become larger and taller, with mass-produced rotors growing from less than 20 meters in 1985 to >100 meters today, roughly the length of an American football field. While not yet price-competitive with coal or gas-fired power plants, wind-powered electricity is getting close.

  155 Based on a range of global decision scenarios modeled by the International Energy Agency, global electricity production from wind power will rise from 111 TWh/yr and 1% market share in 2005 to at least 1,208 TWh/yr and 2% market share by 2050 (“Baseline 2050” scenario, with no new incentives), and could rise as high as 6,743 TWh/yr and 17% market share (“BLUE noCCS” scenario, with aggressive incentives and no established carbon sequestration technology). Table 2.5, Energy Technology Perspectives 2008: Scenarios and Strategies to 2050 (OECD/International Energy Agency, 2008), 643 pp.

  156 The Shockley-Queisser limit.

  157 N. S. Lewis, “Toward Cost-Effective Solar Energy Use,” Science 315 (2007): 798-801.

  158 See note 118.

  159 M. Lavelle, “Big Solar Project Planned for Arizona Desert,” U.S. News & World Report, February 21, 2008.

  160 For more information visit the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) home page, www.desertec.org.

  161 See D. J. C. Mackay, Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air (Cambridge, UK: UIT Cambridge, Ltd., 2009), 370 pp., available for free download at http://www.withouthotair.com. C. Goodall estimates the cost for undersea HVDC cable between Norway and the Netherlands, completed April 2008, at €1 million per kilometer. Ten Technologies to Save the Planet (London: Green Profile, 2008), 302 pp.

  162 CSP plants, because they use the traditional turbine method for electricity generation, can also be designed to burn natural gas or coal during nights and cloudy days.

  163 A newer concept, called compressed-air storage, is to pump air, rather than water, into a tank or sealed underground cavern.

  164 www.google.org/recharge/index.html (accessed March 10, 2009).

  165 Especially in thin-film photovoltaics and cheap catalysts, e.g., M. W. Kanan, D. G. Nocera, “In Situ Formation of an Oxygen-Evolving Catalyst in Neutral Water Containing Phosphate and Co2+,” Science 321 (2008): 1072-1075. According to the International Energy Agency the price of photovoltaic electricity in sunny climes could fall to $0.05 per kWh by 2050.

  166 N. S. Lewis, “Toward Cost-Effective Solar Energy Use,” Science 315 (2007): 798-801.

  167 C. Goodall, Ten Technologies to Save the Planet (London: Green Profile, 2008), 302 pp.

  168 Based on a range of global decision scenarios modeled by the International Energy Agency, global solar electricity production will rise from 3 TWh/yr (virtually zero market share) in 2005 to 167 TWh/yr (still virtually zero market share) in 2050 (“Baseline 2050” scenario, with no new incentives), to as high as 5,297 TWh/yr and 13% market share by 2050 (“BLUE noCCS” scenario, with aggressive incentives and no established carbon sequestration technology). Table 2.5, Energy Technology Perspectives 2008: Scenarios and Strategies to 2050 (OECD/International Energy Agency, 2008), 643 pp.

  169 Today, some 82% of the world’s electricity is made from nonrenewable coal (40%), natural gas (20%), uranium (15%), and oil (7%). Hydropower and all other renewables combined provide just 18%. Depending on our choices, they could rise to capture as much as 64% market share by 2050 (in an extremely aggressive scenario) or drop slightly to 15%. The true outcome will likely lie somewhere in between these IEA model simulations, but under no imaginable scenario will we free ourselves from fossil hydrocarbon energy in the next forty years.

  170 Energy Technology Perspectives—Scenarios and Strategies to 2050 (OECD/International Energy Agency, 2006), 479 pp.; and Table 2.5, Energy Technology Perspectives 2008: Scenarios and Strategies to 2050 (OECD/International Energy Agency, 2008), 643 pp.

  171 “Explosive Growth: LNG Expands in Australia,” The Economist, November 21, 2009, 66-67.

  172 “BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2009,” 45 pp., www.bp.com/statisticalreview (accessed November 28, 2009).

  173 More precisely, 150 times current annual production for hard coal, and over 200 times annual production for lignite. T. Thielemann, S. Schmidt, J. P. Gerling, “Lignite and Hard Coal: Energy Suppliers for World Needs until the Year 2100—An Outlook,” International Journal of Coal Geology 72 (2007): 1-14.

  174 Equivalent to five hundred 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants. J. Deutch, E. J. Moniz, I. Green et al, The Future of Coal: Options for a Carbon-Constrained World (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007), 105 pp.

  175 Fischer-Tropsch technology is one way to do this. Ibid.

  176 L. C. Smith, G. A. Olyphant, “Within-Storm Variations in Runoff and Sediment Export from a Rapidly Eroding Coal-Refuse Deposit,” Earth Surface Processes and Landforms 19 (1994): 369-375.

  177 C. Gautier, Oil, Water, and Climate: An Introduction (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 366 pp.

  178 T. Thielemann, S. Schmidt, J. P. Gerling, “Lignite and Hard Coal: Energy Suppliers for World Needs until the Year 2100—An Outlook,” International Journal of Coal Geology 72 (2007): 1-14.

  179 J. Deutch, E. J. Moniz, I. Green et al, The Future of Coal: Options for a Carbon-Constrained World (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2007), 105 pp.

  180 “Trouble in Store,” The Economist, March 7, 2009, 74-75.

  181 Iowa weather events reconstructed from personal interview with State Climatologist Harry Hillaker in Des Moines, July 16, 2008; also a written summary he prepared in December 2008; also press releases from the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

  182 “FEMA, Iowans Mark Six Month Anniversary of Historic Disaster,” Federal Emergency Management Agency, Press Release Number 1763-222, November 26, 2008.

  183 “Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship Officials Brief Rebuild Iowa Commission on Damage to Conservation Practices from Flooding,” press release, Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, July 31, 2008.

  184 D. Heldt, “University of Iowa’s New Flood Damage Estimate: $743 million,” The Gazette, March 13, 2009.

  185 California Fire Siege 2007: An Overview, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, 108 pp., http://www.fire.ca.gov/index.php (accessed March 22, 2009).

  186 Executive Order S-06-08, signed June 4, 2008, by Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of the State of California.

  187 Proclamation, “State of Emergency—Water Shortage,” issued February 27, 2009, by Arnold Schwarzenegger, governor of the State of California.

  188 J. McKinley, “Severe Drought Adds to Hardships in California,” The New York Times, February 22, 2009. The Central Valley has 4.7 million acres.

  189 L. Copeland, “Drought Spreading in Southeast,” USA Today, February 12, 2008; D. Chapman, “Water Fight May Ripple in Georgia,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 24, 2008.

  190 D. W. Stahle et al., “Early Twenty-first-Century Drought in Mexico,” Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union 90, no. 11 (March 17, 2009).

  191 Drought data from the University College London Global Drought Monitor, http://drought.mssl.ucl.ac.uk/drought.html (accessed March 25, 2009).

  192 UN Food and Agricultural Organization Global Information and Early Warning System (FAO/GIEWS), Crop Prospects and Food Situation, no. 2, April 2008. Updates posted bimonthly at http://www.fao.org/giews/english/.

  193 Severe drought hit 9.5 million hectares of winter wheat in Henan, Anhai, Shandong, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces. UN FAO/GIEWS Global Watch, January 4, 2009.

  194 “1,500 Farmers Commit Mass Suicide in India,” Belfast Telegraph, April 15, 2009.

  195 Global flood inventory data downloaded from the Dartmouth Flood Observatory,
www.dartmouth.edu/~floods/ (accessed March 25, 2009) indicate 4,553 fatalities and 17,487,312 people displaced between January 3 and November 4, 2008.

  196 Water for Food, Water for Life: A Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture (London: Earthscan, and Colombo: International Water Management Institute, 2007), 665 pp.

  197 I. A. Shiklomanov, “World Fresh Water Resources,” in P. H. Gleick, ed., Water in Crisis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 13-24. Note: It is necessary to cite all of I. A. Shiklomanov’s initials because he also produced two famous geoscientist sons—Alexander Igor and Nikolai Igor—leading to three Shiklomanovs in overlapping fields, creating much confusion for everyone.

  198 Average annual water withdrawal estimated at 3,800 km3. O. Taikan, S. Kanael, “Global Hydrological Cycles and World Water Resources,” Science 313, no. 5790 (2006): 1068- 1072. For definitions of withdrawal vs. consumption, see note 227.

  199 Global water withdrawal is thought to be about 3,800 km3 per year and global artificial storage capacity is about 7,200 km3. Ibid. For definitions, see note 225.

  200 Table 2, “Food and Water,” World Resources 2008 Data Tables (Washington, D.C.: World Resources Institute, 2008).

  201 Based on 2010 and 2050 population projections for Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Chad, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Senegal. United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2008 Revision, http://esa.un.org/unpp/.

  202 The Central Arizona Project.

  203 R. G. Glennon, Water Follies (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, USA, 2002), 314 pp.

  204 Note that in the United States, however, the trend over the last ~40 years has been declining total water consumption (not just per capita), owing to declining industrial use, as well as more efficient agricultural practices, appliances, low flush toilets, and higher density housing.