Power Hungry
Page 1
Table of Contents
Praise
Title Page
Epigraph
Table of Figures
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Introduction
PART I - OUR QUEST FOR POWER
CHAPTER 1 - Power Tripping 101
CHAPTER 2 - Happy Talk
CHAPTER 3 - Watt’s the Big Deal? (Power Tripping 102)
CHAPTER 4 - Wood to Coal to Oil
CHAPTER 5 - Coal Hard Facts
CHAPTER 6 - If Oil Didn’t Exist, We’d Have to Invent It
CHAPTER 7 - Twenty-Seven Saudi Arabias Per Day
PART II - THE MYTHS OF “GREEN” ENERGY
CHAPTER 8 - Wind and Solar Are “Green”
CHAPTER 9 - Wind Power Reduces CO Emissions
CHAPTER 10 - Denmark Provides an Energy Model for the United States
CHAPTER 11 - T. Boone Pickens Has a Plan (or a ClHue)
CHAPTER 12 - Wind Power Reduces the Need for Natural Gas
CHAPTER 13 - Going “Green” Will Reduce Imports of Strategic Commodities and ...
CHAPTER 14 - The United States Lags in Energy Efficiency
CHAPTER 15 - The United States Can Cut CO Emissions by 80 Percent by 2050, and ...
CHAPTER 16 - Taxing Carbon Dioxide Will Work
CHAPTER 17 - Oil Is Dirty
CHAPTER 18 - Cellulosic Ethanol Can Scale Up and Cut U.S. Oil Imports
CHAPTER 19 - Electric Cars Are the Next Big Thing
CHAPTER 20 - We Can Replace Coal with Wood
PART III - THE POWER OF N2N
CHAPTER 21 - Why N2N? And Why Now?
CHAPTER 22 - A Very Short History of American Natural Gas and Regulatory Stupidity
CHAPTER 23 - It’s a Gas, Gas, Gas
CHAPTER 24 - America’s Secret Google
CHAPTER 25 - Gas Pains
CHAPTER 26 - Nuclear Goes Beyond Green
CHAPTER 27 - A Smashing Idea for Nuclear Waste
CHAPTER 28 - Future Nukes
PART IV - MOVING FORWARD
CHAPTER 29 - Rethinking “Green” and a Few Other Suggestions
Vigorously Support the IAEA
End Iowa’s Monopoly on the Presidential Primaries
Elect More Engineers and Push Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math
Emulate Iran and France
Ban Mountaintop-Removal Mining
Quit Wasting Natural Gas!
Remember That Energy Demagoguery Will Continue Because No One Is in Charge
CHAPTER 30 - Toward Cheap, Abundant Energy
Epilogue to the Paperback Edition
APPENDIX A: UNITS AND EQUIVALENTS
APPENDIX B: SI NUMERICAL DESIGNATIONS
APPENDIX C: AMERICA’S CONVOLUTED ENERGY REGULATORY STRUCTURE
APPENDIX D: COUNTRIES RANKED BY PRIMARY ENERGY CONSUMPTION, 2007 325
APPENDIX E: U.S. AND WORLD PRIMARY ENERGY CONSUMPTION, BY SOURCE, 1973 AND 2008
NOTES
GLOSSARY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Copyright Page
Table of Figures
FIGURE 1 Annual U.S. Energy Production: Comparing Wind and Solar with Other Energy Sources
FIGURE 2 Percentage Change in CO Emissions Per Capita in the Six Most Populous Countries, 1990 to 2007
FIGURE 3 U.S. Primary Energy Consumption, by Source, 1825 to 2008
FIGURE 4 Consumption Increases for Various Energy Types, 1990 to 2007
FIGURE 5 Global Electricity Generation, by Fuel, 1973, 2006, and Projected to 2030
FIGURE 6 Electricity Consumption and the Human Development Index: A Near-Perfect Correlation
FIGURE 7 Increases in U.S. Electricity Production from Solar, Wind, and Coal, 1995 to 2008
FIGURE 8 Gross Domestic Product and Oil Demand Per Capita, 2008
FIGURE 9 World Power Consumption, by Primary Energy Source, in Horsepower (and Watts)
FIGURE 10 Per-Capita Power Consumption in the Six Most Populous Countries, in Watts
FIGURE 11 The 2,700-Megawatt Challenge: Comparing the Power Densities of Various Fuels
FIGURE 12 Resource Intensity of Electric Power Generation Capacity: Comparing Wind with Natural Gas, Nuclear, and Coal
FIGURE 13 Reliable Summer Generation Capacity in Texas, by Fuel Type, 2009 and 2014
FIGURE 14 What Price Wind? Denmark’s Residential Electricity Prices Compared to Those of Other Countries
FIGURE 15 Emissions from Denmark’s Electric Power and Combined Heat and Power Sectors, 1990 to 2007
FIGURE 16 Danish Oil Production, 1981 to 2008
FIGURE 17 Wind Power Versus Hydrocarbons: Denmark’s Consumption in 2007
FIGURE 18 World Share of High-Tech Manufacturing Exports, by Region/Country, 1985 to 2005
FIGURE 19 Export Volume of High-Tech Manufactured Goods, by Region/Country, 1985 to 2005
FIGURE 20 The “Green Elements” and the Periodic Table
FIGURE 21 Change in Carbon Intensity of Major World Economies, 1980 to 2006
FIGURE 22 Change in Energy Intensity of Major World Economies, 1980 to 2006
FIGURE 23 Change in Per-Capita Energy Use, Major World Economies, 1980 to 2006
FIGURE 24 U.S. Energy Use Per Capita and Per Dollar of Gross Domestic Product, 1980 to 2030
FIGURE 25 Total Carbon Dioxide Emissions, OECD Countries Versus Non-OECD Countries, 1990 to 2030
FIGURE 26 Per-Capita Carbon Dioxide Emissions in the United States and Other Countries, 2006, with Implied Projection for U.S. Emissions in 2050
FIGURE 27 Carbon Capture and Sequestration: The Forty-One-Supertanker-Per-Day Challenge
FIGURE 28 The Problem with Batteries: It’s the Energy Density, Stupid!
FIGURE 29 National Academy of Sciences’ Estimate of Total Life-Cycle Damages Imposed by Various Fuels Used in Light-Duty Vehicles, 2005 and 2030
FIGURE 30 Percentage Change in Global Primary Energy Consumption, 1973 to 2008
FIGURE 31 From Scarcity to Super-Abundance: U.S. Gas Resources Compared to Proved Gas Reserves of Iran, Russia, and Other Countries
FIGURE 32 U.S. Electricity Generation, by Fuel Shares, 1973 to 2008
FIGURE 33 World Primary Energy Mix, 1973 to 2008
FIGURE 34 U.S. Primary Energy Mix, 1973 to 2008
FIGURE 35 Barnett Shale Producing Wells, 1982 to 2008
FIGURE 36 From Unconventional to Conventional: U.S. Natural Gas Production, 1990 to 2030
FIGURE 37 U.S. Natural Gas Wells, Average Productivity
FIGURE 38 International Energy Agency’s Projected Costs for Commercial Electricity Generation Plants That Begin Operations from 2015 to 2020, in Dollars Per Megawatt-Hour
FIGURE 39 Federal Energy Subsidies Not Related to Electricity Production, 2007
FIGURE 40 Federal Energy Subsidies for Electricity Production, 2007
Praise for Power Hungry
“Bryce douses the green energy movement with a cold shower of facts and figures, ones that collectively remind us that a transition to wind and solar power would take decades, that it would be astronomically expensive, that it would make the U.S. reliant on China for turbines, and that it would lead to ‘energy sprawl.’ For all the intuitive appeal of renewable energy, Power Hungry makes a convincing case that decarbonizing the world’s primary energy use will mean letting the sun shine and the wind blow while embracing natural gas as a bridge to nuclear energy.”
—James McWilliams, Freakonomics Blog
“Bryce has compiled a catalogue of hard facts and statistics that puncture just about every myth you will read in breathless accounts of the coming ‘Green Economy’.”
—William Tucker, The American Spectator
“Bryce deftly sets out to debunk the myths of the ever-popular going green cam
paign and answers more specific technological difficulties and cost containment issues.... His views will undoubtedly be rejected or disbelieved, but he backs up those views with hard evidence provoking readers to do the math for themselves, verify statistics, and basically, check up on him with more than ninety pages of references, statistical appendixes, and energy data notes. This is the must-read book for the twenty-first century.”
—M. Chris Johnson, San Francisco Book Review
“[S]hould be mandatory reading for U.S. policymakers. ... The promise of renewables has consistently been oversold by the political class. Solar and wind energy both suffer from major structural deficiencies.... Our current national energy debate is heavy on passion and hyperbole; it could use a sizable dose of historical perspective and empirical reality.”
—Duncan Currie, The National Review
“I have long known that there is nothing remotely ‘green’ about putting wind farms all over the countryside, with their eagle-slicing, batpopping, subsidy-eating, rare-earth-demanding, steel-rich, intermittentoutput characteristics. But until I read Robert Bryce’s superb and sober new book Power Hungry, I had not realised just how dreadfully bad for the environment nearly all renewable energy is....
Bryce’s book is more than a demolition of renewable energy. It contains a fascinating and detailed account of the shale gas revolution and of the latest developments in modular nuclear technology. It makes a persuasive case that this century will be dominated by ‘N2N’ energy—natural gas to nuclear—and that the consequence of the rise of both will be continuing steady decarbonisation of the economy. This is the best book on energy I have read. It confirms my optimism—and my rejection of the renewable myth.”
—Matt Ridley, The Rational Optimist
“Bryce is especially good at explaining why fossil fuels have become entrenched as our main energy sources.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
“A brutal, brilliant exploration.... If Power Hungry sounds like a supercharged polemic, its shocks are delivered with forensic skill and narrative aplomb.... It is unsentimental, unsparing, and impassioned; and, if you’ll excuse the pun, it is precisely the kind of journalism we need to hold truth to power.”
—Wall Street Journal
“His magnificently unfashionable, superlatively researched new book dares to fly in the face of all current conventional wisdom and cant.... I have never yet found any book or author who does a more thorough, unanswerable job of demolishing universally held environmental myths than Mr. Bryce does.... Mr. Obama is reputed to be an omnivorous reader of serious intellectual volumes. He should drop everything else and put Robert Bryce’s invaluable book at the top of his list. So should every senator and Congress member and every self-important, scientifically illiterate pundit in America, right and left alike. They will all learn a lot.”
—Washington Times
“Bryce uses copious facts and research to make a compelling case that renewable sources have their place in our energy future but they aren’t the viable panacea we’re led to believe.”
—Library Journal
“[A] terrific buy for anyone with a strong interest in the nation’s energy supply. ... A full 54 pages devoted to references illustrate the comprehensive research Bryce has done, as well as the quality of his sources. He is at his best destroying many of the myths regarding renewable energy, providing powerful mathematical proofs that anyone can understand.... The primary theme of this book is the importance of power density. As Bryce thoroughly documents, coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power provide such power density while wind, solar, and biofuels do not. You will not find a book on energy that makes this important point more strongly than this one.”
—Jay Lehr, Heartland Institute
“Power Hungry provides a grand tour of our energy landscape in the best journalistic tradition of serving the public good, exposing the cant of received wisdom and using the authority and weight of good numbers to put ideas into proper perspective. Bryce’s numbers provide giant shoulders upon which to stand, allowing us to see farther and better, increasing our knowledge and improving the odds for institutional wisdom. There are few things more important to the world’s life, liberty, and happiness than an enhanced ability to convert abundant energy into high power at affordable cost. Robert Bryce, with buoyant bonhomie, marks the way.”
—Jon Boone, MasterResource.org
“Robert Bryce is an energy realist. So reading him is refreshing. First, because most people when discussing matters of energy are either ill- or misinformed, naïve, liars, or have a personal stake in the policy outcomes. Second, because every time I read something by Bryce, I learn something new.... Power Hungry [is a] laser-like dismantling of the myth that so-called green energy can displace fossil fuels anytime in the near future.”
—Sterling Burnett, National Review Online
“He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.”
JOHN McCARTHY
computer pioneer, Stanford University
AUTHOR’S NOTE
My daughter, Mary, has many favorite authors. One of them is Shannon Hale, a successful writer of novels for young adults. A while ago, Mary quoted Hale’s writing advice: “Write what fascinates you.”1
Hale’s advice reminds me of just how lucky I am. There is no more complex or more fascinating topic than energy. We use that word—based on the Latin energia—to describe a myriad of different forces, substances, and ideas. These many meanings—whether it’s the chemical energy in a chunk of coal in a Chinese power plant or the kinetic energy in a baseball that’s been tagged for a quick ride into the cheap seats by Bo Jackson’s bat—are too numerous to be encompassed by a single word.
In addition, the scale of energy use and the complexity and importance of the energy business are unmatched by any other industry. The study of energy includes physics, geology, chemistry, engineering, metallurgy, telemetry, seismology, finance, politics, religion, biology, genetics, botany—the list goes on and on. The energy sector has captivated me since I was a child growing up in Tulsa, and no matter how much I study it, I still feel like a rank amateur. And yet, if we are to make wise choices about energy policy, it is essential for all of us—as voters, as owners and managers of businesses, and as policymakers—to understand what energy is, what power is, how they are measured, and which forms of energy and power production make the most sense environmentally and economically.
I have written this book to help people gain that understanding. I have attempted to explain the fundamentals of energy and power production in a way that will enable readers to understand the energy policy debate and make informed decisions. I believe in the relentless application of logic to our discourse on energy, power, and the future. And so I also wrote this book in the hope that it would help to inform a more careful and reasoned approach to energy use and policy. The need for that approach became evident during the promotion of my last book, Gusher of Lies, which explained why the United States cannot—and will not—be “energy independent.” In the months after the book was published, I heard one question repeated more than any other: Why don’t we use more renewable energy?
That question is of great interest to me because I have invested directly in renewables. I have 3,200 watts of solar photovoltaic panels on the roof of my house in Austin. Although those panels provide about one-third of the electricity that my family and I consume, and provide for a slight reduction in our monthly electricity bill, the capital cost of the panels was quite high, the panels require regular cleaning, and they have not been without problems. I’ve only owned the panels for about five years, and the inverter, which turns the 12-volt power from the panels into 110-volt power that we can use in the house, has already failed once. Luckily, it was still under warranty. But when I’m up on the roof with a long-handled mop every month or so, swabbing those panels, I wonder if they were really worth it.
My personal experiences, as well as the many studies that have
been done on both wind and solar, have led me to conclude that those energy sources will remain niche players for the foreseeable future. And yet, many Americans simply don’t want to hear that. The romance of renewable energy is such that we are ignoring logic and common sense as well as hard facts and figures. We must bring more depth to the discussion, more reasoned analysis, more evidence-based decisionmaking, and less emotion and biased thinking.
In this book, I have attempted to make the mathematics as accessible as possible by including plenty of graphics and by showing my calculations in the endnotes. But let me be clear: Deconstructing the vagaries of the world’s biggest industry requires digesting a lot of data. I have chewed on lots of numbers over the past few months, and you will need to gnaw on a few digits, too, if you are to truly understand the issues. If I have made errors in my calculations, or in the text, graphics, or endnotes, please forgive them. These mistakes are mine and mine alone. If you do find an error, please let me know so that I can correct it in the next edition.
Readers will likely notice that this book contains a number of references to books and articles by Vaclav Smil. I make no apology for that. Smil, who has published about thirty books, has spent most of his long career focusing on energy, and in a sector where cant and hyperbole often dominate, his work stands out for its erudition and clarity. I also make frequent references to the work of Jesse Ausubel. Again, I make no apology. Ausubel is among the foremost energy thinkers in the United States, and his work has helped to shape my approach to energy issues. When I met Ausubel for the first time in Manhattan in September 2008, I asked him to name his favorite authors on energy-related topics. He named Smil and then added, “I am not very interested in what other people are writing. I am interested in data.” Ausubel’s point resonated and I began mining energy data so that I could make my own calculations, draw my own conclusions, and create my own graphics. Too much of our energy discussion is dominated by glib pundits who do not do their own research. In addition to his savvy analytical skills, Ausubel can turn a phrase. A few months after our first meeting, he told me that “other people’s data, like other people’s money, can be perilous.”