Power Hungry

by Robert Bryce

  An example: A few months ago, a friend of mine, a well-compensated M.D., bought a large Toyota SUV. The nearly 3-ton behemoth was equipped with a 381-horsepower engine, a DVD player, leather seats, and a rear cargo area big enough for a quick game of badminton. While escorting me on a trek around the perimeter of the vehicle, the physician admitted some feelings of guilt about his new wheels—and yet the mere act of sharing those pangs of iniquity appeared to assuage some of his feeling of environmental sinfulness.30

  The disconnect between America’s energy use and its guilt over that energy use is even being featured in an ad campaign sponsored by—get this—one of the world’s biggest energy companies. That’s right: California-based Chevron (2008 revenues: $273 billion) has been running a campaign called “Will You Join Us?”31 The advertising barrage includes billboards and print ads with photos of handsome people with text lines imposed over, or near, their faces.32 One says, “I will leave the car at home more.” Another reads, “I will finally get a programmable thermostat.” But my all-time favorite is the ad that proclaims, “I will use less energy.”33

  Pardon my insolence, but how many people in Uganda, Cambodia, or Peru wake up in the morning and declare, “By golly, I’m going to use less energy today”? Not many, I’d wager. And yet, this notion of guilt, combined with rhetoric about addiction and the idea of “using less,” has become a powerful theme in American politics.

  PHOTO 1 Ad from Chevron’s 2009 “Will You Join Us?” campaign

  Source: Chevron, http://www.willyoujoinus.com/assets/downloads/media/Chevron_Iwill_use%20less%20energy.pdf.

  Furthermore, consider Chevron’s corporate strategy: It is advising its customers to use less of the stuff it sells. Imagine what might happen if other companies followed suit: Microsoft would encourage people to use its software less or forgo the updates; Ford Motor could run TV ads advising drivers to continue piloting their old clunkers; Whole Foods could advise grocery buyers that what they really need isn’t fresh produce and a warm baguette, it’s ... nothing at all. Given Chevron’s lead, corporate America may now forsake selling anything ever again. Imagine the environmental benefits! Just think of the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions!

  Now, some of Chevron’s motivation for its ad campaign may be that it wants to soften the company’s image. And when it comes to image, energy companies are often seen as only slightly more likeable than Lucifer himself. A 2006 Gallup poll found that just 15 percent of Americans had a positive view of the oil and gas industry, whereas 77 percent had a negative image. Out of twenty-five sectors that Gallup asked about, the oil and gas industry ranked dead last. Even the federal government ranked ahead (but just barely) of the oil and gas industry in the collective opinion of the general public.34 Add in the huge profits that the industry has made in recent years, including Exxon Mobil’s record $45.2 billion profit in 2008, at a time when Americans were paying record-high prices for gasoline, and the industry’s need for an image makeover becomes even more apparent.35

  Thus, along with their feelings of guilt, Americans are angry at the companies that provide them with the energy they require. And to top it off, many Americans are fearful. Their fears are evident in the findings of an early 2009 Zogby International survey that was conducted for the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. Zogby interviewed 1,000 randomly selected adults from across the United States about issues regarding energy and the environment. Of the questions that focused solely on energy, the most lopsided response came from a question dealing with potential shortages of hydrocarbons, where 70.6 percent of the respondents agreed that the United States “must move to renewable energy because we are rapidly running out of oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels.”36

  If that Zogby poll were an election, it would have been a landslide. Perhaps this fear is understandable. Over the past few years, books, magazines, and newspapers have continually hyped the dangers of peak oil. Catastrophists such as author James Kunstler, who wrote the 2005 book The Long Emergency, have predicted that once we reach that peak, rapid declines in production will follow, and then, warns Kunstler, “epidemic disease and faltering agriculture will synergize with energy scarcities to send nations reeling.”37

  Americans are fearful about energy because of the lingering images of the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the 1979 oil price shock. More recently, they have endured the supply disruptions in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the price shocks of mid-2008 that sent gasoline prices to more than $4 per gallon.

  Politicians frequently use those events to stoke the fear that the United States could somehow be “cut off” from the global oil market. For instance, in 2006, Bill Clinton gave a speech in California during which he said, “Think of the instability and the impotence you feel knowing that every day we have to have a lifeline from places half a world away that could cut us off in a minute.”38 Of course, it’s worth noting any time that Bill Clinton mentions “impotence.” But he’s hardly the only one stoking the fears of a possible embargo or shortage. In mid-2009, Michael Moore, the liberal documentary filmmaker, published an essay in The Daily Beast in which he forecast a real-life edition of the Mad Max movies complete with oil-crazed survivors of a scorched planet battling each other for the last few liters of gasoline. In his article, titled “Goodbye, GM,” Moore assailed the “war” that he said was “being waged by the oil companies against you and me.” He went on to say that the evil oil barons “are not telling the public what they know to be true—that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.”39

  The drumbeat of fear abounds in discussions about global warming. In June 2009, the Obama administration released a report on climate change that called for massive reductions in U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide. Without a major change in energy use, the report said, “Likely future changes for the United States and surrounding coastal waters include more intense hurricanes with related increases in wind, rain, and storm surges.”40 It went on to say that because of global warming, “crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged,” and that “coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.”41 The report concluded that our only choice is to cut carbon dioxide emissions and that, “unless the rate of emissions is substantially reduced, impacts are expected to become increasingly severe for more people and places.”42

  Although guilt, anger, and fear are key elements of Americans’ gullibility when it comes to energy matters, the most important factor is ignorance. Most people simply don’t understand how energy and power are produced. And that lack of knowledge, combined with widespread scientific illiteracy and innumeracy, makes for a deadly combination.

  In 2007, I interviewed Vaclav Smil about energy issues.43 I asked him why Americans are so easily swayed about energy matters. His response: scientific illiteracy and innumeracy. “Without any physical, chemical, and biological fundamentals, and with equally poor understanding of basic economic forces, it is no wonder that people will believe anything,” he told me.44 Verifying Smil’s claim is all too easy. A 2007 study by Michigan State University determined that just 28 percent of American adults could be considered scientifically literate.45 In February 2009, the California Academy of Sciences released the findings of a survey which found that most Americans couldn’t pass a basic scientific literacy test. The findings:• Just 53 percent of adults knew how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.

  • Just 59 percent knew that the earliest humans did not live at the same time as dinosaurs.

  • Only 47 percent of adults could provide a rough estimate of the proportion of the Earth’s surface that is covered with water. (The academy decided that the correct answer range for this question was anything between 65 and 75 percent.)

  • A mere 21 percent were able to answer those three questions correctly.4
6

  In July 2009, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released the results of a survey of 2,001 adult Americans regarding science issues. Among the findings: Just 46 percent knew that electrons are smaller than atoms.47

  Those findings shouldn’t be surprising. Ignorance of the sciences and the natural world has plagued the world for centuries. This centuries-long suspicion of science, which continues today with regular attacks on Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution, was recognized by British scientist and novelist C. P. Snow in the 1950s when he delivered a lecture called “The Two Cultures.” Snow argued that there was a growing disconnect between the culture of the sciences and the culture of the humanities, and that bridging that gap was critical to understanding and addressing the world’s problems. Snow placed “literary intellectuals at one pole—at the other scientists,” and noted that in between there was “a gulf of mutual incomprehension.”48 Snow then laid out a critical point about the general public’s lack of understanding of energy and thermodynamics. As Snow put it:

  A good many times I have been present at gatherings of people who, by the standards of the traditional culture, are thought highly educated and who have with considerable gusto been expressing their incredulity at the illiteracy of scientists. Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s?49

  Indeed, although most moderately cultured people will be familiar with A Comedy of Errors or The Merchant of Venice, the laws of thermodynamics are considered by many of these same people to be the domain of nerds and wonks. Thus, the first law of thermodynamics—energy is neither created nor destroyed—and the second law—energy tends to become more random and less available—are relegated to the realm of too much information.50 This apathy toward science makes it laughably easy for the public to be deceived, or for people to deceive themselves.

  Alas, the apathy toward science in America is matched—or perhaps even exceeded—by the lack of interest in mathematics. Over the past few years, the United States has been inundated with depressing data about the state of the country’s mathematical skills. And unfortunately, the data appears to reflect a grim reality.

  A 2008 study published by the American Mathematical Society put it bluntly: “It is deemed uncool within the social context of USA middle and high schools to do mathematics for fun.”51 The study went on to explain that “very few USA high schools teach the advanced mathematical skills, such as writing rigorous essay-style proofs, needed to excel.”52 Another report issued in 2008, this one from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Mathematics Advisory Panel, declared that math education in the United States “is broken and must be fixed.”53 The report found “that 27% of eighth-graders could not correctly shade 1/3 of a rectangle and 45% could not solve a word problem that required dividing fractions.”54 The report also found poor math skills among adults:• 78 percent of adults could not explain how to compute the interest paid on a loan.

  • 71 percent could not calculate miles per gallon on a trip.

  • 58 percent were unable to calculate a 10 percent tip for a lunch bill.55

  This scientific illiteracy and innumeracy gets exacerbated in energy discussions by an equally thorny problem: the many different ways in which we measure units of energy. We use several sources of energy, and each is measured and sold in a mind-boggling variety of units. Oil is measured and sold in barrels, tons, gallons, and liters. Natural gas is measured and sold in cubic meters, millions of Btu, therms, dekatherms, and cubic feet. Coal comes in long tons and short tons, but its pricing depends on several other factors, including heat content, ash content, sulfur content, and, most important, the distance between the coal mine and the power plant. Electricity is sold in kilowatt-hours, but electricity terminology spans other units, including volts, amperes, and ohms.56 Add in joules, watts, ergs, and calories, and things get even more complex. Furthermore, different entities use different metrics. For instance, the BP Statistical Review of World Energy publishes much of its data in millions of tons of oil equivalent. The Energy Information Administration prefers quadrillion Btu, or “quads.” (One quad is approximately equal to 172 million barrels of oil equivalent, or about 1 exajoule.) Meanwhile, the International Energy Agency, as well as many countries, uses joules.

  This googol of energy metrics complicates energy discussions. It also makes it more difficult to move past feel-good ideas that will do little or nothing to actually address our future energy and power needs.

  In order to move past the happy talk, as well as the guilt, fear, and ignorance, we have to address the issues of energy and power in a rigorous manner. We must take an approach that includes numbers, units, and precise terminology. Understanding the difference between energy and power, for example, requires a bit of elementary physics, as well as proper definitions of key terms. In the next chapter, I will walk you through the physics and the terminology so that you can see why America’s discussions about “energy” are so misguided. Power is what we want. And lots of it.

  CHAPTER 3

  Watt’s the Big Deal? (Power Tripping 102)

  ENERGY GETS THE HEADLINES and the attention. It’s the buzzword that pundits and politicos count on to pack a punch. Thus, we’ve been barraged by the ever-present “energy crisis” as well as other combinations: energy security, energy scarcity, energy management, energy policy, and dozens more. In the consumer world, we have energy bars, energy drinks, and, for consumer electronics, Energy Star.

  My antique copy of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (printed in 1936) contains half a dozen definitions for “energy.” Meanwhile, its definitions for “power” cover nearly half a page. The word “power” now gets used in numerous contexts—political power, electrical power, brain power, black power, Chicano power, star power, flower power, power trip, power walking, power lunch, and computing power, to name just a few.

  Wrestling the two terms to the ground requires real effort, particularly given that fact that many people make the mistake of using “power” and “energy” interchangeably. But we must persevere. Definitions matter. In order to properly address a problem, we must first define it and agree on a common set of terms. And given that our effort requires basic physics, the first stop on our power quest is the work done by a Scotsman whose last name has become synonymous with power: James Watt.

  We use Watt’s name on a near-daily basis. But few people know what a “watt” is or why Watt’s work was so important. Here are the essential facts: Watt, born in 1736, made critical improvements to the steam engine. Those inventions raised the efficiency of steam engines so much that Watt, having patented the improvements, became a wealthy man.1 But Watt knew that improvements to the steam engine were not enough. He needed a metric that could help his customers understand the amount of work done by his steam engines in an hour or in a day. Given the centrality of horse-pulled power to eighteenth-century industry, and his ability to measure the work done by horses, it’s not surprising that he dubbed his new unit a “horsepower.” The result of his various measurements: 1 horsepower = 33,000 foot-pounds per minute.2

  The idea of foot-pounds per minute is hardly an intuitive metric, but in Watt’s day it made sense. Watt did a lot of work with coal mines, where horses were the draft animal of choice. Of course, a horse couldn’t lift a bucket of coal weighing 33,000 pounds. But that same horse could likely raise 330 pounds of coal 100 feet in 1 minute. Or it might be able to lift 33 pounds of coal 1,000 feet in that same time frame. The combination of feet and pounds can be whatever numbers you choose. But if the product of the two numbers equals 33,000 foot-pounds per minute, then you are producing 1 horsepower.3

  Since Watt’s day, horsepower has coexisted with other measures of power, including Btu per hour, calories per day, kilocalories per minute, and ergs
per second, to name just a few. For decades, this welter of power metrics confused even the most savvy of scientists and laymen. In 1960, the International System of Units, commonly called SI, was established. SI units are the result of a centuries-long effort to create a uniform system of measurement for distance, mass, time, current, power, pressure, and temperature—you name it—as well as symbols for numbers in the thousands, millions, billions, and so on. SI facilitates analysis and discussion, particularly among people from different cultures, languages, and fields of interest. And, know it or not, SI parlance has become part of our everyday speech. Kilo (k) means thousand, as in kilogram or kilowatt. Similarly, mega (M) means million, as in megajoule or megawatt, and giga (G) means billion, as in gigabyte or gigaflop. (See Appendix B for a full listing of SI numerical designations.)

  SI simplified discussions of energy and power. The joule (J), named after the British scientist James Prescott Joule, is the only unit of measure in SI for any kind of energy, regardless of its form.4 The watt (W)—named for James Watt some six decades after his death—is the only unit of measure in SI for any kind of power.

  To differentiate between joules and watts, it may help to think of them thusly: The total amount of energy produced is measured in joules; power generation is measured in watts. Put another way, the quantity of energy consumed is measured in joules; how quickly that energy gets consumed is measured in watts.5 Thus, operating a 60-watt light bulb requires power, which, as just discussed, is measured in watts. After an hour, when you switch the light off, you can then measure the amount of energy that was consumed by the light, which is measured in joules—or in kilowatt-hours or in Btu—all of which are measures of energy.

  Watts and joules are often used together. Calculating power requires knowing the amount of energy and the time over which it was used. This calculation has become a basic formula in physics. The equation is simple: