Power Hungry

by Robert Bryce

  Alas, when it comes to discussions of “green” energy, too many advocates and politicos simply decide that it’s a “no brainer.” The result: Little critical thinking gets done about the issues of scale and the long-term impacts of the sources that are supposed to be making things better.

  As I showed with just a bit of math, the myth that biomass provides a viable replacement for coal was easy to debunk. Now that many of the myths about green energy have been addressed, I will show, in the next section, why natural gas and nuclear hold so much promise for the future.

  PART III

  THE POWER OF N2N

  CHAPTER 21

  Why N2N? And Why Now?

  (The Megatrends Favoring Natural Gas and Nuclear)

  IN AUGUST 2009, Fatih Birol, the chief economist for the International Energy Agency, did something that has become almost commonplace: He predicted a date for peak oil. In an interview with the British newspaper, the Independent, Birol said that his agency now believes “peak oil will come perhaps by 2020.”1

  Birol is one of dozens of prognosticators who have offered an opinion on the question of peak oil—the moment when the world reaches the limit of its ability to produce ever-increasing amounts of petroleum. Is Birol right? Maybe. We won’t know for certain until about 2020 whether his prediction was right or wrong.

  The importance of Birol’s prediction is not that he picked a date for peak oil; rather, it’s that he and so many other leading energy analysts are forecasting a peak. Indeed, when that peak is hit, it will be a milestone in our energy use—but it will not mean that we will quit using oil. As discussed in Part 1, the world will continue using oil for decades to come because no other fuel source provides such incredible versatility, ease of handling, and energy density. That said, it’s also clear that oil’s share of the primary energy market is declining. Back in 1973, oil provided 48 percent of the world’s total energy. By 2008, that percentage had declined to 35 percent. And over the coming decades, the percentage will likely continue its slow decline.

  It is true that this decline is part of a significant energy transition; it’s just not the rapid move to the “green” sources that Al Gore and many other boosters have been hyping. The big challenge for today’s policymakers is to make the ongoing transition away from oil and coal to other energy sources as easy as possible; and in doing so, they should be encouraging energy sources that benefit both the environment and the economy. That brings us to the questions posed by the title of this chapter: Why N2N? And why now?

  The answer to the first of those questions should, by now, be obvious. N2N means increasing our use of natural gas as we slowly transition to the use of more nuclear power over the next two to four decades. Because natural gas and nuclear power will have minimal negative impacts on the economy while providing significant environmental benefits, they provide the best no-regrets policy option. Indeed, natural gas and nuclear are far more environmentally friendly than the “green” energy sources that I debunked in Part 2.

  Overhyped technologies such as wind power, cellulosic ethanol, and electric cars simply cannot provide the scale and reliability needed to meet global energy and power demands. Each one fails one or more of the Four Imperatives. Wind power has low power density, and without large-scale energy storage, it can’t provide the always-on power that we demand. Cellulosic ethanol, too, is hamstrung by low power density, and despite decades of research, entrepreneurs still haven’t found an economic way to turn wood chips and grass clippings into fuel. Meanwhile, the batteries used in today’s electric cars continue to be limited by the same problem that flummoxed Thomas Edison when he wrestled with the battery challenge more than a century ago: low energy density. The density problem precludes wind, biomass, and batteries from meeting the final two of the Four Imperatives: cost and scale.

  So why should we be pursuing N2N now? Again, the answer is apparent. If policymakers are serious about cutting carbon dioxide emissions and reducing air pollution, while minimizing land-use impacts and increasing the amount of energy available to their constituents, then they must embrace sources that can provide lots of power. Barring some magic solution to the energy storage problem, the incurable intermittency of wind and solar eliminates them from large-scale use. Of course, the world has plenty of coal, but coal’s high carbon content and low hydrogen content is problematic. As I showed in Part 2, carbon capture and sequestration cannot, and will not, work on the scale that is needed to make a difference. The volumes of carbon dioxide are simply too large to be managed in an economic fashion.

  All of those factors lead to the inevitable conclusion that the real fuels of the future are natural gas and nuclear. In fact, the future has already arrived. The world is readily embracing natural gas and nuclear power; policymakers need only provide proper encouragement. In 1973, natural gas and nuclear power combined to account for less than 20 percent of the world’s primary energy consumption. By 2008, the two had a combined market share of nearly 30 percent.

  For nearly four decades, natural gas and nuclear have been steadily stealing market share away from oil and coal. Between 1973 and 2008, worldwide consumption of natural gas jumped by 159 percent—faster than consumption of any other primary energy source with the exception of nuclear power, which grew by an amazing 1,253 percent. During that same time period, oil consumption rose by about 42.6 percent, and coal use increased by about 109 percent. In other words, since the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo—the tumultuous event that marked the beginning of the modern energy era—gas consumption has grown three times as fast, on a percentage basis, as oil consumption. Meanwhile, use of nuclear power grew nearly twelve times as fast, on a percentage basis, as coal.2

  By using natural gas and nuclear power we will be able to meet the demands of the Four Imperatives while capitalizing on a number of megatrends. And those megatrends provide another set of reasons to embrace natural gas and nuclear: decarbonization, increasing use and availability of gaseous fuels, concerns about peak oil and peak coal, and increasing urbanization of the global population. The other key megatrend, which I have been discussing throughout this book, involves efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions due to worries about climate change.

  Before discussing those megatrends, it’s worth looking at some of the countries that are already demonstrating a preference for natural gas and nuclear power. For instance, on August 4, 2009, the Italian utility Enel and Electricité de France agreed to build up to four nuclear reactors in Italy at a cost of up to $23 billion.3 Two weeks later, China and Australia agreed to the largest-ever trade deal between the two countries, signing a natural gas supply agreement worth more than $40 billion that calls for Exxon Mobil to provide liquefied natural gas from Australia’s giant offshore Gorgon field to PetroChina over twenty years.4

  FIGURE 30 Percentage Change in Global Primary Energy Consumption, 1973 to 2008

  Source: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2009, http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAGING/local_assets/2009_downloads/renewables_section_2009.pdf.

  Italy, long opposed to nuclear power, has begun to realize that it must diversify its electricity-generation mix and reduce its reliance on imported energy, particularly natural gas from Russia. China, which has been snapping up natural resources of all kinds in recent years, is particularly interested in natural gas as a way to reduce some of the staggering pollution problems that are causing unrest among parts of its enormous population.

  The deal to buy gas from Australia is just one example of China’s growing appetite for natural gas. Although most energy analysts focus on China’s hunger for oil and coal, the country’s natural gas consumption is soaring. Between 1990 and 2008, China’s consumption of natural gas jumped by 429 percent. On a percentage basis, China’s gas consumption grew nearly twice as fast as its oil use (a 233 percent increase during that time frame) and nearly three times as fast as its coal consumption (165 percent
).5

  In addition to its huge hunger for natural gas, China has launched the most aggressive nuclear power program on the planet, with plans to add about 150 new nuclear reactors to its fleet. In September 2009, executives at Japan Steel Works announced that their company was spending about $1 billion on an expansion of its plant at Hokkaido. That facility is the only one that can manufacture the containment vessel needed for large reactors in a single piece. The expansion of the Hokkaido plant will allow Japan Steel Works to double its reactor vessel output to twelve per year.6 And many of the containment vessels built there will go to China.

  Of course, the Chinese are hardly alone. By late 2009, there were fifty-two reactors under construction around the globe, with total capacity of nearly 48,000 megawatts.7 That amount of nuclear capacity is nearly equal to all of the electric-generating capacity of Mexico.8 In addition to China, the countries now constructing new reactors include Argentina, Canada, Finland, France, India, Iran, Japan, Pakistan, Russia, Slovakia, South Korea, and the United States.

  In addition, numerous other countries, including Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Romania, South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and Vietnam, are planning to add reactors. In all, some 150,000 megawatts of new nuclear power capacity is being planned.9

  The power of N2N can be seen by looking at the countries that are simultaneously embracing both natural gas and nuclear power. For instance, between 1990 and 2008, gas demand in South Korea soared by nearly 1,100 percent—faster than that of any other country.10 As for nuclear, by late 2009 South Korea had six new reactors under construction with a total capacity of 6,700 megawatts. Or look at Brazil, where natural gas use has increased by more than 700 percent since 1990, and where the government is now considering more than 5,000 megawatts of new nuclear power.11 In China, gas consumption has soared, and more than 17,000 megawatts of new nuclear capacity are under construction.12 Finally, consider India, where gas consumption has jumped by 243 percent since 1990, and where six new reactors are now under construction. 13 Natural gas and nuclear power are being embraced by countries all over the world because they provide clean, baseload, low-carbon or no-carbon power. And that’s what every country wants. Although natural gas provides tremendous benefits, it cannot match nuclear power when it comes to power density. As discussed earlier in this book, nuclear reactors have very high power density, meaning they can produce large amounts of power from small amounts of real estate. That advantage is a direct result of the incredible amounts of energy that are produced by fission. The energy released from nuclear reactions are about 10 million times larger than those from chemical reactions. Or as one recent book, A Cubic Mile of Oil, explained it, about 2,000 tons of uranium-235 “can release as much energy as burning 4.2 billion tons of oil.” That’s the equivalent of about 30.7 billion barrels—or one cubic mile—of oil.14

  The surging use of natural gas and nuclear power demonstrates and reinforces one of the most important energy megatrends of the modern era: decarbonization.

  Decarbonization is the ongoing global trend toward consumption of fuels that contain less carbon. This megatrend was first identified by a group of scientists that included Nebosa Nakicenovic, Arnulf Grübler, Jesse Ausubel, and Cesare Marchetti,15 who found that over the past two centuries, the process of decarbonization has been taking place in nearly every country around the world. Because consumers always want the cleanest, densest forms of energy and power that they can find, the trend will surely continue. The ratio of carbon to hydrogen atoms in the most common fuels tells the story.

  From prehistory through, say, the 1700s and early 1800s, wood was the world’s most common fuel. Wood has a carbon-to-burnable-hydrogen ratio (C:H) of about 10:1. That is, it contains about 10 carbon atoms for every 1 burnable hydrogen atom. But wood eventually lost its dominance to coal, which has far higher energy density and a C:H ratio of about 2:1. Coal lost out to oil, which has even higher energy density as well as easier handling characteristics. In addition, oil has a C:H ratio of about 1:2. Now we are seeing the rise of natural gas (methane), which, as its chemical formula (CH4) suggests, has a C:H ratio of 1:4, or 1 carbon atom for every 4 hydrogens. In 2005, Marchetti, an Italian physicist, declared that for the next five decades, “methane is to be the dominant primary energy.”16

  The hunger that consumers have for cleaner sources fits perfectly with the goal that policymakers have decided should be a top global priority: reducing carbon dioxide emissions. In late 2008, Nobuo Tanaka, the executive director of the IEA, averred that “preventing irreversible damage to the global climate ultimately requires a major decarbonization of world energy sources.”17 Of course, not all countries are decarbonizing at the same rate. And some countries, including China and India, are increasing, rather than decreasing, their coal consumption. But the long-term decarbonization of the global economy is continuing, and given concerns about climate change, that trend is likely to accelerate as countries around the world build more nuclear reactors and increase their consumption of natural gas.

  Decarbonization favors natural gas and nuclear power at the same time that environmentalists and some politicians are working to impose countryby-country limits on carbon dioxide emissions. The efforts to limit those emissions go back to 1992 with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. They were formalized in 1997 with the Kyoto Protocol, which decreed that countries should cut their emissions by 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. But only a handful of countries have met their obligations under the protocol. 18 Nevertheless, in July 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon declared that global carbon dioxide emissions cuts are essential, saying they were “politically and morally imperative and a historic responsibility for the leaders for the future of humanity, even for the future of planet Earth.”19

  The efforts to impose carbon dioxide limits and decarbonize the world’s energy sources are occurring at the same time that countries around the world are working to improve air quality. And air quality is an area where natural gas and nuclear power hold advantages over oil and coal. During combustion, natural gas emits about half as much carbon dioxide as coal and releases no particulates. Nor does it release significant quantities of sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxides, two of the most problematic air pollutants. In 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency issued the Clean Air Interstate Rule, which aims to cut those two pollutants by as much as 70 percent by 2015. In addition, the agency has issued the Clean Air Mercury Rule, which aims to cut the releases of mercury from coal-fired power plants.20 Those federal requirements will, in the coming years, favor natural gas and nuclear power over the use of coal.

  The decarbonization trend is closely connected to another megatrend as well: the increasing use and availability of gaseous fuels.

  The hydrogen economy remains decades away. But the increasing use of natural gas confirms the projections made by analysts who have predicted that the world’s consumers will increasingly replace solid and liquid fuels with gaseous ones. Of course, the world will continue using coal, and lots of it, and oil, and lots of it, for many decades to come. But the trend toward gaseous fuels appears to be gathering speed. As Roberto F. Aguilera of the Vienna-based International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis put it in a March 2009 analysis, “we are on our way towards a methane economy that could pave the way to a hydrogen economy.”21 The trend toward gaseous fuels and the decarbonization trend are companions. About 95 percent of the hydrogen now being produced is derived from natural gas.22 Thus, the long-anticipated and much-hyped “hydrogen economy,” if it ever arrives, must begin with a methane economy. And over the past few years, thanks to improvements in drilling and recovery technologies, the estimated volumes of the world’s recoverable natural gas resources have skyrocketed.

  It’s worth noting that, although the megatrend toward increased use and availability of gaseous fuels is now apparent, just a few years ago, some of the energy industry’s top people w
ere convinced that we were running out of gas.

  In 2005, Lee Raymond, the famously combative CEO of Exxon Mobil, declared that “gas production has peaked in North America.”23 Raymond, who retired from the oil giant in 2006, said that his company was intent on building a new pipeline that would bring Arctic gas from Canada and Alaska south, and that more natural gas supplies would be needed “unless there’s some huge find that nobody has any idea where it would be.”24 Raymond wasn’t alone. In 2004, Julian Darley, a British writer, published High Noon for Natural Gas: The New Energy Crisis, a book documenting how a pending shortage of natural gas in the United States and Canada could “plunge” the two countries “into a carbon chasm, a hydrocarbon hole, from which they will be hard put to emerge unscathed.”25

  In 2003, Matthew Simmons, a Houston-based investment banker who had been issuing dire warnings about peak oil for years, predicted that natural gas supplies were about to fall off a “cliff.” When asked about the future of natural gas supplies, Simmons said that “the solution is to pray.... Pray for no hurricanes and to stop [sic] the erosion of natural gas supplies. Under the best of circumstances, if all prayers are answered there will be no crisis for maybe two years. After that it’s a certainty.”26

  The same year that Simmons petitioned for prayer, author Richard Heinberg published The Party’s Over, a book filled with ominous warnings about the looming end of the hydrocarbon age. Regarding natural gas, he said there were “disturbing signs that rates of natural gas extraction in North America will soon start on an inexorable downhill slope—perhaps within a few months or at most a few years. When that happens, we may see a fairly rapid crash in production.”27