by Robert Bryce
Burning food for fuel is simply a bad idea. But rather than getting into moral discussions, consider just how much food is being used to produce motor fuel. In 2012, about 4.3 billion bushels of US-produced corn—roughly 40 percent of the entire domestic corn crop—was diverted into ethanol production. Bill Lapp, president of Advanced Economic Solutions, an Omaha-based commodity consulting firm, estimates that American motorists are now burning about as much corn in their cars as is fed to all of the country’s chickens, turkeys, cattle, pigs, and fish combined. Need another comparison? In 2012, the American automobile fleet consumed about twice as much corn as is grown in the entire European Union—put another way, the US ethanol sector is burning about as much corn as is produced by Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and India combined.81
To wind down this section, consider Kiefer’s conclusion to his report in Strategic Studies Quarterly. He wrote that it is time for “leaders and policymakers to catch up with the science and adjust their energy and security strategies to match the objective facts.”
The objective facts about biofuels—their low power density, their impact on food prices, their inability to provide even a small fraction of our energy needs—have been known for years. It’s well past time for the “greens” to recognize those facts. It’s well past time for people who are truly concerned about the environment to recognize that when it comes to energy production, we need density, and the more the better. Biofuel production is not dense. Biofuel production diverts arable land from food production and from nature. Biofuel production is the antithesis of green.
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CLIMATE CHANGE REQUIRES N2N (N2N IS SFLDC)
Carbon dioxide emissions and climate change have been the environmental issues of the last decade or so.
Over that time period, Al Gore became world-renowned for his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. The former US vice president won an Oscar and an Emmy.1 In 2007, he, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, collected a Nobel Peace Prize for “informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change.”2 That same year, the IPCC released its fourth assessment report, which declared that “most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG [greenhouse gas] concentrations.”3 (Emphasis in original.)
In 2009, Copenhagen became the epicenter of a worldwide media frenzy as some five thousand journalists, along with some one hundred world leaders and scores of celebrities, descended on the Danish capital for a climate change conference that was billed as the best opportunity to impose a global tax or limit on carbon dioxide. What was the result from that meeting, as well as others that were held in Durban, Bonn, and Cancun? Nothing, aside from promises by various countries to get serious—really serious—about carbon emissions sometime soon. In 2011, Pilita Clark, a reporter for the Financial Times, summed up the lack of serious action on carbon dioxide emissions, writing that the discussion about global climate issues has “declined into an obscure, jargon-filled process whose impotence was painfully exposed at the 2009 Copenhagen meeting, and which seems even more irrelevant amid today’s economic and financial chaos.”4
Regardless of what you think about carbon dioxide or the climate-change debate, it’s apparent that the best way forward is to embrace N2N: natural gas to nuclear.
My position about the science of global climate change is one of resolute agnosticism. I’m not an “alarmist” or “denier.” There’s no question that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. What we don’t know for certain is the ideal concentration of that gas in the atmosphere. I can’t talk knowledgeably about polar vortexes, cosmic rays, ice cores, forcings, or aerosols. Nor can I be certain that the climate models being used are accurate. I’ve become bored by the arguments about “hockey sticks,” proper thermometer siting, and whether temperatures have leveled off in recent years.5 In my view, the media and pundits are way too focused on climate models and not nearly focused enough on reactor, engine, and fuel cell models.
Over the past few years, the discussion about climate change and carbon dioxide emissions has devolved into a hyper-partisan slugfest that’s obsessed with tribalism. And that tribalism has obscured nearly everything else. As conservative columnist Mona Charen has explained, “The warmists cast everyone on the other side as paid shills for energy companies, and the skeptics charge that warmists are chasing grant money.”6
I’m disgusted with the tribalism and the name-calling. I am not interested in being part of anyone’s tribe. Put me in a tribe of one: the climate agnostic tribe. I am infinitely more interested in finding and exploiting the innovations that can help us surmount the challenges we face than I am in the endless accusations and name-calling generated by the cadre of self-appointed scorekeepers who spend their entire careers blogging about who might belong on Team Alarmist or Team Denier.
It’s time to focus our inquiry on the key question: if we agree that too much carbon dioxide is bad for the Earth’s atmosphere—and therefore, for us—what are we going to do? What’s the best “no regrets” climate policy as we move forward? As I argued in Power Hungry, that policy should be N2N. Adopting N2N makes sense for myriad reasons, but first among them is this: natural gas and nuclear are the fuels of the future because they are so good at producing cheap, abundant, reliable flows of the energy type we crave over nearly every other: electricity.
It’s time to put aside the tribalism because, like it or not, the global energy story of today is coal. Unless or until there is a fuel source that can produce electricity at a price that is Cheaper than that now produced from coal, global carbon dioxide emissions will continue to soar. If we want to reduce the rate of growth in carbon dioxide emissions, we must try to make cleaner electricity Cheaper. To do that means embracing the only known lower-carbon fuels that are able to both compete with coal and to make a significant dent in humanity’s insatiable appetite for energy and power of all kinds. That means N2N.
Before taking a deeper look at nukes and why climate-change efforts must focus on N2N, I’ve listed some incontrovertible points about carbon dioxide and climate change, likely wearing out the word “regardless” in the process.
Regardless of whether you think carbon dioxide is causing dangerous fluctuations in the Earth’s weather—or that it doesn’t matter at all—one fact is clear: we will need vastly more energy in the decades ahead in order to raise the living standards of the more than two billion people who are still living in abject energy poverty.7
Regardless of what you think about carbon dioxide emissions, we’re going to have to do even more with even less. The prospect of climate change—on a planet that might be getting hotter in some regions, or colder in others, or one that may be having more extreme weather events—is going to accelerate the trend toward Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper. We are going to need Smaller Lighter Cheaper air conditioners, water pumps, desalination units, computers, fuel cells, turbines, and lighting. We are going to need Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper engines of all kinds.
Regardless of what you think about carbon dioxide emissions, those emissions are rising, dramatically so. Between 2002 and 2012—the decade of Al Gore—those emissions jumped by 32 percent. That increase reflects soaring global demand for electricity (up by 39 percent), which in turn fostered a 55 percent increase in coal consumption. (Natural gas use increased by 31 percent, while oil use grew by about 14 percent.)8 Carbon dioxide emissions are growing because people—all seven billion of us on this planet—want electricity. And for many countries, the cheapest way to produce electrons is by burning coal. Carbon dioxide emissions are rising because tens of millions of people around the world are moving out of the dark and into the light, and they’re using coal to do it.
Regardless of what you think about carbon dioxide emissions, there are still no affordable, scalable substitutes for the vast quantity of hydrocarbons we use today, and there won’t be, not for decades to come. Hydrocarbons now
provide about 87 percent of the world’s total energy needs.9 Replacing them would require a new, zero-carbon energy form that can supply about 218 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, an amount of energy equal to the oil output of twenty-six Saudi Arabias.10 That won’t happen because as Vaclav Smil has rightly explained, energy transitions are “deliberate, protracted affairs . . . There is no Moore’s law for energy systems.”11
Global greenhouse gas emissions will continue increasing because global energy demand will likely increase by about 50 percent over the next two decades, and the vast majority of that new demand will be met with hydrocarbons. (By the way, if you think the expected increase of 50 percent by 2035 seems large, recall that between 1900 and 2010, global energy demand increased by about 2,200 percent.)12
Regardless of what you think about carbon dioxide emissions, people in the industrialized countries cannot and should not hinder the efforts of the world’s poor to gain access to cheap, reliable sources of energy. In other words, rich Greens cannot and should not impede the soaring energy use that’s happening everywhere from Bhutan to Borneo. Sure, solar panels and windmills (and geothermal and biomass) are appropriate choices for some locations. Solar, in particular, will grow enormously in the years and decades ahead because it works well in rural and extremely remote areas. All of that said, it’s also true that for the vast majority of the world’s population, the cheapest and most reliable forms of energy are, and will continue to be, hydrocarbons. According to projections from the Energy Information Administration, while demand for energy over the next twenty-five years or so will be relatively flat in the developed countries (members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), the big demand growth will be in the developing world. By 2035, energy use in the developing countries will likely be around 230 million barrels of oil equivalent per day—nearly double the amount those countries used in 2008 (124 million barrels of oil equivalent per day).13
Global Energy Demand Since 1990 and Projected to 2035
Energy demand in the developed world (countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) will rise only slightly over the next twenty-five years or so. The boom in demand—and a concurrent increase in carbon dioxide emissions—will come from developing countries such as China, India, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and many others. Source: Energy Information Administration, International Energy Outlook 2011.
Regardless of what you think about carbon dioxide emissions, we humans must continue adapting and hardening our cities, networks, and structures so they can better survive the always-wacky weather. That means we have to spend money on adaptation. In March 2013, a panel of his science advisers sent President Obama a list of recommendations on climate change. First on that list: focus on national preparedness for climate change.14
Don’t assume this is a new priority. We humans have been adapting to the climate for millennia. Every sensible “no-regrets” climate policy recognizes the need to prepare for future storms and droughts. We can argue about whether severe weather is caused by carbon dioxide—and whether or not such weather is increasing in frequency or intensity—until the cows come home. The hard reality is that we must make our cities and systems more resilient. Whether those weather events are related to anthropogenic carbon dioxide doesn’t matter. What matters is our preparedness with early-warning systems, flood-control measures, and evacuation plans. Few structures can survive an F5 tornado on the Oklahoma plains or the fierce rain and flooding that came with Super Storm Sandy. But we must be prepared so that we can mitigate as much damage as possible and be ready to respond effectively when severe weather strikes, as it surely will. Such adaptation-insurance policies are already paying off. Cities like London, St. Petersburg, and Rotterdam have installed floodgates that help reduce the risk of storm surges. In mid-2013, New York mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a $20 billion adaptation plan for the Big Apple that includes storm-surge barriers and levees.15
N2N provides the best no-regrets energy policy because those fuels can provide significant environmental benefits with relatively low economic costs. Natural gas and nuclear are lower-carbon than oil or coal. They emit almost zero air pollution. Better yet, both sources have high power densities, require relatively little land, and can be scaled up enough to meet a significant portion of the continuing growth in electricity demand in places like Hanoi and Seoul.
Is N2N a perfect solution? No. There are no perfect energy sources. All of them come with tradeoffs. But N2N makes the most sense going forward because it can help save money. The table below shows that using natural gas for electricity generation means Cheaper electricity for US consumers.
N2N is positive for air quality. Unlike oil- or coal-fired systems, natural gas–fired engines and turbines emit zero soot and only trace amounts of traditional air pollutants. Natural gas’s clean-burning characteristics are helping it steal market share from diesel fuel in the transportation market. Lower emissions and diversification away from oil-fired engines have led to the fuel’s adoption in city buses, delivery trucks, and increasingly, long-haul trucks. Iran now has the world’s largest fleet of natural gas vehicles, with nearly three million vehicles running on methane. For comparison, the United States has about 120,000 natural gas–fueled vehicles. It ranks seventeenth among the world’s countries in that category.18
Estimated Cost of Electricity for Generation Plants Entering Service in the United States in 2018, in US Dollars
When all costs are factored in—transmission, capital, operations and maintenance, etc.—natural gas continues to be the fuel of choice for electricity production in the United States because it is Cheaper than other sources. Source: Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2013.17
Regardless of what you think about climate change, N2N is helping cut carbon dioxide emissions. When burned in an electric-generation plant, natural gas emits about half as much carbon dioxide as does coal. In May 2012, the International Energy Agency reported that US carbon dioxide emissions had fallen by 92 million tons, or 1.7 percent, since 2011, “primarily due to ongoing switching from coal to natural gas in power generation.” The Paris-based agency continued: “US emissions have now fallen by 430 million tons (7.7 percent) since 2006, the largest reduction of all countries or regions.” The International Energy Agency credited the shale gale, saying the reduction came from “a substantial shift from coal to gas in the power sector.”19 In other words, market forces in the United States—read: the flood of methane unleashed by the shale gale—have done more to cut carbon dioxide emissions in America than all of the government-mandated programs in Europe.
Other analysts are coming to similar conclusions. In 2013, Max Luke, a policy analyst at the Breakthrough Institute, estimated that the combination of natural gas and nuclear energy has reduced America’s carbon dioxide emissions by about 54 billion tons over the last six decades. For comparison, Luke found that wind, solar, and geothermal reduced emissions by just 1.5 billion tons over that same period.20
Natural gas–fueled vehicles help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. NGVs emit 20 to 30 percent less carbon dioxide than comparable diesel-and gasoline-fueled vehicles.21 In mid-2013, the International Energy Agency estimated that global demand for natural gas in the transportation sector will nearly double, to about 9.6 billion cubic feet per day, by 2018.22 The agency also revealed this remarkable fact: “The expansion of gas as a transport fuel has a bigger impact on reducing the medium-term growth of oil demand than both biofuels and electric cars combined.”23 (Emphasis added.)
The biggest increases in natural gas as a transportation fuel are happening in China, where the government is pushing hard to improve air quality in its cities. According to the International Energy Agency, the ramp-up of gas as a transport fuel in China is happening about four times as fast as the growth in the United States.24
Cheaper natural gas is gaining market share in the transportation market thanks to an alphabet soup
of fuels—NGL, CNG, LNG, DME, GTL. (That’s natural gas liquids, compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, dimethyl ether, and gas to liquids.) Cheaper natural gas is not only gaining share in the transportation market, it’s also becoming more popular at the wellhead to replace the diesel fuel that runs the generators and pumps used on drilling rigs. Numerous drilling companies have begun using natural gas for that purpose, because natural gas, on a per-joule basis, is significantly Cheaper than diesel fuel.
Regardless of what you think about natural gas, the processes used in the drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and transportation of the fuel are getting better. A lot better. They are improving because it is in the interests of the companies that produce oil and natural gas from the earth to make those processes better.
Regardless of what you’ve heard, hydraulic fracturing is safe. Have there been some cases of groundwater contamination in the Oil Patch? Absolutely. And just about every one of them is due to something other than fracturing. Even the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, has said the process is safe. In 2011, in testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jackson said, “I’m not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water.”25