Saving The Environment Might Not Be As Easy As We Think
By Robert Sorley
Filed Under News & Reviews, The Big Picture |
As the public ‘conversation’ about climate change and sustainable development moves closer and closer to center stage, it is now important to step away from our entrenching positions, take a deep breath, and look at a different category of ‘big pictures’.
Let’s leave the ’skeptic-advocate’ dipole for the moment and move toward a set of principles that no sane person could seriously refute. Start with a few simple questions:
- Should governments, corporations, communities and individuals use their resources and organizations to behave in an environmentally responsible manner? Yes, of course.
- Should a new technology or initiative have the net result of greater units of greenhouse gas emissions for each unit of input? No, of course not.
- Does the state of our technology have the capacity to improve our emissions, our lifestyles and a sustainable agenda? Well, yes and no.
If truth be told, the technologies which currently have critical mass can only offer incremental improvements. A technological revolution of the scale which saw the elimination of wood burning in favor of hydrocarbon burning is still quite far away.
Several significant obstacles and large scale experiments must be addressed before the ‘non-combustion’ (ie. Wind, Water, Solar, Geothermal & Biofuel) will ever have the critical mass to truly rival the global reach of hydrocarbons.
Note the exclusion of nuclear energy from the previous list. There is a lesson to be drawn from our brief and tentative experiment with nuclear energy. Public attitudes turned against nuclear very early in its life cycle. Who is to say that nuclear’s experience will not repeat when the true and full costs of a “renewable energy” become clear?
Three problem-solving features contained in the main hydrocarbon applications are:
- Energy Density
- Transportability
- Small production area requirements
We, as a civilization, must either develop new technologies to address all three of these issues, or accept the inferiority of new technologies in these areas. If we opt for the latter, we must accept a measurable decline in our quality of life. If that’s not acceptable, we have the option to stick with hydrocarbons, as long as they are still around. But this option means that we must accept that anthropogenic-induced climate change will worsen. It may be much harder to measure the decline in our quality of life due to climate change, whereas the former will be acute.
ENERGY DENSITY
A gallon of regular gasoline holds 125,000 btu of energy content, or 34 MJ per liter. To describe this in daily terms, that gallon will propel 6 people in a 2.5T SUV a distance of 17 miles….all for a cost of roughly $3.00. Put another way, each mile costs 17 cents, so each person pays 3 cents for the benefit of moving one mile. Not even a rickshaw driver in the poorest country in the world would offer you this price!
Our academics and innovators are struggling to identify a viable alternative to the internal combustion engine when it comes to transporting people and material. The fuel cell, which once showed great promise is now dormant, wrapped up in the weaknesses of its own value chain. We may occasionally watch a 3 minute expose on the strange looking vehicles (with large surface areas) in the “North American Solar Challenge”, but we intuitively know these will never be able to carry a bevy of school children to their field trips.
The electric car may be of interest, but that requires plugging into the mains, which requires, in turn, that the power grid be designed for the increased demand. Since most of our electricity comes from hydrocarbons (gas, coal and oil) as of this date, we may run the risk of making the problem worse – unless it is very well thought out. Of course, we could always increase capacity by installing solar panels (photovoltaic cells) and wind turbines, but hydrocarbons will remain the core energy input.
The rules of energy density relegate our transportation issue to one of incremental progress, not revolutionary step-change. The hybrid car and improved engine designs are the most realistic efforts to be made as of this date.
Note we haven’t even broached the subject of shipping or air transport which will have no access to power grids for long periods of time.
TRANSPORTABILITY
The next question that must be addressed is, once you have an energy source, how do you get it to the people who need it? Crude oil and its refined products are relatively easy to transport. So is coal. Natural gas is more difficult, but there is now good pipeline infrastructure in most countries, delivering the resource to market. Liquid Natural Gas also continues to grow as a viable transport network.
If one takes the transportability issue to the wind, solar, geothermal, hydro and tidal technologies, it becomes quickly apparent that we have an enormous challenge:
- How do you get energy from windy areas to cities?
- How do you deliver electricity from sunny areas to the northern hemisphere in winter?
You cannot package these raw materials into fuel tanks or pipelines and carry them to the places that need them – at least not in the critical masses that will be required.
An option could be to lay thousands of miles of conductive wire so that there is a “pipeline” of electrical energy running from areas of great sunlight (or wind, or tides, etc) to, say, Northern Europe. However, the raw material will have been converted into electricity close to its source (say in the Sahara), and the energy losses inherent in moving electricity over long distances may render the whole exercise too inefficient. These weaknesses will exacerbate the questionable logic of mining a bunch of copper so it can be processed into wire that connects sunny areas to cold, dark, cloudy cities.
Once again, it is more likely that the renewable energy sources will complement the core hydrocarbon power plants. Note the return of the words “incremental improvements”.
RESOURCE PRODUCTION AREA
The last issue which this commentary will address is that of production area. Put briefly, this is the ‘footprint’ we put down to access the energy that we require.
While giant oil and gas fields are expressed in billions of barrels or trillion cubic feet, the area required for production and refining facilities is comparatively small. The world’s largest oilfield, Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, is 3250 sq miles (8400 sq km) and is produced primarily by 5 production wells. Apart from Canada’s tar sands and Venezuela’s heavy oil complex, the flow characteristics of oil and gas mean that the facilities to produce and refine the resource leave a comparatively small footprint per btu or MJ of energy extracted.
This will not be the case with solar, tidal and wind technologies. While it is popular to cite the extraordinary statistics about solar radiation (174 PW, 1370 watts per sq meter, etc), the fact remains that an area of around 200,000 sq km would be required to collect enough TeraWatts to match the world’s current power consumption. That is half the state of California. The “production” areas for this kind of energy extraction will be significantly larger than anything we have seen to date.
Similarly, a modern wind turbine may be specified to produce 1.33 MW in a year. Given that the world consumes 15 TW in power per year, this would imply that we would need 11 million strategically placed wind turbines to replace the existing infrastructure. That is one wind turbine for every 600 people; every city with 1M people would require 1700 turbines. Denver would require 850 turbines, which would correspond to one every 5 sq miles. Taking an average, the greatest distance that you could place yourself from a wind turbine eyesore in Denver would be about 1 & ¼ miles. At any given time, you would thus have 37 wind turbines in your field of view, assuming a flat terrain and a short tower. The taller the turbine, the bigger the visible number of units. New York City would require 13,800 turbines, or 45 turbines per sq mile. At any given time, a New Yorker would be no more than 262 yards from a tower, and would have 2544 in the field of view (flat landscape, short towers, no obstructions assumed). That’s a veritable forest…without the benefit of any trees.
Admittedly, one could put the turbines together in a more efficient wind farm outside the metropolis, but it would still be significant footprint in someone else’s back yard.
Next question…where is the wind? Oh yes, and what about growth in population/energy requirements? (Note that the above calculations are probably conservative for US cities, since the energy consumed per head is so much higher than in other countries).
It will be more realistic to use wind as an incremental addition to the existing grid.
In conclusion, each reader should ask the following question of himself or herself. How many times do you see an oil or gas production rig? How about a refinery? It is probably an uncommon event. In our effort to abandon hydrocarbons, are you prepared to look at a large photovoltaic panel complex AND several 240 ft (75m) wind towers with 300 ft (93m) rotors stirring noisily in the breeze? Note also that the land must be set aside for these energy capturing units, and the building materials must be mined, processed and assembled (probably in your back yard).
Sadly, there will be no way to make them beautiful nor to make them perfectly safe for people or wildlife.
It may all be worth it to thwart this climate change. But look at how quickly our society turned against nuclear, the ‘energy liberator’ of the 1970s. Nuclear has a lot to offer as a non-emitting technology, but its time has passed. It is not inconceivable that when the limitations of renewables become more fully understood, that there will be another outcry.
Let’s make sure that the skeptics and advocates of both existing and new technologies keep the debate open and balanced. We commoners want to do the right thing, but we’re getting a lot of bias from our green advocates, and no one would stoop to take an oil industry PR rep seriously. Now would they?
ROBERT SORLEY was trained as a Geophysicist in Canada before joining both French & Norwegian companies as a marine seismic contractor. His career has taken him to job postings and expatriations in West Africa, the North Sea, France, UK, SE Asia, Australia the USA and back to Canada. Working on the periphery of the oil exploration industry in both the developed and the developing world has introduced him to a wide range of stakeholders, nationalities and people of all walks of life, all of whom have a multitude of perspectives. Since the identification of energy resources is a strategic component of every country’s economy, Robert has frequently engaged with national oil companies, regulators and policy-makers. This, in turn, has evolved into a deep curiosity about how policies are debated, decided and implemented.
Posted on December 1, 2008 |
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8 Responses to “Saving The Environment Might Not Be As Easy As We Think”
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Although I don’t consider wind turbines an eyesore, we do need to seriously contemplate the energy input that is required to build new green technologies. My husband recently worked on an energy story for Frontline (HEAT, PBS) and was amazed at how many helicopters it required to afix ONE “fin” to each giant wind turbine tower. These are the energy input factors that many of us are blind to. Not to mention the raw material mining that is required to manufacture each wind tower or photovoltaic panel.
Although it is clearly a step in the right direction, development of green and renewable technologies will continue to rely on use of oil for many years to come.
I appreciated Robert’s take on this debate, with his scientific background and ability to break this down for the every day person to understand. I really hadn’t seriously considered the potential outcry over the limitations of renewables until reading this article, and that’s an essential consideration in this conversation.
I hate to admit that being a single parent of two very busy school-aged children, I rely on rather basic sources of information for news and current events. When it comes to issues of serious consideration or debate, I try to extrapolate from these sources the information that makes the most sense to me, from which I rather ignorantly base my opinions.
I have to say, though, that what has been sorely lacking in all arguments on renewable energy sources that I’ve seen, is the REALISTIC side of developing and sustaining new green(er) technologies. A huge thank you to Robert for providing some honest detail on the options, and doing so in a palatable, unemotional and non-political way.
I agree that wind turbines are not eyesores. I love this article for it’s realistic/objective look on the issue. That is something we don’t see or hear much, always the us and them arguments. It’s completely inefficient to the goal everyone knows about, getting the problem communicated and understood in a proper way. Tehre are too many people on both sides that like to just bitch and moan about this problem and their thoughts on the ways to solve, we all do it.
The ones who do it most though are the media and politicians, makes for great airtime. Unfortunately, we the average folk don’t care enough (as a whole) to change their “hot air” ways.
It’s something we all have in our selves that creates this complaining, emotions. It’s what makes us human and unfortunately, it can a be a social downfall in cases like this (and all other political issues, too).
Great article Robert, regardless on your position it’s one that everyone should read.
Gü
Thanks for this honest, scientific approach to climate change/sustainability. Definitely an eye-opener.
Great article Robert, thanks for talking bout both sides of the picture. I too saw that HEAT documentary that was mentioned in an earlier posting, and like you, they presented a ’semi’ balanced, but certainly realistic view of the domestic problems and the global ones. Most of these problems are very real, some are simply capitalism and greed. But, wow, what a complicated issue it is. I like to think that its time for all people to incorporate a balanced portfolio of energy, understanding that we aren’t going to be able to just turn off one switch and turn on another. But I do believe it’s important for people to realize what conservation means, and how everyones actions can reduce emissions of CO2, or what is commonly referred to as pollution! This is an act of thinking, and micro analyzing the lights you use, the car you drive and the trips you take. I’m not one to talk though: My job puts me on lots of airplanes: I have a huge carbon footprint I’m shamed to admit.
There are so many avenues and ideas to discuss that it would really take a 6 pac to properly delve into this subject. There are many topics to tackle: Are Wind Turbines an eyesore? I certainly don’t think so, but think about this: try taking a photo anywhere near civilization without have phone and electrical wires in it; it’s nearly impossible. Yet people are used to that. Ever been to the powder river basin in Wyoming or driven through the ‘mountain top’ coal fields in West Virginia. They are gigantic. You could probably put ALOT of wind turbines in these awful industrial places. How bout the Oil Tar Sands of Canada too, which alone, enviromentally ruins any chance of Canada as a country, being a Green Country. The Athabasca oil sand deposits lie under 141,000 square kilometres (54,000 sq mi) of sparsely populated boreal forest and muskeg in Northern Alberta. (The total area of Nevada is 110,561 sq mi,286,352 sq km about twice this size for reference, and we’ll be referring more on Nevada soon) These are some of the localized eyesores on the planet, and although most people don’t see these for every 1.25 miles, doesn’t make them less important. If the tradeoff for clean or cleaner air was a turbine every couple of miles, then gimme the turbine. Because, you see, people used to dump their trash down the road, metaphorically, on land, later we dumped in the ocean, and now we dump into the atmosphere. But, we know that isn’t possible, trading one for another right now (wind or solar for fossil fuels), and we can’t think that that will be possible anytime soon. And concerning wind turbines killing wildlife; that number is signifigantly less than birds dieing due to windows on buildings, bumpers and grills on cars, and domestic cats in your neighbors back yard. The subject and discussion is endless. People still feel that nuclear energy isn’t safe, even though there hasn’t been a nuclear accident in the US since 1979 with no signifigant (more or less…sorry) damage, and a SIGNIFIGANT accident in Chernobyl, Russia in 1986. One might wonder if the microscopic damage of CO2 in the air, hourly and daily has caused more harm to more people SLOWLY over time, and also caused increases in health care premiums and loss of health and an earlier loss of life, as well as loss of productivity due to illness, than a significant, but localized accident at a nuclear power plant…?
You surely had more energy than I to write your blog, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I feel as though we have had this discussion before, but I am already tired of typing, having downed almost 2 beers already. And who has run the mathematical equation to determine if driving a 25mpg car for 250 miles is worse for the planet than all the coal it would take to run the same car (with it’s specially mined batteries and whatever those are made of) on electricity. Unless you have solar going powering that battery in that car. Here’s a seque way…. I’ve read that the US could power its entire country by covering 70% of the state of Nevada in Solar Panels. They receive that much sun there, and we know there isn’t anything there, so, ….. certainly they could power Vegas and Reno with it, because as you have said one of the problems is redistributing all of this electricity without loss of electricity, and economically viably as well. We know that would be possible. Here’s an idea…. Designate an area as big as the Powder River Basin (The P.R.Basin in Wyo that is) near Vegas, or half as big, and instead of running train lines out of this area with daily dirty trains, run transmission lines once, and be done with it. Cause it’s all in perception, and what we know and how we think.
Seems radical doesn’t it. But so does digging a gigantic whole in the earth and digging and digging and digging.
Alright, I’m starting my third beer. Gotta fly.
Thanks for the remarks Drew, it’s great to see the neurons firing over this very important issue. As luck would have it, Canada’s Globe & Mail newspaper (whose editors are left of center in the Canadian spectrum…which roughly translates as waaayyyy left in the US spectrum) had the following opinion piece.
Look at the remarks of David Bellamy and David Mackay, both of whom have excellent environmental credentials. Look also at the wind-power “poster countries” of Germany & Denmark. A mixed bag at best - one is building dozens of coal plants, and the other can supplement 20% of its powergen from wind but must export more than half of its wind power “because that’s the only way the system can work”.
Subsidies may work, if the destiny of wind power is to get to a critical development level where it pays for itself (and then some). But, clearly the experiences of UK, Denmark and Germany, who have been at the forefront of wind, have raised more questions than they have answered about this promising technology.
Here’s the article:
Who Could Object to Wind Power?
Margaret Wente, Globe & Mail 25 November 2008
On Toronto’s waterfront stands a mighty wind turbine, its blades rotating lazily in the breeze (at least sometimes). It’s a monument to good intentions and civic virtue. The Mayor loves it. The Premier loves it. All governments love wind power, because it makes them look so green. David Suzuki, the patron saint of environmentalism, compares wind turbines to medieval cathedrals – the highest expression of human achievement. Wind is clean, sustainable, renewable, free. Who could possibly object?
The citizens.
Last night in Toronto, hundreds of anxious folks jammed a meeting called to discuss plans for a massive wind farm along the shore of Lake Ontario. They fear the 90 metre turbines will chop up birds, disrupt migration routes, destroy views, lower property values, even make them sick.
NIMBYs? No doubt. But they have a lot of company. Across Canada, Britain and Europe, a growing protest movement is arguing that wind farms are no good for the environment. Here’s another reason not to like them. Wind power can’t survive without massive subsidies, courtesy of you and me. “If these hidden subsidies were taken away, there would not be a single wind turbine built in Britain,” says David Bellamy, a well-known environmentalist who has been tramping the Scottish countryside to oppose a massive wind project there.
Subsidies might be okay if wind could help replace conventional energy one day. It can’t. “If the whole of Wales was covered with wind turbines, the nation would generate only a sixth of the U.K.’s energy needs,” says Prof. David MacKay, a physicist at Cambridge. He’s all in favour of clean, renewable energy. But he’s done the math.
The biggest problem with wind is that it doesn’t always blow. There are lots of days when Toronto’s monument to civic virtue couldn’t even power my toaster. Inconveniently, these times of low production tend to coincide with times of high demand. So no matter how many turbines you put up, you always need backup power. Usually, that means fossil fuel, or in Ontario’s case, nuclear.
The biggest advertisements for wind power are Germany and Denmark. Germany has more wind turbines than any other country in the world, and Chancellor Angela Merkel has draped herself in green. But, wind energy can’t replace conventional power there either, so Germany is also building dozens of new coal-fired power plants. Denmark, with the largest offshore wind farm in the world, brags that 20 per cent of the electricity it generates comes from wind. But more than half its wind power is exported, because that’s the only way the system can work.
Here at home, wind companies have been scrambling to get their share of $1.5-billion in federal subsidies for clean energy. On top of that, they get a premium when they sell the power. Ontario pays them 11 to 14 cents per kilowatt hour. Conventional energy goes for about half that price.
“Ontario is turning to wind turbines to help create jobs and power a green energy future,” brags a government press release. But wind companies are chasing another green. The biggest wind project in the world, on the Thames Estuary, nearly collapsed last spring when a major backer, Shell, pulled out. Shell said the “incentives” were better in the United States.
Fortunately, a lot of wind companies won’t survive the recession. One big Canadian firm, EarthFirst, is under court protection. Wind companies need a huge amount of credit, which has dried up. Expensive wind power makes a lot less sense with oil back around $50. And the global slump will do more to cut greenhouse gas emissions than all the wind turbines and solar panels David Suzuki can dream of.
When will we stop pouring billions into wind? I have no idea. Politicians really love their turbines. Meantime, that soft whoosing sound you hear is your friendly green government, vacuuming money out of your pockets.
That’s a good article too. Discussions will never end. Thats a good thing. In Kansas they have lots of wind farms. Sadly though, in the summer when people need to run their Air Conditioners, the wind blows less. (Like in Toronto as quoted in that article). What perplexes me, and I’m sure there is a good explanation but even in my limited personal adventures into these ‘energy worlds’, is the energy companies (the companies that sell the power like Excel, or AEP) say that they can not rely on wind, and never know how much the wind will blow, and they are having a hard time integrating into the grid. I know it’s difficult, god knows I understand that, but someday they will figure out how to blend winds energy/electricity, with that of coal or natural gas. And we all know that for the most part in the US, no one lives in the windy areas, and we know that it is hard to bottle up wind and move it much more than 100 miles (?) before there is line loss on that electricity. I just feel like if you took a bunch of really brainy people, and put them up in a Hyatt (a nice one, with a swimming pool and a good bar, and where they turn down your bed and leave those little chocolates) for a couple of years at the cost of $500M US, they could figure it out. (The Iraq war cost the US 10 Billion a MONTH). The answer is out there, and someone will figure it out, but for the mean time, we will continue to use fossil fuels. That’s a given for me. I’m just looking for some conservation, and giving some opportunities to the greenies - especially in the R and D arena.