My thanks to everyone who has participated in the recent 2GreenEnergy survey.  I note that Dr. David Doty, one of the greatest intellects I’ve ever run across, boldly predicted the following for the coming five years:

Oil, coal, and gas will steadily become more expensive at a mean rate of ~20%/year. EVs will have negligible impact on oil usage – for decades.

Global economic growth will still continue at a rate of ~2%/yr, and inflation in the U.S. will remain low.

The gap between the rich and the poor will continue to widen. It will take 10-12 more years of this before something close to revolution (major rioting) comes to the U.S. We will not see another period of sustained strong growth in the U.S. until several years after that happens.

We will not see serious and effective commitment to reduced CO2 emissions until after we’ve seen several years of strong economic growth.

Much of what you’ve written here is so counter to most people’s thinking — not to say that this means it’s wrong.  20% CAGR? That’s doubling every 3.5 years. By “mean rate,” I presume you suggest an average across the three fuels, as well as their price points across the next five years. 

Personally, I don’t see anything right now that would tend to make natural gas or coal climb in price.  The anti-fracking sentiment here doesn’t seem to be gaining too much momentum, and you can still walk through Wyoming and trip over lumps of coal.  I agree about oil, though I believe the oil companies will manipulate the price, and the American sheep-consumer, as long as that’s what’s required to keep us from looking elsewhere for transportation.

I’m even more interested in what you wrote about social chaos. As I’m sure you know, you’re not alone in predicting this.   But you must be aware of our fastest growing industry: criminal justice.  While even college graduates are having the devil’s own time finding work, one segment’s booming – it’s spending a mint in advertising, and creating a whole new subject in which college students can major, like you and I majored in physics, English, history, or whatever.  That’s law enforcement.   Enjoy a rewarding career putting those lawless protesters where they belong: behind bars! 

Sorry to joke about such a lethally serious subject, but I’m not too bullish on the efficacy of civil disobedience here in the US. 

But I do agree with what you write at the end: as long as Americans feel a pinch in their wallets, there will be precious little interest in CO2 emissions.  It’s far too easy for the demagogues to convince voters that environmental responsibility means a sluggish economy and that the adoption of an energy policy that embraces renewables will result in job loss.

Again, my thanks to Dr. Doty and to all the others who have responded so far.  ”Tell your friends,” as they say.

I recently wrote a post critical of radical environmentalists who take rigid positions and refuse to make the tough choices that confront us all in the real world.  In particular, I stand in disagreement with people’s unwillingness to exile the tortoises from 4613 acres (about five square miles) in the California desert that would have been used for a gigawatt of solar photovoltaics, an almost exact replacement for a full coal-fired power plant.

Frequent commenter Larry Lemmert (who’s normally pretty much in my face) writes:

Craig, you are a reasonable man. I say that not because I agree with you about the desert tortoises vs. the PV panels but because you understand that trade-offs must be made to secure green energy for replacement of retiring fossil fuel sources. So many so-called environmentalists want a free energy lunch. It doesn’t exist.

Ah, a red-letter day; Larry and I agree on something. And he’s even used my favorite “no free lunch” metaphor…

Seriously, this idea of trade-offs and no free lunch is all-important; in fact, it lies at the base of my series of videos and infographics on renewable energy for young people and other newcomers to the subject. But regardless of one’s level of sophistication with the subject, it’s not an easy issue.  In brief, we need to choose between:

• Continuing  with business as usual, and subjecting the natural environment to the ever-increasing ravages of climate change, ocean acidification, etc.  The U.S. is the only major country on the planet that considers the status quo a viable option; we are  actually working against a progressive climate policy.   

• Do nuclear in a big way and run significant health and safety risks. Many of the world’s people have recently cast their votes against nuclear. Here’s a summary of this discussion.

• Aggressively cut back on our per-capita use of energy and move back in the direction of an agrarian economy. (How likely is that?)

• Fund the advancement of renewables, energy efficiency and conservation, by pulling money away from other things we think we need.

Regular readers know that I believe this last option is our only credible one, but I do freely admit that it comes with a cost.  In particular, I’m a big fan of education, especially of females in developing countries.  But how important are most of these things that we think we need? Tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to the oil companies? Trillions of dollars for waging wars whose primary missions are securing access to oil? I’m not a believer.  

No, there is no free lunch; everything comes at a cost.  Which is why our choices really do mean something. May we make the right ones.

Germany has installed enough photovoltaics that, at this point, coal-fired power plants are beginning to become unprofitable. This is driven by a combination of factors, e.g., that coal isn’t asked to provide power at the peak of the day, when both the sun and the price of electricity are at their zenith. Of course, most of us cheer when coal runs into trouble, but issues like this raise some fantastically interesting questions about the future of power generation – and transportation – as we migrate from fossil fuels into more sustainable modalities.

Let’s look at the U.S., where coal accounts for over 40% of our electricity, and solar and wind are under 5%. As much as we’d like to turn off all our coal this afternoon, it’s not even a remotely practical idea. So what exactly is the plan whereby we scale coal back over a period of decades while building out renewables, energy storage, smart-grid, etc? Well, there isn’t one – at least not a written one.

One could ask an analogous question about transportation: What is the plan for providing an ever-decreasing amount of gasoline and diesel as an ever-greater segment of our transportation is electrified? Again, it doesn’t exist – at least not publicly.

But to think that Big Energy is sitting around watching as its empire melts away is folly of the first order. This industry, led by the world’s most powerful people, is working 24 hours a day to maintain its monopolistic positions, as shown from the glimpses we get into the truth via an occasional breach of secrecy. Google “ExxonMobil Global Warming Denial Machine” and read some of the 444,000 articles on the subject, in which you’ll learn how:

 ‘ExxonMobil has manufactured uncertainty about the human causes of global warming just as tobacco companies denied their product caused lung cancer,” said Alden Meyer, the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Director of Strategy & Policy. “A modest but effective investment has allowed the oil giant to fuel doubt about global warming to delay government action just as Big Tobacco did for over 40 years.’

Or Google: “Oil Companies Proposition 23 Junk Science,” and take a peak at the 172,000 stories about the covert campaign to destroy California’s fight to clean up its skies.

As always, there’s good news and bad news. Here, the good news is that there actually IS a plan. The bad news is that it’s being written by the oil companies and by people like the multi-billionaire Koch brothers, hell-bent, as they are, on further enriching themselves at the expense of destroying the only planet we have.

This afternoon I plan to take my daughter and a few of her friends down to the magnificent celebration of Earth Day that the city of Santa Barbara puts together each year. The show grows in scope each year; last year’s boasted many hundred exhibitors displaying concepts in energy efficiency, clean transportation, renewables, and cleantech more generally.

Wherever you are today, I hope you’ll take a few seconds and contemplate what “reduce, re-use, and recycle” can mean to you, your family, and your community.

EVWorld has a wonderfully encouraging article on renewables that begins:

Pop quiz time. The fastest growing energy sector in terms of percentage of growth in the United States between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2011 was: A) natural gas, B) nuclear power, C) renewable energy?

The answer is C, renewable energy (RE) by a huge margin. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA), RE grew by 27.12%. That includes biofuels, biomass, geothermal, solar, water, and wind. By comparison, natural gas production increased 13.66%, while crude oil grew 14.27%. Nuclear power, in contrast, shrunk 1.99% and coal dropped 7.16%.

All true, but one can find different facts that would support a different conclusion.  E.g., under 5% of the U.S. grid mix is renewable energy (if you don’t count hydroelectric dams), so talking about percent growth of this small number may not be the most relevant stat.  

There are at least two kinds of “EV deniers” (as I call them), i.e., people who doubt that electric vehicles represent an improvement for the environment over gasoline. The first concept is that for the foreseeable future, an increase in the electric load means burning more coal. I.e., coal plants that would otherwise have been tamped down during off peak hours are instead running full-throttle through the night. Frequent commenter Glenn Doty points out that even California and the other states that have no coal buy power when they need it, and this ultimately means that somewhere, more coal is being burned.

Classically, I’ve addressed this by saying that we do indeed face the need to shut down coal plants; this is part of the reason that I favor a significant role of government in support of the migration to renewables and the ancillary areas: smart-grid, efficiency, conservation, energy storage, etc. I’ve also pointed out that the true externalities of fossil fuels are almost completely ignored in most of the arguments. E.g., as bad as coal is, it could be argued that it’s not as bad as oil because of international security issues. The costs (both financial and human) of war, terrorism, and civil unrest and injustice are enormous, and normally totally dismissed. As oil becomes scarcer, these problems will only get worse.

The other major class of objection is made by U.S. ex-pat John Petersen, now living in Switzerland, who points to the shortage of non-ferrous metals as the ultimate issue. John believes that, as the population grows – especially the population of consumers – we’ll soon find that we’ve hit the ceiling in terms of the availability of elements like lithium, neodymium, boron, cobalt, lanthanum, and dysprosium that are required for EV batteries and powertrains.

Historically, I have responded in a way that may appear glib or cavalier: essentially, we’ll deal with this problem when we come to it. 100 years ago, we didn’t think there was much oil in the ground. Then, when we started looking for it, we found a great deal of it. (Unfortunately, we extracted it, refined it, and burned it.)

I’m posting this not because I’m looking for validation for my ideas. Precisely the opposite, I’d like to get to the bottom of this. I’m hoping a few people will chime in and help me get my wits wrapped around this once and for all.

In my opinion, this is exciting stuff. The company is looking for investor, btw; if you’re interested, please let me know.

I agree with a great deal of this, but the figures on the amount of energy and the amount of money are off by several orders of magnitude:  ”A KPMG study expects that electricity consumption in China will rise to 6,400 TWh by 2020, up from 3,600 TWh in 2010. To meet that demand, approximately $2.8 billion in additional investment will be needed, says KPMG.” $2.8 billion won’t cover the cost of the cigars for the bureaucrats overseeing this effort.

In any case, there are some excellent observations made here.

These same wind turbines have been chosen for the world’s largest wind farm, the 845MW Shepherd’s Flat project in north central Oregon. 338 turbines will be installed; GE says that this turbine yields the highest energy production in its class, building upon its earlier successful 1.5MW turbines (more than 16,000 installed worldwide.) Owned and managed by Caithness Energy, it is estimated that the Shepherd’s Flat farm will power 235,000 average U.S. homes. Operations begin in 2012. GE is a partial financier of the project, along with Google, Sumitoma Corp. and others.  Key components of the new 2.5MW turbines will be manufactured at GE’s plan in Pensacola, Florida.

GE has forged a relationship in China over the years, having previously supplied gas turbines, steam turbines, hydro and wind turbines. Last year, the company announced a new joint venture in China. GE holds 49% and a subsidiary of Harbin Power Equipment holds 51%, and the new company will manufacture GE designed wind turbines for both offshore and near-shore installations in China.

Jack Wen, president of GE Energy China, was quoted as saying. “This is an important investment in China for GE and one that will enable us to participate in the tremendous growth potential of the Chinese wind turbine segment.”  Why would mega-force China, that already has the world’s largest wind turbine sales territory, enter into this arrangement? For one reason, it is anticipated that its market will surge by 500%, with installed capacity soaring from 25 GW in 2009 to 150 GW by 2020. This is thanks to a strong renewable energy plan.

What about solar?

While far behind its wind activity, GE is stepping in to solar. CEO Jeff Immelt identified solar as a key growth platform for the company, saying it could generate $3B in sales by 2015, as reported in the Financial Times (April 7, 2011.) GE announced it will build a 400 MW manufacturing facility in the US by 2013 to produce thin film solar panels. Most current solar modules are made with silicon wafers, but thin film solar panels use different materials that are less expensive and more flexible though not yet quite as efficient as silicon. Researchers are working at thin film technology every day.

GE researchers actually set a world record of 12.8% efficiency for thin film solar panels recently. GE invested in small thin film solar startup company, Primestar Solar, back in 2007. By 2010, the research activities were in full swing with a global team in the U.S., Germany, China and India researching and testing. GE fully expects to exceed the 12.8% mark when its commercial-scale factory opens in 2013. “14% to 15% is in the cards,” said Victor Abate at GE, who oversees solar, wind and renewable energy at the Fairfield, CT base.  Abate said that GE is confident that thin film solar has long-term advantages over other solar technologies.

GE is licensing the company eSolar’s technology using flat mirrors to concentrate sunlight to heat up water in a tank on a tower for steam; the steam runs a turbine and to generate electricity, with the design configuration such that each tower has 4MW capacity (at about 12% efficiency.) GE is using the technology in concert with natural gas for a hybrid power solution. The license is exclusive worldwide (except India and China) which also allows the construction of stand-alone thermal power plants. Solar plants cannot produce energy at night so using this technology allows power plants to cut the use of natural gas. “It’s critical for natural gas to pair well with renewable sources,” said Paul Browning, CEO of thermal products at GE Energy.

A few other projects to mention

This year, GE joined an alliance with other companies to develop the U.K. smart meter market, to help meet a government goal to install 53 million smart meters in homes and businesses by 2020. Last March, the U.K. government announced this plan to help cut electricity use and lower greenhouse emissions, which can ultimately save money. This may end up being a $6.2B market, reported Bloomberg news (June 22, 2011.)

LED lights are another interesting story at GE. Walmart engaged GE around the world for LED lighting systems inside and out. “The normally high costs of outdoor lighting can be turned into an energy efficiency bellwether for the company and the industry as a whole,” said Charles Zimmerman, VP at Walmart (GE website.) Lighting can take nearly one-third of a Walmart store’s energy consumption.  To start the project, Walmart made a 22 store in Puerto Rico – all stores now use GE’s LED lights for parking lots, which is expected to save up to 48% of the electricity use previously in place, less maintenance costs and bring a 10 year life, much longer than the traditional lighting that was used before. LED lights are also transforming the retailer’s displays indoors, and is expected to eventually transform the retail industry.

In an open letter to all on the GE website, Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt and Mark Vachon, VP of ecoimagination, write that ecoimagination is working. It is, they say, GE’s business strategy to create new value by solving energy, efficiency and water problems through innovation.

In 2010, it has met each of the goals set including $5B of clean tech research investment, $85B in revenue from ecoimagination products, 30% reduction in water use and $130M in energy efficiency savings.  The company helped drive adoption of electric cars by purchasing 25,000 EVs and launching the WattStation chargers; and of course, it held the ecoimagination Challenge and helped launch 22 new ecoimagination products in 2010.

What are the GE ecoimagination goals set for the next five years?

According to Vachon and Immelt:

• Double green-tech R&D investment to $10B
• Grow ecoimagination revenue at twice the rate of GE revenues
• Reduce energy intensity by 50% and greenhouse gas emissions by 25%
• Reduce water use by 25%

What else does GE’s Immelt see on the horizon?

In a speech in Washington D.C. earlier this year, CEO Immelt weighed in on energy policy and business. He said, “Energy policy is controversial and it’s unlikely that the U.S. will lead. But how many times do we have to watch massive energy price volatility before we do something. I truly believe that the U.S. can achieve energy security through investment in energy infrastructure and R&D, and I also know we can create jobs through energy efficiency retrofit programs and other programs…”

We need, he continued, to “…improve the collaboration between government and business. History I think has proved the superiority of market economies where private initiative and individual choice are the great engines of progress. But business and government can work together to improve our competitiveness. Government should encourage business as it seeks to revitalize our manufacturing competitiveness with incentives for investing in R&D, opening new markets to our goods and trade agreements, and changing tax policies that discourage business from investing over-seas earnings back in the U.S.”

 All eyes will continue to follow GE.

CSP would be a much better match for air-conditioning driven peaks, and could be “big,” too. But maybe a tiny country like Abu Dhabi does not have enough domestic land for CSP, and aren’t willing to import electricity from a neighboring emirate.

Yes, CSP would be incredible, given the synchronicity with the load, which, as I mentioned, is a whopping 85% air conditioning.  But I’m sure you’re right about the landmass.

And what you say about their not wanting to buy power reminds me of the unique rules, idiosyncrasies, traditions, and hidden relationships that exist in each of the 180+ countries on Earth. Even within our 50 states, there is a daunting number of regional, state and local rules that were put into place to make money for the energy industry, while regulating that industry so consumers didn’t get totally fleeced.

Now enter renewables, with their own set of variables: intermittencies, grid-tie and transmission issues, environmental consequences, suitability for certain kinds of storage, etc. It’s really going to require a whole new set of thinking.  Are we intellectually capable — and honest enough to make all this happen?  It remains to be seen.