Fossil Fuels: We Need To Cut the Cord
Frequent commenter and senior energy analyst Glenn Doty writes: The goal should be to direct money in a way that it generates the greatest bang-for-the-buck, and the direction of money should not be limited in any way by the type of technology being discussed. If a coal plant is considering putting a highly effective smokestack scrubber to reduce their harmful emissions, we should encourage that without hesitation.
Glenn: I’m sure you know that I couldn’t possibly have any more admiration for you and your ideas, both scientific and philosophic. But here is something that I think you ought to consider: Getting from where we are to where we need to be with respect to the migration from fossil fuels to renewable energy (and efficiency, conservation, etc.) is going to require a quantum shift in both our thinking and our activities.
It’s going to mean removing the power politics of Big Energy, and this is going to be an enormous challenge. However, assuming that it can be done, I believe we need to cut the fossil fuel cord and slowly but steadily make all this (especially coal) go away. At a minimum, this means establishing an energy policy that clearly states to us and the world that we’re headed in that direction.
I’d be shocked to learn, after all these years, that offering subsidies for coal-fired power plant scrubbers–or any other further encouragement for the fossil empire–is a good idea in the long run.
Craig,
Passion can be a great thing – it motivates us, and encourages us to find solutions, and to work like mad to implement those solutions… I tend to prefer the company of passionate people, and in many cases I tend to be among the most passionate.
But here, I think your passion is blinding you.
It will take decades to get society to a point where we can shut off all coal power generation for good. Not years. Decades.
During that time, if we were able to cut the emissions of toxic chemicals and carcinigens being pumped into our air and water, that would be a good thing. Yes, it will be nice when the last coal plant becomes a giant paperweight, but every day between today and that day (which really will be decades from now) that we don’t support subsidies for higher-effectiveness smokestack scrubbers is a day that we will have tons of toxins being pumped directly into the health of our populace – into the agriculture that we eat and the water we drink and of course the air that we breathe.
These types of serious subsidies for smokestack scrubbing have not been available over the past decade, during the super-rennaisance of renewable energy that we’ve celebrated and fought to perpetuate. During that time, the total electricity generation from coal has been reduced by 21%.
If we can maintain that pace, we’ll eliminate coal by 2055. Of course, during that decade, over 60% of the new non-coal electric generation that was brought online was natural gas – which also needs better smokestack scrubbers (though not nearly as badly as coal does).
With the aging nuclear fleet and the likelihood that natural gas production will peak within 15 years, it will be incredibly difficult to maintain the pace at which we are reducing coal’s penetration.
Are you willing to just let the toxins flow for the next 40 years because you seek purism over pragmatism. We need to funnel as much resources as we can, as efficiently as we can, into renewables and efficiency… and we have to also be pragmatic enough to understand that this won’t be enough.
😉
I have to agree with your main idea here, i.e., that encouraging cleaner coal is a good thing. (I suppose this idea WAS a bit rash.)
I hear what you’re saying about decades, but your argument seems to be that we can extrapolate the incursion we’re making into coal linearly, and that’s the part I don’t believe. It strikes me that we’re very near a tipping point after which we’ll see exponential growth. That’s the claim I make and defend in “Bullish.” http://2greenenergy.com/bullish-on-renewable-energy/ Of course, not everyone is bound to believe me.
Craig,
I hope and pray that you’re correct… but while I certainly agree with the premise of your book(s) – that renewable prices are becoming more and more competitive and it is rapidly becoming indefensible for a company or nation to choose to build out new fossil capacity instead of new renewable capacity (with the current exception of some emerging markets… though hopefully the tide will continue to change there) – I feel that price alone will not encourage an acceleration in the shift of legacy power plants.
It’s one thing to say that a new wind farm is cheaper than building a new coal plant (true)… but it’s quite a different thing to say that a new wind farm is cheaper than burning coal in an already built-and-paid-for coal plant (not true in most cases).
Displacing the existing structures will be a long and hard-fought battle, and the headwinds will grow as penetration increases. Without a technology like WindFuels to allow for smoothing intermittency at low costs, I feel that price discounts will be offset by other challenges.
Look at the wind generation growth:
2006: +2.45 GW
2007: +5.25 GW
2008: +8.36 GW
2009: +10.0 GW
2010: +5.22 GW
2011: +6.65 GW
2012: +13.1 GW
2013: +1.10 GW
2014: +4.77 GW
It looked like things were lining up well for a geometric growth in the wind industry from 2005-2010, with 2009 showing an incredible 10 GW growth, and every year between 2006 and 2009 seeing between 40%-50% YOY increase in capacity… Then 2010 hit, and they called it a fluke (14.9% YOY increase), then 2011 (16.5% YOY)… 2012 looked good (27.9% YOY), but then 2013 (1.8% YOY) and 2014 (7.2% YOY) happened.
The beginning growth was lightning fast, because it was easy. It was such a small portion of the total electric grid that it didn’t matter that much, and the various difficulties (basically intermittancy) were easy to work around. But as the percentage of energy derived from wind increased, the obstacles increased… so despite a continuing drop in prices, the rate of adoption dropped considerably.
It’s possible that the decentralized nature of solar may help it avoid some of this fate… but I’m not sure. I think the growth will remain fast while it is still <2% of the electricity market, then it's growth will become far slower and far more difficult.
In order to displace coal, we are going to have to WORK at this… it will be hard, and it will cost – even if the energy produced is cheaper. My big hope is that with the advances in drilling, the cost of enhanced geothermal might come into parity… that would be huge. The easiest way to do this is if they utilized novel advances in heat recuperation and dual-stage organic rankine cycles to have a high temperature geothermal recovery well coupled with a larger lower-temperature geothermal well… you can use the low-grade (cheaper) heat for an initial heating/boiling step and use the higher temperature (more expensive) geothermal heat to heat and presurize the gas for higher efficiency… It should be plausible to drop the price of that dependable baseload energy to below ~$40/MWh… THAT would have no headwinds as the penetration of the technology expanded.
As it is, nuclear power is my great hyped hope… but we'll see.