The Great Disruption

If hydro can be expanded, how come we're no buildin' more of `em? Since 1999, 200 hydro dams have been REMOVED.
http://www.robertbryce.com/node/265

Pumped-storage for wind isn't realistic. It can't store more than a couple days worth of capacity-- very problematic for those summer heat waves where a week goes by with little wind, and everyone has their air conditioners running. Also, it requires too much water (something also in short supply) and land resources. Hydroelectric can't be expanded. Neither can this. That's why it isn't used even in leaders in wind, like Denmark.
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid...

Energy is the master resource. In the U.S., energy use grew 7% per year (doubling every 10 years) from 1860-1970. Thus, it was over 1000 times greater within a century. With this high level of energy consumption, so goes a high standard of living.

Any prudent observer would consider the possibility that fossil fuels might run short within years and very short within decades. Given that we depend on oil, natural gas, and coal for 85 percent of our energy, we could be facing the most catastrophic change in modern history. Equally scary burning fossil fuels without storing away the carbon dioxide they produce could cause global warming.
The False Ways Out

Many purported ways out are false hopes, either because they are too small to matter or because they have a fatal flaw.

- Hydroelectric power is low-cost, but cannot be expanded.
- Geothermal is available in only a few locations, and likewise cannot be expanded.
- Wind has huge potential capacity, but even in the best locations only blows fast enough to turn the windmills one-third of the time. Its fatal flaw is that we have no storage mechanism for electricity today, and none of the proposed ones would return more than 25 percent of the energy that goes in. The electricity produced by windmills could be used to make liquid fuels, but such transformations are very wasteful. If battery technology improves enough, hybrid-electric or pure electric vehicles may be the wave of the future, and full-time electric power plants (such as coal or nuclear) would avoid the conversions required by intermittent ones, such as wind or solar.
- Photovoltaic solar is many times more expensive than competing technologies, and will remain so indefinitely because sunlight is weak, the physical infrastructure costs are huge, and the sun delivers only about two thousand effective hours per year (25 percent), even in the desert. Plus, solar has the same flaw as wind: we can’t store it. Thus, while it may address peak electricity demand on a summer afternoon, it would not be reliable enough to power the world.
- Biomass as currently practiced – corn ethanol or soybean diesel – produces such small net gains in energy that no amount of farmland could ever replace a meaningful portion of our fossil fuel consumption. Corn ethanol is just a way to convert natural gas (through fertilizer and steam) into a liquid fuel. It has only gained traction because of the temporary availability of natural gas at prices lower than oil, state-level mandates, and federal-level subsidies (of 75 cents per gasoline-equivalent gallon). Soy diesel, in contrast, can be produced at a small profit, but only because we need the soy protein first. Even so, net production of 35 gallons per acre would yield less than 1 percent of U.S. petroleum consumption (2.5 billion gallons) even if all 75 million acres of soybeans were utilized. The only biomass that hasn’t been discredited as a serious energy source is cellulosic alcohol – because the proposals for it are so poorly defined no one can say what they mean. We should be skeptical because cellulose is far more difficult to break down than corn or soybeans, and the lignin that cellulose advocates propose to use for process heat is as little as 20 percent of fast-growing plants.
- Finally, while both the world and the U.S. have a lot of coal, we have yet to demonstrate even one case of large-scale long-term storage of CO2.

The Real Way Out

Fortunately, we won’t have to live in the dark or melt all the glaciers. Nuclear power is the real way out.

Increased efficiency, particularly in transportation, space heating, and electric appliances, could generate huge savings, and many observers claim the first 50 percent reduction could be achieved with little impact on quality of life. Higher-mileage cars, better insulation, and more efficient lighting could go a long way.

But after all that, we will still need a massive source of reliable, long-lasting, low-pollution energy. And, except for a huge piece of luck, there might have been none. But we’re lucky, and one exists – nuclear fission. If, over the next 50 years, we built a thousand one-gigawatt nuclear power plants in the best known way, we could simultaneously: 1) meet all of our energy needs at reasonable cost, 2) operate them more safely than any other large-scale technology ever deployed, 3) reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a fraction of their current rate, 4) solve the waste disposal problem, 5) have a fuel supply that would last forever, and 6) add nothing to the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation.

The fundamental reason is that nuclear forces are vastly stronger than chemical bonds – about 3 million times stronger, if you compare the weight of uranium to the energy-equivalent weight of coal.

The way to unlock uranium’s full potential while minimizing its harmful by-products is to change from today’s open fuel cycle to a closed one, and from today’s fleet of light-water reactors to one containing at least some so-called fast reactors. A closed fuel cycle means reprocessing the spent fuel, in order to send the unused uranium and the created undesirable trans-uranium elements back into the reactor to be split apart, thereby releasing more energy. Only the fission products – the smaller atoms created when large ones break – would be sent to a repository. Fast reactors, which are named after the higher-energy neutrons they utilize, would serve two purposes – to burn up the trans-uranium elements and to breed new fuel (hence, the name breeder reactors) by converting the 99 percent of uranium which will not normally split into plutonium atoms which will. Light-water reactors do this, too, but on too small a scale to keep the process going. Thus they require far higher quantities of fresh uranium.

The differences would be dramatic – over 100 times more energy per ton of uranium in, and 20 times less waste per gigawatt-year of electricity produced. Even more important, the waste stream would contain so little radioactive material that after 500 years it would be no more radioactive than uranium ore in the ground. Repositories such as Yucca Mountain could be simplified or even eliminated.

How could these claims be true, you ask, since we rarely hear anyone talking about them? Because after Three Mile Island, the nuclear industry had to improve its procedures and designs, nuclear power’s opponents stopped all rational discussion, and natural gas was plentiful and cheap for a couple of decades. Nuclear power genuinely had a problem, but that’s changed.

Let’s look at these claims. Nuclear is safe enough, because even an accident which caused a large economic loss, such as Three Mile Island, harmed no one. The defense-in-depth design did what it was supposed to do, and the industry learned and applied many lessons to reduce the chance of a similar accident. We would have greenhouse gas reductions, because nuclear fission emits none. And there would be non-proliferation, because all the proposed fuel cycles mix materials in ways which would make recycled fuel undesirable for weapons design and dangerous to handle.

Nuclear power can be had at reasonable cost because: 1) the 2005 energy bill solved the unpredictable licensing process by mandating a single license for construction and operation, 2) because fast reactors will keep nuclear fuel inexpensive, and 3) because nuclear waste can be reduced to a small problem by reprocessing steps that would cost less, some say far less, than one cent per kilowatt-hour (about 12 percent of today’s average retail price).

Not that all this will be simple. It will take decades to build a thousand reactors, but that just underlines the task’s urgency. We can’t wait until there’s a crisis to start developing solutions, and we can’t afford to waste time on false hopes.

Your book is the most inspirational book, I think, that I have ever read. It has energized me. The issue that dominates my mind is the need for Americans to drive less, which would reduce our carbon emissions and our use of oil. In my rural/suburban town, we could reduce our driving a lot if there were sidewalks or walking/biking paths so that people could walk or bike safely. As it is, we have many narrow winding roads developed when there was a smaller population and fewer cars, making them somewhat hazardous to pedestrians and cyclists. I was elated to discover, a couple of days ago, on the U.S. Dept. of Transportation website, information posted by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood expressing his desire to develop sustainable communities that would allow people to walk and bike, and also use public transportation more. A federal initiative to create sidewalks or walking/biking paths near (but not on) roads throughout the country would allow us to drive less. This would improve the environment and reduce our dependence on the petrodictators that you discuss in your book. I am looking for a way to help make this happen.

Tom. Your book is ok. You say a lot of the same things over and over. This would be ok if you elaborated be you stay on the simpleton level the whole time. You remind me of a junior high teacher. Granted you do have some cool friends with powerful facts, but let them write the book next time because the only substance in your book is those quotes. Without them it would be like The Great Disruptive, a dumbed down statement of the obvious. Reading your work makes me angry. Your carbon footprint is probably greater than my extended families. Next book please use skype or video chat, I beg you. No I did not find your adventures around the world fascinating.

Maybe I don't get the concept of the hydrogen fuel cell right, but is anyone worried about displacing all that water? When massive use comes, water used in the hydrolysis process that makes hydrogen will be returned by vehicles into the atmosphere as water vapor. That's a huge disruption of the water cycle with hard to predict consequences. I dare say climate change, maybe of a different nature than we are experiencing now, will result, along with impacting an already scarce fresh water supply. I'd rather suffer through an oil crisis than compound the water crisis.

I just finished reading your book which I really enjoyed. You make as good a case for the necessity to become green as I believe possible. I was glad to see that you emphasized that there are no "easy" ways to go about this and that this is not only about "tree hugging". I wish more people were aware that it is important to both our economic as well as physical future existence. It is about creating an environment where humans can sustain themselves on this earth and continue to prosper here. I would very much like to see us create a situation where we can continue to enjoy the life this planet provides while not destroying it in the process.

I did want to mention one concern I have about your book. It is titled Hot, Flat, and Crowded, as you know, and really hits at the core problems we face as a species. However, I believe you didn't adequately emphasize the crowded aspect. Isn't the real reason we face many of the challenges we do today based or rooted in the fact that the earth is becoming so crowded. I know there is no easy way to bring this up or even to address it, but I believe the real reason we are in the situation we are today is basically rooted in the enormous demand that the 6-7 billion people living on this planet creates. I just believe that there is a limit to how many people this planet is going to be able to adequately support no matter how much we do in the area of going green. Even if we are able to solve the energy crisis we face today we will still see a depletion of the earth and its natural resources due to the pressure of ever expanding population. What kind of harsher and new problems will we face once the population starts to creep up on 9 or 10 billion people? Will we be able to sustain ourselves in areas such as food and clean water? We are already seeing huge reductions of fish in the oceans because of overfishing and there is only so much food we can create with the limited size of land available. In addition, there is only so much available fresh water. Maybe this concern is slightly off topic from your book but I believe is was worth noting and bringing up anyway.

Thanks again for the great book!

Just as a solid foundation is required for an enduring house, establishing the cost of carbon is the basis for true energy independence. The President has asked for this legislation in the current budget process, however even his own party has excised this critical aspect of energy policy required for national security, economic soundness and environmental responsibility. It is time to take a page from another President’s game book. When Harry S. Truman wanted to jump start the Civil Rights movement he accomplished that through use of the Executive Order. On July 26, 1948, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981 establishing equality of treatment and opportunity in the Armed Services. The President’s authority in the Executive Branch is absolute within budget constraints. The resistance in the military to the order to integrate was tremendous, but good soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines saluted and executed. There were struggles, setbacks and failures along the way, but this system gave us former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell. The Military hates being seen as an agent of social change, but no one does it better. This action was taken not to remedy a social injustice but to leverage the full potential of manpower. In the ‘60s and ‘70s the Military gave us another societal boost with expanded opportunities for womanpower.
My modest proposal is that the President issues an Executive Order solving an identified national security risk detailed in a 2008 Defense Science Board Study, “Less Fuel, More Fight”. The Board noted that Military installations are vulnerability because they are tied to a fragile electrical grid. Long term, large scale power outages would severely hinder installations from performing their mission of “Power Projections”. The solution recommended by the Board is to “island” these installation, creating “islands” of energy self sufficiency. This would require applications of energy efficient technologies (spray foam insulation, day lighting), energy productivity (Energy Star appliance, high intensity LEDs) and alternative/renewable energy supplies to supplement conventional grid power. Executed correctly, these installations could even become sources of power for surrounding communities. Most commanders at Military installations have plans that would allow them to achieve these goals. The Department of the Army is prepared to start taking its key installations offline as early as 2015. What is required is unity of command at the top and focused dollars. Rather than the broad distribution of dollars in a difficult to track effort to energize the economy, focus those dollars like a laser on a community that we know can execute. Soldiers get it done. These hundreds of installations would require thousands of jobs and dozens of business to be created and could spark our next economic revolution by creating an energy technology sector that could lead the world. Bolstered national security, accelerated economic recovery and a chance to reduce the carbon flood we poor into the atmosphere is a reasonable return on this investment. As soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines experience these technologies, they will return to their community and bring those values with them Just as the sparked a change in racial and gender equality attitudes, they can shape our attitudes about our security, physical, economic and environmental. They don’t like being considered a tool for social change, but no one does it better. By the way, if you want to know the cost of carbon, ask Tad Davis, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Occupational Health. They are already conducting the surveys at Army installations around the country. They are already ahead of the game!

On energy, I recently learned some things from my nephew. a chemical physicist who is very smart and informed. There is no such thing as "clean" energy, because it all uses earths resources of some type. Even solar and wind energy will require lots of steel, and the USA has not been doing necessary research, for example - the long term effect of hundreds of windmills in a concentrated area.

So,we need to support our new President's efforts to increase collaborative, international research to solve the global energy issues and move the USA to be as environmentally clean and energy independent as possible.

Sue

Tom,
On page 293 you state that the IT revolution came fast and furious. Well, I worked on a project to make the 1st integrated circuit computer for the minute man missile in the early 60s and it was two decades before PCs became common and moreover it was three decades before memory became abailable in large quantity!

The IT revolution was much slower than you state and the same will be true for the evolution of power to renewable sources. Wind and solar combined are less than 1% of our total energy usage and if it doubles in the next four years as Obama states, it will be 1% or less and it will happen because of the market and not because of Obama.

When the economy recovers there will be a signigicant problem with a shortage of electrical power availability because over 60 coal-fired plants have been cancelled because of the threat of cap and trade and court decisions; black outs will occur and the public will be outraged! There will be no quick fix because you don't build a power plant over night!

Just as the politicians have caused the present recession by demanding bad loans be made to folks that can't afford them, they are in the process of creating a power shortage that will also damage the economy! Government is not the solution!

Mr Friedman,
When the Kyoto pact arrived at the first declaration of how much carbon nations could be allowed to expel into the atmosphere, the US refused to sign up. Among the reasons given for this refusal was the failure of the standards to effect emissions from emerging nations. The US and a few other nations stated that this placed an undue financial burden on the developed nations while not addressing the ongoing risk to the atmosphere of carbon increases from nations that are in the rapid phases of expanding their industrial infrastructure. Perhaps it would be better to consider that the treaty restrictions are exactly 180 degrees wrong. Rather than financially punishing the already developed nations, failure to impose carbon restrictions on emerging economies placed them at major risk both now and in the future. At the same time, it effectively stifled energy innovation in those nations. There are a number of reasons for my taking this position.

Most emergent economies depend heavily upon agriculture. If one believes that global warming will have severe impact on agriculture, then one must believe that agricultural economies should be most interested in changing the projected future.
Emergent economies have not yet invested trillions in an outmoded energy infrastructure dependent upon fossil fuels. To consign them to building such an infrastructure is to doom them not only to more carbon production but to huge expenses in a couple decades that will be needed to revamp that infrastructure. It would be preferable for them to invest in alternative energy sources now. This would not only save the expense of remaking the infrastructure in the future but would give them significant advantage in the form of exporting the technology and industry for alternative energy production to developed nations as they remake their energy infrastructure. Along this line, it is interesting to note that Nicola Tesla (among whose accomplishments was the first city wide installation of an alternating current power supply in Buffalo, New York) more than one hundred years ago opined that continuing to burn fossil fuels was to burn up our capital and that that would be foolhardy. He recommended use of geothermal and solar power for electrical energy (History channel biographical program on Tesla is my source for this)
China, as an example of rapidly expanding energy infrastructure is building huge numbers of coal burning electricity plants. This costs tens of billions It has led to rapid growth of coal mining without time for implementation of safe mining technology thus causing numerous deaths of coal miners. That same investment into solar, wind, nuclear and other alternative sources would result in a somewhat slower ramp up but in a much more solid industrial base in two to three decades. I believe that China exports more solar generating capacity to the US than it uses internally.
Given the huge presence of carbon based energy production in the developed world, the only way to make major cuts in carbon emission is to expend huge investments in building new plants and tearing down old plants. Again, for long term effect, the world would be better served by investing much of that money into building alternative sources in the developing world and more gradually replacing plants in the developed world as they become obsolescent.
Increase in energy consumption by China, India, Russia, and a few other rapidly developing countries far outstrips the rate of increase in the US and Europe. This means that an investment in alternative energy production in these areas will have a more profound and immediate effect than one in the developed nations. It may well make more sense for the developed nations to invest in alternative energy plants in the developing world than in their own countries.
At the same time as developing countries would be required to build alternative rather than conventional energy plants, developed countries could very well cease issuing permits for coal, natural gas, and petroleum burning plants and only allow new plants that are nuclear, solar, geothermal, wind, or other non-carbon emitting technology.

If the goal really is to make major changes in the amount of carbon projected to be in the atmosphere by mid to late twenty first century, then the place to do that is in the developing world, not the developed world. At the very least, both must be required to limit new emissions of carbon now rather than at some future date. If on the other hand, the goal is to make political hay while it can be made, then, it makes sense to “require” developed nations to make cuts according to the treaties that have been created. It is of interest to note that they have made clear by their actions they will not make the cuts they agreed to in the treaties. One exception to that is the Maldives which island nation is likely to be submerged if the ocean rises more than a few inches.

Dear Tom Friedman

One of the chapters I would like you to address is what has happaned to American education system. Few years ago I was travelling back from the US to Australia with a bunch of high school kids who were my co passengers. They were nice kids but very ignorant about either Australia or India or China. Every kid in Australia or India would know about the US so there is an advantage for these kids. But the sheer ignorance of the US kids about the world baffeled me they thought that Kangaroos roamed aroung the streets of Australia and that Indians still ran around on elephants. I first thought they were pulling my chain as I dont know any kids in India who are that ignorant.However as the converstation went on I realized that that education system and the American mentality of we are the best of the best irrespective of what is happening in the outside world is failing and making them ignorant and uncompetaitve. The politicians instead of telling the parents and kids to stop complaining about the facilities they have ( more recently Mr. Obama has made some comments)are telling them how bad the system is and therefore America is to protect itself. Let us face it America is 300 million people and let us say about 5% of the people are involved in some kind of innovation, it will be about 15 million and let us say both India and China have 2.4 billion (2400 million) people and if 2% are involved in innovation of some sorts. Do the math. So if America needs to be really involved in this world affairs, ( its absence in innovations during the past 8 years has clearly shown the world that it does not really need the America in innovation leadership)it needs to educate its public, politicians and the students that they need to compete like anyone else. If they need jobs may be they need to leave the US and find it in India or China. If they need to compete then they should understand where Australia is and how it has 14th global economy (I am not sure of the number) with only 21 million people and yet have highly resource rich and innovative economy. Americans need to stop patting themselves on the back and start getting their hands dirty and get back to basics such as high quality and yield agriculture products for its own people, start cooking food and start paying real price for petrol, electricity and all other utilities whihc it takes for granted as people are paying unrealisitic prices due to its subscidies and artifical cheap prices which is not teaching the people what the price of that coal is interms of petropolitics, energypolitics, food politics. If Americans paid a realistic price on what they are using then automatically the wasteful practicies will disappear and people will stop abusing the previlages they have. Change starts at home and Americans need to stop this attitude of we are the best ( sorry you are under a serious delution)and start looking seriously at themselves. Your book helps to do this in the right direction. This is a recession American had to have.

The real danger is in letting not just AIG, but the partially nationalized banks continue to take new trading positions in insanely complex and dangerous derivatives markets. As I said in a post to my Tough Times blog earlier in the week (mergers.com/2009/we’re-the-marks/):

“It is naïve indeed to think that the political and media demagogues will be any more forgiving of a government controlled bank that pays a star derivatives trader a salary of $20 million, than they are to see her earn that as a bonus. Yet that’s what top traders earn in what is likely the most complex market ever invented by the mind of man. If we’re not willing to pay these stars what it takes to attract them to the government owned banks, then they will most certainly be working for the competition and the competition will win.”

Nothing that has been done since lessens my certainty that Congress will work hard to assure incompetence in the management teams of these institutions. Someday soon we will wake up to see trading losses at one of these government controlled institutions that vastly exceed anything we have experienced to date.

Without doubt when that happens we will again see a picture on the front page of the Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/business/20...) of some Congressional committee meeting in a room rivaling Versailles for opulence decrying the greed of the Wall Street bankers “responsible” for the loss.

Further to my last comment, you probably know Joe Stiglitz is also on board the steady-state economy train of "Managing Without Growth". Here's his article on the GDP addiction:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortun...

And other sources in the Biblio section here:
http://steadystate.org/CASSEBibliography.html

In this blog I describe a way I think is a much cheaper (both in making as in maintenance) way getting renewable energy:
http://thefirst12.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_arc...