Frightening prediction on global warming...

Today’s post: Weds, 7-2-2008

Last week two stories were in the online news.

One was by a man who is an expert on global warming saying that in his opinion we are running out of time and that it is imperative to cut CO2 emissions from current levels to ensure that they stop rising very soon. We risk serious and severe coastal flooding world wide & economically damaging weather effects otherwise.

That certainly give us motivation to put solutions in place as fast as we can. But for those of us looking at the development & growth of those solutions & who see some progress, it can be easy to stop there & just work to help that process continue.

The second story and its prediction gives a much more frightening picture. It seems we will also need to take some kind of action to prevent it from happening in a more direct way.

We need not only to increase the good things we are doing. It looks as if we also need to STOP the increase of the things that do the reverse.

Here’s that second story from AP from last week.:

“No end seen on reliance on oil, fossil fuels

By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer Wed Jun 25, 2:50 PM ET

WASHINGTON - World energy demand will grow 50 percent over the next two decades, oil prices could rise to $186 a barrel and coal will remain the biggest source of electricity despite its effect on global warming, government experts predict.

The Energy Information Administration's long-range forecast to 2030 said the world is not close to abandoning fossil fuels. They will continue to be at the core of energy production in transportation and electricity generation, according to the report released Wednesday.

It said the steepest increases in energy use will come in China and other developing economies, including some in the Middle East and Africa, where energy demand is expected to be 85 percent greater in 2030 than it is today.

"What jumps out is the very strong growth in the emerging economies," said Guy Caruso, the head of the agency that serves as the government statistical and forecasting arm on energy.

The outlook largely assumes no mandatory international agreements on capping greenhouse gases, especially heat-trapping carbon dioxide, which comes from burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuel use "could be altered substantially" by such deals, the report said.

Without such limits, the annual amount of carbon dioxide flowing into the atmosphere would be 51 percent greater in 2030 than it was three years ago, the study said.

It said fossil fuels are expected to continue supplying much of the energy used worldwide despite the growth of renewable energy sources, including wind and biofuels.

The report assumes oil prices ranging from a low of $113 a barrel to as high as $186 a barrel by 2030; a barrel was trading above $133 on Wednesday. Adjusted for inflation, the $113 price would be about $70 in 2006 dollars, the report said.

"We're not going back to the historically low prices we saw in the '80s and '90s," Caruso said, while acknowledging the uncertainty of trying to peg prices so far into the future.

Global demand for liquid fuels — mostly oil — will grow to 113 million barrels a day by 2030, nearly one-third more than is consumed today, the report said. But high prices could have an impact, shaving demand by as much as 13 million barrels a day.

China and other developing countries that are powering the anticipated rise in energy demand should see sustained economic growth over the next two decades.

Coal use is expected to jump by nearly two-thirds by 2030; China alone will account for nearly three-fourths of that increase, the report said.

Despite coal's effect on climate change, Caruso said "it's the fuel of choice for electricity production in the emerging economies, especially China."

Petroleum products such as oil sands, biofuels and ethanol should grow to nearly 10 percent of total liquid fuels. Yet with the demand for conventional crude oil, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is expected to increase production at a pace that will keep its 40 percent market share, the report predicts. It said OPEC would accept a decline in market share only if prices are high.

The report also projects:

_Electricity production from nuclear power plants will grow by one-third with the addition of 124 new nuclear power plants by 2030. As many as 45 could be in China, 18 in Russia, 17 in India and 15 in the United States.

_Natural gas "will replace oil wherever possible" especially in industrial uses, causing demand to grow for the fuel.

_Demand will grow for liquefied natural gas, with production concentrated in the Middle East and Africa.

_There will be 2.1 percent annual growth in renewable energy for electricity generation, mostly because of increases in the use of hydroelectric power in developing countries.”

X* X* X* X* X* X*

As regular readers of this blog know, it is clear that we are likely to have increased demand for energy between now & 20 to 40 years from now. I think they are correct in that prediction.

But it’s critical that this increase come ONLY from nuclear or renewable sources or from sharply increased energy efficiency.

We cannot afford to add more coal burning electrical generation plants. And, new plants that burn natural gas or oil are also a very bad idea.

We not only need to avoid burning even more coal, oil, & natural gas, it’s imperative that we either sequester the CO2 emissions from the burning of these fuels we do now to produce electricity or to gradually take them offline & replace them with renewable sources or nuclear energy.

In the United States, it is imperative that we begin to set a good example in all this.

Adding some kind of tax on burning these fuels and/or requiring complete CO2 sequestering when using them or both will increase the cost of electricity generated from these sources.

But it will speed the development of cost effective electricity generation from renewable sources on a large scale. And, it will help make electricity from nuclear power cost competitive as well.

The good news is that both India & China are beginning focus on doing the right thing. Solar power & carbon neutral buildings are beginning to show up in China. And, India is ramping up to increase their electricity generated by nuclear power.

So there is hope.

But we also need to set a good enough example here in the United States soon to be taken seriously or listened to when we ask that these countries sequester CO2 from coal fired electricity plants they already have & to stop building new ones.

Nuclear as a transition energy source? New information....

Today’s post: Weds, 3-26-2008

Nuclear power plants using uranium are NOT a renewable energy source. (The amount of uranium that can be mined & used is finite & can be all used up.) And, nuclear power plants have serious problems or potential problems with safety in operation, security risks, & waste disposal.

And, even without the political challenges stemming from those problems, they have long lead times to build & take very large capital outlays.

In addition, they may not help global warming all that much since they produce power by using heat that they create directly that was not present in the locations where they are installed before the nuclear plant at each location was installed there.

However, they do have some legitimate advantages & there might be a relatively safe way to deploy some of them as a way to accelerate the transition to renewable energy & away from fossil fuels. The two most important points supporting this were not known to me until very recently. And, most people do not now know them as yet.

Nuclear power plants do NOT produce any CO2. If run properly, they produce very reliable power that is unaffected by lack of sunshine or wind.

In the United States, nuclear plants can produce power that does NOT depend on imports of either petroleum or natural gas -- or on burning coal with its CO2 & air pollution problems.

I’ve known those things for quite a while.

And, since I believe solar & wind power and other renewable sources will grow to provide all the energy we need & have been aware of the risks, particularly the security risks, of producing materials that can be used to release radioactivity or build nuclear weapons by terrorists or comparable governments, I have been mostly against considering more nuclear power plants as a way to turn off our reliance on fossil fuels.

I think & continue to think that our major efforts need to be aimed at increasing renewable energy sources, making our economy dramatically more energy-efficient, & creating disincentives for use of fossil fuels

Recently however, I’ve learned something that gives me a sound reason to think nuclear power plants might be worth considering as a transitional energy and power source. And, & I’ve learned something that might be used to make using them considerably safer than it otherwise might be.

For me, these two points definitely re-open the discussion on something I considered a dead issue.

1. Adding new nuclear power plants has a significant advantage a physicist who is both very knowledgeable & a bit of a fan of nuclear power told me about that I did not know before.:

While solar power & biofuels are just now beginning to have any kind of reasonable positive payback time in terms of the ENERGY needed to build them, the payback time for the energy required to build nuclear reactors is less than 3 months.

He said that at today’s state of the art, it takes more like 20 years or more for solar cells & that’s if they are in ideal locations.

And, we are just beginning to learn how to create biofuels that give us more energy than it costs to produce them so there even IS any positive payback time for the energy used to create them.

This suggests that using the energy from nuclear reactors to provide the new energy needed to produce very large amounts of solar cells & biofuels might make doing so more doable & happen sooner.

And, building new nuclear power plants would help reduce our reliance on fossil fuels & on fossil fuels imported from outside the United States.

2. Here’s the other point I learned about recently that has the potential to make creating & running new nuclear power plants both faster AND safer & more secure.

I’ve known that since 50 years ago, the United States Navy has had nuclear powered submarines.

What I did not know or was just barely aware of until just a few weeks ago is that the United States Navy uses nuclear power plants to power an increasing majority of ALL its ships. Further, it has done so with an extremely good safety record. The ex Navy man who spoke up an a discussion on energy issues I attended recently said that in addition, there are large numbers of men who leave the United States Navy each year who have been properly & adequately trained to operate these nuclear reactors who would be delighted to have good paying jobs using those skills.

This suggests a potential solution of how new nuclear power plant might be used with some degree of safety.

We could make all nuclear power plants a three way joint venture between the United States government as a financing catalyst, which would dramatically shorten the time lag in bringing these plants online reliably; the United States Navy & other armed forces onsite at every nuclear power plant to provide 24 hour a day, seven day a week security, & private companies to handle the management & the sales of the energy produced.

The United States Navy has proven that it can operate nuclear power plants safely; & the contractors that serve it know how to build nuclear power plants that can be run safely.

There are still huge costs involved & serious risks with nuclear power plants. But I wanted to pass on that there are two reasons not generally known by most people to at least consider building new nuclear power plants as a transitional energy source to help create renewable energy & energy independence in the United States.