Is 450 ppm (or less) politically possible? Part 3: The breakthrough technology illusion

Existing technology is faster and far more practical than hypothetical new inventions

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 4:28 PM on 30 Apr 2008

Read more about: climate | climate science | climate change mitigation | tech

This post will explain why some sort of massive government Apollo program or Manhattan project to develop new breakthrough technologies is not a priority component of the effort to stabilize at 450 ppm.

Put more quantitatively, the question is, what are the chances that multiple (4 to 8+) carbon-free technologies that do not exist today can each deliver the equivalent of 350 gigawatts baseload power (about 2.8 billion megawatt-hours a year) and/or 160 billion gallons of gasoline cost-effectively by 2050? (Note: that is about half of a stabilization wedge.) For the record, the U.S. consumed about 3.7 billion mwh in 2005 and about 140 billion gallons of motor gasoline.

Put that way, the answer to the question is painfully obvious: "two chances -- slim and none." Indeed, I have repeatedly challenged readers and listeners over the years to name even a single technology breakthrough with such an impact in the past three decades, after the huge surge in energy funding that followed the energy shocks of the 1970s. Nobody has ever named one that has even come close.

Yet somehow the government is not just going to invent one TILT (Terrific Imaginary Low-carbon Technology) in the next few years, we are going to invent several TILTs. Seriously. Hot fusion? No. Cold fusion? As if. Space solar power? Come on, how could that ever compete with CSP? Hydrogen? It ain't even an energy source, and after billions of dollars of public and private research in the past 15 years -- including several years running of being the single biggest focus of the DOE office on climate solutions I once ran -- it still has actually no chance whatsoever of delivering a major cost-effective climate solution by mid century (see "This just in: Hydrogen fuel cell cars are still dead").

I don't know why the breakthrough crowd can't see the obvious, so I will elaborate here. I will also discuss a major study that explains why deployment programs are so much more important than R&D at this point. Let's keep this simple:

To stabilize at 450 ppm, we need to deploy at least 14 stabilization wedges by 2050 (each delivering 1 billion tons of avoided carbon) covering both efficient energy use and carbon-free supply (see Part 1).
Myriad energy-efficient technologies are already cost-effective today -- breaking down the barriers to their deployment now is much more important than developing new "breakthrough" efficient TILTs, since those would simply fail in the marketplace because of the same barriers. Cogeneration is perhaps the clearest example of this.
On the supply side, deployment programs (coupled with a price for carbon) will always be much more important than R&D programs because new technologies take an incredibly long time to achieve mass-market commercial success. New supply TILTs would not simply emerge at a low cost. They need volume, volume, volume -- steady and large increases in demand over time to bring the cost down, as I discuss at length below.
No existing or breakthrough technology is going to beat the price of power from a coal plant that has already been built -- the only way to deal with those plants is a high price for carbon or a mandate to shut them down. Indeed, that's why we must act immediately to not build those plants in the first place.
If a new supply technology can't deliver half a wedge, it won't be a big player in achieving 450 ppm.

For better or worse, we are stuck through 2050 with the technologies that are commercial today (like solar thermal electric) or that are very nearly commercial (like plug-in hybrids).

I have discussed most of this at length in previous posts, so I won't repeat all the arguments here. Let me just focus on a few key points. A critical historical fact was explained by Royal Dutch/Shell [PDF], in their 2001 scenarios for how energy use is likely to evolve over the next five decades (even with a carbon constraint):

Typically it has taken 25 years after commercial introduction for a primary energy form to obtain a 1 percent share of the global market.

Note that this tiny toehold comes 25 years after commercial introduction. The first transition from scientific breakthrough to commercial introduction may itself take decades. We still haven't seen commercial introduction of a hydrogen fuel cell car and have barely seen any commercial fuel cells -- over 160 years after they were first invented.

This tells you two important things. First, new breakthrough energy technologies simply don't enter the market fast enough to have a big impact in the time frame we care about. We are trying to get 5 percent to 10 percent shares -- or more -- of the global market for energy, which means massive deployment by 2050 (if not sooner).

Second, if you are in the kind of hurry we are all in, then you are going to have to take unusual measures to deploy technologies far more aggressively than has ever occurred historically. That is, speeding up the deployment side is much more important than generating new technologies. Why? Virtually every supply technology in history has a steadily declining cost curve, whereby greater volume leads to lower cost in a predictable fashion because of economies of scale and the manufacturing learning curve.

Why deployment now completely trumps research

A major 2000 report [PDF] by the International Energy Agency, "Experience Curves for Energy Technology Policy," has a whole bunch of experience curves for various energy technologies. Let me quote some key passages:

Wind power is an example of a technology which relies on technical components that have reached maturity in other technological fields ... Experience curves for the total process of producing electricity from wind are considerably steeper than for wind turbines. Such experience curves reflect the learning in choosing sites for wind power, tailoring the turbines to the site, maintenance, power management, etc., which all are new activities.

Or consider PV:

Existing data show that experience curves provide a rational and systematic methodology to describe the historical development and performance of technologies.

...

The experience curve shows the investment necessary to make a technology, such as PV, competitive, but it does not forecast when the technology will break-even. The time of break-even depends on deployment rates, which the decision-maker can influence through policy. With historical annual growth rates of 15 percent, photovoltaic modules will reach break-even point around the year 2025. Doubling the rate of growth will move the break-even point 10 years ahead to 2015.

Investments will be needed for the ride down the experience curve, that is for the learning efforts which will bring prices to the break-even point. An indicator for the resources required for learning is the difference between actual price and break-even price, i.e., the additional costs for the technology compared with the cost of the same service from technologies which the market presently considers cost-efficient. We will refer to these additional costs as learning investments, which means that they are investments in learning to make the technology cost-efficient, after which they will be recovered as the technology continues to improve.

Here is a key conclusion:

... for major technologies such as photovoltaics, wind power, biomass, or heat pumps, resources provided through the market dominate the learning investments. Government deployment programmes may still be needed to stimulate these investments. The government expenditures for these programmes will be included in the learning investments.

Obviously government R&D, and especially first-of-a-kind demonstration programs, are critical before the technology can be introduced to the marketplace on a large scale. But, we "expect learning investments to become the dominant resource for later stages in technology development, where the objectives are to overcome cost barriers and make the technology commercial."

We are really in a race to get technologies into the learning curve phase: "The experience effect leads to a competition between technologies to take advantage of opportunities for learning provided by the market. To exploit the opportunity, the emerging and still too expensive technology also has to compete for learning investments."

In short, you need to get from first demonstration to commercial introduction as quickly as possible to be able to then take advantage of the learning curve before your competition does. Again, that's why, if you want mass deployment of the technology by 2050, we are mostly stuck with what we have today or will have very soon. Some breakthrough TILT in the year 2025 will find it exceedingly difficult to compete with technologies like CSP or wind that have had decades of such learning.

And that is why the analogy of a massive government Apollo program or Manhattan project is so flawed. Those programs were to create unique non-commercial products for a specialized customer with an unlimited budget. Throwing money at the problem was an obvious approach. To save a livable climate, we need to create mass-market commercial products for lots of different customers who have limited budgets. That requires a completely different strategy.

Finally, it should be obvious, but it apparently isn't, so I'll repeat:

The risk of climate change, however, poses an externality which might be very substantial and costly to internalise through price alone. Intervening in the market to support a climate-friendly technology that may otherwise risk lock-out may be a legitimate way for the policymaker to manage the externality; the experience effect thus expands his policy options. For example, carbon taxes in different sectors of the economy can activate the learning for climate-friendly technologies by raising the break-even price.

So, yes, a price for carbon is exceedingly important -- more important, as I have argued, than funding the search for TILTs.

The breakthrough bunch

Michael Shellenberger says that he (and, separately, NYT's Revkin) interviewed a whole bunch of people who think we need "massive public investments" and breakthroughs. Revkin writes: "Most of these experts also say existing energy alternatives and improvements in energy efficiency are simply not enough."

The devil is always in the details of the quotes -- especially since everybody I know wants more federal investments on low carbon technologies. And, of course, some of the folks Revkin quotes are longtime delayers, like W. David Montgomery of Charles River Associates -- who has testified many times that taking strong action on climate change would harm the economy. He says stabilizing temperatures by the end of the century "will be an economic impossibility without a major R&D. investment." Well, of course he would. In any case, we don't have until the end of the century -- yes, it would certainly be useful to have new technologies in the second half of this century, but the next couple of decades are really going to determine our fate.

Both quote my friend Jae Edmonds. Revkin quotes him as saying we need to find "energy technologies that don't have a name yet." Shellenberger quotes him saying,

Fundamental changes in the world's expanding energy system are required to stabilize concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Incremental improvements in technology will help, but will not by themselves lead to stabilization.

Jae and I have long disagreed on this, and he is wrong. His economic models have tended to assume a few major breakthroughs in a few decades and that's how he solves the climate problem. Again, I see no evidence that that is a plausible solution nor that we have the time to wait and see.

I would estimate that the actual federal budget today that goes toward R&D breakthroughs that could plausibly deliver a half wedge or more by 2050 (i.e., not fusion, not hydrogen) is probably a few hundred million dollars at most. I wouldn't mind raising that to a billion dollars a year. But I wouldn't spend more, especially as long as the money was controlled by a Congress with its counterproductive earmarks. I could probably usefully spend 10 times that on deployment (not counting tax policy) -- again, as long as the money was not controlled by Congress. Since that may be difficult (if not impossible) to arrange, we have to think hard about what the size of a new federal program might be. I'll discuss that further in the Part 6 discussion on policy.

Roger Pielke, Jr. has said that my proposed 14 wedges require betting the future on "some fantastically delusional expectations of the possibilities of policy implementation." But you tell me, what is more delusional:

that we take a bunch of commercial or very near commercial technologies and rapidly accelerate their deployment to wedge-scale over the next four decades, or
that in the same exact time frame, we invent a bunch of completely new technologies "that don't have a name yet," commercialize them, and then rapidly accelerate them into the marketplace so they achieve wedge scale?

And so I assert again, the vast majority -- if not all -- of the wedge-sized solutions for 2050 will come from technologies that are now commercial or very soon will be. And federal policy must be designed with that understanding in mind. So it seems appropriate to end this post with excerpt from the conclusion of the IEA report:

A general message to policy makers comes from the basic philosophy of the experience curve. Learning requires continuous action, and future opportunities are therefore strongly coupled to present activities. If we want cost-efficient, CO2-mitigation technologies available during the first decades of the new century, these technologies must be given the opportunity to learn in the current marketplace. Deferring decisions on deployment will risk lock-out of these technologies, i.e., lack of opportunities to learn will foreclose these options making them unavailable to the energy system.

...

[T]he low-cost path to CO2-stabilisation requires large investments in technology learning over the next decades. The learning investments are provided through market deployment of technologies not yet commercial, in order to reduce the cost of these technologies and make them competitive with conventional fossil-fuel technologies. Governments can use several policy instruments to ensure that market actors make the large-scale learning investments in environment-friendly technologies. Measures to encourage niche markets for new technologies are one of the most efficient ways for governments to provide learning opportunities. The learning investments are recovered as the new technologies mature, illustrating the long-range financing component of cost-efficient policies to reduce CO2 emissions. The time horizon for learning stretches over several decades, which require long-term, stable policies for energy technology.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

For story: Is 450 ppm (or less) politically possible? Part 3: The breakthrough technology illusion
22 Comments | Post a Comment

Victory Gardens better metaphor than Apollo

The "Apollo project" metaphor is getting really old, especially since the formal variant seems to be all about coal. But even just as a conversational metaphor it's weak because, when you think about it, what did most people do during the Apollo project: essentially nothing, maybe watching some launches or late night TV.

Many far better ideas are in the WWII arena, where the gist of many campaigns (particularly war bond drives) was that we ALL had to act, and that small individual actions produced large cumulative results.

So, yes, we do not need an Apollo project for new wondertoys. Far more important that we spark a storm of interest in each individual household motivating themselves around finding and grabbing more opportunities for conservation and efficiency.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 4:57 PM on 30 Apr 2008

We have the technology

But not many would be in favor of turning our nuclear weapons against ourselves.

by Matt G at 5:42 PM on 30 Apr 2008

Apollo

WW II also involve massive conversion of civilian industry to war production - often overriding extremely loud complaints by that civilian industry.

I would add that while Romm is right that deployment is the key. But I would also add that government funding could greatly speed up that deployment. For example he talks about CSP providing two wedges. If we put large scale subsidies into CSP it might provide a lot more than that. The same argument applies to wind.

by Gar Lipow at 6:09 PM on 30 Apr 2008

IS ...

Natural life span [say] 75 years (or less) politically possible?

by LGT at 6:14 PM on 30 Apr 2008

Needed: Strategic plan for humanity, global scale

Global warming is just one piece of a very complex and dynamic puzzle. Who is thinking strategically about our species' future, the future of the globe?

http://questioneverything.typepad.com/

George

George Mobus, Associate Professor, Institute of Technology, University of Washington Tacoma, and Professional Student for Life

by gmobus at 7:43 PM on 30 Apr 2008

Influence locally

Doing my bit, I just came home from a meeting with a local environmental activists' group where we had a candidate for Congress -- I gave him Peter Terzerkian's A Thousand Barrels A Second and Gar's "Cooling It" (all printed out and put in a small flexible binder with chapter tabs). We didn't get to talk too much, but he seemed willing to at least open both, and he was pleased when I emphasized Gar's "no hair shirts" approach.

The 5% Project

by JMG at 8:06 PM on 30 Apr 2008

Thanks JMG

by Gar Lipow at 8:20 PM on 30 Apr 2008

Interesting Comment ...

I'de almost have to agree..

-JChan

by JChan111 at 9:59 PM on 30 Apr 2008
[ Parent ]

We'll Never Beat C02 ..There Are Bigger Issues..

I'de like to join the "drink the coolaid to beat C02 party", but lately I've come to the conclusion and I also see many others [ recent Nature March/April articles as examples] that trying to stop mankind's C02 imprint is the equivalent to (excuse the analogy) trying to stop the whole world from flushing daily. It's about on that scale as far as changing human behavior, educating the growing populace and redirecting the path of the underdeveloped world's awakening to mass consumerism worldwide. What's that old saying.."as you teach ..so shall others follow?"

I predict that within ten years CO2 issues will look old and outdated compared to materials sustainability issues with water, natural resources (lumber), and fisheries, and other food issues while environmentalism will continue to be the "blessing and curse" high trapeeze balancing act we;ve all by now learned to grwo and love. Any new ideas that try to germinate and take hold and spread will need to clearly demonstrate a prudent approach to balancing "risk analysis" and educating millions worldwide on just what that really means. Probably the biggest lesson of this century unfolding that I see currently.I am optimistic, but the enormity of the challenges we should not underestimate.

I'm beginning to think this will be a combination of the "quantum" and "crisis century". The potential to unleash so many blessings unto the world, but the scope of the human challenges may be very overwhelming by even 2030 by some estimates that I've been reading. A fine balancing act indeed...and a race in many ways.

I'm glad to see some 'DoE retirees' sticking their necks out to educate more. Sorely needed! Hopefully for our children's sake some ideas and lesson's learned (over many years) will take hold and grow as we have seen in the last two or three years as the mass media becomes more educated on all the various engineering, technological, psychological and educational issues needed to really make progress. Keep praying ...

-JChan

by JChan111 at 10:20 PM on 30 Apr 2008

R&D is not just for breakthroughs

" I have repeatedly challenged readers and listeners over the years to name even a single technology breakthrough with such an impact in the past three decades,...

Joseph, your basic premise that R&D is only for breakthroughs is false. Look at the gains in battery and solar cell technology in the last 30 years. If we had stopped R&D thirty years ago and mandated the mass production of NiCad batteries and single crystal solar cells would we have lithium batteries and ink jet printable solar cells?

" Virtually every supply technology in history has a steadily declining cost curve...

Wind power is an example of a technology which relies on technical components that have reached maturity in other technological fields ... Experience curves for the total process of producing electricity from wind are considerably steeper than for wind turbines. "

Denmark has been pushing wind very hard since 1979. Germany has been pushing wind and solar. All they have to show is a grid dependant on fossil fuel and the most expensive electricity in the world, about 20 cents per kWh more than U.S.

My recommendation is to raise $90 billion per year for R&D by adding 2.25 cents to the cost of each kWh. Perhaps 10% would be spent on basic research, the rest would go to improving existing technology.

Deploying expensive technology en mass cannot solve the worlds energy problem because most people cannot afford it.

Our goal should be to develop low emission energy sources that are cheaper than fossil fuel. Denmark and Germany have proven that deploying expensive technology in mass will not do that.

If every country in the world was as wealthy as the U.S. Denmark and Germany your approach might make a dent in the problem, but realistically, the money would be better spent improving the technology.

Things Everybody Should Know About Energy

by BILL HANNAHAN at 11:32 PM on 30 Apr 2008

Future energy sources

Interesting thoughts re' future energy realities, and indeed the challenge is great, with politicians and bureaucrats trying to hide behind no end of useless catch phrases and gimmics. But watch what's going on at the National Ignition Facility lab in Lawrence Livermore California over the next 2 to 3 years. Watch for the achievement of "First Ignition" of hydrogen isotopes Deuterium and Tritum using a high-powered laser... then swing to Europe, and watch what happens with the international HiPER project, which is already preparing the way to take the proof opf principle the next critical step forward towards development of fusion power generation. No, this isn't the instant answer and, if there is a serious CO2 problem, fusion won't fix it in the next few years, simply because it will take longer than that to master the new technologies. Obviously we need to get away from burning fossils as fast as we can educate the vast fossil-burning world out there, but that means first we must win their hearts and minds. They are not going to stop building coal-burning power stations in China and India or driving gas-guzzling SUV's in the USA without some serious understanding of where that is leading. Apart from the task of making billions of people (and their Governments) change their ways, there is the immediate challenge to science AND to industry. We know that renewables can't even begin to dream of handling the electricity base-load we now need. Right now, new fission plants have to be the answer, but as soon as fusion comes on line (either magnetic confinement or inertial confinement, or preferably both) we can leave the long-term radioactive waste problem behind. Fusion creates radioactivity too, but only very small amounts and with a half-life around 50 years, as opposed to hundreds of thousands for fission. ... and the levels are lower than those of hospital waste. Something of a no-brainer in my opinion ! Remember that the atom is really just a tiny "battery". The enormous amount of energy stored in it was put there a long time ago when it was made... in the Big Bang. We are only slowly learning how to unlock that energy. But we ARE getting there ! Watch the fusion story !!! James Makepeace

by jpatstarsmead at 11:42 PM on 30 Apr 2008

And then a miracle....

My apologies for such poor comments on a good analysis. I would ask you to consider focusing on the EROI of deployable wind, solar, geothermal and conservation programs rather than the financials.

Our financial system is hopelessly corrupted with random subsidies for polluting technologies. They so effectively distort the biological systems cost of burning fossil fuels that they amount to a form of subsidized suicide. Nuclear power and fusion have hopelessly muddied energy accounting.

In contrast once a wind turbine or a solar panel is placed in a good site the energy slope is downhill from there. Once installed they will yeild much more energy than operating costs for their useful life. Many conservation improvements such as insulation provide similar yields.

Ignore the financials and focus on energy yields. An improvement with good energy yields will get better financials as time passes.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 3:09 AM on 01 May 2008

Out to the public

This article covers one of the most important topics under consideration today. The emphasis on the timeframe needed for change is the keystone issue.

Why is this not on the forefront of every media outlet and educational forum? The general public knows little or nothing about the urgency of the energy issue and if you are following the presidential candidates potential energy policies, it seems they are undereducated on the urgency question as well.

With Earth Month, networks and publications carried story after story about "greening" technologies and home energy saving strategies. Not once did I hear any hint that major policy shifts have to occur in a matter of years for those CFLs and additional insulation to count on a global stage.

We need to devise policy and funding to deploy the off-the-shelf technologies along with conservation and efficiency immediately. But we also need an educational component that will reach the public domain in an accurate and understandable form. Try asking five people you run into today which choice is better for a promising energy future - higher percentage funding for available technology or for R&D.

I would encourage authors and researchers to work harder to get their information to the main stream media when energy bills come before Congress and when candidates stump for elections.

by meacassidy at 7:42 AM on 01 May 2008

ugh

aside from the subsidies and unassessed externalities giving us a false price on hydrocarbons, the US blows away trillions a year on insurance and finance overhead, social and industrial welfare through the military,

we just blew away trillions more in real estate equity because our geniuses thought a good way to heat your home was to set it on fire.

we have no problem with spending stupid money here. we have no problem with wind potential here. throwing money at turbines would -- maybe for the first time in decades -- actually get us a return on our investment.

by hapa at 8:06 AM on 01 May 2008

Forcings

"water vapor, etc. are not important." Water vapor is a feedback not a foricing like the aforementioned chemical arrangements, CO2, methane et al. Of course some refuse to believe the difference, since there's mor water than the others, but chemistry isn't subjective.

Marky48

by Marky48 at 8:52 AM on 01 May 2008

Secured employment for millions of people.

Our CSP team is grappling with the issues of rapid scale-up that you so eloquently write about in this post, forwarded to the team now competing with diverse business models. My model is open source technology freely available to all producers and consumers.

In simple, one significant numbers, $1000 installation CSP cost will displace one ton of carbon per year for 30 years, (O&M 3%/year). Simple payback is one to two years, EROEI less than 6 months. 24 hour storage will increase cost 25%. That, my friends, is much cheaper than burning carbon.

The plan -- thousands of people building millions of units, followed by millions of people building billions of units. The capital is trillions. The cost is zero via profits.

The method is to use existing commodities of concrete, steel, and glass from existing industries with existing tooling and existing skills. Parallel production (horizontal integration) can scale very fast.

by sunflower at 9:16 AM on 01 May 2008

Realists

Pangolin, I'm not sure what or for who you were apologizing but I think there are some very good comments here. Some of them come from people like me who have spent years actually putting energy systems into use. Widespread deployment of technology that, in many cases, is marginally developed is very difficult.

There are some people on this site who have very dark rose colored glasses when it comes to real cost and practicality of renewables. Remember "hope is not a plan"?

Sunflower and I have dueled on this before and I will gladly concede defeat when there is a large cost effective CSP operating with storage, but I don't expect that to happen.

by KenG at 10:44 AM on 01 May 2008

High Tech

I wonder if we are being unusually silly here. Is there anything to say that the Ultra High Tech lifestyle of Unlimited Energy is a good idea? No one has demonstrated this to me yet. So far this umwelt has fragmented society and our environment to the point where both might be on the brink of collapse.

Perhaps it might be time to set aside some of our toys and learn to live more simply. If renewable energy sources won't supply our current baseload, well then why can't we reduce our baseload? Is the human condition so dependent on plasma TV's?

If you continue to do what you've always done you'll continue to get what you've always got. - Yogi Berra

by Matt at 12:33 PM on 01 May 2008

Realism? Where?

In the OP I saw some realism where he emphasizes deploying existing technologies now. Then there was a bunch of whining that suggested that if we just spent a bit more money on research we could be nuclear gods real soon and then we would get our flying cars.

Had we done in the 80's what Jimmy Carter suggested we probably ALL be driving hybrid cars now instead of just the Prius drivers. GM built it's first series hybrid prototype before 1970 with the Stirlec. Start/stop hybrids were buildable with 70's technology and through-the-road hybrids were feasible by 1990. As soon as cell phones were possible wireless cruise control could have been installed on all new cars keeping vehicles at even speeds and restricting zoom and brake driving.

Light tubes and solar hot water heating systems would be on most roofs instead of just a few and every house built after 1985 would have effective insulation installed properly. Light rail would have long ago been integrated into our cities and personal rapid transit systems would be edging those out now.

All of these technologies are deployable.

Realism is that if we had installed Disney's monorails around Las Angeles and San Diego after he proved they worked those cities wouldn't be the polluted wastelands that they are now.

High speed trains would link all of our major cities and automated transfer switching and shipping of pallet sized freight packets would be the norm. Air freight would be handled by lighter than air aircraft and some passenger traffic. That's 1930's technology there.

Organic farming would be the norm now allowing the millions of people who were raised on farms in the 70's to stay on their farms and the concept of "farm aid" concerts would have been laughable. That would have saved millions of tons of GHG's emitted from CAFO's because that kind of concentration of heavy food, heavy cattle and waste would have been wasteful of fuel and concentrates pollutants.

People who had installed PV panels in 1985 would now be switching them out for new panels as their power production would be dropping off. Sure those first generation panels would have barely broken even on the energy costs of production but the second and third generations that followed them would have paid for that in EROI already.

We could have been installing geo-exchange HVAC systems for the last ten years and we would have closed multiple coal plants if we had. There is an absolutely positive energy profile to these systems especially in the North and Southwest where it is very cold or very hot for much of the year.

Realism is knowing that we had these solutions all along and instead of deploying them early and coasting on the profits we, as a nation, chose to make a pirate raid on the Middle East instead. Now we are broke and we still need to make these changes. They still would cost us less in energy costs than the current methods we use to provide these services.

We aren't interested in "realism," we're holding out for our nuclear flying car.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 1:11 PM on 01 May 2008
[ Parent ]

Pangolin,

Another post for your blog? Thanks.

by Jon Rynn at 2:22 PM on 01 May 2008

Right and Wrong

Joseph,

Some parts of your statements are spot on, some are way off.

First, your dismissal of hydrogen, "It ain't even an energy source" implies that electricy and batteries should be dismissed too, since they "ain't" energy sources either. We all know you don't support hydrogen, but your rationale is wrong, as this flippant remark demonstrates.

But, lets talk about what you're right about. You're absolutely right that the country lacks political will because the near term direct economic impacts are more concrete and easy to calculate than the far more significant but more abstract and indirect long term economic impacts. How do we change this? Well first, we can't just give up. Set a price for carbon? Agreed! And make it fluctuate based on the amount of carbon already in the atmosphere.

You're also right about the need to invest heavily in technologies are available today, and all the technologies you specify are right on. There are a few more that you missed, however. Here is just one: we already have the technologies to create hydrogen off an alternator and inject it into the combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine. Doing so improves the combustion of the fuel (particularly with diesel), resulting in more power, better gas mileage, and lower emmissions. The primary delays to those technologies have been patent squabbles and the vehicle manufacturers' failure to license the technologies. (Perhaps due to the patent squabbles? Perhaps due to the patent owners' terms?) Without the manufacturers supplying these technologies as OEM equipment, they won't catch on. Who wants to risk impacting the warranty with a third party add on?

The real beauty of hydrogen that you miss is that it allows for a smooth transition, rather than an abrupt change. The hydrogen injection above is an obvious first step. A somewhat similar blended approach that is already available is hythane to provide cleaner fuel than straight natural gas. Dual-fuel internal combustion vehicles and fuel cells for fleet vehicles and niche markets fill the gap as the infrastructure is built out. Hydrogen generated from natural gas fills the gap as methane digesters, direct solar-to-hydrogen, and electrolysis from wind, solar, and hydro, and other sustainable sources mature. You flippantly say the fuel cell car is dead. So what? More and more applications are emerging where it *already* is cost effective to implement fuel cells, such as forklifts in large distribution centers. Don't forget the stationary applictions, with combined heat and power. Does the electrolyzer in the consumer's garage make sense? Certainly not right now, but a molten carbonate fuel cell in a large switching station or hotel already does. Will the fuel cell car be reborn? Maybe. After all, it looks like the electric car will, only because of a TILT called the lithium-ion battery. Welcome to the world of transition.

None of these compete with the approaches you suggest. They can coexist - in fact, they must coexist. As the wedges demonstrate, we have to get away from a silver bullet mentality, and accept the shotgun reality. We need many solutions. Each will have pros and cons. Some may be interim, some may be long term. It is much like a balanced investment portfolio. And like that portfolio, you need to have some high-potential assets, that may take longer to mature, and carry more uncertainty. When you dismiss hydrogen, you fail to create a balanced portfolio. As a hydrogen advocate, I also point out that investing solely in hydrogen is as big a mistake. It's all about balance, and mitigating one set of risks with other, different risks. Your strategy is all about investing in low-yield bonds (exemplified by the statement "If a new supply technology can't deliver half a wedge, it won't be a big player..."). I recommend a more strategic porfolio.

Paul Faulstich
President, Hydrogen Energy Center

by paulf at 2:24 PM on 01 May 2008

Research allows technologies to evolve

It is true that we need to adopt existing clean technology, which will have a great impact in helping us transition away from depending on energy imports and improve the environment. However, as current technologies mature, others need to be developed so they can make even greater improvements down the road. Think about computers, for example. I still remember running on DOS and using a floppy disk to save my information back in the early 1990's. Today, I use a portable flash drive that can hold about 2.0 gigabytes of information and I'm running Windows XP. The reason we have flash drives and Windows XP is because research and development was happening while we were taking advantage of the existing advances in computer technology.

The same is true for energy. Yes, we need increase the adoption of today's clean technologies, but not as a replacement for further developing other technologies which will make even greater impact as they reach commercialization. The fact remains there is no "silver bullet" or magical answer to resolve our energy crisis. We need to use fiscal resources to improve current technologies, while developing new ones not yet even imagined. Could society have imagined a world filled with today's technologies 100 year ago? Humanity is constantly inventing new technologies while improving those that already exist. We at the Hydrogen Education Foundation are helping people to understand that even though we can't wait for new technologies, hydrogen technologies are starting to become commercial today and will have a growing impact as these technologies are further adopted. Meanwhile, continued R&D is needed.

Hydrogen's versatility as an energy carrier, not an energy source, makes it valuable to fuel everything from cars to businesses to consumer electronics. Separate from the frequent emphasis on hydrogen cars, the reality is hydrogen can be used to power many other applications. The next cell phone call you make could be powered by hydrogen since electricity from hydrogen fuel cells power many of today's cell phone towers. The next time you shop at Wal-Mart the box of Oreo cookies or the new Blue Ray movie you purchase could be transported with one of their new fuel cell forklifts; or it may have been driven across the country on a semi-truck using a hydrogen injection system that reduces emissions and fuel use. The world of possibilities that can be realized through the use of hydrogen is quickly expanding. But we'll only be able to take advantage of all of them if R&D continues while we are using of the hydrogen technologies that are available today.

To learn more about the benefits of hydrogen, we invite you to please visit www.h2andyou.org.

by maczocalo at 12:50 PM on 02 May 2008

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