By the Seat of Your Pants

Governments do things that would never pass muster in a disciplined corporation.

Imagine me going to the CEO of a company and telling him: give me 100 billion euros to invest in renewable energy (solar plus wind).

He would shower me with questions and demand a very carefully tailored plan.

The conversation would probably go this way:

CEO: what are you trying to achieve with those 100 billion euros?

Me: replace nuclear generation and reduce the carbon emissions of the electrical grid.

CEO: If nuclear is low carbon energy, why replace nuclear and not better fossil fuels?

Me: Because some people are afraid of nuclear.

CEO: Is that fear justified?

Me: For the most part, no.

CEO: Then why don't you spend a small part of that money in education / marketing / PR and better tackle the real culprits of Global Warming: fossil fuels?

Me: It makes sense.

CEO: Considering renewables need backup, usually fossil fuels, what is the floor of emissions an RE / FF electrical system would deliver?

Me: North of 300 grams per kWh if the backup is natural gas, north of 700 grams if the backup is coal.

CEO: Would that be enough to effectively combat global warming?

Me: No, sir, it wouldn't and today we already have important countries with electrical grid emissions well south of 100 grams.

CEO: How did those countries achieve their low carbon electricity?

Me: Without a single exception they did it mostly with hydro and / or nuclear.

CEO: Then, why are you proposing to spend loads of money on an unproven path?

Me: Well... Greenpeace says...

CEO: Greenpeace!  What do they know about energy?

Me: Not much, sir.

At this point, I was literally kicked out of his office.

Moral of the story: we cannot just pour gigantic amounts of money because we "feel" something might turn out to be a solution.

No, in the energy discourse we need to be disciplined, make our homework, evaluate alternatives and make rational choices not clouded by feelings.

Here is a suggestion respecting the basic questions we should answer during the homework phase:

http://gnwr1.blogspot.mx/2014/04/energy-discourse.html

Feel free to add to the conversation on Twitter: @luisbaram

Thank you.

Greenpeace Interview

This is a fictional interview with a retired executive director of Greenpeace taking place, say, two decades in the future.



GNWR: Thank you, Mr. GP for accepting to participate in this interview. We know that since your retirement you have not conceded any other interview, so we really appreciate your kindness with us.

Mr. GP: It is my pleasure.

GNWR: How do you evaluate the accomplishments of Greenpeace during your tenure.

Mr. GP: I think the balance is positive.

GNWR: Is there anything you would have done differently if you started again.

Mr. GP: Is this on the record?

GNWR: Yes, sir.

Mr. GP: Well... I... yes... let me be candid. We fought the wrong enemy.

GNWR: What do you mean by that?

Mr. GP: We fought nuclear energy too hard and now I know it is, aside from hydro which has limited capacity to grow, the premier low carbon energy source humanity has access to. So here we are, decades later, using more fossil fuels than ever and... sometimes I wonder if we were actually a barrier to real progress in climate action.

GNWR: Did you have this epiphany after leaving Greenpeace?

Mr. GP: Well... not exactly, but, you see, we are sort of a corporation and our revenue are the funds we receive from millions of persons around the world and, how can I say it... we needed a boogeyman.

GNWR: And nuclear was it?

Mr. GP: Not only nuclear, fossil fuels were in theory our main target, but nuclear has a capacity for generating irrational fears that fossil fuels cannot match, so we invested much more than our fair share in demonizing nuclear.

GNWR: And what was the final result.

Mr. GP: Well, we got our funding, alright, but as an environmental movement, we went nowhere and here we are decades later, the honeymoon with solar and wind gone, and nuclear, the only feasible, fully scaleable solution to reducing our civilization's carbon footprint is way behind where it could have been by now.

GNWR: Do you blame yourself for this?

Mr. GP: Only in part. Greenpeace was not the only environmental organization opposing nuclear. It was the fad of the moment and yes, GMOs were also unjustly attacked.

GNWR: Do you plan to mend your ways now?

Mr. GP: Not publicly. Greenpeace has now more pragmatic people leading it. This time, I think, they will really help move the environmental agenda forward.

GNWR: By supporting nuclear?

Mr. GP: Look, let's face it, even if we consider nuclear the devil we have to concede it is a low carbon devil. Besides, the new designs are safer than anything we had in the past and in all truth all things in life have an element of risk. The alternative would be to shut down civilization and go back to caves.  But that, of course, would also imply grave risks, so, there is no way out of nuclear, at least not now.

GNWR: We thank you for this extremely candid conversation you had with us.

Mr. GP: Thank you.  I actually feel better for having had this candid conversation.

Greenpeace

This blog entry is dedicated or at least directed to Greenpeace.  It is unbelievable that such an important global organization can be so naive.  It seems that for them all the solutions to the main energy problems of humanity start with a) attacking large corporations and b) converting everything to "renewable" energy.

For example, this Arctic drilling thing.  Why are oil companies trying to do business in one of the most expensive and risky places on Earth? Because of the hunger for oil WE the people have.  If we tamed drastically our craving for oil, then no Arctic oil production would be needed.  As long as humanity doesn't curtail it´s oil use, the Arctic will get more and more attractive.  Why? Because the more difficult it gets to supply the demand, the more the price of oil will increase and the more interesting it will get to drill in the Arctic despite its inherently higher costs (and risks).

So Greenpeace may win this round with the oil industry BUT if we the people don't reduce our oil use, next time drilling in the Arctic will be unavoidable.

Now, with respect to "renewable" energy, it is and it will continue to be a niche energy source.  Why? Because it is not reliable (aaand it is more expensive than conventional energy).

Let's start with solar: sometimes there is sun, and sometimes there is no sun.  By definition at night there is no sun, and in winter the days are shorter than in summer, but at any moment of the year we may have cloudy skies and then the output of the solar panels can drop by as much as 90%.  Bottom line: we need to backup all solar energy with conventional energy, so solar does NOT replace conventional generating capacity.

With wind it is exactly the same thing but the variations are even more dramatic in the sense that significant variations can happen in the span of a few minutes.  And again, all wind capacity needs to be backed up with conventional generating plants.

Sure, renewable supporters are going to say that sun and wind, specially if interconnected to a very large grid will pretty much even out and thus somehow provide base power.  Well, this is just not true and for example in the UK, the coldest days of winter (when the demand for electricity is the highest) have almost no sun and might have no wind either.

Now, for the conventional generating plants, renewable energy is a head ache.  THEY are the ones that have to continually adjust their power generation to adapt to the renewables.  And they cannot shut down and tell their employees to go home because in the next 10 minutes they may need to be back in the generating business.  They need to continue paying the salaries of their people and end up producing less than the capacity of their plants.  Yes, their fuel costs go down, but their costs per kWh go up.  Will they absorb the loss or pass the extra costs to the consumers?  Try to guess the right answer.

Renewables (solar panels and wind turbines) are mature technologies but even today need subsidies to survive and this is one of the reasons electricity rates in Germany are close to TWICE those in France.  Why the subsidies?  Well, first because in most first world countries very little new generating capacity is needed and thus renewables are almost completely surplus (in other words unneeded) capacity.  Spain is the perfect example, at peak hour they need 44 GW but they have a total of 100 GW of installed capacity.  In other words all their renewable capacity was nothing more than an expensive luxury.  Spain has already stopped the madness and thus have pretty much eliminated subsidies for renewable energy.  Germany is still going full steam ahead in this orgy of subsidies but sooner or later they will be forced by reality to change their ways.

So, if we really want to make a dent in humanity's carbon emissions what should we do?

1. REDUCE our energy consumption by a very substantial amount, say 40%.

2. Convert coal electricity generating plants to natural gas (where feasible).  This would reduce emissions by 50%!

3. Long term, the only solution for very low carbon electricity generation is nuclear (sorry, Greenpeace, but these are the facts and no amount of feeling will change them).

4. Buy only hybrid cars, or even better, buy no cars.  (Electric cars are NOT ready for prime time).

5. Commute and travel less (much less).

6. Buy less things (much less).

7. Go vegan.

8. Have less children (why not follow the Chinese in having only one per family?)

Greenpeace, IMHO, should focus its marketing muscle, which is considerable, on the true culprits of global climatic disruption and the destruction of the Earth: we the people.

Only if billions of people change their behavior would we be able to improve the road ahead for the planet and all of us that live on it.

Thank you.

The Most Reckless and Greedy CEOs on Earth

The CEOs of several oil companies have decided to drill in the Arctic as if the risks of drilling in the oceans were not enough.  So, we have a question:

Are the oil company's CEOs the most reckless and greedy on planet Earth, willing to destroy the reputation of their companies with a single major accident and even bring them to bankruptcy at the drop of a hat?  

Or, is our hunger for oil so extreme that we have pushed them to those remote, dangerous, and frail locations because that is all that is left?

Whether we like it or not, the correct answer is the second one.  

Greenpeace goes to "heroic" extremes to try to prevent drilling for oil in the Arctic but they, as well as the rest of humanity, are strongly encouraging those projects by our behavior.

So, if we want to see eye to eye the persons really responsible for the drilling of the Arctic we only need to go to a mirror.  

Yes, we may be appalled and indignant by what is now going on in the Arctic but it happens that our money speaks MUCH louder than our feelings or words.

If we do want the drilling of the Arctic to stop then we need to drastically curtail our petroleum products consumption.

Anybody is game?