ELECTRIC FUTURE: How will the U.S. meet its growing demand for electricity over the next several decades?
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Cleaner coal, nuclear, solar, wind: these are some of the options for power generation to feed the U.S.'s electric power requirements. That need is expected to grow by 30 percent during the next 25 years, according to the Energy Information Administration, even with a slew of energy-efficiency measures and improvements to the grid infrastructure that delivers the electricity. But the primary source of electricity in 2034, according to a new projection from consulting firm Black & Veatch, will be natural gas. It is the fossil fuel with the least greenhouse gas impact on the atmosphere—burning it releases 43 percent less CO2 than burning coal—and looks set to increase its share of the electricity market, even with looming regulations to restrain climate-changing emissions. And there's this boost, too: new, vast reserves of natural gas found in places like the Marcellus Shale Formation, which stretches from West Virginia to New York State.
By 2034, according to Black & Veatch, nearly half of U.S. electricity will come from natural gas combustion turbines or combined-cycle units, whereas conventional coal-fired generation will shrink to just 23 percent (although few of the power plants will be shut down). Nuclear will grow to provide nearly 150,000 megawatts of electricity as renewables jump from just 54,000 megawatts today (excluding hydroelectric dams) to more than 165,000 megawatts in 2034.
Mark Griffith, head of Black & Veatch's power market analysis, spoke with ScientificAmerican.com about the U.S. electric grid's future configuration of energy sources.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
You recently released a survey of electric utility CEOs. What did you find?
It's a very interesting survey. On the one hand, it illustrates there is a wide range of opinion in utilities on what needs to be done. Some people are skeptical of the need for carbon legislation and others think it's very important. Looking at the survey and what's going on in the industry, regardless of people's personal or political opinions they want to move towards a lower carbon footprint for the power sector. A lack of legislation right now in some corners creates more concern. It's hard to plan for the future if you don't know what that future is from a regulatory standpoint. Assuming something does happen, the survey supports the concept that utilities see nuclear as a reliable green technology, quite different from what people would have thought 10 years ago. Nuclear has been recast, at least that's how industry is looking at it.
Is there a future for coal?
There still seems to be a lot of interest in coal-fired generation for some time frame. Is there a future for coal? Overall, the answer is yes. We still have a certain amount of reliance on coal for a fairly long period of time in our baseline view of how things would unfold. How is that is possible—even with Waxman–Markey type legislation [the pending American Clean Energy and Security Act passed by the House] in place, which is what we assume in our baseline? By 2014, [under that legislation] there are standards you have to start meeting and they get stricter over time…. The concept of compliance is melded with the availability of offsets [reductions of greenhouse emissions elsewhere, such as trees in Alaska that are not cut down could count against coal-fired power plant emissions in Alabama] that are allowed for in the legislation. There is a presumption that all sectors including the electric utility industry will have access to some global market of offsets and can utilize them at some cost to them. That allows for compliance as the rules get tighter. You don't just make a fall-off–the-cliff type of change in year one of legislation like that. It is structured to allow for transition, some of that is in allocation of allowances in the early years…. It pushes you into a world of utilities needing to get in line with really reducing carbon emissions out in [the] 2030s rather than sooner. You don't have to shut down all the coal plants tomorrow. You can have a long-term strategy relying on reasonably priced offsets. With a bill like Waxman–Markey it's not this terrible thing that would force people to change behavior dramatically quickly. It does force behavior change, but it's more phased in over time.
You predict a big switch from coal to natural gas going forward, however. Why?
Even with demand-side management and energy efficiency, we still expect some growth in electricity demand. There's still a need for that type of dispatchable [sic] thermal [heat-producing] resource. Natural gas is the best candidate remaining.
That trend [of switching from coal to natural gas, which already exists] continues even with a moderate level of carbon emission prices. The natural gas stays as a competitive fuel. You're not going to build more conventional coal-fired power plants. We're at the tail end of the [coal] building cycle of what's going on now—and that's pretty much the end of that. You're waiting for a breakthrough on carbon capture and storage and, when that happens, then you could resume on coal. If not, I don’t think we'll build anymore.
As carbon prices go up, it starts to become cost effective to back down less efficient coal units or higher-delivered-cost coal and run gas units more…. Gas is taking on a more significant energy role. You already have gas base load power plants [which provide a continuous supply of electricity] in the west. It's a bigger shift in the east, where there's been more reliance on coal-fired capacity. You get out to 2040–2050, you are retiring a lot of the coal fleet at some point. To the extent that you're still relying on thermal generation, you're relying on natural gas.
Do we have enough natural gas to meet that demand?
We're assuming that issues related to gas shales, environmental issues about groundwater, and the [general] use of water get solved. Those look like solvable issues that don't take a technological breakthrough. It's an expense that's incurred. I don't see gas shales having an insurmountable environmental problem that is expensive to fix. Of course, there are the unknown unknowns—you don't know. But there's certainly nothing that would indicate that…concerns…today for Marcellus and other [natural gas sites] will stop the development of gas shales. There's more and more capital flowing into that [because] it does take a lot of capital investment. Gas-shale wells produce quickly and die young. You have to keep on drilling.
What about nuclear?
Nuclear is something that utilities have just been avoiding because of the perception of the political unacceptability of it and the relatively high capital cost. If you can build a coal plant why would you bother to build a nuclear plant in the U.S.? It's the easier solution to do.
The loan guarantee program seems to be essential, given the magnitude of investment in a single one- or two-unit plant relative to the market capitalization of the companies that would own them. It's low cost relative to the amount of money [the government is] providing. A further expansion of the loan guarantee program seems the best way to encourage new nuclear. [But] you would expect there to be a lot of resistance—a wave of resistance to nuclear plants—just as there is currently resistance to coal plants. That battle is yet to come…. Can you even get another 200,000 megawatts of nuclear plants?
And renewables? Under your forecast, they grow from 5 percent of electricity supply to 13 percent, excluding hydropower. What makes that up?
It's primarily wind. That's the lion's share of it. There's a little geothermal in there and a little solar. There's been a lot of advancements in thin-film technology but the balance of [a solar power] plant [all the materials other than the photovoltaic cells themselves] is not getting any cheaper. The [solar] cells are getting cheaper, and it's not at all clear where the bottom for that is. I think there's some validity to the arguments made by folks from the [information technology] sector that say, look at the advances we've had. We've had the transistor, integrated circuits. It does look like there's some significant room for improvement [in photovoltaics] and it will have more dramatic advances than in coal or any thermal technology, which is already pushing against its theoretical limits. Eventually [photovoltaics] is going to break through. Solar is still kind of expensive as any utilities soliciting bids for renewables will tell you. It's not cheap yet.
Does that mean there will be more storage of electricity?
We don't have a lot in the baseline view. We haven't seen the economics of that pan out yet…. It's really hard to generate storage other than batteries, which are kind of expensive. It's really hard to generate the cost of pumped-hydro or compressed-air storage. Every situation for that is so unique. Some can come through but, bluntly, it's been difficult for new storage other than some isolated demonstrations.
Do your predictions for the electricity generation mix put us on a path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050, as President Obama has called for?
It does not get us halfway there. [But] once again, it gets back to the amount of offsets that are available. This is an industry emitting 2.5 billion tons per year and would like to get down to 500 million to be in compliance. So are there two billion tons of offsets floating around? There's a lot of slop in the offset number. But you can pick up 500 million [in] offsets and have a decent build out of natural gas. Nuclear could fill a good piece of that role. There's a lot of uncertainty out there.
So what is Black & Veatch actually building today for clients?
We do a lot of things: coal overseas; we do a lot of work in water; gas plants; wind and renewables in general; biomass. We're doing a portfolio of different things…. New construction is going to be renewables or gas for us right now—if it's domestic.
See what we're tweeting about
40 Comments
Add CommentDid I miss something? Was there no mention of energy efficiency and demand reduction? We in the US are still using far more energy than the rest of the industrialized world (not to mention the rest of the non-industrialized world).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat Sci American resurrecting Big Oil's Picken's Plan. What a surprise. NOT!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMore deadly toxic radioactive radon and GHG spewing Natural gas plant, that already kills 10000 Americans every year with its deadly emissions - now there's a plan.
Big Oil knows any investment in wind must be balanced by a large investment in low efficiency NG. So much NG is needed that an Australian study has shown that it is better to skip the wind and build the high efficency NG plant instead.
In fact I note he was even downplaying carbon seqestration so he could sell more gas.
Of course, global warming is completely ignored. Just keep spewing the fossils and killing millions worldwide from fossil fuel air pollution.
Then the usual damning nuclear by faint praise trotting out the old cost canard.
China is building American designed NRC approved nukes on time and on budget at $1.2/Gw with 4 year build times.
A recent Korean sale to the UAE with no industrial capacity whatsoever came in at $3.5/Gw including bribes and if a sixty year contract is signed it will cost less than 1.5 cents a kwh including maintenance and fuel.
Quotes received by Ontario last summer from both Areva and AECL were $2.4B/Gw and that same 1.5 cents a kwh.
Indias new nuke waste burning 500 Mw GenIV power plant coming into service next year at a cost of $1.5B/Gw.
AECL and Westinghouse claim their reactors can be factory mass produced with 3 year lead times at less than $1B/Gw.
The difference between these costs and the current American version is a bit of labor and incredible private power finance rates, but primarily double the time frame delays caused by the NRC. Obama could fix all that with a federal agency similar to Bonneville - call it USCoal2Nuke - armed with nationwide site licences for any coal plant in the US it wanted to convert to nuclear.
A US investment in 2500 mass produced nuclear reactors paid for by ending fossil fuel use, would eliminate most air pollution saving 30 thousand lives annually, end the US contribution to the global warming/ peak oil problem within a ten year time frame, provide a huge job producing boost to the economy, require only a small part of our industrial capacity, and pay for itself in less than three years.
These fake fossil and extremely costly renewable options by delaying solution indefinitely kills several million people every year worldwide from toxic coal emissions and eventually drags us over that civilization ending climate/peak oil precipice killing billions more.
Natural gas kills more than 10,000 Americans per year? "Fossil pollution" kills millions per year? Where do these numbers come from?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCar accidents kill about 35,000 Americans per year. I know plenty of people who have been killed in car accidents, but I never knew anyone who died from natural gas or fossil pollution. But maybe that's just me.
Not a bad article. While I do agree with seth that we should also be building more modern nuclear plants, I also do not have a problem building more gas fired plants also.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is most unfortunate that governmental regulations and are not being rapidly changed to allow these to be constructed more quickly.
ginia--the amount of potential saving generated by conservation is really not very much at the macro level. If you were to tax energy at a higher rate it would help to reduce long term demand. I am not sure that is really a good idea however.....there are a lot of larger American homes that will still need to be heated and cooled. The true growth in energy use worldwide will not come from the US.
There is something funny about the liquid fuel consumption trend from USEIA looking at the source material in the link. Chinese automobile ownership rose 30% in 2007 (+15 million vehicles) but liquid fuel consumption in China in 2008 went up 0%. Even if the manufacturing base was fixed at 15 Million vehicles for 25 years the 1% year on year consumption of gasoline is stupidly low.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese figures severely downplay the explosive growth on the Chinese and Indian markets in gasoline comsumption. I'll wager the same bad assumptions are true for electric generation.
Mr Dad knows lots of folks who died from lung cancer I assume. Not all were smokers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTry
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/03/deaths-per-twh-for-all-energy-sources.html
The 10K NG deaths were from some greenpeace study and I'm having trouble finding the link. However check this out for now.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=marcellus-shale-natural-gas-drilling-radioactive-wastewater
Apart from all the truth in the above comments, I really should point out that THEY ALREADY KNOW HOW!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey just want to let you know that will be hard! (read expensive)
If you don't believe in global warming and don't mind a few people dying from the air pollution Natural gas is for you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe anti-Nuclear "Greenie" blogs have ignored the latest NG explosion that killed 6 workers and destroyed a 95% complete >$1 billion NG power plant. Meanwhile the same blogs can't stop yakking about Tritium Leaks at Vermont Yankee NPP. They are so happy they have forced to close a NPP that supplies 75% of Vermont's power, all Clean & Green zero-CO2, by hyping up leaks where measured groundwater levels have reached a maximum of 75,000 picocuries per liter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom:
http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/tritium.htm
"...as a worker, you are told that you have 30,000 pCi/L of tritium in your urine for the whole year;
30,000 pCi/ liter would give a dose of 2 mrem per year.
as a worker, you are told that you were exposed with a single uptake of 8 mCi of tritium;
An uptake of 8 mCi would result in a dose of 500 mrem, or about one and a half years of natural background radiation dose..."
A tiny few of the many NG explosions:
1944, Cleveland, 180 killed and one sq. mile of Cleveland destroyed
1937, New London Texas, 300 students & teachers killed
1968, Richmond, Indiana, 41 killed, 150 injured, 4 sq blocks of city heavily damaged
1988, North Sea, 167 dead
1992, Guadalajara, 206 killed, 500 injured, 15,000 homeless
2004, Arkhangelsk, Russia, 58 killed
1996, Puerto Rico, 33 killed.
Undoubtedly, NG causes 1000's of deaths in the USA due to the pollution it creates, NOx, CO & Particulates mainly - like any combustion technology. Certainly much lower than Coal in that area.
It is inexcusable stupidity to burn NG for baseload power generation. We will hit Peak Oil shortly, if not already, while the developing world demand for Oil is increasing rapidly.
The biggest problem of new Energy Solutions is that energy storage is VERY EXPENSIVE - like 45 cents per kwh vs NG at 2 cents per kwh. Why waste precious Fossil Fuel energy storage on applications where Nuclear can do the job much better. It costs 3.1 cents per liter to convert NG to Methanol. That is the liquid fuel we can use for most transportation. Otherwise NG is vitally important to supply the huge peaks in Winter Heating demand in Northern Areas, as well as the large 4-8pm power demand peak. Also for production of fertilizers and other chemicals. This IDIOTIC trend of replacing Coal power, and unbelievably, Nuclear Electricity, with Natural Gas, is a recipe for disaster.
I certainly don't believe in man-caused global warming. Climate change has been going on forever and will continue to do so, whether or not humans are ever able to build climate modeling computer programs accurate over a whole century.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also believe that the Chinese are buying up all the world coal and natural gas reserves that hit the market. Use it or lose it seems to be the wave of the future and the Chinese have plenty of cash. As America slowly sinks economically, it is going to be very difficult to tell cash-desperate state and local governments that they can't allow fossil fuels from their regions to be exported.
Use it or lose it, the choice will be coming very soon to a lot of states.
By that time we will just tap energy out of the aether like a Flying Saucer does and what was (probably) used by Tesla for his electric Pierce Arrow Car in 1931.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe did not dare to divulge how it worked as he realized that the system culd be used to power homes anytime, anywhere on the planet. The investors of the Niagara Falls Power Plant, Pierpont Morgan and Rockefeller, would have had him killed
then and there. He did not take a patent out but I did.
Here in Canada I could not get funding, as the Government is raking some money in from the OilSands.
I might have to offer it to Russia or India first.
The units to power homes and travelling conveyances of any kind will be leased only, to give investors and the Taxman their due.
Seth/dwbd-
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Pointing out cases where people have died in accidents is simply sensationalism. Unfortunately that is typical in discussions these days in politics and why we get so little productive accomplished. The long term data on accident rates (as referenced by Seth below) associated with power production does shows that natural gas is one of the safest sources of energy.
2. You can believe that the world is getting warmer, and still not believe it is a disaster. Natural gas is lower poluting than most forms of energy production, and available quickly, which is needed for the economy. It (in my opinion) we should be using multiple forms of production that are as reasonably clean as is economically practical
I'd be willing to bet anything that not one person has ever died from natural gas caused air pollution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...Pointing out cases where people have died in accidents is simply sensationalism..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually I agree with that. The point I was making, is that the pseudo-Greenies, AstroTurfers or Fossil Fuel lackeys, what ever you want to call them, never cease to harangue Nuclear Power " because it's so dangerous". At the same time they completely ignore the dangers of its competitors, Coal & NG.
And especially like to pretend that NG is "safe & clean" while Nuclear is "dirty and dangerous". The fact is that NOT ONE PERSON has been killed in a commercial Nuclear Power Accident in the USA - ever. Not even remotely close to true with NG. And the full lifecycle emissions of Nuclear are 1.8 gms CO2 per kwh vs 540 gms for NG (Ontario CANDU vs NG power plant).
And NG does emit substantial NOx, CO & particulates. As any Hydrocarbon combustion does. And as such, IT MUST contribute to the well established mortality numbers - caused by those substances on Human Populations.
It is also not so low in GHG emissions as people assume. Yes it is has 569 gms CO2 per kwel vs 963 gms CO2 for Coal. But it also releases about 5% of total production to the atmosphere due to leakage and venting. Since Methane has 25X the GHG potential of CO2, the fact is that NG is just as bad as Coal as a GHG producer.
Funny that he doesn't mention how cheap Geothermal is (after saying that most new renewable will be wind, then goes on to diss solar as too expensive).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGeothermal is cheap. Wind is not the only cheap renewable. And rooftop solar (even though it has a rap for being expensive), IS cheaper than utility electricity in some states like here in CA.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy own example: I use 550 kwh a month. If I pay PG&E for 18 yrs I'd pay $38,415 over that time period. I am buying a 3.15 kw system that costs 18, 090 and paying $10,058 (because of subsidies) through SunRun/PetersenDean.
Savings over 18 yrs is $29,903. EVEN WITHOUT ANY SUBSIDY - at $18,090, the solar system is STILL only half the cost of the $38,415 to PG&E.
Utility-scale solar is at wholesale, and has to spend Brazillions to overcome permitting, transmission, NIMBYs etc, regulations, etc, so it is not as competitive with just cranking out more gas from old gas plants that were paid off long ago, BUT IT IS AS CHEAP per MW as building new gas plants. Just look at the filings with the CPUC in CA:
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/Environment/Current+Projects/
dwbd,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"... what ever you want to call them, never cease to harangue Nuclear Power 'because it's so dangerous'. At the same time they completely ignore the dangers of its competitors, Coal & NG. "
The demand for electicity exists and will grow. It is time to revisit Nuclear (fission) generated power.
In the past I would have been skeptic about nuclear energy. Partly, because of Chernobyl, 3-mile Island, and "China Syndrome"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHowever, because improved safety and triple-redundant fault-tolerant computer systems and such, that, should be on the front burner.
Wind will take a while. Solar will take a while. Same with Geothermal. We already have hydro-electric. Think ocean people, such as the gulf stream. That too will take a while.
Those numbers sethdayal I have seen before but Big oil is profitting. We need more people to think that the oil is going to dry up today -- it's not renewable -- then what do you do? Hmm
How did we get here?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy?
What can we do it?
How can switch?
How do we do it?
When do we start?
Whats stopping us?
How do we change that?
If changed do we continue?
Why?
What are the opportunity costs?
Can we live sustainable?
How?
We did it before we discovered "old sunlight".
How?
lived off of what was within sustainable limitations of nature.
Ummmmm, missed alot of questions but the general ideas there: we need to start asking more questions before we think we got it. Patience is virtue, but time is of the essences
*how can... first post ever :0
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI assume, Susan, that like most of us you have a mortgage which your $10058 could have been invested in or maybe you had to take out a line of credit. The cost of that loan principal + interest over the realistic 20 year life of a solar panel (dies when the sealer leaks) is about 8% each year for 20 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAssuming you are right in the middle of state (Fresno), with a perfectly oriented panel without shade, according to NOAA's PVWatts program your 3.15 kw panel would generate on the average 4568 kwh in a year. Thats 32 cents a kwh before subsidies and 18 cents after - much higher than your power rates now and in the future with new nuclear forecasted at 1.5 cents a kwh based on Asia builds.
While good for you as an individual, state subsidies according to economists cost in the order of $3 to $5 for every dollar forked out (accountant, tax lawyers, bureaucrat, politician expense accounts etc). Not good for the taxpayer.
Geothermal energy can work on a small scale in a few very select areas and provide only a tiny percentage of US needs. The big geothermal boom will come at enormous cost sometime too late way in the future when they can drill, fracture and pump with not yet invented high temperature/pressure pumps and without causing earthquakes.
A Greenpeace study quotes 10,000 deaths due to natural gas? They must be meaning that 10,000 people were cremated using natural gas, but knowing Greenpeace, that's close enough to put into an IPCC report.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere are some simple ways to reduce energy requirements -
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Educate women which will naturally reduce the population
2. Embed a chip in all electrical appliances to switch them off when not in use and not leave them on standby this will probably save 5% of energy requirements.
3. All TVs and kids computers to be operated by pedal power - this will help reduce childhood obesity
4. Build houses with electrical systems which auto detect human presence - most houses only require the fridge to be on all day and this could be solar driven
5. Improve building bylaws to ensure all buildings are designed to be insulated and be solar passive or just build our houses half underground to utilise natural earth mass warmth
6. Ban all private vehicles within city limits except for the disabled and increase the number of home based occupations to reduce this silly notion of office workers having to travel into a centralised office everyday - what a waste of time. 5-10% saving of power - and no more gridlock
7. By 2012 Ban the construction of any private vehicle which cannot do <100km / 65mpg or better still walk or cycle to work, take an extra hour to walk your kids to school - more excerise means you eat less.
8. Buy the majority of your produce from local farmers within 100 miles - the average UK Xmas dinner travels over 25,000 miles to reach its destination.
9. Build more car free estates within city limits
10. Go to bed early and eat with friends or family
11. Put more money into developing cheap clean small pebble bed nuclear base power units or cold fusion technologies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMark Griffith would have us believe that by 2034, natural gas will provide 50% of our electricity. That means we will consume more than 18 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas to produce power-- more than three times the production of Texas and six times the production of the entire Gulf of Mexico. Where will this gas come from? Griffith blithely says "issues related to gas shales.... get solved" . Well, a great deal more than that must be solved to come up with 15 Tcf more shale gas than we produce now. Even the perpetually optimistic EIA projects only 4 additional Tcf of shale gas will be produced by 2035. Far from meeting Griffith's answer to all of our electricity problems, the real question is can natural gas production even meet existing demand? In December, the EIA projected that gas supply will decline 4% by 2020. Why? Because conventional production is in terminal decline and Canadian imports will drop about 70% over the next two decades.
The kind of unrealistic statement made by Griffith has haunted the natural gas industry for over a decade:
Shoshin : Every year many people die in their homes through poorly maintained gas heating units. If taps are left open, they are suffocated, or if there is inadequate ventillation carbon monoxide does the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSmoke and CO detectors could help to reduce this tradegy.
Just as many people are electrocuted with nuclear-derived electricty. If they are lucky, there will be no fire damage.
Actually, I don't believe in anthropogenic global warming and if carbon dioxide soars to .00450 by volume of the atmosphere that is not going kill people. Particulates kill people, but particulates can be screened out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI actually think Coal is going to be King for a long time to come, mainly because the USA has so much of it. We have lots and lots of natural gas too and even more if we figure out how to exploit the methane clathrates in the Gulf of Mexico. Coal can be made into natural gas and gasoline or diesel, keep in mind, and the technology for doing this always improves.
I considered buying a solar panel for my roof but here near Seattle we get 55 days of uninterrupted sunshine a year and we are also at over 50 degrees North latitude so that in winter the sun is just something that briefly appears when I am at work and can't enjoy it. One of the most efficient solar energy collectors I have seen is a sun-tracking gadget that is as big as a house and that produces enough energy to power ten houses WHEN THE SUN IS SHINING.
Wind energy is intriguing, but I remember back on the farm we abandoned the old wind mills that pumped water for the cattle when the gear boxes wore out. Gear boxes are really expensive on the big wind towers being built nowadays to generate electricity, plus most places the wind actually blows fewer hours on a yearly basis than the sun shines in Seattle!
Nuclear power intrigues me, but the nuclear industry will always be prone to be gooned by hysterical idiots that form into spontaneous mobs. Let us suppose that 10,000 years from now only 10% of the radioactive material that might be stored at Yucca Mountain remains dangerous, and only 1% of that remaining waste gets in the ground water and after a whole lot of dilution the water comes up in a spring and a deer drinks it.
The deer does not die, but the trace of radiation would be measurable because since the electron mass spectrometer was invented we can measure tiny, tiny, tiny amounts of radiation. Some news editor 10,000 years from now will then run a bold-faced headline "RADIATION POISONING FROM THE 21ST CENTURY SICKENS DEER!"
The deer won't even be sick, but that's the way media are anymore and they will still be jerks 10,000 years from now don't you doubt it.
Soylent Green!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSoylent Green!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell most of the fossil pollution and natural gas diseases arrive as a form of cancer, leukemia, or any other. I know this kid who's father developed a lung disease due to fossil pollution because he used to work as a manager of a fossil fuel plant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy have we not explored taping into the vast amount of geothermal (steam) energy within the super volcano at Yellowstone? I am not a geologist but I would bet we could produces and enormous amount of electricity by measns of the same huge steam turbins we already use at electric plants and guess what, the water has already been heated by the earth. No dangerous nukes or dirty coal. Would love an answer to my question!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI presume that those figures are for the whole world. A little Google research should confirm the figures, but I do have to say that it isn't correct to say that the air pollution from using coal and natural gas kills people -- actually, it shortens their lives through respiratory disease and cancer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is necessary more bold to leave from neanderthal man dread of flame and understand reason of radiation of energy. She is not contain in a carbon, it is exact. Therefore we many centuries are not right - burn coal, to get a heat and persistently contaminate the vital field. It is necessary to remember that we are in the powerful gravity field and all what be going on in the wild depends on this field. Correctly we will put the process of extraction of energy, so quickly will get ecology, renewal and clean environment of dwelling
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Необходимо более смелыми, чтобы оставить от неандертальца страх человека пламени и понимать причины излучения энергии. Она не содержит в углерод, это точно. Поэтому мы много веков не правы - угля, чтобы получить тепло и настойчиво загрязнять жизненно важной области. Следует помнить, что мы находимся в мощное гравитационное поле, и все происходящее в условиях дикой природы, зависит от этой области. Правильно, мы поставим процесс извлечения энергии, так быстро получить экологии, обновления и чистую окружающую среду жилья
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisНадо смелее уходить от неандертальской боязни пламени и понять причину излучения энергии. Она не содержится в углероде, это точно. Поэтому мы много веков ошибаемся-сжигаем уголь, чтобы получить тепло и упорно загрязняем свое жизненное простраство. Надо вспомнить, что мы находимся в мощном гравитационном поле и все происходящее в природе зависит от этого поля. Правильно поставим процесс извлечения энергии, так быстро получим экологию, возобновление и чистую среду обитания.
The failure of all efforts has the growth paradigm at its center. Man has never been one to be in harmony or equilibrium with his environment. We fight against the natural order of things as that is our very way and alter our environment to suit us rather than adapt to it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe only consider populations and economies to be healthy if they are growing. We even have those who voracuiously fight against equilibrium or contraction. Those that consider a stable or shrinking population to be the worst thing that could ever happen. That consider a stable economy as something bad and even call it stagflation. Who carry the very idea that harmony and equilibrium are stagnation rather than the one true goal we should achieve.
As long as we remain on this "growth is good and the only good" mindset without really considering that what we have available is a finate resource, and that we are already well beyond what it can offrer, we will forever be doomed to total civilization collapse. Sadly, the only thing that may mend our ways, is evolution itself when the survival of the fittest will leave but maybe a billion of us left to try this great experiment at humanity yet again. But knowing humans and humanity as I do, we will do it all the same all over again anyway.
Anyway, the one thing that life itself achieved that no other process could is equilibrium. If we were truly as intelligent as we believe ourselves to be, we would learn from that and make that our self same goal. We have but one biosphere and like any macro living organism or ecosystem, it will always tend towards some sort of stable equilibrium and if need be wipe out that which gets in its way. Sadly, that which will pay is us, but then again, we are the sickeness, a global virus if you will, and the longer we go on, the more she be threatened. So it goes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCosts are going to dictate what in 2034 energy we use. Cost includes socialized costs.
The article had little on our biggest, cheapest energy source of all, Eff/Conservation. Because energy will cost more then using less is going to happen. I don't see electric power increasing, but staying about the same. Sadly EIA rarely predicts well.
So my take on energy sources in 2034. 30% eff/conservation, 25% nuke if they can get smaller, cheaper, safer ones, 25% NG, 10% coal, 20% kinetic hydro and RE for the other 25%. Why this goes more than 100% is we started with a 30% increase which won't happen even with EV's.
Home/building wind, solar, etc is by far the most cost effective then as their price keeps dropping and other energy rises and they don't have to pay land, transmission lines, utility mark up of 100-200%.
Next for utilities lowest costs will be in 2034 be in order, kinetic hydro, wind, CSP, waste heat cogen, nuke if they can get their act together, NG, coal.
Another thing is base load can be problematic as intermitant as France is seeing now. Because nukes, kinetic river/tidal hydro can't be throttled they can only be so much of the generation or too much of their power goes wasted in low demand times. So steady/base power shouldn't be more than 50% of the generation mix.
Thus you need variable energy sources for 35% or more like NG, hydro and biomass.
The rest can be variable RE like wind. Solar generally shouldn't be considered variable as it's mostly happens when needed, thus more valuable than base power as it fills in the peaks.
Sethdayal. Nice rant!! Too bad it's stacked with exaggerations making you, your point look bad. Can you give me sources with details on what you cheap nuke prices include? Sounds like they are just quoting the core, not the complete plant which even without the reactor would cost over $1.5k/kwhr .
Georgi, I enjoyed the Russian part. But neither in English or Russian do you explain the gravitation field. Hydroelectric dams are the only gravitational energy devices I know of.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUmmm...versus coal - by far the worst polluter for air pollution?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd rather take gas.
Also - isn't it true that the uranium released from coal emissions, if used in nuclear plants, would produce more energy than the coal that was burned?
Truly, it's time to question the oft-repeated dogma that our energy needs "are going" to increase.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThose who sell us electricity like to remind us that we're addicted and need them, our pushers, and they want us to believe not only that we can never break this addiction but that it's going to get worse - that is, we're going to need more and more of their drug.
The fact is, that's up to us, not them. We must challenge these assumptions and then find ways to reduce our communities' energy consumption.
And natural gas is not the answer. At every step - production, distribution, consumption - it is destructive of the things we need most to live - water, air, soil - as well as of life itself. http://un-naturalgas.org http://un-naturalgas.org/weblog
The USA can get all the electricty it needs by burning hydrogen derived from hydrocarbons. Pyrolyse hydrocabons and you seperate the carbon from the hydrogen. The carbon can be buried in land-fill sites which is a much less costly exercise than traditional CCS. Pyrolysis works economically with biomass. (Hydrocarbons are simply fossil biomass).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey Seth,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat's the cost per Gw now considering Fukushima? No one knows because it's an ongoing accident that is going to cost billions and have effects for years.
We have one nuclear power plant in my state, Hanford. The people living downwind of Hanford have had way higher than normal cancer rates. You talk about natural gas being dangerous and push nuclear! That's great!
I am all for nuclear power as long as they put the reactors in you backyard!