While transportation energy dominates much of our climate conversation, for the US (and much of the world) our man-made emissions into our atmosphere are really broken down in this order, from highest to lowest: Electricity Production (28%), Transportation (28%), Industry (22%), Commercial and Residential emissions (11%), and Agriculture (9% – and mostly Nitrous Oxide, not cow flatulence). This conversation focuses on Electricity Production.
Consider these sources of power generation most widely used today:
- Coal-fired plants: 7.5million GWh
- Natrual Gas: 3.9 million GWh
- Hyrdo-electric: 3.5 million GWh
- Nuclear: 1.6 million GWh
- Oil: 880,000 GWh
- Wind: 520,000 GWh
- Others (incl. Solar): 520,000 GWh
Putting this into proportions, today over 67% of the electricity generated globally is done so with fossil fuels. In comparison, only 6% is generated by renewables (excluding hydro-electric power, which generates 19% of the electricity globally).
If we want the global goal to be electricity generation with a zero-carbon footprint, there is a massive and expensive hill to climb to achieve those goals. The current Biden administration has unfortunately taken a far more aggressive and unrealistic path to achieve this, all under the banner of “imminent existential threat to the planet without immediate, drastic action”. We disagree with the premise under which this policy is being driven, and instead suggests a far more reasonable and sustainable approach.
The first factor we should all understand is that electricity demand has a base load, which is to say, an amount of power that must always be available, on grids around the world. We cannot drop to zero power at any point as this has drastic consequences, as seen during natural disasters. The reason why the concept of base load is important to mention is that not all renewables provide uninterrupted power.
Solar example: During overnight hours, power is not generated. Interesting fact: It takes roughly 32 acres of densely packed solar panels to power 1,000 homes. It takes at least 11 million panels to power New York City, under non-peak loads.
Wind example: When the wind is not blowing beyond 11 mph (+/- depending on the turbine technology), no power is generated. Interesting fact: Texas has capacity to generate up to 33% of their power using wind. Those turbines, however, only generate electricity during 19% of their uptime, which means Texas only meets 6% of their power needs via predictable power output from wind.
The second factor we also need to understand is “where does spare power live”? The simple fact is that electricity isn’t stored in massive batteries at power stations. While battery technology is improving, and PV (solar) power often stores DC power until needed to convert to AC (e.g., home battery systems), most so-called excess power on the grid is stored as kinetic energy until electrical demands need that energy returned to consumable electricity. Power may also be stored as unused fuel (e.g., nuclear rods, generator diesel fuels, etc.). As a result, we don’t “store” electricity on the grid; we really mostly store the potential to quickly generate more when required.
The Moderate Majority does not have issue with the goal of zero-carbon-footprint power. The plan we would advocate, however, looks at reality and achievability with expressed, collaborative goals where industry is made aware and given a timeline that is not driven by special interest exception.
The plan:
- Either balance awarding of, or completely eliminate energy subsidies. Today there are 250x more subsidies for solar tech than any other energy source. Subsidies should be balanced across all sectors, e.g., clean fossil technology.
- Do not permit building of coal-fired power generation stations unless they are outfitted day-one with CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) technology. However, the preference would still be to build no future coal-fired plants.
- Invest subsidies in CCS technology to retrofit existing plants. Currently there are only 51 plants globally with this technology, and only 19 of those are in operation. It is expensive, however firm investment in research should significantly lower the costs and improve the technology.
- Continue to permit generation stations powered by natural gas. These plants must contain CCUS technology (carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration), but plants without CCUS already emit less than 50% harmful gases than coal plants. These plants would be the near-term bridge to achieving reliable base load power.
- Nuclear energy for power generation should be greatly expanded. While the mining and extraction does produce a minor carbon footprint, the power generated from nuclear energy is completely clean, with no emissions. Nuclear waste recycling (into breeder reactors, for instance) extends the useful life of the fuel and dramatically shortens half-life decay (from millions of year to hundreds of years), and underground storage of spent fuel has proven extremely safe. Fuel rods that are recycled have enough remaining energy to power the US for over 100 years… by themselves. Nuclear plants could be seen as the mid-term bridge to achieving base load power.
- Hydro-electric plants for power generation should be expanded. Environmental groups have long fought the construction of new dams to help drive these plants, however our position here is simple: We need power, and we need water supplies. While we care about the environment, and without appearing to be cynical, we are confident that the animals that live where a lake would soon exist, will relocate uphill. All species will flourish with a larger ecosystem introduced by a lake and a dam.
- When end-of-life for coal, oil, and natural gas generation plants is reached, those plants should be replaced with a reliable renewable source with a base load counterpart.
- Expansion of solar-driven and wind-generation should continue. These should be looked upon as what they are: Contributors to overall power needs (which grow every day, globally), but not as the final solutions.
- We support the research into hydrogen as another power generation source, however, the previously-described fuel sources and approaches should be able to make immediate impacts toward goals of zero-emissions power.
- Other power sources (e.g., geothermal, tidal, etc.) should continue to be researched and deployed in regions of the world where appropriate, but these are often very geographically dependent, and should be seen as exceptions to normal methods of power generation.
Scientists supporting the Paris Accords advocate for a zero-emissions goal for power generation by 2050. We do not agree with this goal, and believes 2070 to be more achievable, with structured step-down goals every 5 years along the path.