Climbing mount improbable

A picture tells a thousand words.

So reflect on the image above. It shows fuel shares of total world energy supply, including the contribution of fossil sources (oil, coal and gas), nuclear power (providing for about 16% of global electricity demand and 6.5% of all energy use) and renewables (13% of total energy). So, renewables already provides almost double that of nuclear power. Of course, that’s where the breakdown of renewables is rather revealing. Almost all of it comes from burning biomass (wood, crop residue, dung etc.) and hydropower. Of the remaining 0.5%, over 4/5 of that comes from geothermal — almost all based on tapping surface volcanic/hydrothermal heat (essentially nothing to date from hot dry rocks). ‘Technosolar’, (wind, solar thermal, solar PV, wave) constitutes just over 0.1%.

The data above come from a useful factsheet produced by the International Energy Agency in 2007, entitled Renewables in Global Energy Supply. The data above are actually for 2004, so technosolar’s contribution has increased a little since them — a few 10ths of a percent — mostly from a ramp up of wind. Indeed, page 5 has a particularly telling statistic. Over the 33 years between 1971 and 2004, the two main technosolar energy sources grew much faster than any other form of renewable energy. Solar grew by an annual rate of 28.1% and wind by a whopping 48.1% per year. Think on that. At a growth rate of 48.1% p.a. over a 33 year period, wind power has staggered up to 0.064% of total energy supply. So don’t be fooled by people throwing around huge growth rates for technosolar as though this means they’ll soon overtake coal, oil and gas (or indeed nuclear) and thus save us from dangerous climate change — when growing from a rock bottom base, high growth rates are prettying meaningless.

The title of the post comes from a book by Richard Dawkins — about how seemingly improbable and highly complex forms of life can arise by evolution, given vast amounts of time. The same may possibly be true of technosolar — it may supplant all other energy sources, given enough time. I doubt it, but anyway, that’s time we simply haven’t got.

Tom Blees, author of Prescription for the Planet, said this to me about the above diagram:

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Next time someone tell you how renewables are enough, show them this picture from the IEA.

Look at Germany for a case study in the potential of renewables. For over 25 years, Germany has had massive public subsidization of wind power to the point where 38% of the world’s wind power is produced there, as well as about half of all the world’s solar power. The upshot? Subsidies for this ”green” electricity of up to 7 times USA average rates, and Germany now produces about 6% of their energy from wind and a trivial 0.5% from solar (this from a pro-solar website, no less). Meanwhile people are willing to claim that ten years would be enough to get to 10-15% wind power in places like Australia and the US, despite the fact that 25 years has brought Germany to about 6-7% with massive subsidies.

If Germany can provide such a tiny fraction of their electricity needs now, what happens as they switch to an all-electric future? The idea that Germany and the USA and other developed countries can provide all their energy needs from renewables strains credulity to the breaking point if you look at what Germany’s done, and the fact that they’ve got over two dozen coal-fired power plants on the drawing board now is a damning testimony to the failure of their all-renewable fantasy. But even if, against all odds and at staggering cost, Germany and other developed countries could conceivably pull off an all-renewable energy future, would the entire world follow suit? It wouldn’t matter a bit if Chinese and Indian coal-fired power plants continued to belch forth CO₂. We’d all still be cooked (metaphorically if not literally).

Check out the graph again. The 6.5% nuclear portion we’ll want to replace with IFRs (integral fast reactors), some sooner, some later as the current LWR (light water reactor nuclear) plants age and go offline. We also want to replace much — I would say most — of the 10.6% now filled by combustible renewables, since much of that is wood and dung that contributes a lot to air pollution and ill health among the poorest of the poor. And we want to replace all the fossil fuels. I believe, if you ask this directly of anyone in the “all-renewables” crowd, you’d be able to make your point and get them to agree that ultimately these are the goals. So that means we want to build capacity to equal about 97% of the current energy used in the world today.

But wait, that’s not enough. For virtually every projection anticipates a demand at least twice that much by mid-century, even without taking into account the energy we’ll need for massive desalination and pumping projects, which are inevitable. So we’re talking about a minimum of 200% of todays entire energy production by mid-century. Hydro will likely not increase much, so of that demand of 2050 we can probably safely assume that hydro won’t provide more than 2% (that would assume almost double today’s hydroelectric production).

Now let’s look at that last bar graph on the right. Nearly all of it is from geothermal, primarily because of Iceland and a few other easy hot spots in California and elsewhere. Will we make technological leaps in geothermal technology to allow us to use geothermal everywhere and solve our energy problems with one fell swoop? It would be nice to think so, but experts on the subject seems to be shaking their heads and crossing their fingers, recognizing the serious difficulties they face in making that vision a reality. We can’t bank our futures on it.

Lacking such a transformative development, that leaves energy systems that currently provide about 0.1% of the world’s energy with the herculean task of providing at least 200% of current energy production, and all this by 2050. Look again at what Germany’s accomplished after a couple decades of focusing on wind and solar power. Look again at their plans to build dozens of coal-fired power plants.

I’d say “Wake up and smell the roses” but for the fact that the only thing we’ll smell is coal smoke.

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“Ahh ha!”, cry the anti-nukes, in a retort that hints of schadenfreude. “ If renewables can’t supplant fossil energy in time, as you claim, then why do you expect nuclear power to fare any better?” (The even more disingenuous [or seriously misguided] actually claim that we should pursue ONLY renewables because nuclear is “too slow”, with the absurd implication that technosolar will somehow be faster). The answer is fairly obvious, even putting aside for a moment the fact that nuclear currently supplies 50 times more energy to modern society than technosolar.

Coal, oil and gas rule because they’re a highly concentrated form of stored energy. Indeed, hydro and biomass win the renewable stakes hands down because of the fact that they are the only natural forms of stored energy (along wit geothermal — powered by natural nuclear decay). Nuclear fission power draws on the most concentrated form of stored energy that we are currently able to harness. It requires no backup. It needs no new transmission infrastructure. It can be installed in the same places that the coal and gas plants used to occupy (for these must all be ripped out – we cannot afford to let them ‘retire in old age’). It is the only plausible replacement for the huge number of new coal-fired power stations being installed at a frantic pace in the China and India. Anyone who says we don’t need nuclear is gambling recklessly with the future of our civilisation, and much else that we value on this planet.

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Postscript (in response to comments):

I don’t think the discussion on renewables is over. To close them out as a useful option would be as reckless as the oft-cited position that ‘the debate’ on nuclear power is over (i.e. the case that many in the environmental movement posit, that nuclear should be excluded). No. What we need is a decent (and rising) price on carbon emissions (a tax) to give ALL non-carbon sources a level playing field, plus some other government incentives to fast-track ALL zero-carbon energy sources (including S-PRISM [a Gen IV nuclear blueprint] certification) with investments in RD&D (research, development & demonstration/deployment) commensurate with what they are delivering — plus some ‘hot bets’.

Some otherwise well-meaning environmentalists certainly need to change their attitude and stop giving nuclear power such grief, and the Australian governments need to get over their nonsensical ‘no nuclear power’ party policy — as soon as possible. We cannot give up on nuclear or renewable energy. We must also recognise that we currently DON’T have the technology commercialised to solve our energy/climate crisis fully. The pursuit of what is now available, and the ramp up of RD&D, including Gen IV nuclear and new forms of storage for renewables, are all critical priorities.

Carbon footprint of the Olympic Dam uranium mine expansion

My home state of South Australia is host to the single largest known deposit of uranium in the world (by some estimates, up to 40% of the verified global reserves, although uranium is still poorly explored worldwide). The mine that was  first established over 30 years ago to exploit this resource (as well as copper [majority of production], gold and silver), Olympic Dam, is run by BHP Billiton, following their acquisition of Western Mining Corporation Resources in 2005. In that year, production was about 220,000 tonnes of copper and 4,600 tonnes of uranium oxide.

Late in 2008, despite some criticism, Premier Mike Rann gave the go-ahead for a $7 billon mine expansion. The eventual production of the enlarged mine — perhaps the largest ever man-made hole in the ground — is anticipated to be 730,000 tonnes copper, 19,000 tonnes of uranium oxide and 25 tonnes of gold per year. Critics have pointed out that the carbon footprint [e.g., diesel from vehicles and mining equipment] and electricity needs [possibly via gas-fired power plants] of this expanded enterprise would be massive — by some estimates almost 700 MW of extra electrical power demand. Greens SA MLC (State Senate), Mark Parnell, an active sustainability crusader here in this state whom I respect greatly, was quoted as saying: “Our state risks being left with a huge carbon black hole as we become the greenhouse dump for one of the world’s richest companies“.

Here I do a rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation, to test Mark’s ‘carbon black hole’ assertion with respect to the uranium extraction. My carbon footprint calculations are based on the careful figures derived for the highly detailed report by Bilek, Hardy, Lenzen and Day: Life-Cycle Energy Balance and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Nuclear Energy in Australia (2006) [henceforth BHLD]. If in doubt, check the figures in that document yourself — its authors include three of Australia’s top life cycle analysts from the University of Sydney, who were commissioned by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. I should note that a formal environmental impact statement for the Olympic Dam expansion, which will take into account many factors including water use and localised impacts, is due to be delivered in May 2009.

The current production of uranium oxide is about 4,600 tonnes, composed of a mixture of fertile ²³⁸U (99.29%) and fissile ²³⁵U (0.71%). Light water reactors (LWR) require enrichment of uranium oxide to 3 to 5% ²³⁵U, and once operational for a few years and running at a 90% capacity factor, need about 29 tonnes of enriched U per year per gigawatt of electricity (1 GW_e) generated by nuclear power plants (BHLD, pg 79). It works out that in 2005, Olympic Dam produced enough fuel for roughly 22 GW_e of generation capacity using today’s reactor designs (PWR/BWR), or 192,200 GW hours per year (GWh/yr). By comparison, the expanded Olympic Dam, with its anticipated output of 19,000 tonnes of U, would yield about 94 GW_e of average power supply, or 794,000 GWh/yr.

Once the full nuclear life-cycle emissions for LWR are accounted for (includes: mining, milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication, reactor construction and operation, decommissioning and storage of spent fuel), the greenhouse gas intensity of the power generated is 60 kg CO_2-e per MWh_e (BHLD, pg 172), which is 60 tonnes per GWh [for fast spectrum reactors like the IFR, it would be substantially lower, since we skip the mining, milling and storage steps]. Thus in 2005 the emissions equivalent for Olympic Dam uranium mining was ~11.5 million tonnes (Mt) of  CO_2-e. The expanded mine will be 48 Mt — that is, an additional 36.5 Mt of CO_2-e will be released into the atmosphere each year as a result of the Olympic Dam expansion.

Okay, let’s put that figure in two different perspectives.

In 2005, South Australia’s total emissions were 28 Mt CO_2-e. Let’s say that, despite our best efforts, our emissions continue to grow, such that in 12 years time they are 30% higher than in 2005, at 36 Mt CO_2-e. The lifetime emissions that result from the mine expansion will be about the same as the total emissions of South Australia. Sounds bad, eh? Well, not to the atmosphere, which is a global commons.

Let’s say that uranium wasn’t available, and those French and Chinese (etc.) nuclear power plants were shut down and replaced with fossil fuel plants. Here is the comparison for the 2005 and 2020 (expanded mine) output based on three alternative power generation methods that yield the same total GWh/yr:

Black coal (supercritical): 2005 = 181 Mt CO_2-e and 2020 = 747 Mt CO_2-e

Brown coal (new subcritical): 2005 = 226 Mt CO_2-e and 2020 = 933 Mt CO_2-e

Natural gas (combined cycle): 2005 = 111 Mt CO_2-e and 2020 = 458 Mt CO_2-e

So, under the best-case gas alternative, we get an additional 410 Mt CO_2-e dumped into the atmosphere each year if the Olympic Dam output was cancelled. With brown coal, the stuff we find powering Victoria’s Latrobe Valley (and feeding SA via the interconnector), we get an extra 885 Mt CO_2-e. That’s a whopping 37% more than the estimated 530 Mt CO_2-e we might expect Australia to be emitting from ALL emissions sources in 2020, assuming we manage to meet the 5% reduction target of the CPRS. Or looking at it another way, the Olympic Dam expansion will ‘offset’ South Australia’s total carbon emissions by around 13 to 26 times.

For a counter analysis on expanding our coal production see here: Save a bit here, ship a whole lot there.

So, to conclude, I agree with Mark Parnell that “Our state risks being left with a huge carbon black hole“. But not, as he imagines, if the Olympic Dam development goes ahead. No, that massive black hole (at least when expressed in terms of global climate change mitigation) will result from us NOT expanding the mine. Such is the huge energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) of uranium, even when used in today’s ‘inefficient’ once-through thermal reactors. In a future dominated by fast spectrum reactors with a closed fuel cycle, which use vastly more of uranium’s energy content, the above EROEI and emissions equivalence figures just get ridiculous.

Let’s get sensible about nuclear power and carbon emissions, shall we?

Update:
Other estimates of life-cycle emissions from world’s best practice are considerably lower than the 60 tonnes CO_2-e per GWh_e cited in the BHLD study above. For instance, there is this low-end estimate of is 3.3 tonnes CO_2-e per GWh_e given here:

There is world-wide concern over the prospect of Global Warming primarily caused by the emission of Carbon Dioxide gas (CO2) from the burning of fossil fuels. Although the processes of running a Nuclear Power plant generates no CO2, some CO2 emissions arise from the construction of the plant, the mining of the Uranium, the enrichment of the Uranium, its conversion into Nuclear Fuel, its final disposal and the final plant decommissioning. The amount of CO2 generated by these secondary processes primarily depends on the method used to enrich the Uranium (the gaseous diffusion enrichment process uses about 50 times more electricity than the gaseous centrifuge method) and the source of electricity used for the enrichment process. It has been the subject of some controversy. To estimate the total CO2 emissions from Nuclear Power we take the work of the Swedish Energy Utility, Vattenfall, which produces electricity via Nuclear, Hydro, Coal, Gas, Solar Cell, Peat and Wind energy sources and has produced credited Environment Product Declarations for all these processes.

Vattenfall finds that averaged over the entire lifecycle of their Nuclear Plant including Uranium mining, milling, enrichment, plant construction, operating, decommissioning and waste disposal, the total amount CO2 emitted per KW-Hr of electricity produced is 3.3 grams per KW-Hr of produced power. Vattenfall measures its CO2 output from Natural Gas to be 400 grams per KW-Hr and from coal to be 700 grams per KW-Hr. Thus nuclear power generated by Vattenfall, which may constitute World’s best practice, emits less than one hundredth the CO2 of Fossil-Fuel based generation. In fact Vattenfall finds its Nuclear Plants to emit less CO2 than any of its other energy production mechanisms including Hydro, Wind, Solar and Biomass although all of these processes emit much less than fossil fuel generation of electricity.

UHVDC – a “killer app” for solving climate change?

Stewart Taggart is a director of Acquasol Infrastructure Ltd., a developer of environmentally-friendly power and water solutions building a municipal-scale solar desalination plant in South Australia’s Upper Spencer Gulf. Stewart (or Taggart, depending on your style) is also founder/administrator of DESERTEC-Australia, DESERTEC-USA and DESERTEC-China. DESERTEC promotes the concept of “Clean Power From Deserts.

It’s the grid’s equivalent of Internet broadband.

Known as Ultra-High Voltage Direct Current (UHVDC), UHVDC could end of the “tyranny of distance’ in electricity transmission. The positive global implications are hard to overstate.

Development and deployment of UHVDC could mean geothermal, wind, concentrating solar power and other clean energy sources are no longer hobbled by distance from existing transmission infrastructure.

In the short term, UHVDC could mean lower greenhouse gas emissions. In the medium term, UHVDC could mean increased cross-border trading in electricity, lowering prices and increasing grid reliability. Over the long term, UHVDC could increase global political stability by deepening multilateral energy interdependency.

UHVDC combines two existing ‘off-the-shelf’ efficiencies and combines them. The first is direct current (DC) power. DC transmits electricity over long dstances more efficiently than alternating current (the kind used by consumer devices). The second is high voltage. By pumping up voltage, more electricity can be transmitted across a given line.

The current leading edge of UHVDC development represents just an incremental step forward, raising new cable capacity (to be deployed in China) to 8,000MW and 800kv from previous maximums of 6,000MW and 500kv. Already, some envisage 10,000MW UHVDC cables being developed to service proposed North Sea wind farms.

Rising global per capita energy usage, the integration of China and India to the global economy, aging current global electricity transmission infrastructure and the need to combat climate change all point to increasing UHVDC deployment in coming years.

The good news is that this is happening at a time when the world electricity system needs a major upgrade. Nearly US$30 trillion must be spent on energy infrastructure globally before 2030 to avoid chronic blackouts, according to the International Energy Agency. The lion’s share of that money will go to generation and transmission infrastructure, the IEA estimates.

China is staking a claim to leadership in UHVDC power. The Chinese government is laying huge (6,000MW), long distance (2,000 kilometer) UHVDC power lines from country’s western hinterlands, where hydro and solar resources exist, to its eastern cities. Bigger UHVDC cables (8,000MW) are expected soon. Having China develop this technology could ultimately represent a gift of China to the world as significant as China’s previous contributions: paper, gunpowder and the compass.

China has plans to lay dozens of UHVDC power lines from west to east. This will catalyse the UHVDC industry and the rest of the world should watch with approval and encourage China. If China develops a competitve UHVDC industry, China’s economy will be able to satisfy more of its internal electricity needs from cleaner sources of electricity than coal.

But best of all, China’s development of a UHVDC industry could hasten the day when a ‘Pan-Asian Energy Superhighway‘ could be built connecting China and Australia. Such an energy highway would encourage development of large scale renewable resources in the Asian region, increasing cross-border trade in ‘green’ energy and deepening multilateral energy dependency, thereby enhancing geopolitical stability.

Encouraging China to develop a global-competitive UHVDC industry will be immensely positive for the world. No other country can afford it at this time. Meanwhile, China’s own huge infrastructure needs make such investment largely unavoidable.

If China builds up a UHVDC industry while the west concentrates on economic reform and reconstruction following the credit crisis, everyone comes out ahead. That’s because large-scale cross-border investments in UHVDC power lines could be considered sometime after 2015. This in turn would spark a virtuous global cycle of increased development of renewable energy, lower electricity costs and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

Keep an eye on Chinese UHVDC. It could end up as the 21st Century’s “killer application” when it comes to combating climate change.

Additional Reading:

China:
China’s State Grid eyes to triple UHV lines by 2012
China Moves Ahead with Economical Ultra-High Voltage Transmission Lines
Chinese Utility Tries to Join Electricity Pioneers
State Grid To Invest $38 Billion In ‘09; Growth To Slow Sharply
Energy efficient Ultra High Voltage: the future of electricity transmission
Ultra High Voltage DC Systems
Central China Shanxi Province to Invest $3.2 Billion in Power Sector in 2009

United States:
Locating lines to transmit energy vexes officials

Europe:
RWE Founds New Unit To Run Ultra-High Voltage Grid
KEMA stud calls for 10000MW cables to be developed for North Sea and European offshore networks

Australia:
DESERTEC-Australia: HVDC Power Lines
DESERTEC-Austraila: Connecting to Asia

DESERTEC promotes development of solar and other renewable energy resources from desert regions. Please visit our various websites:
DESERTEC-USA
DESERTEC-Australia
DESERTEC-China
DESERTEC-Europe
DESERTEC-UK
DESERTEC-India