Clean Air and New Jobs: A Breath of Fresh Air

One of the more contentious challenges in the ongoing effort to move to a cleaner mix of fuels to run our modern world has been addressing concerns about the jobs that are lost, and the people who are affected, as we transition from the current mix of energy sources to a more advanced mix.  

 

And truly, that is a serious problem.  We can look at the world and say that we made such transitions before--from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles; from burning wood to burning coal and then oil; etc.  Those transitions, too, changed the mix and location of jobs.  But most of those transitions occurred over longer periods of time than we are now envisioning, allowing people more time to adjust.

Therefore, I was very pleased to hear former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm's responses to questions in her Senate hearing for the position of Secretary of the Department of Energy about the job implications of efforts to move to cleaner energy sources: 

 

“We can buy electric car batteries from Asia, or we can make them in America,” Granholm told senators. “We can install wind turbines from Denmark, or we can make them in America.″

 

One can argue that these are easy statements to make and harder measures to implement.  And they may certainly mean that some people will have to move.  But, it is also true that many of the jobs in the nuclear and renewable energy industries are good, high-paying jobs, and if measures like training and other support can be offered to those affected by closures of old facilities, then we potentially have a win-win.  In addition, if jobs are made an important part of the plan to transition to cleaner energy, then efforts can be made to locate some of the manufacturing centers for the new products needed in the very places where mining and other jobs are being lost.  

 

There are still many challenges ahead.  It is easy to say that we will build the factories here, but it is harder to compete against the cheap labor in some parts of the world.  It is easy to say that factories will be built in mining communities, but those decisions are not directly in the hands of the government.  And this is not a short-term issue; we will need sustained attention to the impacts on jobs.

However, if the recognition of need for job creation is made an integral element of the planning process, then a balanced approach to the energy transition can developed, one that considers the people as well as the environment.  It will not be easy, and there will not be perfect solutions, but Secretary Granholm's statements at the Senate hearing are a very encouraging sign that we will plan in a holistic way that addresses both the needs of the overall population and the needs of the individuals most affected by the changes.

 

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Energy, Economics and Correlation versus Causation:

Drawing the Right Conclusions

I recently came across an article that left me scratching my head.  Entitled "Economic development does mean a greater carbon footprint," it reports on a study by Max Koch, a professor in Social Work from Lund University in Sweden, and Martin Fritz from the University of Bonn in Germany, on the connections between growth, prosperity and ecological sustainability in 138 countries.  Professor Koch is quoted as saying that he conducted the study in an effort to test the assumption "that extensive investments in green production and sustainable consumption can increase economic growth without increasing the emissions of greenhouse gases."

That sounded like an interesting idea, so I read on.  They divided the world's countries into four groups based on their gross domestic product (GDP) per capita: poor countries, developing countries, emerging countries, and rich countries.  That's pretty standard, I thought.  But then they identified a category of 8 countries they called "overdeveloped."  These are countries in which the average annual income exceeds $50,000 (US) per person.  Five of the 8 countries in this group are identified:  the United States, Singapore and Switzerland, as well as "rich oil nations, such as Norway and Qatar."  Although the article didn't state the other three countries, it did include an infographic with a map that indicates the other 3 countries are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. 

Hmm, I wondered, seeing the word "overdeveloped."  That seems to have a bit of a negative connotation, as in "more developed than they need to be."  Is a bit of bias creeping in?   And given the diversity of these countries, should the same designation really apply to all of them--as opposed to, for example, most of the rest of Western Europe, which merely falls in the category of "rich countries."

But I read on.  They then looked at the prosperity of the different groups of countries according to several metrics: ecological sustainability, social inclusion and quality of life (including life expectancy, literacy rates and subjective well-being).  Their conclusion was that there was greater social inclusion and the quality of life as the countries became increasingly wealthy at the expense of environmental sustainability such as greater emissions and carbon footprint.


While they acknowledged in some sense that the GDP and the environmental emissions might be separable, saying, "We are not saying that it is impossible to separate economic growth from ecological issues," they nevertheless go on to say that there is "a clear connection between economic development and increased greenhouse gas emissions that cannot be ignored."

From this, they conclude that, because of the urgent need to reduce emissions globally, "the possibility of economic degrowth should be seriously considered"--in other words, that economic growth should be given less priority as a policy objective than has been the case.

I had to wonder about this conclusion on several grounds.  In the first place, I don't think that the study ever really made the projections that had been promised.  I could see what the emissions are today, but I could not see an analysis of how different levels of investments in some of the many possible options--nuclear power, renewable energy, biofuels, energy-saving devices, etc.--might affect economic growth--and environmental conditions--in the future.

In the second place, it is likely that that the greatest impact of trying to achieve environment sustainability by curbing economic growth would be to condemn the poorest countries in the world to continued poverty.  Yes, I suppose the conclusion implies that the overdeveloped countries may have to shave their own growth, too, but clearly, the impact on richer countries will be much more modest than the impact on the poorest countries.  In effect, the benefits of an improved global environment will accrue to all countries, but the poorest countries would bear a disproportionate share of the burden. 

Therefore, while the kind of data gathered in this study can be very useful, I believe that the authors have not looked at all the dimensions of the issue.  Given the seriousness and importance of the issue, I think that is a serious shortcoming of the study.  While I do not expect to find a solution that allows the world to "have its cake and eat it, too," I think far more exploration is needed of all the issues and options before we conclude that we need to move civilization backwards. 

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St. Patrick's Day and Green Energy:

Fifty Shades of Green?

On this St. Patrick's Day, when even the beer is green, it may be appropriate to think about all the claims about which energy sources are green.

Most people view renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, as green, and fossil fuel sources, especially coal, as not green.  The reasons are clear.  Coal produces particulates, which cause significant health and other problems locally, and also generate greenhouse gases, which have global impacts.  The sun and the wind are "natural" and, in themselves, benign.  Some people think that means green, but it isn't that simple.

People tend to be uncertain how to rank nuclear in this regard.  On the one hand, they know it doesn't produce the particulates or greenhouse gases that coal and other fossil fuels produce.  On these grounds, pro-nuclear people claim that nuclear power is green.  On the other hand, it produces nuclear waste, which is not natural and lasts a long time.  On these grounds, anti-nuclear people claim that nuclear power isn't green.

The truth is that nothing is perfectly green.

As many experts have pointed out, we can't extract large quantities of sun or wind or hydropower without building solar panels or windmills or dams.  Solar panels, windmills and dams require materials.  The materials have to be mined and processed.  These steps cause environmental impacts, just like mining coal or uranium, or anything else.  Some of the materials and processes generate toxic by-products.   

But because the wind and the sun are diffuse, they tend to require more structures per unit of energy produced than more concentrated forms of energy, like fossil fuels and nuclear power.  And that means more materials and more mining and processing.   And more land use.

In truth, there are shades of green.  I don't know if there are 50.  There are probably more.  The designation "green energy" is, unfortunately, an oversimplification that has caught people's imaginations.  However, it greatly oversimplifies the situation.  Different energy sources use different materials, in different quantities, and generate different kinds of pollution in different places.  What looks green at point of use has negative environmental impacts elsewhere.

We seem to have a hard time acknowledging that human population and modern lifestyles have an inevitable impact on the environment.  There are measures we can take to reduce the impact, but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that the green label we have bestowed on some energy sources really solves the problem.

So, maybe nothing is truly green today except the beer.  Sorry, Saint Pat!

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More Acronyms:

Beyond Energy

I remain fascinated by the number of acronyms that pop up on my radar screen.  I've blogged about acronyms a couple of times over the years, first in one of my earlier blogs (in 2009) and again last year.  In between, I've written several pieces on different subjects in which I incorporated some of my own acronym creations.  Once again, these pieces ranged over several years, from 2010 to last year.

So perhaps it should not be too surprising that I am moved to write about acronyms once again.  This time, my work has been done for me, because Richard Ingham and Mariette Le Roux have compiled a whole list of acronyms and initialisms related to discussions of climate change that was posted on Phys.org as well as on several other sites.

Since anyone who deals with nuclear energy issues these days is surely following the concerns about climate change, I thought others might find this list helpful.  The full list, of course, is at the link above, but here, I thought I'd highlight the acronyms (and a few initialisms) that I found most useful or most fun. 

Herewith, my favorites:

AOSIS: Association of Small Island States (i.e., those highly vulnerable to sea-level rise)

BASICs: Bloc comprising Brazil, South Africa, India, China (not to be confused with the previously popular BRICS:  Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa)

BINGOs: Business and industry non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and their counterparts:
•  ENGOs:  Environment NGOs
•  TUNGOs:  Trade union NGOs
•  YOUNGOs:  Youth NGOs

INDCs: Intended Nationally Determined Contributions

LMDCs: Like-Minded Developing Countries

LULUCF: Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (a Kyoto Protocol provision to count trees as "sinks" which absorb carbon dioxide)

MOP: Meeting of Parties (under the Kyoto Protocol)

MRV: Measurement, reporting and verification

NAMAs and NAPAs: Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action and National Adaptation Programmes for Action

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-beginner-climate.html#jCp

NAMAs: Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action, and the related
NAPAs:  National Adaptation Programs for Action

QUELRO: Quantified Emission Limitation and Reduction Obligation

REDD: Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation

There are far more in the original article, but I left some of those off either because I thought they were generally familiar (for example, BAU for business as usual, CCS for carbon capture and storage, COP for conference of parties, GHG for greenhouse gases, LDCs for least developed countries, and KP for Kyoto Protocol--in this context!), or because I felt they weren't as interesting, or because they weren't really acronyms or initialisms. 

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LULUCF: Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry. A KP provision to count trees as "sinks" which absorb carbon dioxide, a hugely vexatious issue.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-beginner-climate.html#jCp

BINGOs: Business and industry non-governmental organisations. ENGOs, TUNGOs and YOUNGOs are environment, trade union and youth NGOs

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-beginner-climate.html#jCp

BINGOs: Business and industry non-governmental organisations. ENGOs, TUNGOs and YOUNGOs are environment, trade union and youth NGOs

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-beginner-climate.html#jCp

BINGOs: Business and industry non-governmental organisations. ENGOs, TUNGOs and YOUNGOs are environment, trade union and youth NGOs

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-beginner-climate.html#jCp

BINGOs: Business and industry non-governmental organisations. ENGOs, TUNGOs and YOUNGOs are environment, trade union and youth NGOs

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-beginner-climate.html#jCp

Grid Costs:

Leveling the Playing Field

I was pleased to see a new study from the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) comparing grid costs of different technologies.  I was pleased both because the issue is an important one, and because I used to work at the NEA, and I'm glad to see them tackling this subject.

The report, Nuclear Energy and Renewables: System Effects in Low-carbon Electricity Systems, addresses the way variable renewables and so-called dispatchable energy technologies (specifically coal, gas and nuclear) interact in terms of their effects on electricity systems.  The premise of the study is that all power generation technologies cause system effects.  In particular, since they are connected to the same grid and deliver power to the same market, they exert impacts on each other. For example, dispatchable technologies need to be brought in or cut out to balance variable input from renewables.

We have long known that, but this study quantifies the effect.  The study examines the case for six technologies: nuclear, coal, gas, onshore wind, offshore wind, and solar.  It finds that the dispatchable technologies have system costs of less than $3 per MWh, while the system costs for renewables can reach up to $40 per MWh for onshore wind, $45 per MWh for offshore wind and $80 per MWh for solar. Currently, these costs are usually not acknowledged.  Rather, they are are absorbed by consumers through high network charges and by the producers of dispatchable energy through reduced margins and lower load factors.

The report recommends that system costs be made transparent in order to ensure that they are fully considered in future electricity planning.  The value of dispatchable low-carbon technologies in complementing the introduction of variable renewables needs to be recognized, and measures are needed to ensure that nuclear power and any other low-carbon dispatchable technology remains economically viable.  (No other such technologies are included in the study, but presumably, hydropower would be another such source.)  The study also recommends the development of load-following capabilities and other options to improve the flexibility of low-carbon dispatchable technologies in the future.

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