Energy Independent By 2050?

This week's Scientific American has an interesting proposal to end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash our greenhouse emissions by 2050. In "A Solar Grand Plan," a trio of scientists in the energy field put forth a plan to build massive solar installations in the deserts of the southwestern U.S. and route electricity to the rest of the country via a new direct-current transmission backbone.

It's an interesting idea. The authors project that the plan would require about $420 billion in governmental subsidies between now and 2020. That sounds like a lot, but it really isn't--it's less than we'll spend on the Iraq war, and it's less than one year's worth of agricultural subsidies in the U.S. The money could be raised by a modest carbon tax paid over a number of years.

The plan may be pie in the sky. Many energy plans we read about are. What we like about this particular one is that it would practically replace all foreign oil imports over a time frame that is probably reasonable, and it would do so without impacting our food chain--in contrast to the pie in the sky biofuel proposals out there--while also vastly reducing our output of greenhouse gases.

It would be nice to hear some of the folks running for President discuss something like this, but they, of course, are so busy pandering to Iowa farmers and various other existing energy interests that it will never happen.

Mayor Bloomberg: perhaps this is an issue for you to get on board.

Ethanol Bush

It's a sure sign of the lameness of our national energy policy that all President Bush can come up with to show his concern for our "addiction to oil" and global climate change is photo op after photo op to tout ethanol.

Yesterday, the Prez schmoozed it up with the CEO's of Detroit's Big Three to tout their contributions to increased ethanol use.

GM in particular, had nothing much to offer: a flex-fuel Impala. How advanced! A car that guzzles ethanol instead of gasoline. That's really not going to help much. (Flex-fuel vehicles can run on a blend of ethanol and gas that is 85% ethanol, as opposed to most of today's vehicles that are limited to a blend containing no more than 10% ethanol.) GM is like a big brontosaurus, lazily chewing the tops of trees while a giant asteroid blazes its way into the upper atmosphere.

Chrysler didn't do much better, showing off a biodiesel Jeep SUV. Biodiesel's a little better than corn-based ethanol, but really, are we going to achieve anything with large SUV's guzzling plant material?

Ford, at least, had something different to display: a hydrogen-electric Ford Edge. Can Ford get these into its showrooms anytime soon? Who knows.

If we want to combine energy independence with lower carbon emissions, then a combination of electric/ethanol technology has great promise. Cars powered largely by plug-in batteries with small back-up motors running on ethanol could get over 100 miles per gallon of ethanol, making it fairly easy for us to vastly reduce our dependence on foreign oil without running up the price of corn and other food sources diverted into fuel production.

While we may achieve energy independence, we doubt we'll be buying the autos of the future from Detroit.

We Like Your Plan, Mayor Fitch!

The Mayor of Warrenton, a town of maybe 10,000 nestled in the foothills of western Virginia, has a plan to make his burg energy independent and virtually carbon neutral. (See Washington Post story here.)

George Fitch, the Mayor, wants to build a $30 million plant at the county dump to convert waste into electricity and ethanol. And, he thinks he can do it without raising taxes or taking on debt.

We sure hope he succeeds. What a fabulous precedent that would set for other communities across the nation!

Fitch and his allies in Warrenton are not exactly pie-in-the-sky liberals. (According to one of Fitch's fellow town council members, they aren't "environmentalists" because that would be "somebody who wears Birkenstocks and carries a knapsack and too-long hair and spends his free time working for the Sierra Club." Guess the Curmudgeon's not an environmentalist either--phew!)

Instead, they offer up the possibility of a mainstream conservative vision of energy conservation, independence and environmental stewardship. (This is quite a contrast to the complete lack of vision espoused by hard-right conservative Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina, in an insipid op-ed piece in the Post a couple weeks ago, about which we've already commented.)

What Fitch recognizes is that turning garbage into energy simply makes eminent sense as an example of good government. If adopted as a widespread model, it also makes everyone more secure both by reducing reliance on imported oil and by widely distributing electric production facilities (which makes the grid less vulnerable to terrorism).

We just hope Fitch's vision doesn't cause Warrenton to be overrun by long-haired Birkenstock-clad backpackers in Prius's covered with Sierra Club stickers.

Don't Conflate Energy Independence With Climate Change Policy

Now that the House Democrats have finished their largely symbolic first 100 hours agenda, Speaker Nancy Pelosi says one of the next key issues is "energy independence." According to Pelosi, "climate change is part of energy independence."

Wrong.

The converse might well be true, however: energy independence could well be a by-product of aggressive policies to reduce carbon emissions as a means of addressing global warming.

Here's the problem. "Energy independence" is a set of policies designed to wean America from its ever-growing dependence on foreign oil, and, to a lesser extent, imported natural gas. The goal of achieving energy independence is to enhance our national security, primarily by avoiding entanglements with the unstable and sometimes unsavory governments that control much of our foreign oil.

If we really want energy independence, we can pretty easily get it, albeit at a cost. The U.S. has ample coal reserves that can be tapped for generating electricity and transforming into liquid fuel. Likewise, U.S. corn production can increasingly be diverted into distillation of ethanol to run automobiles. We can also choose to open up drilling in environmentally sensitive areas of the Arctic and boost incentives to develop shale oil in the Rockies. We can also boost nuclear power. And, of course, we can expand our use of renewable energy sources, such as wind, solar and geothermal.

All these steps could reduce our use of foreign oil, which we use primarily because it is CHEAP compared to these other options.

Now, let's turn to global warming. If we want to reduce carbon emissions, we won't tap our vast coal reserves. Indeed, the first step we'd want to take is to replace coal-fired electric plants with almost anything else, since coal is the biggest carbon emitter of the major fuels. Similarly, we wouldn't want to open up vast new oil fields in Alaska or off our coasts since oil, too, is a major carbon emitter.

Ethanol production from corn is a closer question, but most scientists who've looked into it have concluded that corn-based ethanol is, at best, only slightly better from a carbon perspective than gasoline derived from oil. It might even be a bit worse.

Instead, we would concentrate our efforts on renewable fuels that are low in carbon emissions. Wind and solar energy are great--the only carbon emissions are those caused by the manufacture and construction of their components, which is relatively small. Wind, especially, is a great source of electricity and is already competitive with carbon fuels such as oil. Solar is more expensive, but spurring its widespread use with subsidies will help the industry produce next generation solar panels that are more efficient.

Neither wind nor solar, however, can be counted on for round the clock electricity generation, and large scale storage is not likely to be very economical or environmentally friendly. Accordingly, we need to also invest in new nuclear plants, which are as carbon friendly as wind. Those "environmentalists" who oppose all nuclear of any kind are unreasonable, and, in the end, making a huge negative environmental trade-off based more on fear than fact.

On the automotive front, we need to encourage development of cellulose based biofuels from plants such as switchgrass and cornstalks, and move away from corn-based ethanol. Cellulose biofuels should be 5-10 times more carbon friendly than corn. But that's just for the short run. In the long run, we need to move rapidly toward replacement of our existing automotive fleet with cars that are primarily electric--hybrids with an additional battery, which can achieve 70 mpg (of gasoline or biofuel).

Ultimately, we need to move to a hydrogen fuel cell fleet, a feat that is more difficult than most people think. One problem: today, most hydrogen in the U.S. is produced from natural gas, and thus emits carbon. Hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis of water, but that requires a lot of electricity. One solution--next generation nuclear electric plants, which operate at such high temperatures they can produce both electricity and hydrogen.

Eliminating oil and natural gas for home heating is also quite a challenge.

Of course, since virtually all our imported energy is in the form of oil and natural gas, switching to lower carbon sources of energy will have, as a side effect, promotion of energy independence.

Accordingly, Democrats should concentrate their policy changes on those that promote reduced carbon emissions. "Energy independence" as a goal unto itself will not do much to address global warming--indeed, it could make matters worse if we rely increasingly on our abundant coal.

Unfortunately, for political reasons--wanting to look strong on national defense, catering to farm belt corn interests, etc.--Democrats will probably continue to wrap themselves in the rhetoric of energy independence. Let's just hope they funnel the money to the more promising carbon neutral technologies.