In this posting, I am reviving earlier discussion of climate, global warming, and whether there is anything we might do about it. The focus is on coal and natural gas, and possible alternatives in our energy future, with implications for the exercise of democracy.
Both the US and Australia are very dependent on fossil fuels, notably coal and natural gas, for the production of electrical energy. As more vehicles become powered by electricity, the transport system (private cars, public transport, trains, trucking) will shift from its current petroleum base to electricity. Conceivably, during the day and especially at night, millions of vehicles will be plugged into the electrical grid for recharging. Unless this new load is balanced by a reduction in other areas of demand, such as lighting, heating and air conditioning, and the use of electronic devices, this will result in a rising demand for electrical power.
It will be many years before substantial power will come from 'soft' or renewable energy from wind, solar, waves and tides. A difficulty with such sources is that they are not constant. The wind does not always blow, for instance, and the sun goes down at night. The times when demand for electrical energy increases may not coincide with output from soft energy sources. Also, when this output is in excess of demand, it is difficult to store. In an electrical system generation and load must always be in an exact balance. This can achieved relatively easily when the generation is controllable. The increasing use of smart grids will add control to the demand side. A significant problem with soft energy generation is finding ways to store excess power as when generation exceeds load.
Several factors make coal king: It has very low cost (ignoring health health and environmental costs), it can guarantee a constant base supply, and it is relatively easy to light up a furnace to bring on extra power. In fact, the ability to respond reliably to peak demand puts a premium price on a power station's output and leads to a strong profit bottom line. Natural gas has some advantage over coal in that new power generation based on this fuel are cheaper and quicker to build, run cleaner in terms of nasty emissions, and can come on faster to meet peak loads. However, natural gas is more limited both in terms of supply and in long term reserves.
In a world with constantly increasing energy demand, emerging economies like China and India will likely look to coal. I have read that China is building coal-fired power stations at the rate of one per week. In the US, one per cent of atmospheric contaminants arrive from China.
The big problem with electrical power from fossil fuels is that loading our atmosphere with billions of tons of carbon dioxide each year may be accelerating global warming and perhaps will bring us to a "tipping point' beyond which no action of ours can claw us back. If we weigh the various cost-benefit ratios that arise from the often murky debate about global warming and its possible effects, the sensible choice must be to develop alternate energy bases in order to avoid global disasters. This would involve reducing and perhaps eventually replacing fossil fuels.
Is it time to dethrone King Coal? Kings have been overthrown in the past. But how?
Two clean-fuel possibilities that might replace coal are geothermal and nuclear. As to the first, not too far below the earth's surface are hot rocks that can be fractured to allow the passage of water from one point to another. Drilling down to these rocks uses technology developed in the oil and natural gas industries. Steam generated in this way can drive turbines to produce electrical power, as is the case at many places around the world.
Nuclear power generation is more controversial. How controversial depends on where one lives. Not very in France, a net exporter of electrical power to the rest of Europe, where nearly 75% of electricity is produced at nuclear plants. Very controversial in Australia, which is odd as this country has 30% of uranium ore reserves and Canada which has 40%. Especially odd when one considers that the Land Down-under is more dependent on coal, and has lots and lots of it, than the US. Somewhat controversial in the US, where there are some 59 nuclear power stations (about the same number as in France).
But what about Three Mile Island and Chernoble? The actual risk is very low compared with the tens of thousands who die or are made sick through coal station emissions. We humans are strange around risk. For instance, we do not hesitate to drive to the airport while thinking about possible plane crashes, despite that the former is thousands of times more dangerous. About 115 people die on the roads each day in the US, including some 30,000 teenage drivers each year.
James Hansen, in his book 'Storms of My Grandchildren', points out that modern fourth generation 'fast' nuclear reactors are a hundred times more efficient that older types, produce waste that is far less toxic and which lasts only two hundred years (compared with thousands of years), and is readily vitrified for safe storage. Moreover, such reactors can 'burn' all the toxic materials produced by older designs. With such reactors, there is fuel for a thousand years and possibly ten times longer longer.
These reactors can be built in the very near future. A project reactor was ready for assembly in the US but was 'axed' for political reasons by the Clinton administration in 1994. It is an interesting conundrum, is it not, that we are more afraid of the nuclear bugaboo than we are of possible termination of life on the planet, or at the very least, civilization as we know it through needless carbon emissions?
It is strange that so-called 'environmental' groups are the most politically and influential in the 'battle against nuclear'!
No political debate preceded adoption of coal and oil as the energy foundation of our present age. These were imposed on us by the captains of the industrial revolution and have occasioned much suffering and afflictions ever since. How different things could be now. Through the Internet, we can all follow scientific discussion and contribute to political debate. Or we can 'fiddle', as did those three in the old rhyme...
"...
Every fiddler had a fiddle, and a very fine fiddle had he,
Oh there is none so rare as can compare
With King Coal, and his fiddlers three!"
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