Climate Change

Climate Change is a conversational subject even though proponents who believe that man is the primary cause of Climate Change will often claim that the science is settled and there is no need for further debate on the subject. If we change the phrase climate change to environment change I believe most will admit that even before man became a factor on earth the environment went through change cycles that included normal swings between warmer and colder conditions. So perhaps man’s activities may not play as an important role in climate change as some have proposed. And as always, I believe we should be wary of those who claim the science is settled. Otherwise we may not be able to expand our knowledge and may miss a new concept that would be better in controlling climate than was previously thought possible.

The concept that man is capable of controlling the climate or environment (making it better or worse) is a big part of the debate. Clearly man had nothing to do with the enormous environmental catastrophe that caused the disappearance of the dinosaurs or some of the previous ice ages. Perhaps our egos as the dominant animal on the planet may be given us more credit that we should get.  But for the purpose of this blog I will concede that man is causing climate change and he needs to fix it.

So before we fix it we need to determine what is wrong. Many are convinced that we are creating too much CO2 and it is affecting our protective atmosphere (weakening it). The result is that more of the sun’s energy can reach the earth and hence make the earth warmer. This can cause ice fields and glaciers in the North and South Poles to melt which can then cause the seas to rise and threaten the heavily inhabited coastlines of many countries. There are other cause and effect examples of climate change but this is one that is most often quoted as posing the greatest threat to mankind.

This is of course a global problem. So the globalists generally turn to global organizations for solutions such as the United Nations, The World Trade Organization, and special global groups like the Paris Climate Accord. The primary messages from the globalists are we must reduce carbon emissions. Carbon emissions come mainly from the burning of carbon fuels such as coal, oil, and gas.

For each of the proposed projects to reduce carbon emissions we must test them against two primary areas, economics and environmental. Economics are important because most of the recommendations to reduce carbon emission can be very costly and only countries that are economically strong (rich countries) can afford the fixes. Burning carbon intensive fuels is generally how (poor or developing) countries improve their economies. That is the reason the Paris Accord and other groups allow developing countries more time to reduce their carbon emissions. They want them first to become economical viable before they are required to reduce their carbon emissions.

So economics is both a global and local (individual countries) issue. For example when China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) it was classified as a developing nation. So China and India, two of the planet’s biggest carbon emitters are generally exempt from carbon goals until many years after the U.S. and Europe must meet them. This is the primary reason that the last U.S. administration dropped out of the Paris Climate Accord. When China entered the WTO they were not an emerging nation and today they certainly are not. Most consider them the largest economy in the world today.

By the way, even though the United States dropped out of the Paris Climate Accord, it has reduced its carbon emissions more that most of the European members of the Accord. That was due to the innovations in the American oil and gas industry when they developed Fracking a method of extracting gas from shale and other deposits. I will come back to that later.

It is worth comparing the carbon emission problem to another environmental problem, the existence of tons of floating plastic debris in the oceans. Global groups are all concerned about this problem.  So innovative entrepreneurial groups in the U.S. have launched programs to begin the clean-up. However it turns out that 90% of the plastic debris in the ocean comes from just ten rivers. Eight of the rivers are in Asia and two are in Africa! So unless those rivers which contribute the majority (90%) of the pollution are not cleaned up then no effort from the other 10% (including the U.S.) will solve the problem. This is the same problem with carbon emission. Even though the U.S. continues to reduce its emission, unless China and India do also, there will be no noticeable global improvement. So it makes no sense to join the Paris Climate Accord as long as the two major polluters get a pass.

So what are the globalists recommending to reduce carbon emissions? Well they recommend energy sources with little or zero carbon emission. This would include solar, wind, and nuclear. It could also include hydro but there are limitations on where that can be used.

Let’s compare fossil fuels to solar; we know that fossil fuels are efficient and that they drive the economies of the world. There are also some applications of fossil fuel that are difficult to replace, such as aviation. Although there are some experimental electric powered airplanes it is a giant leap to replace the aviation industry. However most of us are familiar with solar panels on homes so let’s look at that application. On the surface this looks like a good application. There are two problems, one is that it is still not competitive in cost with other forms of energy and must be subsidized by the government or solar manufacturers. The second is the obvious, that is, the sun does not always shine. To overcome the first, governments are willing to subsidize the home solar systems through various means, including tax breaks, grants, etc. However as solar becomes more popular, the continuation of subsidizes is questionable. The solution of the second problem is either to remain connected the utility company’s grid or to install back-up batteries to store excess energy to provide the electricity when the sun is not shining. This will add additional cost to the home solar system and adds the need for additional safety concerns since lithium batteries have a history of fire risks. There is one more factor that  most home owners are not aware of and that is that solar panels generate DC electricity and all household appliances and electronic equipment us AC electricity. So you need one more piece of equipment, an inverter. Inverters are called by various names but basically they convert DC to AC. The inverter is sometimes considered the weak link in the system and needs to be replaced in 10-15 years.

We have been talking about the economics of the home solar system. With subsidizes it is generally a good deal for the homeowner but perhaps not for the U.S. I am generally in agreement this is a good application for solar as a non-carbon emission solution. But what about the environmental issue. Seems like a no brainer until we ask how we get rid of solar panels that have reached the end of life (they all do).

Solar panels contain a lot of toxic materials, including rare earth elements. So you cannot take them to the dump or to recycle plants, or at least you should not be able to. Think about how many solar roofs there are now in the country. This is a huge environmental problem, not unlike what to do with nuclear waste when a plant is decommissioned. Unfortunately no one seems to have a solution for this problem. Governments and solar panel manufacturers need to get involved if solar is to become a long term sustainable option. By the way, when the solar panels reach the end of their life the homeowners will have to replace them (most likely without subsidizes).

I mentioned solar might be good for the home owner but not necessarily for the U.S. Why is that? Because Chinese manufacturers supply about 70% of the solar panels used in the U.S. Actually worldwide, China provides about 40% of all solar panels used. So from an economic standpoint this helps China and does not help jobs in the U.S.  Economically shifting to solar is definitely a win for China. But let’s take it a step up from residential. How does solar rate as a replacement for large generation units? For one thing it takes about 400 times the area needed for solar as compared to fossil and nuclear units. That is certainly not good for the environment. This means they must be placed a considerable distance from potential users. Recall that solar creates electricity in DC form and to be useful it needs to be converted to AC. Converting DC to AC at high voltages is a challenging task. In addition it will require right of ways to build transmission lines into the populated areas.  In addition large solar plants sometime use reflectors instead of solar panels. This concentrates the sun to a tower which boils water and then into steam which can be used to turn turbines. However these large fields of reflectors also kill many birds. So of the three choices of low carbon emitters (solar, wind, and nuclear) solar is the least desirable for large scale projects.

What about wind? Well wind has some environmental problems also; it does take more land than fossil plants and requires more transmission lines. In addition it represents noise pollution (the thump-thump of the rotating blades) as well as a danger to large birds (some on the endangered list). It can be moved off shore to generally minimize some of the environment issues but maintenance cost goes up. And as we learned in Massachusetts they cannot always get the permits required. And if permits can be obtained, in places like offshore in Louisiana the whole investment can be wiped out with a single hurricane.

Since wind turbines rotate you might think that wind generates AC power. It does but because of the variable wind speeds the cycles per second cannot be stabilized and must be converted to DC and then back to a stable AC. Thus it has all the same problems of high voltage DC transmission as does solar. But before we look at the third option, nuclear, let me point out one more problem that results from relying only on solar and wind to power the electric grid.

Presently all electric grids are powered primarily by fossil (and some nuclear and alternate energy) units. In order to keep the system stable and prevent blackouts they run lightly loaded fossil units called spinning reserves. As the name implies when a problem occurs on the system (loss of a major unit or transmission line) the spinning reserves pick up the lost load and most customers only see a slight dip and the grid stays connected. The only way solar and wind can match the concept of spinning reserves are with storage batteries.  This is a complicated situation and without excellent prior planning depending solely on solar and wind has the potential for more blackouts, not a good thing for customers, in particular manufacturers. Manufacturers will have to move to locations that have more stable electric grids, including offshore (foreign locations).

So what about the third option, nuclear? Before I comment on that I strongly suggest that you look up Michael Shellenberger. He was once an energy expert that supported the Obama administration plan for solar and wind. As he continued to study the solutions to climate change he gathered data from those countries that were supporting different approaches to reduce carbon emissions. He studied the successes and failures of each effort and made comparisons to each option. He gave a speech about his studies entitled why I changed my mind on nuclear. In that talk he pointed out that nuclear was cheaper than solar and wind. Not everyone agrees with him particular when he states that climate change is real but not the end of the world. But if you are seriously interested in climate change you need to make sure you include Shellenberger’s talks and books in your own research. I was never a big fan of nuclear but he has moved me in that direction as the best solution.

Before I wrap up this blog on climate change I need to address two more subjects. The first is how the whole worldwide push to lower carbon emissions has caused major automobile manufacturers to shift all or most of their production to electric vehicles. This will be a boon for the auto manufacturers but also the lithium battery manufacturers. The batteries make up 29% of the cost of EVs. While China represents two of the top three lithium battery manufacturers there are other players including the U.S. Certainly the car manufacturers are making great strides in performance of EVs. They have great hope the battery manufacturers can keep up. Inexpensive and safe batteries will lead the way for EVs and solar and wind. Which is probably why we see quantum glass batteries and other new entries suggesting investors get on board for the next revolution. But my real concern is whether the electric grids can keep paste with the race to convert cars to EVs. That leads me to my last point.

I would like to go back to my comment at the beginning of this blog. Recall I said “By the way, even though the United States dropped out of the Paris Climate Accord, it has reduced its carbon emissions more that most of the European members of the Accord. That was due to the innovations in the American oil and gas industry when they developed Fracking a method of extracting gas from shale and other deposits” It also raises the serious question as to why we do not use more natural gas during the transition from fossil fuels to solar, wind, and nuclear? It made us energy independent much to the determinant of Iran, Russia, and Middle East oil and gas producers. It also allowed us to be an exporter of natural gas through liquid natural gas (LNG) shipping termials. It was a boon for the U.S. economy as well as improved our national security.  It made our country stronger. It also allows us to maintain our electric grid system at a high operating level while transitioning to alternate fuels.

Unfortunately the new Biden administration does seem to have a transition plan that makes sense for the U.S. One of the first things he did was to cancel the XL pipeline. This had passed all environmental requirements and is definitely safer than transporting the Canadian oil by rail cars. In addition it instantly killed thousands of high paying jobs in the middle of a pandemic. Definitely hurts the U.S. economy.  But the worst thing is to stop Fracking which the Biden administration is doing (despite what he had said during the campaign that there would be a transition to gradually get off of fossil fuels). This is another big job killer for the U.S. and apparently we have  no transition plan.

So what would I recommend for the climate change plan for the U.S? I would go with Shellenberger and choose nuclear. Depending on the country it takes 5-10 years to build a nuclear plant. For those who say we do not have the time (world will end in 12 years?) then I say it if so urgent then stop the waivers for China and India and make them immediately stop being the two top carbon emitters in the world. I would use solar on buildings recognizing that the time will come when owners will bear most of the costs.  In coordination with our switch to nuclear I would then develop a plan to take off line our most inefficient power plants and replace them with efficient natural gas power plants. We know this will lower our emissions from our experience. But the most important result will be that the electric grid will remain capable of taking on all the new electric load from the EVs.

This plan could lead to a result that would show that the best mixture could be gas fired generation along with nuclear generation and a minor mix of solar and wind.

By the way, guess which country liked what Shellenberger said? China! They are building more nuclear plants than anyone else, more than their commitment to solar and wind.  You might say that is good because they are eliminating their coal plants. Well not exactly. If you are familiar with the Belt and Road Chinese initiative it represents a strategy of global economic integration involving some 70 countries. Using State Owned Entities (banks, engineering and construction firms) they finance developments in those counties including building power plants to help those countries with economic development. So when the U.S. or other Western countries shut down one of its coal plants, China builds a dozen in its place in the 70 countries they connect to with their road system. China is a world class power and they intend to keep that position. And they will continue to support coal fired generation, but not in their own country (remember the China Olympics when the air was so bad they were not sure they could run certain events.)

Yes I believe we should address climate change and I have offered a plan which includes a transition phase to switch to alternate energy sources while maintaining the viability of the electric grid by taking advantage of the use of natural gas. Maintaining our expertise in Fracking will also allow us to export this plan to other countries which will allow us to minimize carbon emissions  worldwide during the transition. We can be the leader in climate change.

But no climate change plan should be done at the economic expense of our country and its people. And our actions should not aid our primary competitor, China. The Biden Green Plan will aid China and hurt the U.S.

Will Lannes