Recently in Energy the nexus of everything Category
There is much anecdotal 'evidence' and stories of one water well or another getting contaminated soon after hydraulic fracturing commences in area. Actually, sometimes water quality has gotten better! A local water well driller and service provider noted some of the things he thought might be going on, and they made a lot of sense. Before the actual hydraulic fracturing process commences, the oil and gas companies fill up a man-made pond at the drill site that will hold the 4-8 million gallons of water typically needed for the fracturing. In the case of much of South Texas, and the Eagle Ford formation, the water comes from the local underground sources of drinking water. As explained at the Cuero town hall, the rate at which groundwater is being pumped into the holding ponds might be causing much or all of the impacts on local water wells.
Under normal conditions, water flows in a preferred direction in an aquifer, and relatively slowly at that. This slow flow rate and constant preferred direction settles out sediments and orients them against rock pore surfaces accordingly (like getting sediment build-up at a dam). If a water well begins extracting water at a high enough rate, it can cause pressure changes in the aquifer such that reversal of local water flow can occur. When this reversed flow occurs, it can dislodge sediments and minerals that will then move with the water flowing in a new direction. With these sediments now mixed with the aquifer water, they can sometimes be seen in individual water wells when before there were no sediments. Thus, it would be easy to conclude that hydraulic fracturing IS the cause of water well contamination, at least temporarily.
The reality is that the life cycle impacts of hydraulic fracturing can be larger than the specific process of fracturing itself. In some cases, which seems likely in DeWitt County, Texas (but more study and cataloging of data would be needed to know for sure), obtaining the fracturing water from local groundwater sources could be the major/only impact of any consequence. More than that, the rate of the well water pumping could be a major factor such that slower pump rates could prevent changes in aquifer flow and stirring of sediments.
While the folks at this town hall meeting are now much more informed, the same cannot be said for most local residents. The next step for the stakeholders could be (provided funding can be obtained) the collection of data on well water quality, timing for any changes in quality and water level, and timing of hydraulic fracturing activities to understand the likely relationships between fracturing, well water withdrawal rates, and local well water quality.
There is a new special journal issue of the online open-access journal Sustainability on the topic of net energy: New Studies in EROI (Energy Return on Investment). This has been organized over the last year by Charles Hall of the State University of New York. This special journal edition has many papers on new and updated assessments of EROI for oil and gas in the US, Canada and Norway. Additionally there are new papers discussing how to relate EROI to energy prices and costs as well as how different constructs for EROI measures (e.g. for a technology or a business) are useful for different decision making contexts.
I encourage all researchers and interested persons to view the papers in the special issue, as it is certainly a great contribution to the literature at a time when distinguishing among the most viable energy resources has never been more important.
This week at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 5th Annual Engineering Sustainability conference, as usual, there were many good presentations on various topics from concentrating solar power (CSP) to assessing wind farm design with multiple turbine sizes. One interesting presentation and paper was from Paul Denholm of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Paul's paper is entitled "Enabling technologies for high penetration of wind and solar energy." Here, high penetration means (wind and solar photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power with and without thermal storage systems).
As indicated by Paul, the limit of system flexibility in the grid will limit integration of renewable generation before pure capacity constraints will occur. This is because the renewable generation will begin to get curtailed before load mathematically exceeds the capacity on the grid due to the fact that the combination of dispatchable sources (hydropower, nuclear, coal, and the various natural gas prime movers) will run into difficult economic choices regarding staying on at minimum levels. That is to say, thermal generators, primarily nuclear and coal, are not inclined to turn completely off at some point during the day and then come back online during another part of the same day (or 24-hr period). There are physical reasons for this as making mechanical parts get hot and then cold too quickly can cause premature failures. This is not to say that engineers cannot design coal plants to ramp up and down more quickly with less wear and tear, but coal plants on the ground now are stuck with much of their design characteristics. And while coal plant operators indicate in person that those plants can ramp up and down very quickly (10s of MW per minute), the data on how much they can really do this on a continuing day-to-day basis is not available. It is also not clear how much industry even knows the answer to how much cycling a coal plant can handle. Nonetheless, Paul Denholm's calculations from his conference paper being to give us some insight into how existing grid flexibility has an influence on marginal grid prices as more renewables are integrated into the grid. Here he defines "flexibility" as the conventional thermal fleet's ability to ramp and rapidly follow load. For the most part grids with high capacities of hydropower and natural gas are more flexible than those with high capacity percentages of coal and nuclear. Paul discussed results of his running a unit-commitment dispatch model , a model that determines the most economic manner in which to run an electric grid fleet while considering operating costs as well as costs associated with turning on and off the generators. He compared the increased levelized cost of the total mix of renewable generation as a function of both the flexibility of the grid and the level of renewable integration. For example, if 50% of the grid energy is from wind and solar (PV and CSP) and the rest of the grid is "100% flexible", then the effective levelized cost of the renewables is only about 4% higher than if there were not costs of integration. However, at the same 50% integration level with an 80% flexible grid, the effective levlized cost of the renewables was found to be 50% higher. The increased cost comes from curtailment of renewable generation that occurs because thermal generators will choose to stay at a minimum level of operation even when uneconomic for them to do so at that specific time interval. That is to say the costs of turning off and turning back on are higher than the costs of operating below cost for a few hours.
Because much of the electric grid is "inflexible", this is an important area to consider for continued integration of renewables. Thus, this is one of the main reasons for consideration of storage technologies to reduce curtailment of wind and solar generation: renewables will be curtailed even before the total electrical demand becomes less than instantaneous renewable generation due to the inflexibility of the thermal power plants.
In the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, there is a relatively large quantity of natural gas generation with combined cycle systems dominating. Approximately 65% of ERCOT capacity is in natural gas-fired power plants with nearly 8% of total electricity now provided by wind power. While it is foreseeable that ERCOT could have 20% of total annual generation from wind power within 10 years (approximately a doubling of the current 9.5 GW of capacity is needed along with completion of existing plans for transmission lines), 30% total generation from wind and solar technologies seems further off without some new social or political drivers. However, ERCOT has already seen many hours of operation over the last couple of years during which wind generation accounted for over 20% of generation on the grid (mostly during times when low demand in spring and fall coincide with high seasonal winds during early morning hours). This is a time when the grid is technically less flexible (e.g. when the grid is more dominated by coal and nuclear generation than natural gas) but in which the spare natural gas capacity exists to come online if needed. Thus, because ERCOT has the luxury of a large capacity of natural gas combined cycle plants to meet summer peak loads, it is relatively easy to handle large wind penetrations during times of low loads. If there was a large quantity of wind power during times of high demand, then it could present new problems.
Denholm's analysis in his ASME paper was somewhat simplified in its procedure (e.g. neglected transmission constraints) to more readily explore the issues regarding high percentages of wind and solar integration) also indicates that we would likely not see much increase in the effective levelized cost of renewables on the grid at penetrations below 20% total generation. We do not have examples of over 20% wind and solar on a single grid or within a single ISO in North America, and ERCOT has not yet seen significant costs associated with grid inflexibility. However, ERCOT has seen significant increased in effective levelized cost of electricity from wind power due to curtailments from lack of transmission capacity. Given that the Public Utility Commission of Texas has already set in motion the building of new transmission lines to access wind power regions of Texas, it is anticipated that the wind-grid congestion issue will be resolved in a few years.
While Denholm's analysis is quite forward-looking into the future, it is still important to consider what the world of high penetration of renewables will really look like as much as we can understand with use of existing technologies and operational principles. This will help us anticipate concerns from both renewable and thermal (coal, NG, nuclear) power plant operators to properly distribute investment costs to consumers in as equitable and inexpensive manners as possible.
The USA Today is not known to provide the most in-depth analysis of US news, but a recent article I read while traveling caught my attention. The article discussed the 'high' gasoline prices of $4/gallon in the United States and the economic hardship caused by spending more money on energy. I will not discuss the many reasons, some beyond personal choice and some not, that relatively lower gasoline (or petrol) prices in the US cause economic difficulty versus different prices in the EU.
The interesting quote in the article was from a woman living in New Jersey that worked in Washington, DC. She commuted 230 miles (one way) twice a week for work, and now sold her Mercedes-Benz for a Nissan Versa compact car. The higher transportation costs clearly are imposing new priorities for her. This woman's quote was as follows:
"We're the victims of circumstance, but I don't necessarily understand what the circumstance is…"
This was actually quite a refreshing quote to me in that it signals that at least one American recognizes that she does not immediately need to singly blame the oil industry, the government, or even consumers like herself. It also presents some evidence of self-realization lacking in most Americans. The fact that she made a choice to a more fuel-efficient car for her long commute signifies that she realizes via her consumption patterns she is a large part of the solution. Demand for oil increases, largely now from Asian economies, and new oil production locations struggle to replace existing production declines but from lower quality and higher cost (lower net energy) resources. We need our government to level with the public that alternatives to conventional petroleum, including unconventional resources such as oil sands and oil shale (if it can ever produced economically in the US), all cost more.
The only way worldwide production will even struggle to stay level is to keep production costs near current levels. And it is these current levels of oil price near $100/BBL that are forcing the US economy to reconfigure itself. Part of this reconfiguration is for consumers to switch to lower-consuming lifestyles. Part of this reconfiguration is higher efficiency standards from the government. And yes, part of the solution is likely more offshore drilling, but not because it is likely to decrease gasoline prices, but because it will show the inability of US production to significantly impact oil price any longer. Even Energy Information Administration (EIA) projections estimate that significantly expanded US offshore oil production will impact gasoline prices on the order of single cents per gallon. This amount is in the noise of any meaningful impact. Most EIA and International Energy Agency (IEA) projections also are now estimating constant or slightly declining oil consumption in the US. Part of this consumption trend is due to demand destruction via price, and part is due to transitioning to other fuels such as electricity and ethanol. At the moment (and perhaps always), these non-fossil transportation alternatives are also more expensive than gasoline from $100/BBL oil.
Future choices by US consumers and governments from local to federal levels need to consider resilience to energy prices instead of only efficiency such that energy price impacts are mitigated rather than amplified.
Last week the UK Guardian reported on leaked documents from the United States Embassy in Saudi Arabia that indicate a former executive of Saudi Aramco (the national oil company) believes that the publicly stated oil reserves and possible production rates of Saudi Arabia are overly optimistic.
Access the UK Guardian news article here. Access their link to the documents here (bold added by me).
The source for the information sent in the US embassy cable was Dr Sadad al-Husseini who served as Executive Vice President for Exploration and Production from 1992 until his retirement in 2004. I repeat a couple of the important passages from this document here:
"3. (C) According to al-Husseini, the crux of the issue is twofold. First, it is possible that Saudi reserves are not as bountiful as sometimes described and the timeline for their production not as unrestrained as Aramco executives and energy optimists would like to portray. In a December 1 presentation at an Aramco Drilling Symposium, Abdallah al-Saif, current Aramco Senior Vice President for Exploration and Production, reported that Aramco has 716 billion barrels (bbls) of total reserves, of which 51% are recoverable. He then offered the promising forecast – based on historical trends – that in 20 years, Aramco will have over 900 billion barrels of total reserves, and future technology will allow for 70% recovery.
4. (C) Al-Husseini disagrees with this analysis, as he believes that Aramco's reserves are overstated by as much as 300 billion bbls of "speculative resources." He instead focuses on original proven reserves, oil that has already been produced or which is available for exploitation based on current technology. All parties estimate this amount to be approximately 360 billion bbls. In al-Husseini's view, once 50% depletion of original proven reserves has been reached and the 180 billion bbls threshold crossed, a slow but steady output decline will ensue and no amount of effort will be able to stop it. By al-Husseini's calculations, approximately 116 billion barrels of oil have been produced by Saudi Arabia, meaning only 64 billion barrels remain before reaching this crucial point of inflection. At 12 million b/d production, this inflection point will arrive in 14 years. Thus, while Aramco will likely be able to surpass 12 million b/d in the next decade, soon after reaching that threshold the company will have to expend maximum effort to simply fend off impending output declines. Al-Husseini believes that what will result is a plateau in total output that will last approximately 15 years, followed by decreasing output."
This embassy cable concludes with the following paragraph:
"8. (C) COMMENT: While al-Husseini believes that Saudi officials overstate capabilities in the interest of spurring foreign investment, he is also critical of international expectations. He stated that the IEA's expectation that Saudi Arabia and the Middle East will lead the market in reaching global output levels of more than 100 million barrels/day is unrealistic, and it is incumbent upon political leaders to begin understanding and preparing for this "inconvenient truth." Al-Husseini was clear to add that he does not view himself as part of the "peak oil camp," and does not agree with analysts such as Matthew Simmons. He considers himself optimistic about the future of energy, but pragmatic with regards to what resources are available and what level of production is possible. While he fundamentally contradicts the Aramco company line, al-Husseini is no doomsday theorist. His pedigree, experience and outlook demand that his predictions be thoughtfully considered. END COMMENT."
So basically al-Husseini is reported to be saying that Saudi Arabia may be able to produce 12 million barrels per day (MMBBL/d), but that it won't last for very long. Note that world oil production has been approximately 84-86 MMBBL/d for the last five years. Note also that Saudi Arabia produced an average of 9.8 MMBBL/d in 2009 and a peak (to date) of 11.1 MMBBL/D in 2005.
Al-Husseini is suggesting that Saudi Arabia may be able to keep production near the range of 12 MMBBL/d for nearly 15 years (should it reach that level within this decade), but that after that time frame the total oil output will begin to decline never again to reach as high of a level of oil production. And in saying this, al-Husseini (see 8. (C) above) is also suggesting that his is not part of the "peak oil camp" (for finding out what the peak oil camp is about – see http:\\www.theoildrum.com), but it is unclear from the cable what he means other than suggesting not to agree with analyses by the late Matthew Simmons, and probably Mr. Simmons' analysis as portrayed in his book Twilight in the Desert. In his book Simmons describes how the Saudis are fighting the uphill battle of depletion of their oil fields and that they are already using very clever and sophisticated engineering to maintain the current production rates. I don't consider Simmons' analyses a knock on the Saudis capabilities, but rather acknowledgment that they are employing many of the latest techniques and doing a very capable job. In short, Simmons says that the Saudis cannot keep increasing world oil production, and al-Husseini is broadly saying the same thing.
Given the impending reality of peak oil production in both the world overall and Saudi Arabia, the rulers know that the oil wealth is not to be squandered and that leaving some oil in the ground is as good of a strategy as any. This statement is supported by another leaked document here, with the relevant excerpt:
"Quoting King Abdullah's recent comments (ref B) that Saudi Arabia would cap production capacity at 12.5 million bpd and "leave crude in the ground for its children", Bourland remarked, "There are more accidents, there are escalating costs (in the oil sector). I think the King is reaching the conclusion that the money is safer in the ground than in the bank. He doesn't want to see it squandered."
My view of peak oil is not that there will be a particular shape of the oil production curve over time (meaning oil production vs. time), but that it will indeed reach a point where production rates will stop increasing and begin decreasing. That is to say the slope of the curve on the oil production decline may not be an exact mirror image of the production curve of the oil production increase of the last 100 years. This curve is commonly approximated as a bell curve, and there are laws of statistics that say this is a reasonable approximation given the large number of oil fields in the world. However, this curve is best applied to regions with rather open and capitalistic markets. Upon the peak occurring, should oil production become more of a geopolitical tool instead of primarily a market tool, the world oil production decline could be steep (leading to much instability) or perhaps rather gradual as long as possible (trying to maintain maximum stability) if production is held back today and in the near future to keep it relatively high in the longer future.
Peak world crude oil production has already occurred (see US data at the Energy Information Administration), and peak total oil production will follow. This is realized clearly by those how pay attention and study the statistics. Because globalization is literally powered and enabled by oil, and relatively cheap oil (< $100/BBL), the impending decline in oil production signals the impending decline in globalized trade and travel. There will not be an abrupt end to globalized trade any time soon by any means, but upon peak oil production becoming realized in the mainstream of business, there will be a significant reshuffling of priorities in terms of what goods do get shipped around the world. But for more on this topic, you can read Jeff Rubin's book, Why Your World is about to get a Whole Lot Smaller, and one of his last reports while Chief Economist at CIBC, also summarized on The Oildrum.
During the annual State of Union address on January 25, 2011, United States' President Barack Obama spoke briefly about energy policy and a future energy transition. I will focus on a short excerpt of the speech here:
State of the Union: "We need to get behind this innovation. And to help pay for it, I'm asking Congress to eliminate the billions in taxpayer dollars we currently give to oil companies. (Applause.) I don't know if -- I don't know if you've noticed, but they're doing just fine on their own. (Laughter.) So instead of subsidizing yesterday's energy, let's invest in tomorrow's.
Now, clean energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they're selling. So tonight, I challenge you to join me in setting a new goal: By 2035, 80 percent of America's electricity will come from clean energy sources. (Applause.)
Some folks want wind and solar. Others want nuclear, clean coal and natural gas. To meet this goal, we will need them all -- and I urge Democrats and Republicans to work together to make it happen. (Applause.)"
First the President is calling for elimination of subsidies to oil companies. Some of these subsidies include decreased royalties and depreciation rules that are not too dissimilar to non-oil energy generation projects. The point of the excerpt I will briefly focus on here is the President's challenge to generate 80% of US electricity from "clean energy" sources by 2035. The President then defines these clean energy sources where the only one not in commercial production is "clean coal" which we can assume is discussing the capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants.
Image via Wikipedia
If you see the effect of recession on electricity consumption, you see that it was effective at decreasing the use of coal-fired electricity as in 2008 coal power amounted to 1,986 TWh (1 TWh is one billion kWh) of electricity versus 1,764 TWh in 2009. The total electricity generation in the US was 4,119 TWh and 3,953 TWh in 2008 and 2009, respectively. Increasing percentages of alternatives can come from decreased, or conserved, generation of total electricity as well as switches in use of technology. Of course the decrease in electricity generation and consumption is broadly associated with no or less economic growth, something most people don't see as a solution.
Thus, the President's goal (at least as discussed in the State of the Union) for clean energy was relatively narrow in that it focused on electricity and not energy sources in general. He did mention biofuels and reducing imported oil but gave no new specifics in the speech. His statements on clean electricity can broadly be interpreted as promoting carbon capture and sequestration technologies. This is not a large difference from what was already happening through funding and research projects supported by the US Department of Energy. Targeting 2035 provides plenty of time to develop technology over the next 10-15 years while then retrofitting existing and building new coal-fired power plants that capture carbon dioxide from 2020-2035.
So the President's speech was inspiring for clean energy advocates and coal purveyors. Not so inspiring for oil companies, but perhaps provides them direction to focus more on natural gas than oil in the US. This is not too hard given the increasing plays for natural gas from shale that the large companies (e.g. ExxonMobil acquisition of XTO, a company with assets in shale natural gas) are already moving on. In all, the discussion of a move to 'clean energy' was primarily stating what is already being done.
In an earlier blog post ("The Algebra of Algae…to Biodiesel") I discussed if the US was to reduce its CO2 emissions to 17% of those in 2005 (mimicking the 'popular' climate legislation from two years ago in 2009), then the US could produce 50 billion gallons of biodiesel from an algae feedstock. Aside from later being told that titling the blog "Algaebra" would have been much better (what I agreed with at the time), I have now discovered that the web is littered with discussions of brassieres made of algae. I'm glad I used my previous title!
But I digress, the caveat for my previous blog on algae biodiesel was is that to meet the CO2 emissions limits there could be no other source of CO2 emissions other than the power plants that would be capturing CO2 and piping that CO2 to the algae farms. There is also the possibility of using CO2 directly from the atmosphere to grow algae, but most algae-facility designs assume a source of concentrated CO2 to grow the algae feedstock. Clearly we need to understand the limitations of using ambient air, and the inherent CO2 in the air, versus supplemental CO2 from anthropogenic sources.
Over the last year a student (Colin Beal) at the University of Texas, Austin, has been characterizing the experimental set-up at the Center for Electromechanics for testing an algae to bio-oil process. The process stops short of converting the bio-oil into biodiesel, and he presented the results at a recent conference: Beal, Colin M., Hebner, Robert E., Webber, Michael E., Ruoff, Rodney S., and Seibert, A. Frank. THE ENERGY RETURN ON INVESTMENT FOR ALGAL BIOCRUDE: RESULTS FOR A RESEARCH PRODUCTION FACILITY, Proceedings of the ASME 2010 International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition IMECE2010 November 12–18, 2010, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, IMECE2010-38244.
Colin counted the direct (electricity primarily) and indirect energy (nutrients, water, CO2, etc) inputs into the process along with the energy content of two outputs: the biomass of the algae itself and the bio-oil extracted from the algae. He did not count the energy embodied in any capital infrastructure. What he found for this experimental, and very batch process was that the EROI of the experimental process was approximately 0.001.
This experimental EROI value for energy from algae must be kept in perspective of the stage of development of the entire technology and process of inventing new energy sources and pathways. It is important that we understand how to interpret findings "from the lab" into real-world or industrial-scale processes. To anticipate the future EROI of an algae to biofuel process, Colin performed two extra analyses to anticipate what might be possible if anticipated advances in technology and processing occur: a Reduced Case and Literature Model calculation.
The Reduced Case presents speculated energy consumption values for the operation of a similar production pathway at commercial scale. Many energy inputs are simply not needed or would be much smaller in a continuous flow process. The Literature Model provides an estimate for the EROI of algal biocrude based on data that has been reported in the literature. In this way the Reduced Case is grounded on one side by the sub-optimal experimental data and on the other side by the Literature Model, which is largely comprised of theoretical data (particularly for biomass and lipids production from optimal algae).
What Colin discovered was that the EROI of the Reduced Case and Literature Model were 0.13 and 0.57, respectively. This shows that we have much to learn for the potential of making viable liquid fuels. Additionally, Colin's calculations for the experimental set-up (and Reduced Case analysis) show that 97% of the energy output resides in the biomass, not the bio-oil. For his idealized Literature Model, 82% of the energy output was in the biomass.
While these results seem discouraging, we do not have much ability to put these results into context of the rate of development of other alternative technologies and biofuels. How long did it take to get photovoltaic panels with EROI > 1 from the first working prototype in a lab? We have somewhat of an idea that it took one or two decades for the Brazilians to get reasonable EROI > 1 from using sugar cane for biomass and biofuel production (Brazilian sugar cane grown and processed in Sao Paulo is estimated near EROI = 8).
I believe we need to strive to quantify EROI for new technologies even they are still in the laboratory stage. Perhaps some very early technologies and processes are even too early for estimating or measuring EROI, but algae biofuels are clearly in the mainstream of research given the $500 m investment by Exxon-Mobil into genomics firms searching for the ideal strains of algae. These ideal strains of algae might simply excrete hydrogen, ethanol or lipids such that all of the capital infrastructure and direct energy requirements assumed for collecting algae and extracting the lipids even in Colin's Literature Model can be largely unnecessary. Let's hope others join in in trying to assess the EROI of their experimental and anticipated commercial processes for alternative energy technologies.
A recent story in the domain of the water-energy nexus caught my eye. The story describes the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in New Jersey will be shutting down in 2019, 10 years earlier than planned, because it otherwise would have had to install cooling towers as a retrofit to the power plant. Environmental groups seem mostly behind the decision, but the Sierra Club is an example of one group that is far from satisfied. From the website of Exelon, the power plant owner, "Oyster Creek began operating in December 1969 as the first large-scale commercial nuclear power plant in the United States. Its single boiling water reactor produces 645 net megawatts (MW), enough electricity to power 600,000 average American homes."
The reason for the decision to shut down the plant instead of retrofitting it with cooling towers stems from an US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule. This rule calls for existing power plants that use "once-through" or open-loop cooling to cease using that design in replacement of wet cooling towers that withdraw less water. The reason this rule exists is that that once-through and open-loop cooling systems withdraw high flow rates of water (up to tens of thousands of liters per kWh) into the power plant to cool the steam cycle, and then discharge that water, now heated, back to the water source. Cooling tower systems withdraw much less 1-5 liters per kWh. In the case of Oyster Creek the water source is Barnegat Bay seawater, and the plant has been blamed for depletion of much of the marine life of the bay.
This EPA ruling that demands conversion of cooling systems from once-through to cooling towers is meant to mitigate impacts upon marine life from sucking in marine animals into the water intake, impinging larger animals onto filter screens, and discharging warm water that disrupts the ecosystem's normal temperature balance. The drawbacks to this retrofitting are increased capital costs, slightly less net power output, and higher water consumption. Cooling towers are generally not used with intake of seawater because the cooling mechanism is via evaporation of the water. Thus, after the water evaporates, salt and other minerals deposit onto the cooling fins of the cooling tower creating a maintenance issue. The costs of chemicals and maintenance are generally not worth using cooling towers with seawater, although the use of cooling towers with freshwater is very common.
It is not clear if the 10-year early close down of Oyster Creek nuclear station is the beginning of a trend or one of a few to be highly affected by the cooling tower ruling. Given that Oyster Creek was the first large nuclear power plant in the US, it perhaps was destined to be one of the first to be retired. Any power plant using once-through cooling with seawater and that is planning on operating more than 5 more years will have a difficult decision to make. For power plants using seawater for cooling, I think it is likely that cooling tower retrofits will benefit the environment via less impacts on marine environments and lower profits (and/or higher electricity costs) of the power plant operator passing on to consumers to lower electricity consumption. Conversions of once-through to cooling tower on rivers and freshwater lakes will have lower economic impacts and the higher water consumption will affect water flows downstream. Thus, the environmental benefits are less clear, but lean toward more beneficial.
Unbeknown to most lay people and many energy insiders, Iran has more going on in the energy industry than nuclear controversy. Given the global location of Iran provides it with some of the world's highest solar insolation, there is actually solar research occurring. Much of the research involved concentrating solar-power technologies and the Iranian scientists were working to ensure that Iran had the domestic expertise to design and install solar CSP systems.
To support much of this solar research, Iran has a government-sponsored Renewable Energy Organization of Iran (SUNA) that is part of the Ministry of Energy. The objective of this organization is to develop applications for renewable energy. The staff includes 300 persons with 150 of those engineers and scientists. The budget is approximately $60 m. Iran even has a feed-in tariff for wind and biomass energy of approximately 13 cents/kWh. Additionally, Iran has a renewable-portfolio standard to meet 10% of its electricity from non-hydro renewable-electricity technologies.
I had the privilege of learning of some of these details while joining a workshop this November between Iranian and US energy and solar-energy scientists and engineers. Joining the Iranians was the head of their National Academy. This workshop was arranged by the US State Department with assistance of the US National Academies. As the US and Iranian governments are officially not on speaking terms, it is nice to know that some parts of the governments are finding ways to keep some communication channels open. Sharing ideas on solar- and renewable-energy technologies may help us find a way to share ideas and shed light on renewing cordial relations. Kudos to the US State Department for finding ways to have international relations using science.
Recently I had a new article published in Environmental Research Letters, the journal associated with environmentalresearchweb. The title of the letter is "Energy intensity ratios as net energy measures of United States energy production and expenditures". In this letter I explore the Energy Intensity Ratio (EIR) as a proxy measure for energy return on energy invested (EROI). In calculating the EIR by dividing the energy intensity of a fuel (Btu/$) by the energy intensity (total energy consumption/GDP) of the overall US economy, I can track the relative cost of energy over time. In this way, the price of energy is scaled to the energy efficiency of the economy. Essentially, high EIR values mean that energy is cheap and is not constraining the economy. Low EIR values mean that energy is expensive, and if the value becomes low enough, can constrain economic growth because too much economic activity is spent obtaining and purchasing energy instead of other activities.
A major benefit of this EIR approach is that it uses readily available data: energy prices, energy consumption totals, and gross domestic product (although GNP would also provide additional insight). Thus, this method connects economists (who believe in an efficient market that price includes all information) and those of the energy analysis community that work to calculate EROI from core energy and materials data. The analysis shows that EIR is an effective proxy measure for EROI as they follow the same trends over time.
Often people interpret the steady decline of the economy's energy intensity as an indicator that the economy is becoming more decoupled from energy consumption. However, as my paper shows, this is a misleading view. What matters more is whether or not obtaining energy also takes less energy inputs over time. As seen in the figure, during the 1970s the EIRs for oil, natural gas, and coal all dropped for over a decade (due to the Arab Oil Embargos raising oil prices) that economic growth was negative for 38 out of 96 months (40% of the time) from November 1973 to November 1982 (also see www.nber.org/cycles/cyclesmain.html). It took a decade for the US to effectively break from the stagnant economy by investing in energy efficiency (vehicle fuel standards, appliance efficiency, etc), new energy resources and technologies (Western subbituminous coal, enhanced oil recovery), and largely removing oil from electricity generation.
A parallel scenario exists for the last ten years in that again the EIRs of coal, natural gas, and oil all dropped significantly to the levels not seen since the early 1980s. And also, at the end of this drop in energy quality was a prolonged economic recession (18 months from December 2007 to June 2009) from which the economy has not fully recovered. US unemployment has been above 9.5% for an unprecedented amount of time since the Great Depression.
Image: http://environmentalresearchweb.org/blog/assets_c/2010/11/EIRPlot_RecessionMatching-1828.html
The conclusion from this analysis is that three decades after the oil crises of the 1970s, today we are essentially at the same point we were with respect to EROI and EIR as in 1980. In other words, for all of our technological advances in the last three decades – including computers, information technology, horizontal drilling and unconventional oil and gas development, and energy efficient appliances – we are just treading water with respect to energy quality. The US economy broke free from the energy chains of the 1970s by using energy more efficiently, and that will be the key to new economic growth. Unfortunately, these efficiency investments can take another decade to pay off. Although not widely cited as the reason by most economists and "experts" on news shows, low EIR and EROI energy supplies are the major reason why economists do not see near term economic growth being as large as in the past.
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