"We Need to Do Everything Possible to Promote Alternative Energy."
Not exactly. It's certainly clear that fossil fuels are mangling the climate and that the status quo is unsustainable. There is now a broad scientific consensus that the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than 25 percent by 2020 -- and more than 80 percent by 2050. Even if the planet didn't depend on it, breaking our addictions to oil and coal would also reduce global reliance on petrothugs and vulnerability to energy-price spikes.
But though the world should do everything sensible to promote alternative energy, there's no point trying to do everything possible. There are financial, political, and technical pressures as well as time constraints that will force tough choices; solutions will need to achieve the biggest emissions reductions for the least money in the shortest time. Hydrogen cars, cold fusion, and other speculative technologies might sound cool, but they could divert valuable resources from ideas that are already achievable and cost-effective. It's nice that someone managed to run his car on liposuction leftovers, but that doesn't mean he needs to be subsidized.
Reasonable people can disagree whether governments should try to pick energy winners and losers. But why not at least agree that governments shouldn't pick losers to be winners? Unfortunately, that's exactly what is happening. The world is rushing to promote alternative fuel sources that will actually accelerate global warming, not to mention an alternative power source that could cripple efforts to stop global warming.
We can still choose a truly alternative path. But we'd better hurry.
Michael Grunwald, a senior correspondent at Time magazine, is an award-winning environmental journalist and author of The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise.
Mr. Gunwald has confused theory with the real world. In the real world, biodiesel reduced carbon emission in the US last year equivalent to removing 980,000 vehicles from the road. In the real world, biodiesel has the potential to displace 25% of the diesel fuel imported from the Middle East. And we can produce these volumes of domestic, renewable fuel without the land use concerns highlighted in this article. These indirect land use effects are the theory. We need to be very careful not to trash a real world working solution for theories that have yet to prove accruate. In the real world, soybean acreage in Brazil actually decreased between 2004 and 2009, at the very height of U.S. biodiesel growth. Grunwald has repeatedly used Timothy Searchinger’s work as a primary source in the theoretical claim that U.S. biofuels are to blame for planting decisions made by farmers worldwide. Experts at the Department of Energy have characterized Searchinger’s study as “plagued by incorrect or unrealistic assumptions, and obsolete data.” Conservation and energy efficiency are vital parts of the solution, but those who want to tear down biofuels are voting to stick with the status quo -- foreign oil. Every day we use fossil fuels instead of our renewable alternatives is a day we export thousands of dollars to the Middle East and pump tons of carbon from deep within the Earth's crust directly into the atmosphere. We should not have to continue this real world addiction because of theory that does not hold true.
Thank you for a well considered article!
This article is quite fair, and approaches the material with less of a wide-eyed dreamer mentality than the usual blather about alternative energy.
I would like to address a couple of issues that I believe Mike Grunwald didn't sufficiently consider:
First, while there is no arguing the fact that biofuels are not very beneficial and are certainly not cost-effective, it must be stressed that in the face of peak oil the impact on the environment is NOT why government policies have encouraged more biofuels production. While biofuels only contribute ~2% to the transportation fuel total, without that 2% then during most of 2008 global demand would have exceeded global supply. We saw what happened to the price of oil as global demand approached global supply, what might have happened had the supply been 2% less? The marginal value of that extra 2% cannot be known for certain, but we know that it is VERY valuable. We also know that we will again see a supply/demand crunch by the middle of 2010, and we will once again need that additional supply, and we'll need that supply to increase as quickly as possible. While the rainforest degridation is horrible, a global resource war would be worse, so the governments support biofuels knowing that they are destructive and extremely costly... but knowing that they are better than nothing.
Second, you are right that nuclear is extremely costly, you are WRONG in the assumption that nuclear energy does not have attached CO2 emissions, and you are almost certainly wrong about nuclear power's future impact. While it is expensive, the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for nuclear - assuming a 60 year lifespan of the plant - is still better than options other than wind in good sites. What defeats nuclear in most industrialized countries is too much local autonomy. In France, there is 1 design... that's all. So when a plant goes up the foundation is poured and work can begin with mass produced parts and assembled according to a well known design by crews that have done this before. In America, local zoning commisions can require a few changes to ~50,000 components within the plant, making the entire thing a custom project with custom parts - made one-at-a-time as prototypes, then custom assembled according to a unique design... The cost multiplies by an order of magnetude because a zoning commission in podunk nowhere decides it knows more than the specialized engineers what is and is not "safe". The other issue is a means of funding the project that helps distribute the capital burden over the 60 year lifespan of the reactor, rather than a 20-30 year mortgage. Both of these issues can be conquered by government, then the nuclear industry will take off. However, mining and processing tons of Uranium ore actually causes a LOT of CO2 emissions. The good ores are rapidly being used up, and the average ores today are an order of magnetude less pure than the ones we used 40 years ago. As nuclear power proliferates, the amount of energy - from coal, natural gas, and petroleum, needed to mine and process the ores will continue to increase - giving nuclear energy a continously worsening carbon footprint. It will still be better than coal in 30 years, and better than gas for at least the next 15... but it's not zero.
Finally, you pooh-pooh the notion that wind might scale up to a level that it could be significant just because it's at 2% penetration now. While there are difficulties with wind (specifically the off-peak energy challenge, the stability issues involved with variable energy production, and the lack of a suitable long distance grid to allow for massive scale wind in the good wind regions), wind has averaged ~30% year over year growth for the last decade. If that was maintained over the next decade, that 2% would become 27%... I'm not saying that is likely (at least until WindFuels are developed and deployed), since I recognize exactly how great those challenges really are are, but saying that a platform that is currently 2% cannot make a big splash is simply showing a lack of understanding of basic math - though you're right about solar.
Otherwise, thanks for a great article that actually shows some understanding of the issues at hand.
Thank you for stating the obvious. We cannot have our cake and eat it to:. Resolving climate change and oil depletion will require us to change our way of life, and the longer we wait the harsher the change will be. This does not mean "going back to the stone age" but it does mean looking at our day-to-day behaviour and reevaluating needs versus wants.
I'm growing tired of those who portray environmental responsibility as just another type of consumerism. It is not. The "greenest" product you can buy is no product at all. Walk, bike, or take transit. If you can't do any of those on a regular basis perhaps it is time to reconsider your place of residence. We live in a free society, where we are free to choose our lifestyles: but with freedom comes responsibility.
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