Daniel BotkinDaniel B. Botkin, a widely respected ecologist and author of noted books on environmental history, philosophy and science, has turned his attention to energy, with a new book charting one path to a prosperous post-fossil future in which energy is abundant but not a source of environmental ills. The book, “Powering The Future: A Scientist’s Guide to Energy Independence” has just been published by Pearson FT Press.
I’ve been in touch with Botkin for years and we traded e-mails in the past week, reflecting on the continuing spill of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
Here’s an essay from Botkin reflecting on ways to move toward a sustained expansion of clean energy technology after generations of energy policies shaped by abundant supplies of coal and oil and disregard for their indirect impacts. I don’t agree with all of his views (for instance, the costs he describes below will almost assuredly remain a hard sell even if events conspire to support a leader seeking to make energy a keystone priority). Have a read and weigh in. I’ll encourage him to respond and I will, too.
“Potato Creek Johnny” and Energy Independence
Daniel B. Botkin
Seventeen-year-old Potato Creek Johnny arrived in Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1883 and began prospecting for gold. It only took him 25 years to strike pay dirt — discovering the largest gold nugget ever. Made famous, he kept prospecting, hoping for the next big find, for the rest of his 77 years. He had a policy for seeking natural resources: hope without information. You would think in this scientific age we would have governments that had gotten beyond him, and used a rationalist’s policy: seek the best scientific information and take actions that, after careful analysis, would have the best chance of success.
But the Obama administration’s approach to energy independence wouldn’t look all that unfamiliar to Potato Creek Johnny. And to be fair, it’s very much like the George W. Bush approach, meaning that since the beginning of the 21st century the United States has not had a federal approach that will lead to energy independence, or even give a significant start toward that independence. Obama’s recent opening of new offshore areas for oil and gas exploration, the recent Gulf oil spill, and the approval of a wind farm offshore from Cape Cod, Mass., bring energy to the forefront once again, and motivate us to consider carefully where government policies are taking American citizens and the world.
Here’s a report card on the highlights so far.
The United States use 30 trillion kilowatt-hours of energy a year, a huge amount, and much of it is imported. For nuclear power, Obama has allocated $18.5 billion for new “next generation” nuclear power plants. The United States has 104 nuclear power plants providing 8 percent of our energy. They cost between $5 and $14 billion to build. In the future, with new technology, figure the higher end. That $18.5 billion is equivalent to about two plants. And since it’s for research and development, don’t expect anything; nuclear power plants take a long time to design, site and license.
Biofuels? The Obama administration plans to meet the mandate of Bush’s 2007 U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act, to produce 36 billion gallons a year of ethanol and advanced biofuels by 2022. That’s equivalent to 1 million barrels of oil, 13 percent of our current petroleum use, 22 percent of our current imports. But Cornell Professor David Pimentel, one of the world’s experts on agriculture and environment, calculates it would take all our current corn-producing land to provide just 2 percent of the energy America uses. It would also take a huge quantity of water and phosphorus fertilizers, resources we are straining to their limits. Biofuels? Not the way to go.
Solar and wind? In 2009, Obama allocated $467 million in federal stimulus funding for geothermal and solar energy projects. Present photovoltaic installations cost about $6,000 per kilowatt. If all this money went to solar, it would add less than 1 percent to current U.S. solar energy. And if it all went to solar research, it would be a small amount of what is needed — for ourselves and to keep the U.S. competitive with other nations going into solar and wind manufacturing big-time.
Solar and wind benefit from tax credits in the Obama plan. For example, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the president announced $2.3 billion in new clean-energy manufacturing tax credits — a 30-percent tax credit for investments in 183 manufacturing facilities for clean-energy products across 43 states. This is useful, but the actual benefits of those credits to energy installations are not easy to figure, and beyond the scope of what I can write about here.
That leaves Obama’s March 31 opening of new offshore areas for oil and natural gas exploration and drilling. The largest of these, mid- and south- Atlantic coast waters and the eastern Gulf of Mexico, might provide as little as a year and a half’s replacement for our imported oil (a Mineral Management Service estimate) to as much as 14 years of imported oil (a separate Department of Interior estimate). (Such large ranges in estimates are not that unusual for minerals.) And the high estimates replace only 24 percent of America’s current total energy use.
That high estimate sounds good, but here are the problems: Nobody expects any of this oil to be available soon. Americans might see this new oil around 2030, but it would end before 2050, when, according to petroleum geologists and economists, people had better be free of dependence on petroleum, because petroleum will have become too expensive to use as a fuel. And in 2050, when the U.S. population is forecast to reach 410 million, this would provide only 18 percent of the total energy used that year if there were no change in per-capita use.
Natural gas? The newly opened offshore areas are estimated to have as much as 17 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. At our 2009 rate of use, this could provide about a year and three months of natural gas, less than a year for our 2050 population.
What can and should we do now? At present, wind and solar combined provide less than 1 percent of America’s energy. By 2050, if these are going to replace fossil fuels, they will have to account for 64 percent of our energy. To replace oil alone by 2050 means that solar and wind will have to provide 40 percent of our energy. This takes into account the growth of America’s population and assumes that per-capita energy consumption could drop by 50 percent.
Present investments by the feds in wind and solar are trivial compared to the needs. To make a major transition, we are going to have to start now and spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year, either from private sector investment or the government, or some combination. The good news is that the technology to do this exists right now to provide a successful transition. Research is needed to lower the installation (construction) costs, but the energy efficiency of existing wind and solar is great right now. America needs funds to build solar and wind facilities. R and D is always needed, but what we have right now is a great start, and the transition should not be held up by putting all the funding into R and D. My book gives plenty of examples to support this statement, based on installed facilities that function right now.
When Obama announced the new offshore drilling policy, he said, “We need to move beyond the tired debates of the left and the right.” That is, we need a middle-ground approach. But to do the right thing, we have to get beyond Potato Creek Johnny. United States policy must be more than a political middle ground that hands out a token to each side, a policy that is hope without information. It has to be a major, rational program that starts now. Down deep Americans know that their national security, economic stability and environment require that this be done.