Category Archives: Power plants

Engineered geothermal systems

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The Economist‘s Technology Quarterly includes a good article on engineered geothermal systems (EGS) – a type of power plant where holes are drilled into the hot granite about 3-4km below the surface of the Earth and water is pumped through which is then used to drive turbines. The advantage, when compared to conventional geothermal systems, is that EGS can theoretically be used anywhere. The amount of energy available is enormous:

According to “The Future of Geothermal Energy”, a report issued by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2007, the thermal energy available in America in rocks 3-10km (1.9-6.2 miles) beneath the Earth’s surface is nearly 140,000 times greater than its annual energy consumption. Conservative estimates suggest just 2% of that energy could be tapped by EGS in practice, but even that would be far more than is needed to supply all of America’s electricity. Tapping it will, however, require both technical and economic hurdles to be overcome.

Right now, the total global geothermal capacity is 10.7 gigawatts, producing 67,250 gigawatt hours (GWh) per year. That’s equivalent to about ten large nuclear reactors. With the deployment of EGS, those figures could be increased enormously.

Engineered geothermal systems (sometimes called ‘enhanced’ geothermal systems) do have limitations. While conventional geothermal power in the United States costs about 10¢ per kilowatt-hour (kWh), comparable to oil and gas, EGS is more like 19¢ per kWh. It should be possible to bring that down somewhat with increased scale and experience. Also, whereas the 10¢ for coal power fails to take into account the climatic harm associated with that power source, EGS produces no greenhouse gas emissions and emits no atmospheric toxins. Another limitation of EGS is the production of earthquakes, though supporters argue that with proper management it can be ensured that these are always too small to cause harm.

EGS also has the major advantage that it provides a consistent baseload level of power output – night and day. That stands out particularly in comparison to options like wind power and solar, where energy output varies throughout the day and year. Because drilling for EGS requires much of the same equipment and expertise as drilling for oil and gas, it could also serve as a mechanism to shift toward a post-fossi-fuel global economy, without wasting the capital and expertise that we have already assembled. Doone Wyborn, chief scientist of Geodynamics, stresses this point: “There are thousands of wells being drilled for oil across the world every year. I imagine that in a couple of decades all of those drilling rigs that are now redundant, because we’ve run out of oil, will be drilling geothermal wells instead.” Hopefully, that can happen sooner than in a couple of decades, and well before humanity has burned up all the world’s fossil fuels.

Google.org – the charitable arm of the search giant – is one backer of EGS, including in Canada.

Nova Scotia and coal

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Nova Scotia is one of the Canadian provinces that still depends on coal for a significant portion of their electrical power. That being said, the current NDP government is taking significant steps to shift to renewable forms of energy. In 2007, they passed a law establishing a hard cap on emissions of greenhouse gases and mercury from power stations. Since then, they have set targets for the proportion of their total energy to come from renewable sources. They are considering significant investments in tidal power capacity.

Given the inaction of Canada’s federal government, climate change action on other levels is especially important – whether that means provinces, municipalities, or regional groupings. Hopefully, other provinces will expand and deepen the kind of forward-thinking we’ve seen from places like British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec, rather than the cluelessness and backwardness that keep coming out of Alberta.

Europe’s fossil fuel dependence on Russia

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One of the most important levers through which Russia can exert pressure on Western European states is by controlling the flow of fossil fuels. As illustrated below, oil and gas pipelines originating in Russia are critical energy lifelines for the rest of Europe:

When Russia turns off the taps – as it sometimes does to put pressure on states like Ukraine – people can find themselves shivering in the cold. This could become even more problematic if pipelines like Nord Stream which circumvent Eastern Europe are completed. Then, Russia will be able to cut off states like Georgia, Ukraine, and Poland without denying fuels to France and Germany.

At the moment, it seems that European states are becoming ever-more dependent on Russia for energy. Partly, that has been the consequence of relying more on gas for electrical power. A recently leaked German report on peak oil highlights the geopolitical dangers associated with dependence on Russian oil and gas. At present, Russia supplies about 35% of German oil imports, along with 37% of natural gas.

In the medium- to long-term, Europe has an opportunity to achieve two major objectives by switching to zero-carbon forms of electricity generation and transport. They can reduce the severity of environmental problems: especially climate change, but also air pollution. At the same time, they can reduce the power that Russia holds over them, and increase their freedom to make policy on Eastern Europe in a more principled way.

One promising alternative is the massive deployment of concentrating solar power stations around the Mediterranean and North Africa, with high voltage direct current transmission lines to bring the electricity to Europe.

Denmark’s expensive energy

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Jeff Rubin has an interesting piece on the Globe and Mail website about Denmark’s greenhouse gas emissions and energy prices. Famously, Denmark gets about 20% of its electricity from wind power. Less famously, the remainder comes from coal. Rubin explains that: “coal’s share of power generation in Denmark’s power grid is basically the same as it is in China”.

Why, then, have Denmark’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions actually fallen during the last two decades, while those in North America have risen by about 30%?

The answer lies not with the source of power, but with the price of power. At 30 cents per kilowatt hour, electricity costs anywhere from three to five times what the average North American would pay. And, not surprisingly, Danish households consume a fraction of the power that we do.

Certainly, conservation is an important part of dealing with climate change, and price signals are one way to encourage it. Danish cars are also heavily taxed: an extra 100 to 180% of the sticker price, depending on horsepower.

In addition to the high price of power, I suspect that at least some of Denmark’s success in reducing GHG emissions is the result of exporting pollution-intensive industries to places with less regulation. Almost certainly, Denmark imports at least some emissions intensive products, like Chinese steel. In the long run, preventing domestic production from being displaced by imports from countries with few climate regulations is an important part of effective climate change policy-making. One key instrument for achieving that could be carbon tariffs. That said, China is actually doing more than most people think when it comes to fighting climate change.

Export ethics: asbestos and coal

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Controversially, Canada is a major producer and exporter of asbestos – a material that has been judged too dangerous for domestic use, but which the government and Canadian firms apparently feels to be good enough for developing countries. At the same time as the Government of Canada was paying to promote asbestos sales abroad, workers in hazmat suits were carefully removing the material from our Parliament buildings. Driven largely by concerns about a small number of jobs in Quebec, Canada remains an asbestos booster, still willing to fund the Chrysotile Institute.

This raises a question that is profoundly related to the problem of coal: what is the ethical position of states with large reserves of a dangerous resource, for which there is a market overseas?

Equal treatment

Naturally, there are several different approaches that can be taken in evaluating this ethical question. One is to focus on some notion of equal treatment. If we think asbestos is too dangerous for Canadians, why is it OK to sell to Indians. Does it matter that they are buying it voluntarily? In a related question, does it matter that they have less ability to afford safer alternatives? One can certainly argue that Canada should not be willing to expose the citizens of other countries to dangers we would consider unacceptable here. In a counter-argument, it is possible to argue that depriving the recipient countries of asbestos would make them even worse off than they are now, by forcing the use of something even worse.

Cost-benefit considerations

Another approach is more economically inspired. One way of phrasing it would be: “Is absolutely everybody better off, in a situation where Canada chooses to export asbestos?” When allowing something to occur, such as a trade, improves the welfare of at least some people involved without harming that of anybody, economists say that the trade is a Pareto improvement. This is often a high bar, and certainly isn’t met in the asbestos case. At least some people in the recipient countries will get sick and die as a consequence of this international trade in asbestos.

A less rigorous standard is called ‘potential Pareto optimality’ or Kaldor–Hicks efficiency. In this approach, you tally up all the costs and benefits associated with a decision. If the sum of the benefits is large enough that the winners could theoretically compensate the losers, then there is a certain sense in which making that choice could be justified.

There are a number of serious problems with Kaldor–Hicks, however. Firstly, there is no requirement that compensation actually be paid. That means that some people will suffer for the enrichment of others, and without giving consent to the arrangement. Secondly, there is the ever-tricky question of deciding what human health and lives are worth. In most economic analyses, the value of an Indian life is implicitly rated lower than that of a Canadian life, because governments and individuals are able to spend more to defend the latter than the former.

What about coal?

Some states – like China and the United States – both produce and use a massive amount of coal. Some, like Canada and Australia, are exporters on an enormous scale. The coal dug up in Canada, sold overseas, and burned causes harm to an enormous number of people. Some, like the Canadian coal miners, take on the risks in a relatively voluntary way. Others, like the members of future generations threatened by climate change, are completely vulnerable to the choices we make on their behalf. Other groups that are harmed include those who suffer from the air and water pollution that accompanies coal burning.

Eventually, I think it will be generally recognized that digging up coal for export is not ethical. It allows those who are alive today to enrich themselves, while forcing the associated risks onto innocent members of future generations. The path to a coal-free world will be a very difficult one, not least because of the massive investments that rely on the continued burning of the stuff. Achieving that outcome will require voluntary restraint, restrictions on coal burning imposed on companies and individuals by the state, and quite possibly the conscientious refusal of some states to sell the climate-wrecking stuff, even when there are still ready buyers internationally.

Coal-blocked roads in China

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Illegally mined coal is being blamed for a massive traffic jam in China. The jam has already lasted for 11 days, and is expected to last for two more weeks:

For years, small illegal coal mines in the province of Shanxi provided Beijing and its surroundings with a good deal of coal but so many of the mines would collapse or explode, and so many miners would die, (over 1,600 nationwide last year according to official figures) that the local authorities have closed most of them down.

That’s all very well, but China being China, the province of Inner Mongolia, to the North of Shanxi, has taken up the slack. And an awful lot of the trucks currently snarled on the G110 expressway to Beijing are carrying coal mined illegally in Inner Mongolia.

They are taking the G110, drivers explained to the daily Beijing News, because there are no coal checkpoints on that highway, so they don’t have to bribe any inspectors to turn a blind eye to their illegal loads.

The situation demonstrates the intersection between a number of relevant phenomena: infrastructure (including transport and energy), governance (including the enforcement of law and regulations), and the influence of the state.

Apparently, the usual cost to ship a 30 ton truck of coal from Inner Mongolia to Beijing is $1,765.

The Westshore Terminal

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Located at Roberts Bank, British Columbia, the Westshore Terminal exports more coal than all other Canadian ports put together – routinely shipping around 21 million tonnes of coal each year. The terminal, and the massive heap of coal waiting to be loaded onto ships, can be clearly seen to the north of the Tsawwassen ferry terminal. The coal originates in Alberta and British Columbia, with a small quantity coming from the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming, North America’s cheapest source of coal.

According to U.S. Energy Information Administration, one metric tonne of the kind of bituminous and sub-bituminous coal used for energy generation emits about 2,000 kg of carbon dioxide. As a result, the emissions resulting each year from burning the coal that passes through Westshore represent about 5% of Canada’s total emissions, more than Manitoba, New Brunswick, or Nova Scotia and equivalent to about 18% of Alberta’s emissions. Of course, those emissions will be counted as part of the total for the country they are shipped to, whether it is one with a nominal target under the Kyoto Protocol (like Japan or Australia) or one that did not agree to a restriction on emissions within that legal framework (like China).

If the world is going to deal with climate change, the use of coal as a source of energy will effectively have to come to an end. Of course, the politics of that are very difficult, both in coal-burning states that value it as a cheap and reliable source of energy and in coal-exporting states like Canada that appreciate the jobs and revenue it brings.

Absent rules and bad incentives

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If we are going to succeed in dealing with climate change, one of the most important things government must do is make industry confident that there will be ever-more-restrictive laws on greenhouse gas emissions in the future. That way, they will devote their energies to developing and deploying low- and then zero-carbon forms of energy. If firms do not have this confidence, they will continue to invest in the energy sources of the past, most notoriously coal. Furthermore, lack of certainty about the direction of future legislation will make companies continue to devote money and energy to lobbying, trying to keep new rules from affecting them.

An example of what not to do comes from Alberta: in 2002, Capital Power made a voluntary commitment to offset half the emissions from a coal plant outside Edmonton. At the time, they expected regulations on emissions to be tougher by now. Of course, the Alberta government has failed to take climate change seriously, and continued to allow firms in Alberta to endanger members of future generations around the world. Now, Capital Power wants to abandon its past commitment. To do so would set a terrible precedent:

[A]llowing companies to renege on environmental commitments made at public hearings once projects are operating would be set a dangerous precedent and completely undermine the credibility of the Alberta approvals process.

“Why would citizens participate in hearings in good faith if they knew that inconvenient approval conditions can simply be deleted from the government approval after the plant is operating?” asked Ruth Yanor, a landowner who participated in the initial round of consultations, after hearing about Capital Power’s requested amendment.

Confidence that laws restricting emissions will get tougher and tougher – while the price of emitting a tonne of carbon continues to rise – is the only thing that can drive infrastructure investment toward a zero-carbon future. Governments need to be establishing their credibility on this issue, at the same time as it becomes post-partisan, ideologically.

Unfortunately, governments in North America are doing nothing of the kind.

Correspondence with Robert Laughlin

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Recently, I wrote a post criticizing an article by Dr. Robert Laughlin, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in physics. In it, he argues that the Earth is more than capable of enduring human-induced climate change, and that human beings are nearly certain to burn all the world’s fossil fuels.

Since then, we have exchanged correspondence which is available in full below.

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Climbing against coal

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Climb Against Coal is a group from Washington State using mountain-related media stunts to promote an end to coal burning. Specifically, they are protesting the TransAlta coal plant near Mount Ranier that is the single worst point source of pollution in Washington State. Each year, it emits about 10 megatonnes of carbon dioxide. In a broader context, Climb Against Coal is supporting the Sierra Club’s ‘Washington Beyond Coal’ campaign.

As reported on It’s Getting Hot in Here, last weekend “a support team laid out a nearly 75,000 square foot ‘No Coal’ banner on the Inner Glacier.” Mount Rainier is the most glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. Mercury emissions from the coal plant fall on the snowfield, which in turn feed the entire Puget Sound watershed.

Ultimately, the push against coal as a fuel needs to succeed globally. These sorts of local efforts are encouraging, where concerned citizens recognize the harm that burning coal is doing to their community and to others around the world and demand that superior options be chosen instead.