Energy Summit - the third part (end of day 1)

This is the fourth part of coverage of the Missouri Energy Summit, with the earlier posts listed at the end of this one. This post covers the final session of the first day.

The first speaker was Karen Harbert of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for the 21st Century., and she spoke of Energy and Climate Change realities. For her Energy Security means affordable, reliable supply and the reality is that to get that we need to establish our position, at a time when the world is growing and with it demands for energy. She pointed out that at present 1.6 billion people do not have access to electricity, and that will change. As it changes, and 70% of the demand for power will come from developing nations where most of these folk live, so it will become harder to both get energy supplies and to also get the credit to pay for them.

New production, and new sources of power will need time, the right policies and lots of money if they are to be realized. But even then “we cannot mandate what technology cannot deliver.”

Singing a song after the hearts of the academics in her audience, she noted that we need new talent to develop these new sources, yet we are graduating a lower number of engineers. That must be switched around, and while the optimal product might be an Engineeer with a Masters in finance, there is not yet enough incentive in the path to get many students to follow it, and without them the path will stretch longer before we have the supplies that we need.

(Ed. Note: To reply to a comment the top left section of the graph (though in another version) has been expanded and added to the bottom of the post. This is so that I can try and give a better explanation of what I am talking about).
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She was followed by Himadri Pakrasi, of Washington University in St Louis. Washington U has recently got a significant infusion of money for bioenergy production, with a total commitment of some $55 million. This has created the Center that Dr. Pakrasi runs and which is dedicated to bioenergy production. He spoke of the availability of tall grasses in the mid-West and of algae, and the recent consortium that had created the Clean Coal Consortium on campus.

Bob Dixon followed with a talk entitled “The Perfect Storm meets the Global Tsunami.” Lest there be any doubt as to his position on global warming, his first remark was a question to the audience on whether they believed the world was warming, and when a lone dissenter raised a hand at the front, his response was that “he was not willing to take the risk.” (I will comment in a later post about the risks that he is quite happy to incur to avoid that of global warming). To show that the world was warming he contrasted winter pictures of the Arctic ice cap in 1990 and 1999 with the summer ice cap in 2007.

And since ex-Vice-President Gore mentioned the same thing in his testimony before the House Committee today, let me just put up the graph of Arctic ice cap size, so that you can judge their remarks against the truth. And it is also here because porsena referred to earlier plots, that only go up to 2005.


Source IARC – JAXA

You will note that the current size of the Arctic Ice field is larger than it has been at this time in any other year of this century. It is actually (as of yesterday) within the range of variability of the average field size over the past 28 years, and if the current trend continues, will exceed it by the middle of May.

Bob Dixon, having made his points about the Arctic ice, went on to talk about the need to conserve energy through better building design. He noted that 40% of energy expended goes into buildings and homes. And while we have standards for the performance of many things, and tests for their efficiency, we do not have any for buildings. Yet we are approaching a time where utilities will increasingly be able to turn off our air conditioners, for 10-minute periods, in order to conserve their energy outputs, when loads approach brownout conditions.

We are now at a time that there is a program to weatherize, where homeowners are encouraged to improve building efficiency, but the question is, who verifies that what is done is right, and that the costs will be recovered as promised?

Yet he gave an example of a program that works. The Australian Government rents office space, but will only do so if the building is energy efficient. By creating that demand, and then competition for its business, the Government has ensured that private owners are motivated to move forward and change, overall, the design and efficiency of business construction.

Michael Chesser of Great Plains Energy came back to talk about the punitive effects of cap and trade legislation. He noted that, on average, it will raise electricity rates 40% and there should be a wide ranging debate before such a step is undertaken. He expects that “the next ten years will see more change than has occurred since Edison invented the electric light.” But this requires that the partnership of players be expanded, and both utilities and customers must be willing to step up and be partners.

Te stability of energy prices over the past years has been an asset to the economy and American business. This has required that the utilities provide enough capacity to meet the maximum demand, but bear in mind that the average load is only 50% of capacity and it goes above 75% of capacity about 10% of the time. Thus the utilities have a large investment that rarely is fully paid for, and really does not address the efficiency of supply and demand. He again drew attention to the EPRI PRISM site (3.5 meg pdf).

And while bearing this in mind, remember also that there are now parts of California where there is sufficient wind energy available that the price of electricity goes negative in the evening. In that circumstance it would be nice to have a number of plug-in hybrids sitting ready to download the excess. Yet there are safety issues for such types of systems, and a central control of them.

The final speaker of the evening was Bob Kruze of GM. He noted that the study of physics saves lives. (It keeps the idiots out of Medical school). He looked into the future and sees some 900 million vehicles which are currently owned by only 13.5% of the global population, but by 2020 this will rise to where 15% of the populace will own a car. That rise in demand will consume a lot of transportation fuel. But we cannot pump enough oil to meet it. (He was one of very few who bent a nod in the direction of Peak Oil). We can, however displace some of the demand with efficiency and diversity. From the point of emission control cellulosic ethanol would be a winner, since it would lower carbon demand by 85% on a well-to-wheel basic comparison. He expects that ethanol will replace 40% of gasoline demand by 2030., and GM is partnering with two efforts, one thermo-chemical and one biological, to produce ethanol, with Coskata and Mascoma, the latter looking at prairie grasses. He anticipates there is enough off-peak capacity to power 30% of commuter demand. He claimed that GM did not kill the electric car, but talked about the Volt, the Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV).

He also spoke up for hydrogen, and that there is plenty being made today, that could provide a fuel. (Neglecting that it is used to help refine hydrogen deficient crude in refineries at a considerable cost). He felt (neglecting that) that hydrogen could be competitive at around $2 - $3 a gallon (untaxed). Hydrogen would be generated from Natural Gas. And just recently one of their card did a 300-mile trip to Terrytown NY.

Earlier posts in this series covered the program; the keynote address by T. Boone Pickens; and the first invited speakers.

Current Ice coverage in the Arctic - April 2009 Detail showing recent changes in slope

A Local Town Energy Meeting

Last Friday night I was a part of a panel at a local meeting on energy, put together by the local Democratic party. There were a number of us that had been asked to speak, and ahead of time, I had predicted that, with the meeting starting at 7 pm I would be home by 8:30 pm. The first surprise was that before the meeting started they had to bring in extra chairs. (I take no credit for this, I was a minor speaker). According to the local paper there were more than a hundred folk in the room, and one of the utility speakers noted that on this topic he usually sees about fifteen. The meeting was based on an initiative that passed in the last election that required utility companies to get 15% of their electricity from clean energy resources by 2021. It passed with 66% of the vote.

Missouri is one of the states that currently requires that a utility have a power plant in place and producing electricity before it can make any charge to the rate-payers. The practice of allowing a surcharge, while the plant is being built is called Construction Work in Progress (CWIP). It is controversial.


The benefits of this to those paying these bills is only there until the higher, later bills show up. Nevertheless with a construction time at around a decade, the first speaker, Erin Noble from the Missouri Coalition for the Environment spoke strongly about the need to keep the rule in place, while the nuclear power station at Fulton is doubled in capacity. She was answered later in the evening by the Ameren representative, who pointed out that money does not come free, and if the company has to carry that debt (and interest) until the charges can begin, then obviously they would be higher.

The second speaker, John Hensley, was from Wind Capital Group the company that had installed the wind turbines in Northwest Missouri. One of these, at Rockport was in an earlier Pick Points, because it is the first community that they feel can meet all its needs from the turbines. (Their web site has a wind speed indicator that shows the wind is currently blowing at 10 mph as I write). He gave a little of the history of the company and some of the benefits of the installations to the local community. He also showed slides of the rather impressive foundation that has to be installed to hold one of the turbines. To date it has been a success, but, for this state, all the potential sites with enough wind to be useful are up in the Rockport area. The company was able to tie into existing distribution lines to use the power it generated, but getting much power further into the state will require that new power lines be run, and there are a number of different forms of cost and delay in getting that accomplished. He did note the potential of the stimulus package to help.

Our group, from the University tried to cover a number of the different programs that we are currently working on, with Angie Rolufs, Director of the Institute for Environmental Excellence, giving the campus overview of projects. These range from the more mundane (but effective) step of having the campus do an energy audit (which it has) through a number of current programs that include improving grid connections to intermittent sources of power (wind and solar) to vehicles powered by various unconventional means. The next topic, covered by Curt Elmore, related to our ongoing study of wind and solar power, and the way to integrate it into the grid. He it was who had to explain to folk that, even though we have a small turbine installed, the low and intermittent quality of the wind in this part of the state would not make wind an economic viability - it will take about 40-years for the one installed to pay for itself. Then I talked a bit on our current algae program, and John Sheffield finished out to group talk with some words on the Hydrogen project and the current work on the EcoCar Challenge.

There were two representatives from AmerenUE, the generator of electricity for this part of the state, who began by discussing the funding of Callaway, during which they acknowledged that the increasing prices of natural gas generators would limit their future potential as a power source. They moved on to discuss their current initiative to improve household efficiency in the use of electricity and the willingness to do energy audits of homes, and what typical results might be. They referred to the latest National Geographic, which features an Energy Audit article. (I described one that I was familiar with in an earlier post. The need for improving energy use was also stressed by the local utility that provides power to the surrounding area, Intercounty Electric and the opportunity for a free home energy audit was explained.

There were a number of questions throughout the evening, and at the end (somewhere around 10 pm) most of the folk were still in the room, asking questions and debating. Energy is obviously an issue that has us rural folk’s attention.

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Expanding Dr. Chu's Comments

After posting the P41 Pick Points, it was not until this morning, over a quiet cup of tea, that I could sit down and actually listen to what Dr Chu had said during his visit to Platts on Thursday. There were sufficient additional pieces of information (and the comment on OPEC was right at the end and of less significance than has been made) that I thought I would expand a little on what you can hear on the podcast. The prepared remarks, as I mentioned earlier, deal with the loan guarantee program, but the answers to questions were the more informative.

On being asked how the nation could double renewable output in 2 years, he said that wind is most mature technology and thus the most likely, solar thermal would be the next to see growth while photo-voltaics (PV) may also contribute. Numerous wind projects can be expected to go forward . He cited Bonneville Power as one who is capable of putting in lines to connect to turbines, with the system being installed within 2 years. There is Wind available in the Dakotas; and there are power plants capable of using solar thermal in the range of 100’s of Megawatts but those are the areas that he expects to get immediate funding and to meet the targets.


He does not claim that the government has all the answers, but anticipates going out into the market to find what the industry wants to bring forward, transmission isn’t there yet (maybe not until 2014).

He hasn’t reviewed the existing CCS projects yet, nor made any decisions; yes, there is FutureGen, but it needs a technical review before a decision can be made to see if it can progress. He feels that there are gains to be made in pre-combustion separation as well as post combustion separation of pollution. Oxyburn is also to be looked at. It is not a slam dunk which technology is going to prove to be the best, so he wants to carry out a suite of tests on potential solutions. 6 geological sites are going to be tested for CCS, and he wants also to look at EOR but all this has to be tested. The big money will be in capture and in sequestration, though it will be so expensive that the current investment will not go that far.

He sees power transmission as a national issue, combining renewable energy and being able to port it around the country. We have gone from local generation and use to a need to look nationally. Solar, for example, is concentrated in the Southwest. And wind also is focused. We need a national transmission system overlay. We need a discussion over the realization that this is a national issue. Yet while this is a national imperative that we go forward, we need to study this as these are complicated issues.

In regard to feeding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) he said that the last thing we want to do is to is to have the 13 million barrels of the current commitment going into the SPR, when there is a tightening of supplies and OPEC cuts, but he is not sure if this is not already a done deal, and since there are complications to the issue – he will have to look into this. Having been dumped deep into the pool, and while he knows the technical issues, he will need to look at other aspects while he gets up to speed, and he was told this was a done deal.

What is the likelihood that the world will get the tipping point when tundra starts emitting carbon dioxide? He said that we don’t know when the tipping point when the tundra thaws, don’t know at what temperature and carbon dioxide concentration this will occur. It would, however, be prudent to stay away from that happening.

His goal is to focus DOE research and make it more results driven. It is the biggest supporter of physical sciences in the US. Many Nobel laureates have been supported by DOE. It is a primary contributor to our current prosperity, and so we cannot not do that, but must fund basic research. But at the same time there is a lot of government research that should be used and passed to the private sector. DOE is not as good at taking great research and transfer into things industry picks up. So he will be spending time trying to find out how to port discoveries over. Wealth creation was effective when Bell Lab results were transferred into industrial products, and our economic future was driven by electronics companies that believed and invested in research. Don’t have this philosophy yet in Energy, and so DOE has to fill the vacuum, National Laboratories and Research Universities will be the key. First priority is the economic recovery and the second is a green industry where US can lead.

If anyone thinks they can predict oil prices, they should be rich. For a long time he was a member of the America’s Energy Future study by the National Academy (the report should be out soon). He can’t predict oil prices, but sees higher demand and hopes they can decrease the rate of demand increase, though it will still go up, the peak of major oil companies, conventional oil production (not tar sands or deep water) is going to be soon. They will have to move to more expensive oil recovery this drives price up, cheap oil production will not increase. Price will go up in the long term, and so we must decrease consumption and use other means. Conventional oil has been increasing but it is now flat, and will have to go to more expensive sources. If we get smarter ways to get oil out it will extend oilfield life. But at some point you reach a limit.
The price of wind energy has gone down by a factor of ten and will go down further, PV is on the learning curve, and hopefully can get down a factor of 5 further, to make it practical. New technologies will come down in price = faster than more mature technologies. It is different because oil has only a finite supply. But with EOR oil may be not last 15-20 years but 50 years.

Asked about an increase in the blending cap for ethanol – he answered that the only issue is the auto industry opinion on harming engine at higher mix. You need to accept that you can’t deteriorate the engines of the present fleet, but we need to increase fraction of E85 vehicles, which means changing the fuel lines, seals etc. We can’t get to target on cellulosic – but this is a challenge, some smart work now being done, looking at bio-producing heavier fuels than ethanol. 3 bioenergy institutes have been started started, and in first 6 months altered yeast and bacteria have been sued to feed and sugars and make gasoline and diesel like fuels. These self-separate from water. These are better than ethanol therefore. Given the caliber of the scientists working on this – some of the best – suddenly the level of activity causes technology to lurch forward. He expects the work to be populated by really top people and students who no longer aspire to a life in finance but want to do science. Don’t need an ethanol pipeline.

On India he was asked how to do tech transfer of nuclear technology to India; reply - there is an understanding and that will go forward.

On how the US and China can they work together in climate change issues, he said that the key was that they do work together and mitigate carbon dioxide, increase the efficiency of their growth and the best choice of new sources of power. There are many opportunities. Building technologies, for example, provide a lot to be gained, since buildings can use 70-80% less energy thann conventional construction affords. We can now build 60% more efficient buildings and we think we can build 70-80% efficiency in ten years. China will build many new buildings so a lot of things can be done, and there are lots of chances for collaboration.

OPEC and his role and his message to them. Stable prices are very important to every country and he will do what he can to encourage stability. Major mission of DOE is to look to ourselves and what we have control over. We are the science house and he is aimed at promoting efficiency, and decreasing our use of oil. If oil is used more efficiently, particularly in personal use by a factor of two, this can have a great effect. He would argue for price stability – do we want OPEC to cut production. He needs to look into it more. No specific plan for doubling renewable power in 3 years, but there are mature renewable technologies, and he cannot divide how to get to the target but has to look at the technologies and how they can be best encouraged to develop the answer. He, personally, is big on energy efficiency in the home , and had a house in California where he paid very little for heating and nothing for air conditioning – through the efficient use of blinds.