Storms of My Grandchildren (29 page)

One more critical set of empirical facts: Coal accounts for three quarters of the carbon dioxide emissions of both China and India, and their coal use is mainly for electricity generation. Coal accounts for only 20 to 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions among all other major emitting nations, with the United States being at the high end of that range (i.e., about 38 percent). China and India are not only the first and third greatest emitters of carbon dioxide; their emissions are also growing the fastest among the major emitting countries. Any solution to the global warming problem must address the electrical energy needs of China and India.

Now, what are the means by which fossil fuel use can be reduced and eventually phased out? The first priority, everybody agrees, must go to energy efficiency. There is great potential for energy savings at little cost or even with financial benefit. People in the United States, Canada, and Australia use about twice as much energy per capita as those in Europe or Japan, where the quality of life and gross domestic product per capita are just as high. Contrary to widespread belief, only a small part of the difference in energy use is accounted for by greater travel distances in the United States, Canada, and Australia. The primary difference is because Europe and Japan have taken steps to minimize fuel needs. Higher taxes on fossil fuels, equivalent to several dollars per gallon of gasoline, provide a strong disincentive against inefficient vehicles in Europe and Japan.

Are similar efficiencies possible in the United States? California achieves energy efficiency close to that of Europe and Japan. Since 1975, per capita use of electricity in California has remained constant, while growing 50 percent in the rest of the United States. The reason is that California has an astounding variety of energy efficiency standards and incentives, along with higher electric rates that “internalize” the idea of conservation at the individual level. Utility regulations in California also are structured such that the utilities make more money by encouraging efficiency rather than by selling more energy.

The second priority, behind energy efficiency, is renewable energies, and again this has widespread agreement. Governments can encourage renewables via tax incentives and “renewable portfolio standards,” a requirement that utilities use renewable energy for some fraction of their power generation. Still, ample experience demonstrates that governments should not try to pick the technology “winners,” choosing to support specific technologies with taxpayer funds; they will waste a lot of our money if they do. Instead, the most effective policy would be to remove subsidies for fossil fuels and add a flat carbon tax on emissions, as I will discuss.

Will energy efficiency and renewables be enough? That is the assertion of Amory Lovins and perhaps a few others, but most energy experts believe that Lovins is overly, even wildly, optimistic. Of course we should do everything practical to help efficiency and renewables cover as much of our energy needs as possible. And we can hope that at some point in the future efficiency and renewables will be able to satisfy all energy needs in the United States. But that is not going to happen in the next decade or two, a conclusion that is true a fortiori in China and India.

How can we be so certain that efficiency and renewables cannot quickly eliminate the need for fossil fuels? Didn’t Al Gore propose, in 2008, that the United States could have carbon-free electric energy in ten years? That transformation would require trillions of dollars and a government project comparable in scale to Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, but with skilled labor. There is no sign of this happening or even being proposed by the Obama administration. We have another way to gauge this matter, using empirical data: We can look at a high-tech nation, Germany, which has one quarter of the population of the United States and an energy requirement about ten times less than the United States, and which has gone to great effort and cost to spur renewables energy and efficiency over the past decade. The result, in a nation with exceptional technical prowess and determination: Germany has barely made a dent in its carbon dioxide emissions and is planning more coal plants.

Energy efficiency and renewable energies should be top priorities in China and India, just as in the West. But my point is this: Efficiency and renewables are not going to be sufficient for their energy needs during the next several decades. That is probably true in the rest of the world also—as the examples of Germany and Japan, countries that are trying hard, illustrate—but China and India make the conclusion undeniable. We must rapidly increase sources of carbon-free energy if we are to solve the climate problem.

At this point some people throw up their hands in despair, concluding that because there is no hope that China and India will curtail their carbon dioxide emissions, the planet is therefore doomed. That knee-jerk assessment, I am confident, is wrong. Why?

First, China and India would suffer enormously if the climate is allowed to spiral out of its Holocene range. India does not want 100 million Bangladeshi refugees on its doorstep. India itself has more than 100 million people living near sea level. China has 300 million people living within a twenty-five-meter elevation of sea level. China’s long history under reasonably stable climate patterns provides them a heritage that they will want to protect—and they’ll also want to avoid severe disruption from rising sea level, shifting climate patterns, loss of mountain glaciers, and intensifying floods and droughts.

Second, the Chinese and Indian cultures respect science, and their governments are capable of moving promptly in response to national needs. China is already making major investments in energy efficiency and renewable energies. I have organized two climate workshops, both concerning air pollution and climate change, at the East-West Center in Hawaii that included a number of Chinese and Indian participants. All indications are that the scientists and national leaders appreciate what the science is revealing, are positive about international cooperation, and are eager to find ways to clean up air and water pollution while continuing economic development.

However, what China and India require—indeed, what is needed in most countries—to phase out coal emissions is a carbon-free source of baseload electric power that is competitive in price with coal. “Baseload” means sources of electric power capable of continuous operation, unlike current capabilities of wind and sun power.

I do not mean to denigrate the potential for renewable energies to provide continuous power. There are always some places where the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, there are developing concepts for large-scale “batteries” to store wind and solar energy, and expanded low-loss electric grids can connect widespread areas to move energy from where it is available to where it is needed. Such energy storage and long-distance energy transfer have cost and environmental impacts, but renewable energies should be used to the degree that is practical.

However, most energy experts agree that, for the foreseeable future, renewable energies will not be a sufficient source of electric power. There is also widespread agreement that there are now just two options for nearly carbon-free large-scale baseload electric power: coal with carbon capture and storage, and nuclear power. Let’s consider the problems with each of these options.

Capture of carbon dioxide at power plants appears to be technically feasible. The carbon dioxide then needs to be piped to a location where it can be injected far underground, to a sufficient depth in a geologic setting where it is not expected to escape. The capture process takes energy—an enormous amount—so about 25 percent more coal must be burned to add the capture option. If it must be piped a significant distance, that adds more cost. There is likely to be a NIMBY (not in my backyard) reaction of the public to proposed sites for carbon dioxide burial, since a large-scale escape of the gas would be dangerous—carbon dioxide can suffocate humans, as it did residents near an African lake from which a natural pocket of carbon dioxide escaped in 1986.

Carbon capture and storage may be a viable approach in some countries. There are several nations now developing power plants with carbon capture and storage. But it is implausible to think a developing nation such as India would replace its existing huge number of coal-fired power plants—unless the West were willing to pay the cost differential. Such a demand would be reasonable, because the per capita Indian contribution to the climate problem is about a factor of twenty less than that of the industrial West, as shown in figure 24.

The bill for the West? Trillions of dollars for new carbon-capturing power plants to replace all the old ones in China and India that emit carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Then there is the increased operating costs of plants that capture and store carbon dioxide. Who will pay the added costs? The West? You get the idea. This is not going to happen. Coal plants with carbon capture and storage are not going to happen on a large scale in the West either. There are countries saying that they will build power plants that are “carbon capture ready.” They are misleading you. The politicians know that the public, at least in most countries, will never accept the large increases in electricity price that would accompany carbon capture, let alone accept burial of the carbon dioxide in their neighborhood.

Besides, what about the mercury, arsenic, sulfates, and other air and water pollutants that come with coal? They can be reduced with capture, but not eliminated. And the problems at the mines, especially the horrendous mountaintop-removal and long-wall mining? Can we not move on from this cursed remnant of the first phase of the industrial revolution?

Coal companies are spending huge amounts to put lipstick on coal, but it is hard to hide the fact that it is pretty ugly stuff. Well, then, what about the other extant option for large-scale carbon-free baseload electricity—nuclear power?

No new nuclear power plants have been ordered and put into operation in the United States in more than thirty-five years, since well before the Three Mile Island accident at a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania on March 29, 1979. A combination of design flaws and inadequate control room procedures caused a partial meltdown of the reactor core and the release of a small amount of radioactive gases to the atmosphere. President Jimmy Carter’s accident investigation board, the Kemeny Commission, headed by Dartmouth College president John Kemeny, cast blame for the accident widely: The reactor manufacturer and the utility company operating the plant were criticized for lapses in quality assurance, maintenance, and operator training and for failing to define clear operating room procedures. And the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was blamed for inadequate oversight.