Strategic Directions for Energy White Paper March 2009

Strategic Directions for Energy White Paper March 2009.pdf (application/pdf Object).

Perhaps its a generational thing. One idea that stood out beyond anything else while I was reading about history when I was younger was a comment that went something along the line that its not that theories about history change over time, its more that the cohort who hold superseded views grow old and die out. So over time you can detect a change in the way issues are viewed.

People are very resistant to new ideas, especially if they have spent decades of their working lives building up a career in a field.

You can tell that the White Paper above was written by people who have been in the energy industry for a long time. Energy for these people is fuel – full stop. Carbon-based fuels and uranium are known quantities and they have heard and experienced something about  solar and wind renewable sources but that is in the margins. They are also aware of the problem of global warming as section 3 about the Global Energy Context in the above White paper demonstrates:

The IEA argues that global energy security and climate change challenges cannot be addressed without a radical reorientation of the global energy system to substantially reduce its carbon intensity—nothing short of an ‘energy revolution’. The significance of this challenge for global prosperity and wellbeing cannot be overstated. The global economy and existing energy technologies face a fundamental shift in incentives that will drive structural reform, alter the basis of commercial activity—including the type, timing, size and location of investments—and present a range of new business opportunities.

From Page 4

The proposed response, however, is almost completely in terms of energy as a natural resource (carbon based fuel or uranium) with a few token paragraphs here and there that address the fundamental changes in energy systems that will be needed.

It is almost as if Carbon Capture and Sequestration CCS is touted as a solution to the problems of global warming not so much as a smokescreen and spin for the public to keep the carbon industry going – it looks like it is more about the people in the carbon industry fooling THEMSELVES and coming up with some measures that they think will mesh in with the changes in energy systems that global warming is forcing on them. They don’t really ‘get it’.

Below is only one example of the ‘energy is fuel’ mindset:

5.1 International energy

Governments everywhere are vitally interested in energy security because they recognise the importance of energy to economic prosperity. ‘Energy security’ broadly refers to the ability to obtain cleaner, adequate, reliable and affordable supplies of energy over the long term, whether from domestic or foreign sources…

Australia’s oil production and refining capacity have been declining. We rely increasingly on imports of crude oil and its derivative products and consequently have a strong interest in global action to sustain competitive international markets and efficient supply-chain management.

Pages 7-8

There IS difficult work ahead, and many new opportunities for organisations that help change energy systems for the better in the long term.

Anyway, there is also a post at LP about this topic and they usually have interesting comment threads.

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2 Apr

One of the main things about fossil fuels, that seems to be so obvious it isn’t noticed, is that fossil fuels are essentially a STORAGE medium for energy. The value of fossil fuels is that they store energy and it is possible to move fossil fuels around before using that energy, usually in a heat engine. The energy storage aspect of fossil fuels is the reason they are so useful, but that storage aspect of fuels is also taken for granted. Compare, by contrast, the energy on earth available from the sun. There is more than enough raw solar energy to supply all our current needs, if only we could store that energy.

For a nation to have ‘energy security’ you basically need to have a large enough store of energy to service the needs of that nation. Up until now that has been through maintaining reserve stocks of fossil fuels, exploiting fossil fuel natural resources and maintaining chains of supplies from foreign places with abundant fossil fuel resources.

If you can conceptually separate the medium for the storage of energy from the energy being stored itself, then you could think of an alternative that would maintain ‘energy security’ while not being dependent on fossil fuels. Grid connected electrical energy storage systems (batteries or capacitor banks) and hybrid or plugin electric vehicles with batteries are examples of energy storage media. At first you might still need to burn fossil fuels to charge up these storage systems – as happens in hybrid cars – but these electrical storage systems can also take energy from a wider variety of sources including passive solar, PV solar, geothermal and wind turbines. We already have national grids and high voltage transmission lines that can move electrical energy around to places of high energy demand. The United States Air Force have even run trials using 50 percent synthetic aviation fuels, so another possibility is using stored solar or wind energy to manufacture synthetic fuels from low grade hydrocarbons. Some forms of transport will only be viable with fossil fuels. Eventually surplus renewable energy could be used to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

The key aspect for future ‘energy security’ is expertise and research in renewable energy and energy storage systems and an industrial capacity to manufacture electrical storage systems. Global warming is serious and it is a problem that crosses national boundaries. Burning coal as a source of energy is not a mid or long term option. If a nation does not have the industrial capacity and expertise to manufacture energy storage systems they will be forced to import that kind of technology. For Australia to rely on coal exports into the future is lunacy. Even mining and processing mineral ores will become expensive if we do not have renewable energy and storage systems to do the work with. Once adequate electrical energy systems are designed and mass produced, the installed storage capacity will rapidly increase and we may start to see big declines in CO2 emissions and fossil fuel sales (and fossil fuel prices may also fall if world-wide regulatory systems are not set up to prevent cheap fossil fuels being dumped irresponsibly). This change in energy systems is going to to be a financial windfall for those people who are clued in – and they wouldn’t be making their thoughts public like I am. If the Obama Administration puts the hard yards in now, then the United States is likely to bounce out of this recession in good shape – even if it may take some time. No doubt the Obama plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions is realistic.