Table of Contents
12/19/09 - Bernd Heinrich on Carbon and Forests
5/21/11 - CO2 avoidance cost with wind energy in Australia and carbon price implications
8/1/11 - An important analysis using NRCM's own CO2 numbers that puts Maine wind into proper perspective
10/1/11 - Robert Bryce: The High Cost of Wind Energy as a Carbon-Dioxide Reduction Method
10/25/11 - Natural Gas cutting more tons of CO2 in the U.S. than have been cut by wind and solar
Contents
12/19/09 - Bernd Heinrich on Carbon and Forests
Clear-Cutting the Truth About Trees
By BERND HEINRICH
Published: December 19, 2009
Burlington, Vt.
THE Copenhagen climate-change summit meeting is behind us, and did not achieve what was hoped for. There was no lack of good intentions, but they generated conflicts rather than solutions, and the product was a weak agreement to disagree in the future. Forests were part of the discussion, and several things were understood: carbon dioxide is a potentially world-altering lethal pollutant, fossil fuels are the problem, biofuels are part of the solution. But exactly how to pare down the use of fossil fuels and switch to energy sources derived from plant material? That is the problem.
Biofuels are the indirect use of solar energy packaged into plants by the best solar-panel technology that has ever been invented, and it is far easier to grow green power than to build nuclear plants, dam our waterways and put windmills on our scenic mountaintops. Yet our current plans to shift to green energy — centered on so-called carbon offsets and cap-and-trade systems — are in some applications sorely misguided.
Contrary to what you might hear from energy companies and environmentally conscious celebrities, offsets don’t magically make carbon emissions disappear. Worse, relying on them to stem global warming may devastate our vital forest ecosystems.
On the industrial scale, carbon trading works like this: Limits (caps) are set on carbon emissions so that the true costs of our energy use are not just passed on to our descendants or people in some distant country. As an incentive to help the planet, savings of carbon emissions that one achieves below the designated cap can then be traded, as offsets, to another polluter who can then go over his cap by an equal amount. While carbon credits can be generated by switching to cleaner technology or nonpolluting sources in energy production, they can also be gained by unrelated steps, like planting trees, that are said to deter global warming.
Thus, if I burn coal in my business, I can plant pines in Chile and earn an offset, which will then allow me to burn even more coal. On a smaller scale, Al Gore purchases carbon offsets that he says make up for the emissions from the jets he uses in spreading his message of conservation. All this may seem logical, and energy companies would have you believe it works in the real world. But it is actually terrible for the planet, which is governed by the dictates of physics and biology.
Part of the problem is the public misunderstanding of how forests and carbon relate. Trees are often called a “carbon sink” — implying that they will sop up carbon from the atmosphere for all eternity. This is not true: the carbon they take up when they are alive is released after they die, whether from natural causes or by the hand of man. The only true solution to achieving global “carbon balance” is to leave the fossil carbon where it is — underground.
Beyond that, planting more trees is decidedly not the same thing as saving our forests. Instead, planting trees invariably means using them as a sustainable crop, which leads not only to a continuous cycle of carbon releases, but also to the increased destruction of our natural environment.
A few environmental groups in Copenhagen were considered unwelcome guests for loudly pointing out that the carbon-trading proposals bandied about at the meetings subsidize forest destruction and will lead to large-scale destruction of ecosystems and unprecedented “land grabs.” (Disclosure: my wife is a researcher for one of those groups.) But such claims are correct. More than anything, carbon offsets will allow rich countries to burn ever more fossil fuels under the “clean development mechanism” of the Kyoto Protocol, the system that sets the values, in terms of tons of carbon equivalent, of emission-reduction efforts.
In fact, most of the problems with the system can be traced back to the Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted in 1997. After much political wrangling, the Kyoto delegates decided that there would be no carbon-reduction credits for saving existing forests. Since planting new trees does get one credits, Kyoto actually created a rationale for clear-cutting old growth.
This is horrifying. The world’s forests are a key to our survival, and that of millions of other species. Not only are they critical to providing us with building material, paper, food, recreation and oxygen, they also ground us spiritually and connect us to our primal past. Never before in earth’s history have our forests been under such attack. And the global-warming folks at Copenhagen seem oblivious, buying into the corporate view of forests as an exploitable resource.
A forest is an ecosystem. It is not something planted. A forest grows on its own. There are many kinds of forests that will grow practically anywhere, each under its own special local conditions. When a tree falls, the race is on immediately to replace it. In the forests I study, there so many seeds and seedlings that if a square foot of ground space opens up, more than a hundred trees of many different species compete to grow there.
So if you want to plant a specific species of tree for lumber or for offsets, you’ll have to apply an (petroleum-based) herbicide repeatedly over its lifespan. If you hope to make a profit, you will plant a tree genetically engineered to grow quickly and resist disease. This is the path to domestication of a plant that needs to be ever coddled with fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides and fungicides. And not coincidentally, there will then be a market for its seeds, and all the chemicals needed to coddle the crop.
In the end, what was originally intended as a mechanism for slowing global warming has created huge economic pressure for ecocide. And there will be no objections from easily duped bleeding- heart “environmentalists,” who absolutely love tree planting because it sounds so “green.”
To preserve something it first has to be valued, and the most effective means of valuing it is to have a practical use for it. If the discussions in Copenhagen were any indication, mankind sees little value in forests, but much in tree plantations. (On the other hand, I admit that those of us who really do care about forests have not exactly been helpful. We have not encouraged selective harvesting from naturally occurring stands, which may be necessary.)
It is easy to scream bloody murder against tree planting as a means for biomass energy and industrial fiber production, but there then has to be an alternative (aside from the obvious one of energy conservation). We need either vastly fewer people or vastly more forests, along with a new definition of earth-friendly reforestation.
These new stands of growth — if managed as true forest rather than as a single-species, single-aged crops — would contain a mixture of mature and transitional-growth trees. Any tree cut down would immediately generate a race of others to replace it at that spot, and the winner will emerge from a natural selection of seeds and seedlings most suited to grow there. No, this isn’t the fastest way to build up carbon credits. But it is the only real way to preserve the planet, and ourselves.
Bernd Heinrich, emeritus professor at the University of Vermont, is the author of the forthcoming “Nesting Season.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/opinion/20heinrich.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
Fair Use Notice: This website may reproduce or have links to copyrighted material the use of which has not been expressly authorized by the copyright owner. We make such material available, without profit, as part of our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, economic, scientific, and related issues. It is our understanding that this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided by law. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
5/21/11 - CO2 avoidance cost with wind energy in Australia and carbon price implications
Download PDF at: co2-avoidance-costs-with-wind-energy-in-australia-p-lang-2011.pdf
8/1/11 - An important analysis using NRCM's own CO2 numbers that puts Maine wind into proper perspective
NRCM's CO2 - From A Different Point of View (PDF)
The PDF document at the following link attempts to put NRCM's own published CO2 information into proper perspective. We think it does just that. Isn't it time to change course and stop so many Mainers' anguish? C'mon everybody, let's work together to fix Maine's problems.
Come_to_Your_Senses_Maine.pdf
10/1/11 - Robert Bryce: The High Cost of Wind Energy as a Carbon-Dioxide Reduction Method
No. 11 October 2011
The High Cost of Wind Energy as a Carbon-Dioxide Reduction Method
Robert Bryce, Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute
Executive Summary
For years, politicians, environmental groups, and the renewable energy lobby have been claiming that widespread use of wind energy would result in substantial reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions.
This report—which relies on data published by the Energy Information Administration and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory— finds that if wind energy were to reduce carbon dioxide, the savings would be so small as to be insignificant and so expensive as to be impractical.
Achieving the oft-stated goal of getting 20 percent of U.S. electricity needs from wind by 2030 would require a total expenditure of more than $850 billion. Yet the likely carbon-dioxide savings from that expenditure would be just 2 percent of global emissions in 2030.
If the “20 by ‘30” target were achieved, it would impose a tax on U.S. electricity consumers of $45 to $54 for each ton of carbon dioxide that was removed. The tax would take the form of an increase of as much as 48 percent over the current price of residential electricity in coal-dependent regions of the country.
A carbon tax at that level would be 23 to 28 times higher than the carbon-taxation regime now being used in the eastern United States. It would greatly exceed the carbon tax recently imposed in Australia and be more than three times as costly, on a per-ton basis, as the European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme.
Introduction
In 2008, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), an arm of the U.S. Department of Energy, issued a report that said the United States could produce 20 percent of its electricity from wind by 2030.[1] The report said that the United States is working toward generating more “energy that can be cost-effective, and replaced or ‘renewed’ without contributing to climate change or major environmental impacts.”[2] Since the report was released, the wind industry, along with numerous politicians and environmental groups, has promoted wind energy as an integral part of the strategy to increase the use of renewable energy.
President Barack Obama has expressed his support for a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which will “require that 25 percent of electricity consumed in the U.S. is derived from clean, sustainable energy sources, like solar, geothermal, wind, and biomass, by 2025.”[3] In July 2011, the Governors’ Wind Energy Coalition, which represents governors from 24 states, implored Obama to push for policies that will “support the continued development of wind manufacturing in the United States.” The group asked that the president extend the tax credits for wind energy production “for at least seven years.” [4]
Two bills now pending in the Senate—S.559 and S.741—would require the United States to get 25 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2025.[5]
About two-thirds of the U.S. population now face RPS mandates—29 states and the District of Columbia have passed rules requiring that varying amounts of electricity used by consumers come from renewable sources. Those mandates cannot be met just with solar energy, which, despite enormous growth in recent years, remains a tiny player in the renewable sector. (In 2010, the United States produced more than 70 times as much electricity from wind as it did from solar.)[6] Therefore, if policymakers want to comply with the mandates, wind energy will be the primary source of renewable generation.
The Obama administration is providing money for numerous wind projects. In August, the Department of Energy finalized a $102 million loan guarantee for a 50-megawatt wind project in Maine.[7] That deal follows the June announcement of a conditional loan guarantee for a $135 million, 99-megawatt wind project in New Hampshire.[8] In announcing the Maine deal, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that it was part of the administration’s goal of “doubling clean energy produced in America by 2035.” He added that “clean energy is a major driver of American competitiveness, and investments like these are essential to secure our position as global leader.”[9]
Behind the rhetoric about “clean” energy—and wind energy in particular—is the claim that using more of it will result in major reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions.
Costs
Last year, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), electricity generation in the United States totaled 4.1 trillion kilowatt hours.[10] Of that amount, wind energy produced 94.6 billion kilowatt hours, or about 2.3 percent of total generation.[11] For wind to expand so that it could supply 20 percent of U.S. electricity consumption, it would require a nine-fold increase in the size of the installed wind generation base, which, at the end of 2010, stood at about 40,000 megawatts of capacity.[12]
Therefore, meeting the “20 by ‘30” goal would likely require the United States to obtain about 360,000 megawatts of wind-generation capacity. That’s a huge amount given that the total installed electric-generation capacity in the United States (from all sources, i.e., coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, etc.) is about 1 million megawatts.[13]
The land requirements for 360,000 megawatts of wind-generation capacity would be substantial. The Roscoe Wind Complex in Texas, one of the world’s largest wind projects, has a capacity of 781.5 megawatts and covers about 154 square miles—about 0.2 square miles per installed megawatt of wind capacity.[14] Using Roscoe as an example, then, 360,000 megawatts of capacity would require about 72,000 square miles of land to be occupied with wind turbines.
That area, if taken together, would rank as the 17th-largest state in the country, just ahead of North Dakota, which has 69,000 square miles.[15] Put another way, that much land is equivalent to nearly ten New Jerseys.[16] Few people could live on that 72,000 square miles because the noise (including infrasound) generated by the wind turbines is so disruptive. The deleterious health effects of wind-turbine noise have been documented by health professionals in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.[17]
Even if we assume that the installation of massive amounts of new wind capacity poses no health risks, and creates no conflicts with rural landowners, the costs of attempting to achieve the “20 by ‘30” goal will be staggering. The latest data from the EIA put the cost of installing one megawatt of wind-energy capacity at $2.43 million.[18] (Note that this is a major increase over the estimate of $1.7 million per megawatt used by NREL in its 2008 report.)[19] The cost of locating wind turbines offshore will be even higher. The latest EIA estimate for installing one megawatt of wind-generation capacity offshore is $5.97 million.[20] (Here, too, the cost is increasing, not decreasing. In 2009, EIA’s offshore estimate was $3.4 million per megawatt.)[21]
The United States has already spent about $68 billion installing the 40,000 megawatts of wind capacity now in place.[22] Installing an additional 320,000 megawatts of wind power at $2.43 million per megawatt will cost the United States about $777.6 billion, or about $44.7 billion every year for the next 19 years. (As noted above, if policymakers prefer to pursue offshore wind, the annual total would be more than double that sum.)
An allocation of $44.7 billion per year would exceed the current combined budgets of the Environmental Protection Agency, Commerce Department, Treasury Department, and Interior Department.[23] It’s not clear how such a program would be funded, however, since the federal government has no money to spare. State governments are also in financial peril. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), a nonpartisan research and policy institute, the states had a combined budget shortfall of $130 billion for fiscal year 2011. In 2012, the CBPP expects the combined shortfall to be $103 billion, with another $46 billion shortfall looming in 2013.[24]
Adding the $68 billion spent on existing wind generation capacity to the $777.6 billion cited above produces a total $845.6 billion. But that figure doesn’t include any money for the gas-fired generation capacity that will be needed to counteract the intermittency of the wind. Nor does it include any money for the construction of the additional transmission lines that will be needed to carry the electricity from windy rural areas to customers in distant cities.
Building new transmission capacity will be extremely expensive. For instance, Texas alone is planning to spend about $7 billion on new transmission capacity for wind energy.[25] Adding the expected transmission costs in Texas to the sum mentioned above (while ignoring the additional transmission costs and gas-fired generation costs that will be incurred in other states) shows that achieving the “20 by ‘30 goal” will cost more than $850 billion, or about $7,548 for each U.S. household.[26]
Potential Carbon-Dioxide Reductions
The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), an industry group, maintains that reducing the amount of carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere “is the most important environmental benefit from wind power generation.”[27] For its part, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), a national trade association, says “there is no need to wait for a new climate solution. Wind power is one of only a few near-term options to reduce emissions.”[28] In its 2008 report, the NREL claimed that if the United States were to derive 20 percent of its electricity from wind, it “could avoid approximately 825 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in the electric sector in 2030.”[29]
How does that 825 million tons of carbon dioxide compare with global emissions? In 2010, global carbon-dioxide emissions totaled 33.1 billion tons.[30] Thus, if the United States were somehow able to instantly increase its wind-generated electricity to 20 percent of total consumption, doing so might reduce global emissions by about 2.5 percent. But it is unlikely that global emissions will be the same in 2030 as they were in 2010. By 2030, the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects global emissions will total about 40.2 billion tons.[31] Thus, the 825 million tons that NREL claims might be reduced by achieving the “20 by ‘30” goal will result in a global reduction of just 2 percent.[32]
Therefore, to justify a total investment of $850 billion in wind, U.S. policymakers would have to agree that reducing carbon dioxide in the year 2030 is worth spending $1,030 per ton. Of course, that amount would not be spent all at once. Instead it would be allocated over the coming 19 years and would be, in effect, a carbon tax set at $54 per ton.
However, the actual cost may be somewhat lower. In its 2008 report, NREL claimed that only 305,000 megawatts of wind capacity would be needed to meet the “20 by ‘30” goal. Recall that the United States has built about 40,000 megawatts of wind capacity at a cost of about $68 billion. Thus, building an additional 265,000 megawatts of wind capacity (again, at $2.43 million per megawatt) at a cost of $644 billion, would lead to a total cost of $712 billion, thereby implying that cutting one ton of carbon dioxide by 2030 would cost about $863. Spread over the next 19 years, the cost would be the equivalent of a carbon levy set at $45 per ton.
Achieving the “20 by ‘30” goal will have a significant impact on electricity rates. In 2007, Steven Hayward and Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) estimated that a $15 carbon tax would likely increase the cost of coal-fired generation by about $0.0163 per kilowatt-hour. Therefore, we can assume that a carbon levy of $54-per-ton could increase electricity rates in coal-reliant regions by about $0.058 per kilowatt-hour. That’s a major increase given that the average price of electricity for residential consumers in the United States is currently $0.12 per kilowatt-hour.[33]
Put another way, if the United States were to achieve the “20 by ‘30” goal, U.S. residential electricity prices in coal-dependent regions could increase by about 48 percent over current levels. If we use the lower range of wind costs outlined by NREL in its 2008 report, and assume that reducing a ton of carbon by 2030 will cost $45 per year, the increase in electricity costs in coal-dependent areas will amount to about $0.049 per kilowatt-hour. That would result in an increase of 40 percent over current levels for residential customers in those regions.
These higher electricity costs will likely accelerate the pace of electric rate increases now underway around the country. Since 2004, the average cost of residential electricity has gone from $0.0895 per kilowatt-hour to $0.1218 per kilowatt-hour, an increase of 36 percent.[34]
A Comparison of Existing Carbon-Tax Regimes
Achieving the “20 by ‘30” goal would create a carbon tax—at $45 or $54 per ton—that would be far higher than similar levies being imposed by other regulatory jurisdictions. The only extant carbon-pricing regime in the United States, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon market established by 10 states in the eastern part of the country, recently sold allowances for $1.89 per ton.[35] (Each allowance gives the owner the right to emit one ton of carbon.) And RGGI, America’s first carbon market, is faltering. In May 2011, New Jersey governor Chris Christie announced that his state would be quitting the program.[36] Christie said the program “is not working as it was intended to work. It’s a failure.”
The California Carbon Allowance cap-and-trade system began trading in August 2011 at a price of $17 per ton.[37] But the program will not launch until 2013. And while the trading now underway will help market participants to structure forward deals and consider compliance strategies, it remains to be seen how the allowances will be priced when covered entities must begin actually complying with the cap-and-trade system.[38]
In mid-2012, the Australian government is to begin imposing a carbon tax of about $24 per ton on major industrial plants.[39] That levy, which is being fought by Australia’s big industrial users, is scheduled to rise by 2.5 percent per year until 2015, after which the country expects to switch to a carbon-trading system. Meanwhile, in Europe, the price of carbon allowances under the European Union’s Emission Trading Scheme is falling rapidly as the region’s economic troubles have become more pronounced. In early May, the cost of a one-ton carbon allowance was more than $24. By mid-October, that allowance was trading for about $14.[40]
Conclusion
Wind energy is not a cost-effective method of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions. Any effort—whether at the state level or the federal level—to dramatically increase the use of wind energy will result in a new tax on electricity consumers. If the United States were to achieve the “20 by ‘30” goal, the effective carbon tax of $45 to $54 per ton would far exceed any such tax regime currently in place. Further, if the stated goal were met by 2030, the likely reduction in carbon dioxide emissions would amount to just 2 percent of the expected global total.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/ib_11.htm
Fair Use Notice: This website may reproduce or have links to copyrighted material the use of which has not been expressly authorized by the copyright owner. We make such material available, without profit, as part of our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, economic, scientific, and related issues. It is our understanding that this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided by law. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
10/25/11 - Natural Gas cutting more tons of CO2 in the U.S. than have been cut by wind and solar
U.S. Way Ahead in Clean Energy Race
If clean-energy means “low-carbon” (a definition to which I object), then the U.S. is way, way ahead of China in the clean-energy race. If it means low-everything-else, we are still way, way ahead, since China has a pathetic record on controlling genuine pollution.
Getting hung up on commoditized solar-panel or wind-turbine production ignores the phenomenal increase in coal-generated power in China—an increase that swamps that country’s installed wind and solar production. From parity with the U.S. around 2005, China’s CO2 emissions will grow to roughly double America’s in 2012.
Here’s the kicker: Market-driven energy choices are cutting more tons of CO2 in the U.S. than have been cut by wind and solar—even with their billions of dollars in subsidies.
Natural gas-fired electricity generation has grown from 15.8 percent of America’s power generation in 2000 to 24.1 percent in the most recent 12-month tally from the Energy Information Administration. That 8.3 percent increase is enough to cut 120 million metric tons of CO2 per year compared to coal.
Over the same span, wind- and solar-generated power grew to 2.75 percent of total power generation. That would cut CO2 by 108 million metric tons per year compared to coal power. So over the past decade, hugely subsidized wind and solar have done less to cut CO2 emissions than market-driven natural gas production.
This rising trend for gas-generated power is likely to continue, thanks to hydraulic fracturing and Adam Smith’s invisible hand.
In summary, for those who obsess about CO2 emissions and want to have a race, we are whipping China handily. And the market has done more to cut CO2 than all the subsidies, mandates, and regional CO2 agreements combined.
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/10/25/u-s-way-ahead-in-clean-energy-race/
Fair Use Notice: This website may reproduce or have links to copyrighted material the use of which has not been expressly authorized by the copyright owner. We make such material available, without profit, as part of our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, economic, scientific, and related issues. It is our understanding that this constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided by law. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
You need to be a member of Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine to add comments!
Join Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine