Adopting sustainability as a key driver would have an enormous effect on how we develop and use our energy resources.

The study is already known as the “Green Book” within the EPA.

The study did not, however, try to define sustainability, which it should have, because there is no widely accepted definition of sustainability.

Rather than defining sustainability, the NAS used president Obama’s executive order 13514 entitled Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy and Economic Performance that broadly defines sustainability as the ability “to create and maintain conditions, under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations.”

The NAS study said the experience of the European Union, that has adopted an all encompassing vision, “is especially relevant”. The EU’s specific priorities include, “climate change and clean energy; sustainable transport; sustainable consumption and production; conservation and management of natural resources; public health; social inclusion, demography and migration; and global poverty.”

As applied to the United States, the study says the EPA needs to establish “how to define and control unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and how to encourage the development of sustainable communities, biodiversity protection, clean energy, environmentally sustainable economic development and climate change controls.”

The study proposes new tools, specifically the use of “sustainability impact assessment” as part of the Environmental Impact Statement process. Environmental Impact Statements for siting power plants, transmission lines and development of mines and drilling etc. can already take years. Adding a sustainability assessment will increase the time it takes to approve projects – and increase the hurdles that result in projects being denied approval.

The study urges the EPA to “create a new culture among all EPA employees.” It encourages the EPA to “hire an array of new experts in order to bring the sustainability focus to every corner of the agency and its operations.”

The study says the EPA should adopt a suite of tools that have the ability to analyze present and future consequences of alternative decision options on the full range of social, environmental and economic indicators.

Little of this was reported in the media.

Adoption of these recommendations would automatically include adoption of the Precautionary Principle, which essentially says do nothing if there is any perceived risk.

The study admits that the EPA would be required to forecast the future – which, of course, is impossible.

All of this comes in preparation for Rio+20 to be held in Rio de Janeiro this summer. It’s to be held on the twentieth anniversary of the United Nations conference known as the Earth Summit, where the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was adopted, which in turn, led to the Kyoto Protocol and a continuing demand for cutting CO2 emissions.

Rio+20 is called the UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

The term sustainability is a catch phrase that means different things to different people. If it’s impossible to define, it’s also impossible to measure.

The EPA is already conducting a war on coal and is doing what it can to obstruct fracking. With a sweepingly defined sustainability added to its portfolio, the EPA will be in a position to control all aspects of energy development and use in the United States.

 The NAS report is available at https://download.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13152

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IGCC plants are exorbitantly expensive to build, costing twice as much as an ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant, and nearly as much as a nuclear power plant.

They also require that the captured CO2 be stored underground for centuries, something that is impossible to prove.

It’s very likely that most new power plants, at least for the immediate future, will be natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) plants, but at some point, the availability of coal and the suitability of coal-fired power plants for providing base load power, will mean that coal-fired power plants could once again be competitive with NGCC plants.

But IGCC plants won’t be able to compete, unless government regulations force their adoption.

The coal industry would have been wiser to establish that ultra-supercritical plants deserved the label “clean coal”, and to never have assigned the label to IGCC plants.

Ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plants operate at very high temperatures and pressures and have thermal efficiencies of between 38% and over 43% HHV. They use 25% to 35% less coal, respectively.

In addition, properly equipped ultra-supercritical units have lower emissions. Emissions of SOx are cut by over 95%, NOx by over 85%, particulates by over 98%, while 90% of Hg is removed with appropriate emission control equipment.

Ultra-supercritical units are superior to the existing fleet of traditional coal-fired power plants that have a thermal efficiency of only 32% HHV.

For those who worry about CO2 emissions, CO2 emissions from ultra-supercritical coal-fired plants are nearly the same as from NGCC plants.

Ultra-supercritical plants are being built in China, and even in Europe, but except for one unit being built in the United States, they aren’t being built here. And AEP has had to agree to onerous conditions to merely complete the plant it’s building in Arkansas.

The coal industry seems to be running scared ahead of environmentalists, and still assigns the label “clean coal” to IGCC units, where CO2 is captured and stored underground – “forever”?

With utilities announcing retirements of coal-fired power plants and the abandonment of projects to build new coal-fired power plants, the Sierra Club is claiming victory in its war against coal. Interestingly, Mayor Bloomberg of New York City has given $50 million to the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, so the coal industry is getting nowhere by touting expensive IGCC units as being clean.

Dirty Business, a new film by an environmental group, claims there is no such thing as “clean coal”. It will be shown at the Get Reel festival and highlights coal as being the number one sources of CO2 emissions. The film is narrated by Rolling Stones contributing Editor Jeff Goodell.

It’s clear; the coal industry is making no headway against environmentalists and the EPA.

The coal industry has locked itself into an untenable position where IGCC plants are uneconomic, while ignoring ultra-supercritical plants that are economic and can meet all environmental regulations, except for potential CO2 regulations – which NGCC plants can’t meet either.

(For information on NGCC carbon capture, see Interesting News from California.)

(Link for information on Carbon Capture and Sequestration.)

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But how much do coal-fired power plants contribute to the mercury found in our environment? And how dangerous is the mercury that’s been deposited around the country?

U.S. coal-fired power plants emit 41 tons of mercury into the atmosphere, but this is a fraction of the 9,100 tons of mercury emitted globally each year, mostly from natural sources.

Mercury emitted into the atmosphere travels around the globe, so mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants in China is probably being deposited in the U.S.

The EPA has undertaken a program to eliminate the use of coal in power plants, and its efforts will cost billions of dollars. Are these expenditures necessary? Will they really reduce the effect of mercury on our health? Are coal-fired power plants the villains portrayed by the EPA?

A recent study by the USGS can shed light on these questions.

This year the EPA has mandated that 8.65 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol be mixed with gasoline. If a producer can’t obtain cellulosic ethanol to mix with its gasoline, it must pay a penalty in the form of waivers.

So far, in 2010 and 2011, companies have had to “buy” $10 million of waivers. This cost finds its way into the price of gasoline at the pump.

It’s preposterous, but this mandate requires companies to buy a product that doesn’t exist.

This is how the environmental movement has forced untenable rules and regulations onto the American public.

But why?

The two reasons heard most often are:

1. To free the U.S. from being dependent on foreign oil.
2. To cut CO2 emissions to help prevent global warming.

The first excuse is ludicrous. There is enough oil in North America to supply the U.S. for decades to come. Of course, a good portion of this oil would come from Canadian oil sands, and they are condemned by environmentalists for emitting CO2. That is the real reason behind the effort to kill the Keystone pipeline.

There is a strong scientific case that CO2 is not the primary cause of global warming. The publication, Climate Change Reconsidered, at http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf a report by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, contains a wealth of information explaining why CO2 is not a real problem. Merely reading the eight-page executive summary will provide people with the information needed to make a judgment on this issue.

The National Academy of Sciences has also concluded that the biofuel mandates “may be an ineffective way to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.”

As has been widely reported, temperatures have remained steady or have declined over the past dozen years, which contradicts all computer programs on which the global warming threat is based.

It’s also been pointed out that biofuels emit CO2, which undermines the supposed reason for requiring the use of cellulosic ethanol – a product that doesn’t exist outside the laboratory in spite of the government having spent over $1.5 billion of taxpayer money in grants and loan subsidies.

Similar to Solyndra, the most outrageous failure and bankruptcy of a biofuels company to-date, was Cello. Cello had gone so far as to show investors a fuel made from petroleum when asking for money to produce ethanol from cellulosic plant material. It received the first round of funding from the government.

Cello went bankrupt in October 2010.

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The just issued report Renewable Energy, Vision or Mirage, evaluates the current situation in the UK.

In its forward, the report says: “[Governments] have an obligation to the electorate to provide a secure, affordable supply of energy, on which economic competitiveness and the safety and comfort of citizens depends. The evidence shows that continuing along the current path will not do this and certainly does not represent an efficient use of tax revenues.”

The report makes it clear that renewables, with a few notable exceptions, “hydro in Norway and geothermal in Iceland,” are not economic and cannot supply the needed electricity.

The report is technically oriented.

A few of the items that caught my attention were:

• GDP in the UK has increased while energy usage has remained flat, resulting in an improvement in energy efficiency. Some of this improvement has been due to actual improvements in efficiency, but some of it has also been due to industries moving out of the UK.

Industry uses more energy than other sectors, so if GDP increases as a result of a large increase in the service sector and a decrease in the industrial sector, it gives the impression that energy efficiency is improving.

In the U.S., energy efficiency has also improved, but some of the improvement is also due to American manufacturing jobs moving to China and elsewhere.

• Renewables require government subsidies to exist.
• The low density of biomass and lack of supply in the UK means that biomass can never produce a significant amount of electricity in the UK.
• The types of large scale storage required to make renewables useful do not exist – and are not in development.
• The UK needs to use its large supply of coal to contribute to energy security.
• A phenomenon in the UK has been referred to as fuel poverty. The UK’s emphasis on high cost renewables and attempts to eliminate coal generated electricity has driven up the price of electricity to the point that people cannot afford electricity — and with less natural gas available, the cost of natural gas has also increased making that fuel also unaffordable to many.

So far, we in the United States haven’t experienced fuel poverty, though renewable portfolio standards (RPS) that require increased wind and solar generation of electricity are causing an increase in the cost of electricity. We are also fortunate in that fracking has increased our nation’s supply of natural gas so that prices for heating with natural gas will remain low.

The report also provides an excellent history of energy development in the UK.

We in the United States can learn a great deal from what is happening in the UK.

The report is available at: http://www.adamsmith.org/research/reports/renewable-energy-vision-or-mirage

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The latest example of this was the Navy’s purchase of 450,000 gallons of biofuels, which according to Mabus, was the “largest single purchase of advanced drop-in biofuel in government history.” The biofuels will be produced by blending algae and cooking oil. This, in turn, will be blended with jet fuel.

The 450,000 gallons will cost $12 million. This is money the Navy will have to take away from its other needs, such as buying equipment and paying salaries of servicemen and women.

Secretary Mabus has said he wants a carrier strike group to be fueled by biofuels mixed with diesel fuel to accompany the nuclear carriers on a multi-month tour.

The suppliers of the 450,000-gallon purchase will be algae from Solazyme and cooking oil from Dynamic Fuels, LLC, a joint venture of Tyson Foods and Syntroleum Corp.

The cost will be about nine times the cost of jet fuel normally used to power our aircraft. The biofuels will cost $26 per gallon, or $16 per gallon when mixed with regular jet fuel that costs less than $3 per gallon.

Solazyme previously received $21.7 million in stimulus money to build a bio-refinery.

The Wall Street Journal reported, the “administration has also funded a $510 million program in partnership with the Navy to produce advanced biofuels for the military. In September, the feds loaned $134 million to Abengoa Bioenergy, [the subsidiary of a Spanish company], to build a cellulosic plant in Kansas. In September, the Department of Energy provided POET, which advertises itself as the world’s largest ethanol producer, a $105 million loan guarantee for cellulosic.”

Loan guarantees for cellulosic biofuels will likely become losses borne by tax payers, similar to those incurred from the loan guarantee to Solyndra.

The rationale for these efforts is to decrease our dependence on foreign oil and reduce our carbon foot print.

The National Academy of Sciences concluded that the mandates “may be an ineffective way to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.” The report notes that “currently, no commercially viable biorefineries exist for converting cellulosic biomass to fuel.”

The idea that we should invest in biofuels to cut our dependence on foreign oil is ludicrous, when there is enough oil in North America to supply all our needs for decades.

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Now, it is looking Eastward, toward the ocean – specifically the Pacific Ocean and the sea lanes from the Indian Ocean.

This shift has been caused by China’s growing dependence on oil and China’s role as a major maritime trading power.

How the United States pursues its energy needs will determine whether the United States and China will compete for the same oil resources.

China is in the process of developing a large, modern navy, including ballistic missile and attack submarines, frigates and the supporting ships necessary for a modern navy.

Currently, half these vessels are older and not suitable for 21^st century combat. The Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has adopted sea skimming anti-ship missiles, such as the maneuverable Yakhont, that travels at 2.5 Mach with a range of 160 miles. Missile ships, using catamaran hulls that provide a stable platform for cruise missiles, are also part of the PLAN’s arsenal.

It’s been said that if Argentina had had another half dozen Exocet missiles, it would have won the Falkland Islands war against the U.K.

China, using sea based and land based maneuverable missiles, is developing , and may already have, the ability to implement an anti-access (A2) and area-denial (AD) strategy in the South China Sea, that could prove deadly to the U.S. Navy if it had to operate in the South China Sea should hostilities ever occur.

While the PLAN is getting newer, better and bigger, the U.S. Navy is getting smaller.

Currently, the PLAN’s primary focus is to protect the South China and East China Seas; and the existing PLAN is a credible defensive force.

South China Sea and Key Straits

As it looks East, it sees a line of islands stretching from Japan, South, past Taiwan and the Philippines, and then to Brunei and Indonesia. It views this “first row of islands” as an obstacle to reaching the Pacific Ocean, and – more importantly, to maintaining access through the Malacca, Sunda and Lombok straits.

More than five times as many ships pass through the Malacca Strait as pass through the Panama Canal. The Lombok Strait is important since very large crude carriers (VLCCs) traverse it because the Malacca Strait is too shallow.

Over 15 million barrels of oil per day traverse through the South China Sea destined for China, and the other bordering nations. For comparison, the United States uses 20 million barrels of oil per day.

China has claimed virtually the entire South China Sea as belonging to it. (See the dotted line on the map.) The South China Sea stretches from Taiwan, past the Philippines and as far south as Malaysia.

China believes there are large oil and natural gas resources under the seabed.

Many islands within the South China Sea are claimed by several nations, including China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei. These disputes have the potential for conflict, though China’s navy is too strong for any of the other countries to challenge China – without the support of the United States.

China views the presence of the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea as a threat.

China’s growth is expected to result in its importing much larger quantities of oil, so the straits and the South China Sea will grow in strategic importance to China. China is increasing its oil imports from the Mideast and Africa. It has also invested in Canadian oil companies, and would sorely like to import oil from Canada. It’s also exploring for oil in the South China Sea.

The United States energy policy can increase the potential for conflict between the United States and China – or, minimize the threat of conflict.

By developing oil resources in Alaska, the [U.S.] outer continental shelves, and on federal land, and by partnering with Canada to develop Canada’s oil sands, the United States can avoid having to compete with China for Mideast and other oil resources.

While it may not be possible to avoid conflict over the islands and navigation rights in the South China Sea, it is possible to be certain we don’t go head to head with China, competing for oil.

For additional information on China’s Navy and maritime interests, see The Great Wall at Sea, published by the USNI.

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What’s remarkable about the MIT report is that it leads to conclusions that are opposite of the intent of the report.

The report establishes that policy decisions are at the root of problems with the grid.

Forcing the use of wind and solar onto the system is creating problems on the supply side, while another policy, the push for electric vehicles, is causing problems on the demand side.

The report says:

• “One of the most important emerging challenges facing the grid is to incorporate more renewable generation in response to policy initiatives.”

And:

• “Increased penetration of electric vehicles and other ongoing changes in electricity demand will, if measures are not taken, increase the ratio of peak to average demand and thus further reduce capacity utilization and raise rates.”

In other words, there would be fewer problems if it weren’t for these two policy decisions – forcing the use of wind and solar, and the use of electric vehicles.

In so far as the grid is concerned, we would be better off without wind and solar generated electricity and without electric vehicles.

Contrary to what is reported in the media, the MIT report says, “The U.S. electric grid is not broken today.” And, “The grid is currently functioning well.”

In essence: The grid is stable and reliable, unless we add wind and solar.

This doesn’t preclude improving the grid through the use of new sensing and communication technologies.

Improving the stability, reliability and efficiency of the grid, can be achieved by utilizing enhanced communications between all elements of the grid, with these improvements being the result of incredibly improved sensing and communication technologies.

Wind and solar are uneconomic and should  not be part of the problem in the first place, while problems associated with electric vehicles can be easily managed by restricting battery charging to off-peak hours. For example, battery charging can be restricted to off-peak hours if home charging systems control the hours during which charging can occur.

The MIT report says:

“Exploiting these variable energy resources [wind and solar] will require building more transmission than if fossil-fueled or nuclear generating plants, built relatively close to load centers, were driving system expansion. The use of very long transmission lines can cause technical problems and compromise system stability.”

One of the report’s recommendations is to recover fixed costs through fixed customer rates rather than charging customers based on usage.

This contradicts the long accepted idea that people should pay for what they use, and not be forced, in essence, to pay for what other people use.

Once again, green house gasses become central to the report’s conclusions, when it says a national policy is required for green house gas emissions. The report’s prejudice is revealed when it refers to “dirty diesel”. Only those with an agenda refer to fossil fuels as “dirty”.

And the report calls for the adoption of demand response, where utilities, and governments, have control over homeowners’ equipment, including air-conditioning units and refrigerators.

Most of the proposals in the MIT report are because of wind and solar on the supply side, and electric vehicles on the demand side. The purpose of the MIT report is to establish the actions that need to be taken because policy decisions are forcing the use of wind and solar and distributed generation on us.

The MIT report clearly demonstrates, once again, why wind and solar are bad for America.

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Power generation equipment, from steam turbines to wind turbines, are assigned nameplate ratings.

The nameplate rating defines the amount of electricity a unit, be it a gas turbine, steam turbine or wind turbine, can produce, if operated continuously.

For many reasons, all power generation installations are not able to operate consistently, all the time. There are maintenance issues, cycling issues, efficiency issues and several other issues that cause units to not generate electricity at their nameplate rating.

The theoretical amount of electricity that can be generated by a unit over one year can be calculated by multiplying the nameplate rating, by 365 days and then by 24 hours, with the answer expressed in kilowatt-hours, kWh.

Taking the total amount of electricity actually generated during the year and dividing it by the amount that could theoretically be generated, gives the Capacity Factor.

The capacity factor of a nuclear power plant is typically 90% or slightly more. This means that an investment in a nuclear power plant can be expected to generate 90% of the electricity that could theoretically be generated based on its nameplate rating.

Wind turbines have a capacity factor of around 30%. This reflects the fact that they don’t generate electricity when the wind isn’t blowing or when the wind blows too hard, say over 55 mph. It also reflects that between the units lowest operating speed, say 5 mph, to its most efficient operating speed, say 35 mph, it operates at different efficiencies. Wind turbines are least efficient at low wind speeds; say 5 mph, with efficiency  gradually increasing as wind speed increases, until the wind turbine is operating most efficiently.

An investment in a wind turbine generates only 30% of the electricity that could theoretically be generated based on its nameplate rating.

Typical capacity factors are:

• Nuclear 90%
• Coal 85%
• Natural Gas Combined Cycle (NGCC) 85%
• Wind 30%
• Concentrating Solar (CCS) 22%
• PV Solar 16%

It’s been said that electricity from nuclear, coal and NGCC power plants is more valuable than electricity generated by wind, CCS or PV power plants.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) actually misleads the public when it announces that “x” megawatts (MW) of wind turbines have been installed during the year.

Comparing the MW of installed wind with the MW of installed nuclear, coal or NGCC, overstates the amount of electricity that can be produced by wind turbines.

It compares apples with oranges, and misleads people into thinking that equal investments in MW of wind or NGCC power plants produce equal amounts of electricity.

Wind also has the disadvantage of generating electricity at night when it isn’t needed. The NY Times noted this past August that the investment in wind energy couldn’t provide electricity during the afternoon when it was needed to meet the air conditioning load.

Understanding capacity factor helps to understand why wind and solar are so expensive and why they can’t produce enough electricity to meet our needs.

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Storms, such as those that caused extensive power outages in Connecticut, already have people thinking about emergency backup power for their homes and offices.

Some of my neighbors in Illinois lost nearly all the furniture and belongings in their basement recreation rooms, when a storm caused a power outage and the sump pumps didn’t work.

Driving around the neighborhood after the storm, there were carpets, clothing and furniture lining the street, waiting to be picked up and taken to the landfill.

Subsequently, at least one neighbor installed a backup generator that was connected to the natural gas line. The generator comes on automatically when there is a power failure and can supply the home with all the electricity needed for refrigerators, furnaces, air-conditioning and lighting.

This shouldn’t be necessary in the United States. Shortages of electricity and rolling blackouts used to be the province of under-developed countries.

While storms are not preventable, having adequate power supplies from the grid used to be the norm. Occasionally a hurricane would create such extensive flooding and damage that power interruptions couldn’t be avoided, but seldom did they last for more than three days. 

Today, the grid and power generation installations are weaker and more susceptible to outages.

The lack of transmission lines is one problem, partially caused by people not wanting them in their back yards, or because the transmission line would go through forests or environmentally sensitive areas.

Renewables are another problem. This past summer, blackouts were barely averted in New York and New Jersey when a heat wave caused an increase in load and the newly installed power generation, which was from wind, couldn’t supply the needed electricity. Wind generates electricity mostly at night, when it isn’t needed, and can’t generate very much electricity when air temperatures are high and the air is thin.

It was the availability of coal-fired power plants that prevented the blackouts, but these plants are being shut down because of EPA regulations. They won’t be available in the future when needed to supply electricity on hot summer afternoons.

Backup generators, such as those installed by my neighbors, cost about $5,000. Larger units for offices or building complexes can cost as much as $25,000.

But these may have to become the norm, because we aren’t building the base-load power plants and transmission lines we need.

The so-called smart grid doesn’t help very much. It may trim peak load or help prevent local outages caused by minor damage from ice and wind, but it can’t supply electricity if the power plants and transmission lines haven’t been built, or have been shut down prematurely.

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