Shale gas vs coal is the wrong question

Source

Quick: Which is worse, a carjacking or a rape?

I know what you're thinking, but suppose the carjacking involved a gun, whereas the rape was "just" statutory rape between a sixteen-year-old and her nineteen-year-old boyfriend?

To be fair, though, neither of these examples is probably quite representative of the "typical" carjacking or rape. Perhaps we ought to assess the badness of each act based upon a weighed average of the typical circumstances of the two crimes, respectively, and only then give our opinion about which is "worse," per se. Then again, it is possible that the social stigma that has historically been associated with the victims of rape causes that crime to be systematically underreported, leading to a biased sample.

At this point we could do some philosophical heavy lifting involving definitions, sources of data, and standards of badness, all as a preface to an open-ended debate with other people who made different assumptions or preferred other data sets. Or, just putting it out there, we could ask ourselves why the fuck we care.

As the astute reader can probably discern, I'm losing interest in the question of whether shale gas or coal is worse for the climate. This is an unfamiliar experience for us here at IT; more typically, we find ourselves worrying the bone of a topic whilst other, more responsible commentators have long since satisfied themselves that there's not an atom of meat left to scavenge (can you say, Scott Armstrong's climate "bet"?)

But I'm about ready to be done with this one, and the reasons are fairly simple:

1. The answer is heavily dependent on the initial assumptions you chose. Both the facts (the leak rate[1]) and the value judgments (how far into the future should we look to compare the effects of CO2 and methane [2]) remain hotly disputed. It is also laughably easy to stack the deck by comparing new natural gas to old coal, or old natural gas to new coal, or heating capacity vs electrical generation, none of which choices are clearly right or wrong and all of which, given a large energy sector and enough time, will describe some set of power plants, somewhere.

2. Even if we could reach a final a definitive answer to the question, we would still be left with the reality than coal has a bunch of other negative externalities, most crucially, the particulate pollution kills people. As vitally important as climate change is, you can't just pretend all the other costly, deadly, and environmentally destructive consequences of coal mining and coal burning don't exist.

3. Like a lot of questions that suck up time and energy in the climate debate, this one fails to inform the discussion of the only question which, in the final analysis, matters at all: Will our society and the global civilization to which it belongs succeed in undertaking collective political action (commensurate with scale of the challenge) to limit global warming and abort the Business as Usual scenario? 

If we will, there are numerous tools and technologies close at hand to speed our transition, which might or might not include some shale gas. If we won't, if we are determined to rely on blind chance in the form of a distorted profit motive coupled with an unchecked tragedy of the commons to deliver us, we will bring down devastating climate change upon ourselves, and whether the cheap shale gas that energy companies pried out of the ground purely in the name of corporate profits happened to be  somewhat better or somewhat worse for the climate than coal will be the definition of irrelevance.

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1) So what's the leak rate, really? Very recently, the EPA estimated 2.3%, but this was revised downward to 1.4%. On the other hand, direct measurements of leakage from gas fields often come in quite a bit higher, as in the recent study that found leakage from 6.2% to 11.7%. This followed another study from 2012 that found leakage rates of 4% at a field near Denver.

When your estimates of a quantity from various credible sources differ by an order of magnitude, I think it's fair to suggest that we do not have a firm grasp on the final number.

Note, too, that it is not just the wells that leak. The downstream infrastructure is full of leaks as well, and this may account for a third of the estimated fugitive emissions.

This naturally raises the question: couldn't we fix that leaky infrastructure if we wanted to? (Yes, we could.) For that matter, couldn't we strictly regulate and monitor shale gas developments to force companies to keep their fugitive emissions low, or risk hefty fines? (Seems to discourage oil spills.) And might that alter the calculus of whether the substitution of gas for coal brings important climate benefits? (Of course it could.)

This is why I say the central question is not which energy source is "better," but whether or not we have the will to take collective political action to make the situation better.

2) The latest marker in this debate was laid down by Raymond Pierrehumbert, a climate giant by any definition, but one who in this case, in my opinion, has not got things quite right. He says:

The important thing to understand is that essentially all of the climate effects of methane emissions disappear within 20 years of cessation of emissions; in this sense, the climate harm caused by methane leakage is reversible. In contrast, CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, ratcheting up the temperature irreversibly, at least out to several millennia. Therefore, if switching to natural gas from coal reduces the amount of CO2 you emit, you can tolerate quite a large amount of leakage and still come out ahead, because the warming caused by the leakage will go away quickly once you eventually stop using natural gas (and other fossil fuels), whereas the warming you would get from all the extra CO2 you’d pump out if you stuck with coal would stay around forever.

One can quibble with some of Pierrehumbert's facts here; the breakdown of methane in twenty years or so depends on how much of the stuff is in the atmosphere to begin with; some of the reactions are subject to saturation kinetics. These can extend the life of methane in the atmosphere by a factor of three or more, albeit at concentrations far higher than today's.

But the important problem here is logical, not factual. Pierrehumbert's absolutely right that looking at the earth in a thousands years or so, the amount of methane that leaks today is not going to have any influence on the amount of radiative forcing the earth is experiencing. Whereas a significant bit of the CO2 released today will still by present in the atmosphere, warming the planet every minute of every day right out through the year 3,000 anno domini and beyond.

The problem, as I've said, is with the logic. When you define your vantage point as "thousands of years in the future" or even hundreds of years, you can discount the radiative effects of methane today. But from that vantage point, looking down on oceans that have swallowed dozens of the world's great cities, in the aftermath of wars over water and food, with three-quarters of all mammals extinct, from that vantage point, all fossil fuel burning looks like a crime against humanity. If future Ray from the year 3,000 gets a vote, he may very well not give two straws for the methane leaks, but he will veto the carbon dioxide released by burning shale gas.

This is perhaps a more subtle point than is usually to be found on this frankly pugilistic blog, so let me restate it in the form of an analogy:

You are in the emergency room suffering with some abdominal pain. Your doctor comes in to share the good news that all your tests are negative and you will be going home, after one more (ludicrously expensive) CT scan. When you ask why this is needed, she tells you "Oh, it's going to be a big help in a couple of days, when you come back in with overwhelming sepsis on the brink of death."

The proposed CT scan makes no sense because you either are or are not sick: it makes no sense to take some actions based on the idea that you are fine (discharging you home) and others based on the belief that you are extremely ill (an expensive scan after your other tests were negative.)

Similarly, if you are the kind of person who thinks the state of things in the year 3,000 is critically important, then you are welcome to be indifferent to methane leaks, but by the same token, no fossil fuel burning should be even a little bit acceptable to you -- you, the far-future person, suffering from the effects of our stupid and thoughtless abuse of our shared life support system even after we knew the likely consequences -- future you will look at gas' lesser amount of CO2 per Kwh of electricity in the way we, in 2013, look at slave owners that only whipped their slaves after a fair and impartial hearing. That is, far-future you will recognize one of these things as theoretically more awful than the other, but regard the activity as a whole as so morally repugnant as to make the distinction academic, at best.

Bottom line: Does switching from coal to shale gas slow climate change?

Keith Kloor "asks" Will Fracking Help Or Hinder the Fight Against Climate Change? Unfortunately, it soon becomes clear that he has little interest in trying to answer that question, and instead uses it as an excuse to beat up on his favorite villains, those crazy environmentalists:

Gas emits much less carbon than coal (probably between 25% and 50% less), which is a net plus on the global warming ledger. And shale gas, in case you hadn’t heard, is entering a golden age; it is abundant and newly retrievable across the world, not just in the United States. It’s the bridge fuel to a clean energy future that liberal think tanks and university researchers were touting just a few years ago. Given the political stalemate on climate change, one energy expert gushed in a recent NYT op-ed: “Shale gas to the rescue.”



But a grassroots backlash to the relatively new technology (hydraulic fracturing) that unlocks shale gas has set in motion powerful forces opposed to this bridge getting built. Leading climate campaigners, citing concerns about industry practices and continued reliance on fossil fuels (even if less carbon intensive), are now a big part of the growing anti-fracking coalition. Mainstream environmentalists have also jumped on that bandwagon.

Thus the battle lines are drawn, with enviros and climate activists digging in their heels against a shale gas revolution that could pay big climate dividends.

Lest you think I'm quoting Kloor's conclusions following a careful analysis of the pros and cons of shale gas, the above is from the third, fourth, and fifth paragraphs of Kloor's essay. Really. So the title of the essay is really quite misleading. Kloor spends not a bit of virtual ink on whether fracking will "help or hinder the fight against climate change." Instead he blandly proclaims it "the bridge fuel to the clean energy future" and directs the remainder of his energies to the question of whether "enviros and climate activists" will help or hinder it.

It's a shame, and not just because it is rehash of an essay Kloor has written approximately five hundred times (Enviros crazy! Me sane and moderate!) dressed up as something new. It is a shame because the question itself is very interesting and important: is shale gas a good thing from the perspective of global warming, or not?

There are three major factors to examine in considering the relative impact of shale gas and coal on climate change:

1. CO2 produced per unit of energy.
2. Methane produced per unit of energy (conventionally referred to, with gas, as the methane leakage rate).
3. Aerosol cooling (coal more than gas, by far.)

Non-AGW factors will be left out of the equation for now. These include water pollution, direct harm from inhalation (asthma, COPD, lung cancer), and damage to the landscape. These are not unimportant, but they complicate an analysis that is already quite complicated. So we will stick with the effects on global warming.

Looking at the three factors above, we can see that the long-term factor (CO2) favors gas, while the short-term factors (methane and aerosols with their short half-lives in the atmosphere) favor coal. So we would expect, intuitively, that shale gas would do well in the long term, and less well in the short term. And this is exactly what the literature shows.

Source.

Looking at Hultman et al (2011) (4th abstract below) we see that methane leakage make shale gas worse than coal in the short term (20 years) about the same in the medium term (100 years) and better in the long term (500 years). Hultman et al does not consider the negative aerosol forcing associated with burning coal, so gas is relatively advantaged in these calculations.

When aerosols are included in the calculations, the break-even point for shale gas is even further in the future.

Here are a few of the recent papers examining this question:

"Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations"(Robert W. Howarth, Renee Santoro and Anthony Ingraffea)

We evaluate the greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas obtained by high-volume hydraulic fracturing from shale formations, focusing on methane emissions. Natural gas is composed largely of methane, and 3.6% to 7.9% of the methane from shale-gas production escapes to the atmosphere in venting and leaks over the life-time of a well. These methane emissions are at least 30% more than and perhaps more than twice as great as those from conventional gas. The higher emissions from shale gas occur at the time wells are hydraulically fractured—as methane escapes from flow-back return fluids—and during drill out following the fracturing. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential that is far greater than that of carbon dioxide, particularly over the time horizon of the first few decades following emission. Methane contributes substantially to the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas on shorter time scales, dominating it on a 20-year time horizon. The footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years. Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years. [Howarth et al became the focus of a debate between the authors and another group of researchers championed by Anthony Revkin. Cathles et al substituted optimistic estimates of methane leakage for Howarth's pessimistic estimates (which led to a letter, which led to a press release), and ignored the 20-year horizon, arguing that only 100 years and longer are appropriate measures of climate impact. Ignoring the 20-year time horizon is a common tactic of shale gas boosters, as we see below. Cathles goes further by ignoring the difference in aerosol forcing between present-day coal and shale gas, reasoning that we'll have to get rid of dirty coal plants someday anyway!]

"Greater focus needed on methane leakage from natural gas infrastructure"

Natural gas is seen by many as the future of American energy: a fuel that can provide energy independence and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the process. However, there has also been confusion about the climate implications of increased use of natural gas for electric power and transportation. We propose and illustrate the use of technology warming potentials as a robust and transparent way to compare the cumulative radiative forcing created by alternative technologies fueled by natural gas and oil or coal by using the best available estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from each fuel cycle (i.e., production, transportation and use). We find that a shift to compressed natural gas vehicles from gasoline or diesel vehicles leads to greater radiative forcing of the climate for 80 or 280 yr, respectively, before beginning to produce benefits. Compressed natural gas vehicles could produce climate benefits on all time frames if the well-to-wheels CH₄ leakage were capped at a level 45–70% below current estimates. By contrast, using natural gas instead of coal for electric power plants can reduce radiative forcing immediately, and reducing CH₄ losses from the production and transportation of natural gas would produce even greater benefits. There is a need for the natural gas industry and science community to help obtain better emissions data and for increased efforts to reduce methane leakage in order to minimize the climate footprint of natural gas. 

"Modeling the Relative GHG Emissions of Conventional and Shale Gas Production"

Recent reports show growing reserves of unconventional gas are available and that there is an appetite from policy makers, industry, and others to better understand the GHG impact of exploiting reserves such as shale gas. There is little publicly available data comparing unconventional and conventional gas production. Existing studies rely on national inventories, but it is not generally possible to separate emissions from unconventional and conventional sources within these totals. Even if unconventional and conventional sites had been listed separately, it would not be possible to eliminate site-specific factors to compare gas production methods on an equal footing. To address this difficulty, the emissions of gas production have instead been modeled. In this way, parameters common to both methods of production can be held constant, while allowing those parameters which differentiate unconventional gas and conventional gas production to vary. The results are placed into the context of power generation, to give a ″well-to-wire″ (WtW) intensity. It was estimated that shale gas typically has a WtW emissions intensity about 1.8–2.4% higher than conventional gas, arising mainly from higher methane releases in well completion. Even using extreme assumptions, it was found that WtW emissions from shale gas need be no more than 15% higher than conventional gas if flaring or recovery measures are used. In all cases considered, the WtW emissions of shale gas powergen are significantly lower than those of coal.[Note, however, that this paper, brought to you by "Shell Global Solutions," ignores the 20-year horizon completely: "Some authors have considered 20-year global warming potential
factors, but use of these is not widely accepted."]

"The greenhouse impact of unconventional gas for electricity generation" Nathan Hultman, Dylan Rebois, Michael Scholten and Christopher Ramig 2011 Environ. Res. Lett.

 New techniques to extract natural gas from unconventional resources have become economically competitive over the past several years, leading to a rapid and largely unanticipated expansion in natural gas production. The US Energy Information Administration projects that unconventional gas will supply nearly half of US gas production by 2035. In addition, by significantly expanding and diversifying the gas supply internationally, the exploitation of new unconventional gas resources has the potential to reshape energy policy at national and international levels—altering geopolitics and energy security, recasting the economics of energy technology investment decisions, and shifting trends in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In anticipation of this expansion, one of the perceived core advantages of unconventional gas—its relatively moderate GHG impact compared to coal—has recently come under scrutiny. In this paper, we compare the GHG footprints of conventional natural gas, unconventional natural gas (i.e. shale gas that has been produced using the process of hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking'), and coal in a transparent and consistent way, focusing primarily on the electricity generation sector. We show that for electricity generation the GHG impacts of shale gas are 11% higher than those of conventional gas, and only 56% that of coal for standard assumptions. [But see above.]

Climatic Change, Volume 54, Numbers 1-2 (2002), 107-139, DOI: 10.1023/A:1015737505552

Substitution of Natural Gas for Coal: Climatic Effects of Utility Sector Emissions

Katharine Hayhoe, Haroon S. Kheshgi, Atul K. Jain and Donald J. Wuebbles

 Substitution of natural gas for coal is one means of reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. However, natural gas and coal use also results in emissions of other radiatively active substances including methane (CH₄), sulfur dioxide (SO₂), a sulfate aerosolprecursor, and black carbon (BC) particles. Will switching from coal to gas reduce the net impact of fossil fuel use on global climate? Using the electric utility sector as an example, changes in emissions of CO₂, CH₄,SO₂ and BC resulting from the replacement of coal by natural gas are evaluated, and their modeled net effect on global mean-annual temperature calculated. Coal-to-gas substitution initially produces higher temperatures relative to continued coal use. This warming is due to reduced SO₂ emissionsand possible increases in CH₄ emissions, and can last from 1 to 30years, depending on the sulfur controls assumed. This is followed by a net decrease in temperature relative to continued coal use, resulting from lower emissions of CO₂ and BC. The length of this period and the extent of the warming or cooling expected from coal-to-gas substitution is found to depend on key uncertainties and characteristics of the substitutions, especially those related to: (1) SO₂ emissions and consequentsulphate aerosol forcing; and (2) the relative efficiencies of the power plantsinvolved in the switch. [Short-term: more warming with shale gas. Longer term: gas beats coal. The exact time horizons seem to be quite sensitive to the initial assumptions, but there seems to be fairly broad agreement about the overall picture, and dissenters -- like "Shell Global Solutions" -- get around these facts by simply ignoring the short-term time frame.]

Coal to gas: the influence of methane leakage
Tom M. L. Wigley

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuel combustion may be reduced by
using natural gas rather than coal to produce energy. Gas produces approximately half the amount of CO2 per unit of primary energy compared with coal. Here we consider a scenario where a fraction of coal usage is replaced by natural gas (i.e., methane, CH4) over a given time period, and where a percentage of the gas production is assumed to leak into the atmosphere. The additional CH4 from leakage adds to the radiative forcing of the climate system, offsetting the reduction in CO2 forcing that accompanies the transition from coal to gas. We also consider the effects of: methane leakage from coal mining; changes in radiative forcing due to changes in the emissions of sulfur dioxide and carbonaceous aerosols; and differences in the efficiency of electricity production between coal- and gas-fired power generation. On balance, these factors more than offset the reduction in warming due to reduced CO2 emissions. When gas replaces coal there is additional warming out to 2,050 with an assumed leakage rate of 0%, and out to 2,140 if the leakage rate is as high as 10%.
. . .
In our analyses, the temperature differences between the baseline and coal-to-gas
scenarios are small (less than 0.1°C) out to at least 2100. The most important result,
however, in accord with the above authors, is that, unless leakage rates for new
methane can be kept below 2%, substituting gas for coal is not an effective means for reducing the magnitude of future climate change. This is contrary to claims such as that by Ridley (2011) who states (p. 5), with regard to the exploitation of shale gas, that it will “accelerate the decarbonisation of the world economy”. The key point here is that it is not decarbonisation per se that is the goal, but the attendant reduction of climate
change. Indeed, the shorter-term effects are in the opposite direction. Given the small
climate differences between the baseline and the coal-to-gas scenarios, decisions regarding further exploitation of gas reserves should be based on resource availability (both gas and water), the economics of extraction, and environmental impacts unrelated
to climate change.

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So after this whirlwind tour of shale gas research, what do we know? There is no consensus about whether or not substituting shale gas for coal will slow global warming this century. This is not going to be one of those issues where all the science is lined up on one side, and all the partisan kooks are lined up on the other. The exact effect of switching from coal to shale gas depends upon a number of factors that are difficult to pin down, including:

1. The size of the aerosol forcing. After many decades of trying to pin it down, we still do not know exactly how much cooling the SO2 and other coal-burning byproducts are causing. Obviously the effects of switching from coal to gas depend on how much coal-burning byproducts temporarily cool the planet.

2. The amount of methane leakage. This is a function of not just how well we measure methane leakage, but whether we aggressively regulate methane leakage to hold it to an absolute minimum.

3. The discount rate. Not really a physical constant, but more of a philosophical question: how important is relative cooling 300 years from now compared to worsening global warming over the next twenty years (or fifty years, or hundred years)?

4. The half-life of methane in the atmosphere. As far as I know, no one has discussed this relative to the shale gas question, but the oxidization of methane to CO2 by free radicals is subject to saturation, which is the science-y way of saying that the more methane you put in the atmosphere, the longer each molecule stays in the atmosphere:

The magnitude and feedbacks of future methane release from the Arctic region are unknown. Despite limited documentation of potential future releases associated with thawing permafrost and degassing methane hydrates, the large potential for future methane releases calls for improved understanding of the interaction of a changing climate with processes in the Arctic and chemical feedbacks in the atmosphere. Here we apply a “state of the art” atmospheric chemistry transport model to show that large emissions of CH 4 would likely have an unexpectedly large impact on the chemical composition of the atmosphere and on radiative forcing (RF). The indirect contribution to RF of additional methane emission is particularly important. It is shown that if global methane emissions were to increase by factors of 2.5 and 5.2 above current emissions, the indirect contributions to RF would be about 250% and 400%, respectively, of the RF that can be attributed to directly emitted methane alone. Assuming several hypothetical scenarios of CH 4 release associated with permafrost thaw, shallow marine hydrate degassing, and submarine landslides, we find a strong positive feedback on RF through atmospheric chemistry. In particular, the impact of CH 4 is enhanced through increase of its lifetime, and of atmospheric abundances of ozone, stratospheric water vapor, and CO 2 as a result of atmospheric chemical processes. Despite uncertainties in emission scenarios, our results provide a better understanding of the feedbacks in the atmospheric chemistry that would amplify climate warming.

So depending on how widely shale gas is adopted, and on whether other sources of methane such as permafrost melting or methyl hydrates come into play, methane leaks from shale gas could have double or even quadruple the impact on the climate presently assumed.

Given these uncertainties, what can we say with at least moderate confidence?

1. Shale gas is probably worse than coal on the 20 year horizon. Apart from all the other evidence, the determination of shale gas boosters to avoid talking about the 20 year horizon suggests that this is the case.

2. There is a time horizon out there at which shale gas becomes better from a warming perspective than coal. It's just not clear yet whether it is at 25, 100, or 300 years . . . i.e., whether it is soon enough to do us any real good.

3. Shale gas is significantly worse than every other sort of energy except coal and oil. In the absence of a carbon price, cheap shale gas will tend to displace all energy sources, not just coal. Thus a realistic analysis of a Tea Partyesque policy of letting frackers "do their thing" with minimal regulation would compare shale gas to a basket of power sources that would be displaced, including hydro, geothermal, solar, wind, and nuclear, as well as discouraging investments in efficiency or decisions to conserve. Shale gas is unlikely to look good on this basis.

So, can shale gas be a "bridge fuel"? In my opinion, not in the way shale gas is happening right now. To have any hope of a real net benefit in terms of global warming this century, we need draconian limits on methane leakage and a carbon price (including both CO2 and methane) to ensure that shale gas replaces coal, not low-carbon energy sources or improvements in efficiency. The narrative of "the free market slashed CO2 emissions while the enviros weren't looking HAHAHA" has no basis in fact. The blind squirrel of the free market may stumble into an instance of profit-driven accidental mitigation once in a while (like the Russians controlling methane leakage from pipelines after the fall of the Soviet Union), but this ain't it. Similarly the idea that shale gas is an unambiguous "win" in mitigation terms, so much so that those questioning it are self-evidently trolls lurking under "the bridge to the clean energy future" is also not supported by the research.

Sea level rise to 2500. Source.

How we do shale gas is going to determine whether there is a window where there might be some net benefit. Both proponents and opponents of mitigation have tended to stress the 100-year time frame, for different reasons. If you accept that framing, even optimal shale gas substitution is probably going to show, at best, moderate benefits. If you are looking 500 years into the future, shale gas instead of coal is the best thing since sliced bread, but then, if you're looking 500 years into the future,  you can hardly help but realize that stopping all fossil fuel use as soon as possible should be our overarching priority.

The body electric

Fact of the day:

The ability to move electricity from power plants to end users will also be threatened by climate change, since electrical transmission lines lose 7 to 8 percent of their transmitting capacity in high temperatures--just when demand for power rises.

This from a study on the effects of climate change on California's grid. Another little bit of knowledge to stew over:

The warmer climate will decrease hydropower generation in the summer months when it is needed most, the report said. High-elevation hydropower plants, which supply about 75 percent of the state's hydropower, are especially at risk, since the small size of their reservoirs allows little flexibility to cope with reduced snowpack.
At the same time, higher temperatures alone will require the state to increase its electricity generating capacity 38 percent over current levels by 2100.

 This is apropos of the crisis this week in India, where a massive blackout left 670 million people in the dark. That's roughly ten percent of the population of the world. Most of the power is back on today, but rolling blackouts and "power holidays" will continue to be a fact of life. (Revkin's roundups here and here.)

India's blackout points to a dangerous climate feedback -- the political feedback. Global warming is going to ramp up demand for electricity and threaten supplies. Not just hydropower but any plant that requires water for cooling (nuclear, coal, gas) can potentially be compromised by the heat. The heat ramps up transmission losses (did you know that? I didn't.) Power lines can be compromised by wildfires, floods, or other extreme weather event.

The political feedback comes when the public demands reliable electricity and doesn't care whether the source of that power makes the long-term problem worse. Some of India's electrical problems stem from a shortage of coal, which in turn is partially the result of the world's largest democracy protecting some of its last dense forests. They are wise to do so, but will they maintain their resolve in the face of events like those of last week?

The adaptive capacity of people is often invoked and praised in the climate debate. (Ironically, those that are most apt to profess unlimited faith in the human capacity to adapt and overcome are the most vehement that we should not start the process of adapting and overcoming.) But humans have another, less admirable characteristic; under pressure people frequently give way to emotional and short-term thinking that worsens the very crisis they are responding to.

The trade protectionism that deepened and prolonged the Great Depression is one classic example. Fighting terrorism by invading Iraq could be considered a recent exhibition. Russia's ban of wheat exports in response to its heat wave disaster is another.

It's critical that the world get on a better energy path before our civilization becomes so stressed that people lack the basic security needed to think about the future.

Carbon price passes in Australia

Baby steps:

The carbon plan, if passed by the Senate, would see Australia join the European Union and New Zealand with national emissions trading schemes, while the United States and Japan have smaller regional schemes.
The government and the Greens hope the carbon tax will reignite momentum for a global emissions reduction agreement at climate talks in Durban, South Africa, in December.

The above is a very partial list. India last year passed a coal tax which is estimated to have raised $555 million in its first year. That's India -- one of those poor, fast-growing, regardless-of-what-we-do-they will-never-do-anything places. And they've moved further down a path to a comprehensive carbon price than we have in North America.

China, though, with its new coal plant every week -- surely China would never pass a carbon tax.

BEIJING, May 11 - China could impose a carbon tax as soon as 2012, and officials have proposed it start from 10 yuan ($1.46) to 20 yuan per tonne of carbon dioxide, a Chinese newspaper said on Tuesday.
The Chinese-language Economic Information Daily said officials and experts from the Ministry of Finance and other state agencies have been studying how to introduce a tax aimed at curbing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.

Huh. Maybe we need to rethink this notion that developing countries will not act on global warming, even if the rich world steps up.

South Korea also seems to be moving towards an emissions trading scheme:

The National Assembly is expected to pass by December a bill for the proposed emission trading scheme, or ETS, Park Chun Kyoo, director general of the Presidential Committee on Green Growth overseeing climate change policy, said in an interview.
“Prospects for the bill appear quite healthy as it has backing from the ruling and opposition parties,” said Victoria Cuming, senior analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance in London.

Cheap coal, cheap sun

I was reading DeSmogBlog's account of the toxic coal ash problem, and it put me in mind of a recent interview Richard Rosen gave to Dot Earth. There are many excellent things in this interview, and it is a real pleasure to get the insider's view of these technologies, and the real barriers to replacing fossil fuels with alternative energy sources. Rosen is very clear that, while he is pessimistic on the prospect of dramatic R&D breakthroughs in renewables, he thinks the technology needs to be implemented on a broad scale today.

That said, I think he overstates the case here:

The situation is similar for solar thermal technologies; they have had major R&D expenditures for decades and they are improving slowly. But they can never be as cheap as coal-fired electric generation because the energy density of the sun’s rays are not nearly at the level of fossil-fuels like coal, so you necessarily need more physical equipment to collect the energy, and turn it into electricity. Also, the lower temperatures that result from collecting the sun’s rays compared to burning fossil fuels inherently limits the efficiency of solar generation, but more importantly, it increases its costs relative to fossil generation.

It's very difficult to predict, based on physics, what kinds of technologies will be cost-effective and which won't. Physics would suggest, for example, that long-haul trucks could never compete with trains for hauling heavy freight (in fact, they dominate the market in the US). Rosen is, under the gloss of a scientific argument, reasoning ex post facto from the actual relative cost of these technologies today.

Suppose we instead lived in a world in which wind, photovoltaic, and solar thermal sources provide most of our energy, and some clever reformer was proposing coal as a solution to the intermittancy problem. How might Rosen explain the prospects that coal would overtake solar and wind?

ALTER-REVKIN: Coal is a promising emerging technology, easily scalable, with theoretical efficiencies twice what we can achieve with solar, but will it ever compete on price?

ALTER-ROSEN: Coal may be a valuable minor player, but it will never be as cheap as solar. There are too many costly inputs and costly side effects. Imagine, you need a research team to locate the coal, you have to purchase the rights to the coal deposit, then you need an entire operation, separate and independent from power generation, to get the stuff out of the ground. That's trucks, it's heavy machinery, burning fuel and writing paychecks to the operators. Then you need to haul it to the power plant -- more trucks, more heavy machinery. Finally you burn the stuff, and it produces coal ash, which is toxic. You have to store that safely for hundreds of years -- it's not like you're going to dump it behind a rickety wooden dam somewhere and walk away!

ALTER-REVKIN: Wow, that's a lot of costs.

ALTER-ROSEN: And we're not done yet. Researchers estimate that if this technology were widely adopted, millions of people would die each year from atmospheric pollution. So the companies would be paying from that, as well.

Bottom line, it's too complicated to find it, extract it, transport it, store the wastes and cope with the consequences of the pollution for coal to every compete with a no-fuel, no-pollution source like wind or solar.