Editor’s note: Friday, Sept. 20, is being observed as “Climate Strike Day.”
There are three general categories of effort to address climate change.
• Advocates promote enthusiasm for climate change education and action.
• A second category of citizens focuses on political legislation to address the issues.
• A third category of citizens works on the technical problems.
All of these actions are necessary. But we cannot enthusiastically legislate a solution if there is no technical solution. We can’t replace something with nothing. A carbon tax or any measure intended as an incentive to switch to a non-carbon energy source cannot succeed unless there is a suitable alternative energy source.
Currently, the only non-carbon dioxide technology that can meet the world’s electricity demand is nuclear generating plants. A huge number of plants would be required. Nuclear generating plants are expensive to build, operate, and decommission. They are not profitable; they have to be subsidized by taxpayers. The radioactive nuclear waste has to be managed for thousands of years. New nuclear generating stations will be designed for a long life, more than 50 years. If we build a large inventory of nuclear plants, the sunk investment and reliance on these plants will diminish motivation and investment for safer, permanent solutions.
Hydroelectric generating plants and wind turbines can make very useful contributions to our electricity mix, but solar panel electricity that reaps the direct energy of the sun offers the best long-term solution. In the words of Varun Sivaram, author of Taming the Sun, “…every hour the sun beams down more energy than the world uses in a year.” Edmond Mathez and Jason Smerdon express the solar energy potential in their textbook, Climate Change, as follows. “Finally, it is worth pointing out that the amount of solar energy available to humanity (174,000 [tera watts] reaches Earth’s surface continuously) dwarfs anything else and represents an essentially endless resource.” Current worldwide energy usage is approximately 18 tera watts. Both wind turbines and solar panels produce electricity intermittently, not continuously. The wind subsides, and solar panels do not work the night shift. Both wind and solar panel electricity require backup by “baseload” generating stations. Baseload generators are fossil fuel, nuclear, and hydroelectric. Baseload generators can operate 24/7/365. Currently, solar panels produce maximum output during mid-day and feed the electricity into a baseload system. The baseload generator must cut back electricity production to accommodate the solar field input. When clouds suddenly obscure the solar field or as the sun sets in the evening, the baseload generator must rapidly increase generation of electricity. The rapid rate of production change is expensive and hard on equipment. The process may require that the baseload generator be connected to other baseload generators by a wide area grid to distribute the burden of rapid solar field production variations. Generally, baseload operations can accept no more than approximately 20 percent of their electricity from solar panel fields. But solar energy has enormous potential, and the Holy Grail for solar panel electricity generation is an electricity storage system.
Research and development for electricity storage needs to be funded. The United States has some historical precedents that could be a guide for electricity storage research and development. During World War Two, the scientists at the secret Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons. While that may be a dubious accomplishment, the method used to achieve the goal is significant. The method was funding, concentration of intellectual talent, and singular purpose. During the subsequent “cold war” era, a program was launched to put an astronaut on the moon in competition with Russia (USSR). Again, it was successful because of funding, concentration of intellectual talent, and dedicated purpose. Both examples cited above were driven by fear. Fear is a prime motivator. At some future time, climate change may induce fear, but if we wait for that motivation, we may have waited too long. We need a research effort to learn how to store solar energy. That research effort needs to be massively funded, implemented by a concentration of intellectual talent, and driven by dedicated purpose.
Research and development is not a profit center; it is a cost. The R&D effort will require government financing and incentives to induce private enterprise investment for an electricity storage system. Electrical grids need to be connected to enable distribution of electricity, both intermittent and baseload, from places where it is available to places where it is needed. Wind and solar energy systems do not emit carbon dioxide, but they produce electricity intermittently and will provide a significant solution to our energy problem only if a storage system for electricity is developed and wide area grid connections are established. A country-wide electrical grid would surely enhance our national security.
There is currently a push to convert automobiles and trucks to electric power. Americans operate 250,000,000 motor vehicles, and we drive three trillion miles each year. If we rush to convert the fleet to electric power, where would we get the electricity? Powering the automotive fleet with electricity would require building a very substantial number of additional electric generating plants. Given current technology, those plants would have to be fossil fuel or nuclear.
It is inappropriate to condemn fossil fuel energy producers for what they do. No one forces me to buy gasoline or electricity. Energy companies sell to me and to you because we demand products and services that require energy to produce. Our modern society consumes enormous amounts of energy. Solution of the energy problem is an issue that will affect our descendants far into the future. Let’s get it right.