Fuel Cell Power?

This could be the next big step for clean energy. The piece talks about the technological and economical hurdles for this fuel cell to clear. But to me, the biggest hurdle is the gas that powers the cell. If it really uses methane, then we as a society would need a way to generate methane cleanly.

V.P. Debate Remix

Last night's much anticipated debate had only a few minutes of climate and environmental policy discussion. But for the sake of argument, let's take a look at how each of the debaters did.

Clean Coal Technology
Both candidates came out in strong favor of using clean coal technology to drive our energy policy in the next administration. Clean coal technology is an example of hard path energy policy, a policy that increases our use of fossil fuels in an attempt to meet energy demands.

Here is what Senator Biden had to say:

The way in which we can stop the greenhouse gases from emitting. We believe -- Barack Obama believes by investing in clean coal and safe nuclear, we can not only create jobs in wind and solar here in the United States, we can export it.

If Senator Biden is imply that clean coal technology will reduce greenhouse gas emission, he’s wrong – dead wrong. If anything increasing the United States use of coal, will greatly increase our greenhouse gas emissions.

So let’s spend a minute or two discussing clean coal technology. So I’ve heard, it’s useful to use metaphors to describe science to large audiences. Well, clean coal technology is like putting lipstick on a pig…um wait, no that one has been used. Clean coal technology is filthy. Clean coal burning still produces amazingly large quantities of green house gasses. Clean coal technology is only clean when compared to coal burning, which is horrendously bad for the environment.

* Clean coal technology does not reduce the amount of CO2 emissions
* Clean coal technology does not reduce the amount of green house gasses produced from burning coal
* Clean coal technology does not reduce the impact of harmful strip mining for coal
* Clean coal technology is not an alternative fuel
*What clean coal technology does is reduce the quantity of fly ash and SO2 (sulphur dioxide) produced from the burning of coal
* Fly ash is a major constituent of particulate matter, small solid particles that float in the air and are harmful to human health
* Sulphur dioxide is a major constituent of acid rain
* Clean coal technology may or may not reduce the quantity of mercury emitted from coal burning
* Mercury is a toxic metal, which is quite harmful to human health

What clean coal technology is, is American. We have tons of coal. Literally, billions of tons of coal. It’s an energy supply that American has in spades. Too bad it’s dirtier than oil, dirtier than natural gas and not even in the same league as solar and wind power.

Climate Change
Ms. Palin had a few interesting things to say when it came to the causes of climate change:

I'm not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.

But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don't want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?

Once again Ms. Palin goes on the record as doubting that climate change is the result of man’s continual emission of CO2 and methane. Ms. Palin states that she wants to “positively affect the impacts,” and to be clear the only way to do this is to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gasses. But if you don’t believe that man has caused this problem by producing greenhouse gasses, how can you craft good policy to reduce said gasses?

Senator Biden follows up with a rather cogent point:

If you don't understand what the cause is, it's virtually impossible to come up with a solution. We know what the cause is. The cause is manmade. That's the cause. That's why the polar icecap is melting.

For contrast, what does Senator Biden accredit climate change to:

Well, I think it is manmade. I think it's clearly manmade. And, look, this probably explains the biggest fundamental difference between John McCain and Barack Obama and Sarah Palin and Joe Biden -- Governor Palin and Joe Biden.

That he goes on to say that clean coal is a way to address climate change is only a minor deduction compared to the major fault of not being able to assert that climate change is driven by man.

Clean Green Natural Gas?
Ms. Palin later refers to natural gas as “clean and green:”

They know that even in my own energy-producing state we have billions of barrels of oil and hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of clean, green natural gas. And we're building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline which is North America's largest and most you expensive infrastructure project ever to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets.

Again, to clear up potential misconceptions, burning natural gas results in greenhouse gas emissions. Anytime you burn a fossil fuel; oil, coal or natural gas, you will produce greenhouse gasses. There is very little that is “green” about tapping into the Earth in environmentally sensitive ecosystems like the Arctic and sub-Arctic by drilling for oil and natural gas.

”Environmentally Friendly Drilling”
The debate increased in its intensity as the debaters discussed off-shore drilling. Off shore drilling is a potentially disastrous exploitation of resources on under-studied continental shelves.

Ms. Palin was not impressed with the Biden-Obama position on off-shore drilling.

Barack Obama and Senator Biden, you've said no to everything in trying to find a domestic solution to the energy crisis that we're in. You even called drilling -- safe, environmentally-friendly drilling offshore as raping the outer continental shelf.

There -- with new technology, with tiny footprints even on land, it is safe to drill and we need to do more of that. But also in that "all of the above" approach that Senator McCain supports, the alternative fuels will be tapped into: the nuclear, the clean coal.

I was surprised to hear you mention that because you had said that there isn't anything -- such a thing as clean coal. And I think you said it in a rope line, too, at one of your rallies.

There is a lot of hesitation to drill on continental shelves because we know far too little about these remote regions and their ecosystems to assess the impact that drilling would have on them. As a nation we have devoted precious little funding to ocean exploration and marine sciences research. I think this debate reminds us of how important it is to increase our knowledge of the oceans.

Oh and Ms. Palin, Senator Biden noted that there isn’t such a thing as clean coal because there is no such thing as clean coal. There is only slightly-less-filthy-but-still-loaded-in-greenhouse-gasses-coal.

Additional Resources and Transcript
Here are some additional resources for those of you interested in learning more about what the debaters had to say. The times had a good running blog of each question and the response from each debater. The Times also links to a blog reporting on clean coal and caps, which I haven’t had a chance to read yet but greatly look forward to reading.

What follows here is Biden and Palin’s brief discussion of climate and energy, from the vice presidential debate last night. The full transcript can be found here.

IFILL: Governor, I'm happy to talk to you in this next section about energy issues. Let's talk about climate change. What is true and what is false about what we have heard, read, discussed, debated about the causes of climate change?

PALIN: Yes. Well, as the nation's only Arctic state and being the governor of that state, Alaska feels and sees impacts of climate change more so than any other state. And we know that it's real.

I'm not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet.

But there are real changes going on in our climate. And I don't want to argue about the causes. What I want to argue about is, how are we going to get there to positively affect the impacts?

We have got to clean up this planet. We have got to encourage other nations also to come along with us with the impacts of climate change, what we can do about that.
As governor, I was the first governor to form a climate change sub-cabinet to start dealing with the impacts. We've got to reduce emissions. John McCain is right there with an "all of the above" approach to deal with climate change impacts.

We've got to become energy independent for that reason. Also as we rely more and more on other countries that don't care as much about the climate as we do, we're allowing them to produce and to emit and even pollute more than America would ever stand for. So even in dealing with climate change, it's all the more reason that we have an "all of the above" approach, tapping into alternative sources of energy and conserving fuel, conserving our petroleum products and our hydrocarbons so that we can clean up this planet and deal with climate change.

IFILL: Senator, what is true and what is false about the causes?

BIDEN: Well, I think it is manmade. I think it's clearly manmade. And, look, this probably explains the biggest fundamental difference between John McCain and Barack Obama and Sarah Palin and Joe Biden -- Governor Palin and Joe Biden.

If you don't understand what the cause is, it's virtually impossible to come up with a solution. We know what the cause is. The cause is manmade. That's the cause. That's why the polar icecap is melting.

Now, let's look at the facts. We have 3 percent of the world's oil reserves. We consume 25 percent of the oil in the world. John McCain has voted 20 times in the last decade-and-a-half against funding alternative energy sources, clean energy sources, wind, solar, biofuels.

The way in which we can stop the greenhouse gases from emitting. We believe -- Barack Obama believes by investing in clean coal and safe nuclear, we can not only create jobs in wind and solar here in the United States, we can export it.

China is building one to three new coal-fired plants burning dirty coal per week. It's polluting not only the atmosphere but the West Coast of the United States. We should export the technology by investing in clean coal technology.

We should be creating jobs. John McCain has voted 20 times against funding alternative energy sources and thinks, I guess, the only answer is drill, drill, drill. Drill we must, but it will take 10 years for one drop of oil to come out of any of the wells that are going to begun to be drilled.

In the meantime, we're all going to be in real trouble.

IFILL: Let me clear something up, Senator McCain has said he supports caps on carbon emissions. Senator Obama has said he supports clean coal technology, which I don't believe you've always supported.

BIDEN: I have always supported it. That's a fact.

IFILL: Well, clear it up for us, both of you, and start with Governor Palin.

PALIN: Yes, Senator McCain does support this. The chant is "drill, baby, drill." And that's what we hear all across this country in our rallies because people are so hungry for those domestic sources of energy to be tapped into. They know that even in my own energy-producing state we have billions of barrels of oil and hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of clean, green natural gas. And we're building a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline which is North America's largest and most you expensive infrastructure project ever to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets.
Barack Obama and Senator Biden, you've said no to everything in trying to find a domestic solution to the energy crisis that we're in. You even called drilling -- safe, environmentally-friendly drilling offshore as raping the outer continental shelf.

There -- with new technology, with tiny footprints even on land, it is safe to drill and we need to do more of that. But also in that "all of the above" approach that Senator McCain supports, the alternative fuels will be tapped into: the nuclear, the clean coal.

I was surprised to hear you mention that because you had said that there isn't anything -- such a thing as clean coal. And I think you said it in a rope line, too, at one of your rallies.

IFILL: We do need to keep within our two minutes. But I just wanted to ask you, do you support capping carbon emissions?

PALIN: I do. I do.

IFILL: OK. And on the clean coal issue?

BIDEN: Absolutely. Absolutely we do. We call for setting hard targets, number one...

IFILL: Clean coal.

BIDEN: Oh, I'm sorry.

IFILL: On clean coal.

BIDEN: Oh, on clean coal. My record, just take a look at the record. My record for 25 years has supported clean coal technology. A comment made in a rope line was taken out of context. I was talking about exporting that technology to China so when they burn their dirty coal, it won't be as dirty, it will be clean.

But here's the bottom line, Gwen: How do we deal with global warming with continued addition to carbon emissions? And if the only answer you have is oil, and John -- and the governor says John is for everything.

Well, why did John vote 20 times? Maybe he's for everything as long as it's not helped forward by the government. Maybe he's for everything if the free market takes care of it. I don't know. But he voted 20 times against funding alternative energy sources.

New wind energy plan for Long Island

Sorry about the lack of posts last week. I am working on my PhD proposal presently, and I find it hard to do a lot of writing in one day and work on multiple writing projects at the same time.
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Another plan is in the works to place wind turbines off the south shore of Long Island, according to this blurb from News 12 Long Island.

Putting windmills in the Atlantic Ocean to generate power for Long Island is back on the drawing board at LIPA, the power authority says. After a failed try for a wind farm off Jones Beach, the company is now trying for Queens.

LIPA CEO Kevin Law told the power authority’s board Tuesday morning that he has been talking with Con Edison about the idea. Law says the aim is to reduce Long Island’s reliance on oil from the Middle East.

”We agreed that perhaps it would make sense, where we could share the cost and share the power,” Law says.

A proposed wind farm off Jones Beach was canceled last year because of concerns it was too expensive. The new proposal would include more windmills than the Jones Beach project and would be located further out -- about 10 miles from the Rockaways.
LIPA says the technology has improved since the Jones Beach plan was considered.

LIPA and Con Edison are working on determining the cost of the project and if the wind farm would end up saving Long Islanders money in the long run. If they determine the plan does not make economic sense, it will not be pushed forward.

Previous attempts to harvest the large quantities of wind power available off the south shore of Long Island failed primarily for two reasons; first the project would cost so much that the energy harvested would be prohibitively expensive and secondly the project was near to a scenic region off of Jones Beach that residents were concerned would be obscured by the project.

The new project is expected to be larger in scope than the previously proposed project, so the hope is that construction expenses per unit energy produced will be lower, thus the energy will be more reasonably priced. The news blurb vaguely makes reference to “new technology” that would cost less to install or run. Compared to a few years ago, fossil fuel based electricity is more expensive, so this project may make a bit more economic sense.

As per the visual impact of the project, it should be similar, as both projects were expected to be 10 miles off the coast. There may be a difference in public perspective however between “off of Jones Beach” and “off of Queens.” People may have been protective (overly so?) of their parkland view.

A very unscientific poll by News 12 Long Island found 87% (521 self selected respondents) of people who self-surveyed themselves were in favor of building the wind turbines off the coast of Queens, and only 13% (72 self selected respondents) were opposed. This ratio is likely to change when the costs of the projects are announced.

So it seems that the public is now strongly in support of the initiative, whereas only a few years ago they were skeptical of a similar project. It is unclear if this is due to a shift in public opinions of alternative energy sources, or if it is a result of the project being moved away from Jones Beach. What do you think?

Alternative and Renewable Energies

Back at blogcentral today, working very hard on producing some utterly useless data (shown above). So far the past two days, 14 hours in the lab, zero chucks of useful data. I am told this is how the isotope cookie crumbles on a daily basis, so I had better get used to it.

Anyway, I wanted to discuss what exactly “alternative energy” and “renewable energy” means because I think the media often muddles the two expressions, and the definition is lost in the resulting fracas.

An alternative energy source is one that comes from a non-fossil fuel source.

A renewable energy source is one that the fuel or energy source is rejuvenated quicker by natural processes than we consume the fuel.

Let’s look at a few examples of energy sources and try to categorize them in terms of the definitions above.

Coal

Alternative: Coal is not an alternative fuel, as it is a fossil fuel.
Renewable: Coal is not renewable. Even though it is slowly regenerated, it is produced on a timescale much slower than we consume it.
Environmental Impact: Coal burning is a leading cause of emission of carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and nitrogen bearing compounds to the atmosphere. The process of mining coal is also quite damaging to the environment, and generally to human health.

Natural Gas and Oil

Alternative: Natural gas and oil are not an alternative fuels, as they are fossil fuel.
Renewable: Natural gas and oil are not renewable.
Environmental Impact: Natural gas burning and oil consumption are the leading cause of emission of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Burning of natural gas and oil produces also generally produces volatile organic compounds and releases nitrogen oxides to the atmosphere. The process of extraction is damaging to the environment, and is expected to become moreso when we extracting oil shale and tar for oil.

Nuclear Energy

Alternative: Nuclear energy is an alternative fuel since it does not consume fossil fuels.
Renewable: Nuclear energy is not renewable. Uranium and plutonium ore are a limited resource.
Environmental Impact: Nuclear waste is an obvious concern. Retrieval of uranium and plutonium for refinement by means of strip mining can be quite damaging to the environment. Accidental releases, contrary to public opinion, from nuclear power plants are not a legitimate concern given significant advances in nuclear technology over the past 30 to 40 years.

Biofuels

Alternative: Biofuels are alternative fuels as they are not fossil fuel derived. Ethanol produced from corn should be considered a fossil fuel as significant quantities of fossil fuels are required to produce it.
Renewable: The major draw of biofuels is that is renewable. To be truly renewable in the long run, sustainable farming practices must be developed.
Environmental Impact: Varies strongly from biofuel to biofuel. Biofuels include wood, ethanol from corn or sugarcane, manure and vegetable oils. Some are relatively low impact, others like corn based ethanol are environmentally irresponsible and cause significant harm.

Solar

Alternative: Yes. Solar power is an alternative to fossil fuel.
Renewable: Yes. So long as there is a sun, we have solar power available.
Environmental Impact: The major challenge with solar power is improving the technology of converting sunlight to useable energy. Short of conversion of natural terrain to solar farms, the impacts of solar technology on the environment is minimal.

Hydro-Electric

Alternative: Yes. Hydro-electric is an alternative to fossil fuel.
Renewable: Yes. So long as there is a rain and the tides, hydro-electric power available.
Environmental Impact: Varies from application to application. The use of hydro-electric dams can impact rivers and lakes. The use of tidal dams or tidal turbines is somewhat less damaging.

Wind

Alternative: Yes. Wind is an alternative to fossil fuel.
Renewable: Yes. So long as there is a sun creating heating thermal imbalances on the Earth, we have wind power available.
Environmental Impact: Wind power is the most promising alternative energy source because wind is abundant and cheap. The challenge is placing wind turbines in the appropriate location. Chris J brought up some interesting thoughts regarding the viability of wind turbines in an urban environment that I will address in a future post.

Hopefully that clears up the difference between an alternative energy source and a renewable energy source. Next time we’ll pick up with alternative energy production in urban in the New York environment. We’ll try to tackle the question, what are the challenges and opportunities associated with each type of energy?