Energy Probe

Natural gas may boom by default

Posted on February 27, 2008 by energyprbe

Tyler Hamilton
Toronto Star
February 8, 2008

Roadblocks to building new coal and nuclear plants in the United States have some industry observers expecting a natural gas boom that could contribute to higher energy prices in Ontario over the coming decade.

Dozens of proposals for new coal and nuclear plants from U.S. utilities have been shelved or cancelled because of rocketing construction costs, financing risk, regulatory uncertainty and community resistance.

The attraction to gas is that plants are much easier to build. …

However, a "profound impact on price" would likely be an issue.

Norm Rubin, an analyst with Energy Probe, said such a trend would affect Ontario businesses and consumers, who rely on natural gas for heating and will grow more dependent on it for electricity as the province moves to phase out all coal-fired plants by 2014.

"Increased demand for natural gas will not only drive up the price, but it will drive us more toward liquefied natural gas," said Rubin, adding that increased reliance on so-called LNG means relying on imports coming in by ship – and, as with oil, being left more vulnerable to the volatility of global trading markets.

Rubin said energy is required to liquefy the natural gas and some of the fuel – what he calls "fugitive methane emissions" – is lost during transportation, bringing it closer to coal in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. … Amir Shalaby, vice-president of system planning at the Ontario Power Authority, said Ontario, compared to many U.S. states, will be somewhat sheltered by price increases because of its diverse energy mix. He added that new natural gas plants will also be used sparingly.

For the full story, see here.

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The corn isn't green

Posted on February 27, 2008 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
August 25, 2002

Alberta is an environmental pariah for its tar sands, which are just about the world’s worst emitters of greenhouse gases, but Alberta’s neighbours to the east – Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario – avidly promote a competing fuel with proportionately much greater emissions.

The federal government also has been promoting this souped-up greenhouse gas generator, ironically touting it as a Future Fuel that can help meet the country’s Kyoto targets. But this competitor can only make matters worse.

This worst-of-all-possible greenhouse fuels is called ethanol. Although it is produced from plentiful renewable crops such as corn and wheat, it is a glutton for our ever-diminishing non-renewable fossil fuels.

The news of the evil of ethanol comes to us from Cornell University, where a study by agricultural scientist David Pimentel found that producing a U.S. gallon of ethanol consumes 131,000 BTUs in planting, growing and harvesting corn, then crushing, fermenting and distilling it. That same gallon contains only 77,000 BTUs. "Put another way, about 70% more energy is required to produce ethanol than the energy that is actually in ethanol," explains Mr. Pimentel, who formerly chaired a U.S. Department of Energy panel that investigated the efficiency of ethanol production, and whose recent ethanol findings have been published in the authoritative Encyclopedia of Physical Sciences and Technology. "Every time you make one gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs."

The more ethanol you produce, the less energy you have, and that applies in spades to Canada, where the yield per acre is typically lower. That makes the fuel – which is blended with gasoline and sold as "gasohol" or "E10" in over 1,000 Canadian gas stations – as much of a gas guzzler as the vehicles it’s pumped into. If ethanol visionaries have their way and government policy vastly increases ethanol production, the upshot will be more tar sands plants to produce the energy needed to feed ethanol’s insatiable maw.

Ethanol consumes so much oil and other fossil fuels because the growers and processors who swear by it can’t afford to burn ethanol to make ethanol – it costs almost twice as much to make as gasoline. Neither would any of us buy this Kyoto killer at gas stations – Sunoco is the country’s leading gasohol marketer – without pumped-up government subsidies that cheapen its cost.

Some, like the National Corn Growers’ Association in the United States, dispute Mr. Pimentel’s study. They say that U.S. corn yields have improved by 10% in the last decade, among other improvements, making ethanol a net producer of energy. Whether ethanol produces any net energy, in fact, depends on a host of factors, such as the amount of petrochemicals required to grow a particular crop, the weather, and the proximity to market. But even if ethanol did eke out a modest net energy gain in some locations at some times, why run so hard to end up at more or less the same spot? Oil fields typically produce 30 to 50 times the energy that they consume, and even tar sands, which are preposterously inefficient, manage two units out for every unit in. Ethanol, which under good conditions may net one-fifth of one unit for every unit in, makes tar sands appear a paragon of efficiency and environmental sense.

Ethanol suffers from other environmental defects, despite its renewable cachet. Corn production erodes soil 12 times faster than it can be reformed, and irrigating corn depletes groundwater 25% faster than its natural recharge rate, apart from being a big-time water polluter because of fertilizers.

The poor also suffer from ethanol, which draws corn away from farmers’ fields that would otherwise produce corn for human or animal consumption. The resulting shortfall raises the cost of feeding chickens and livestock, in turn raising the cost of basic foods such as meat, milk, and eggs.

With losers all round, who backs the government programs that feed ethanol? Not surprisingly, the funding comes from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, a federal department that answers to farmers and food processors, and to no one else.

BACKGROUND SOURCES

Responses

I am advisor to the board of directors of Integrated Grain Processors Cooperative, an Ontario-based farmer-owned cooperative exploring the construction of an ethanol production facility in the province. As someone who has been involved in the fuel ethanol industry for over 20 years, I felt compelled to respond to Mr. Solomon’s article. The article is so riddled with misinformation it is difficult to know where to begin.

There are four points that I would like to make. First, ethanol is the only liquid automotive fuel that has a net positive greenhouse gas reduction benefit. There have been numerous studies conducted that demonstrate the uptake of C0₂ by the corn plant is greater than the amount of C0₂ generated by the production of ethanol. Of course, we all know that fossil fuels of any kind cannot make that claim. We can provide a number of credible studies from the U.S. Federal Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy and others, that substantiate ethanol’s greenhouse gas reduction benefits.

Second, it’s unfortunate that the writer chose to use only a study done by David Pimentel of Cornell as his major reference. That report has literally been ignored as biased, inaccurate and without merit by much of the scientific community. The assumptions were inaccurate, the data used were grossly outdated and the methodology was flawed. The only ones who have given any credit to the report are those who are trying desperately to build a case against ethanol, which is why the report was produced in the first place.

Third, there have been at least 10 separate studies done by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, the internationally recognized environmental watchdog organization the Institute for Local Self Reliance, and several national laboratories. All have demonstrated that ethanol has a net energy gain from field to fuel tank of over 20%.

Finally, the food vs. fuel issue was addressed 20 years ago. Ethanol does not use food to make fuel. In fact, it enhances the food value of the corn. Only the starch is used to make ethanol, the balance is a high-protein, high-fibre feed supplement for dairy, beef, poultry and swine. It’s not more expensive than corn, it is only more concentrated than whole corn. It does not drive up the price of beef or chicken or any other livestock it is fed to. That is a totally false and misleading statement.

Farmers are not growing more corn because of ethanol; they are simply creating a new value-added market for the corn that they already grow. Fertilizer and chemical use have been dramatically reduced in the past 20 years. Farmers have depended on the land for their livelihood for generations and hope their heirs will have to opportunity to follow in their footsteps. As a result, they are keenly aware of the importance of responsible land stewardship and work hard to minimize the use of chemicals and fertilizers.

For Mr. Solomon to take a widely discredited study, and use it to spread false and misleading information about an environmentally sound, renewable fuel like ethanol is troublesome to say the least.
– Mike Bryan, president and CEO, BBI International _____

Mr. Solomon’s objections to ethanol are based almost completely on arguments provided by Dr. Pimentel, well-known adversary of the renewable fuels movement, whose 1998 study draws primarily on old data and completely dismisses the energy value of ethanol’s primary co-products. Dr. Pimentel’s work has been widely refuted by a diverse group of academic and agricultural experts.

In recent years, tremendous gains in efficiency have been achieved in both crop and ethanol production processing. In August of this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released a new study showing that ethanol production yields 34% more energy than is used in growing and harvesting grain and distilling it into ethanol. Significantly increased energy gains over findings from their 1995 study are attributed to higher corn yields, lower energy use in the fertilizer industry and advances in fuel conversion technologies.

Ethanol also provides other significant environmental and social benefits, including improved air quality, reduced reliance on non-renewable energy sources, diversification of agricultural markets and rural economic development. Co-products that result from the ethanol production process include a high-protein feed that helps to keep livestock feed costs low.

Contrary to Mr. Solomon’s allegations, corn farmers in Ontario have implemented a number of initiatives to reduce the environmental impact of corn production, including reduced tillage or no-till production to protect soil integrity, reduced pesticide use and the implementation of nutrient management plans to ensure that corn crops receive only the nutrients and protection that they need to thrive and that our water sources are protected.

Since farmers do not irrigate field corn in Ontario, Mr. Solomon’s attack on corn-based ethanol on the basis of the resultant groundwater depletion and fertilizer pollution are somewhat curious. Even more so is his suggestion that increased ethanol production results in higher costs for livestock feed (and hence for consumer food products). That comes as quite a surprise to corn farmers: Despite increasing costs, and with no adjustments for inflation, corn prices are lower now than they were in 1980.
– Dennis Jack, president, Ontario Corn Producers’ Association _____

I thought Mr. Solomon made some interesting points in his article, but was very much off base in his assessment and valuation.

When we think about oil stocks being depleted in 70 to 80 years, (seems like a long time, but really is not) we need to seriously work on alternatives. Ethanol from corn is one option – probably not that economical today but getting more efficient.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada may support this program, however they have a significant research arm that focuses on many aspects of alternatives for petroleum. Recently, the city of Saskatoon commissioned two buses to test out a biodiesel from canola (more efficient, less polluting), researched by AAFC and the Saskatoon research community. It is being commercialized by a group of farmers.

Mr. Solomon may be concerned about the ethanol of today, but if so, he should be talking about other alternatives – petroleum will not be around forever if we keep using it at the rates we do today.

Surprisingly, this is one area where Canada can be a global leader – improved alternative green fuels from Biomass, part of the bio-based economy. I think our agricultural research community should be commended for taking these initiatives that will lead to a better environment.
– Dr. Murray McLaughlin, Guelph, Ont. _____This article was excellent and timely. It is crucial that we protect the environment and maximize our resources to do so. This requires us to take a comprehensive approach, use all the facts and avoid junk science. Mr. Solomon’s article helps to promote that mentality.

Several years ago when I was mayor of Waterloo, Ont., we had a different experience where "the corn wasn’t green." Thanks to a large grant from the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, a group of interested parties led by the city of Waterloo and the Grand River Conservation Authority started watershed planning in Ontario with the Laurel Creek Watershed Study.

After the baseline data was gathered and assessed, the researchers advised us that the environment was at risk and the water quality of Laurel Creek was "on the edge" because of the high adverse impact of the corn fields: rapid runoff, erosion, siltation and pollution from pesticides.

The consultants made the point that by allowing urban development, with very strong provisos, we would actually be improving the water quality and the environment. The provisos included aggressive and creative water quality requirements, wide buffers along the creeks, very sizeable nature preserves and a comprehensive system of storm water management.

Measurable criteria were put in the Official Plan with the policy that, if the developers did not meet them, the next approvals would be withheld. This is a sustainable development approach which balances the environment with the economy.

The city of Waterloo has both a high rate of growth and a strong environmental ethic and I found that this sustainable development approach was very valuable in helping to achieve that balance.
– Brian Turnbull, Waterloo, Ont.

Corn-based fuel. . . or cornball critics

by Lawrence Solomon, National Post, October 9, 2003

Two decades ago, David Pimentel released a startling study for the United States Department of Energy showing that making ethanol consumes far more energy than the ethanol contains. The agency – to confirm his findings – had 26 of its top scientists review his study before its release, but that didn’t satisfy Dr. Pimentel’s critics.

The United States Department of Agriculture, food giant Archer-Daniel-Midlands and others in the corn lobby vilified him, and congressmen from corn states demanded that the federal government’s watchdog, the General Accounting Office, thoroughly investigate his findings. The GAO spent 20 times as much money reviewing Dr. Pimentel’s work as Dr. Pimentel’s own team did in creating the original study. After dissecting his methodology and scrutinizing every figure, the GAO, too, endorsed Dr. Pimentel’s findings.

Two decades later, the corn and ethanol lobby is still at it. The critics that appear elsewhere on this page state that Dr. Pimentel, apart from being dead wrong, is biased, grossly outdated, incompetent, and devoid of credibility in the scientific community. Instead of putting our trust in this sham of a scientist – just about the only person in the universe who seems to find ethanol lacking, they imply – believe the bushel of counterstudies produced by the real experts.

The critics protest too much and their studies, like many things available by the bushel, aren’t worth that much. The critics fault Dr. Pimentel’s methodology while they ignore data – such as corn yields from less productive states – that doesn’t serve their interests. The critics fault him for using out-of-date data in his recent study, which relied primarily on year 2000 data, while the studies his critics cite use primarily older data – a commonly cited Department of Agriculture study, for example, uses 1990 to 1993 data. The critics accuse Dr. Pimentel of having a vested interest in his recent criticisms of ethanol, when the results of his research, which was funded by the College of Agriculture at Cornell University, came as a blow to the many pro-ethanol interests associated with agricultural colleges. Meanwhile, the ethanol studies that refute Dr. Pimentel’s findings have been conducted by government departments, farm interests and ethanol industries, all of which have a vested interest in converting corn to ethanol. None of their studies count all the energy costs associated with ethanol, as Dr. Pimentel has.

Many of the ethanol industry’s consultants, scientists and other experts are doubtless competent, as are the government scientists that have taken runs at Dr. Pimentel’s findings. The Oxford, MIT and Cornell-educated Dr. Pimentel, however, is in another league. He produced his initial study as chairman of the Gasohol Study Group, a task force convened by the Reagan Administration in 1980 to investigate the efficiency of ethanol production. Formerly a White House advisor to president Nixon, he helped establish the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Dr. Pimentel, far from being a widely discredited scientist, has been chairman of the Environmental Studies Board in the National Academy of Sciences, he has served on 12 of their distinguished panels, and he is internationally renowned as one of the best in his field. Last October, his ethanol findings were published in the 2001 edition of the Encyclopedia for Physical Sciences and Technology, a peer-reviewed publication. The criticisms from his opponents are as outrageous as they are self-serving.

Dr. Pimentel’s critics also tout ethanol’s benefits in combatting air pollution. While ethanol does have some beneficial attributes – it replaces potentially harmful agents such as MMT and MTBE, and reduces carbon monoxide emissions – ethanol’s environmental drawbacks may entirely counter the benefits. Ethanol produces suspected carcinogens such as aldehydes and just as many nitrous oxides as its competitors. Last week, in a settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency for violations of the Clean Air Act, 12 ethanol plants agreed to pay fines and install devices called thermal oxidizers to reduce emissions. Ironically, the energy these oxidizers will burn will make ethanol an even greater energy glutton, and an even greater economic boondoggle.

_____

Re: Corn-based Fuel or Cornball Critics

As a student of energy politics, I believe there is no question that the benefits of ethanol manufacturing follow the path of the money trail and not the science of energy production. U.S. tax dollars subsidize both ethanol factories and the farmers’ corn production in order to maintain the consumer cost price. So Mr. Solomon’s article proves what we already know.

My purpose in writing is to suggest that corn ethanol is not a legitimate subject for evaluation because corn could never amount to more than 2% volume offset to gasoline. The conversion of garbage biomass to ethanol would have been more appropriate to the energy question. Authors James Woolsey (former CIA director, Clinton Administration) and former senator Richard Lugar have made the garbage biomass-to-ethanol case in their book The New Petroleum. The primary purpose of their proposal is to make a quick conversion of vehicular fuels to 85% ethanol/15% gasoline. Some cars and trucks on the road now are dual-fuel capable and can burn this mixture. All cars on the road can be easily and inexpensively converted to dual-fuel capability with some fuel line and fuel pump replacement. This would enable the United States to have a fast track to independence from OPEC oil imports. The money saved from oil purchases could subsidize a high priority fast track.

Neither the authors nor I mean to suggest that garbage biomass-to-ethanol is the ultimate alternative, but it would bail us out for the next 20 years.
– Bill Grazier, Duluth, Minn.
-Claudette Fortier, chair, Canadian Private Copying Collective

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AECL waits anxiously as Britain considers its nuclear future

Posted on February 26, 2008 by energyprbe

Richard Blackwell
January 7, 2008

A beleaguered Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL) and a "Team Candu" consortium of Canadian engineering and manufacturing companies are looking with hope to Britain for new nuclear contracts.

The British government is expected to defy environmentalists in approving a new generation of power stations to replace the country’s aging reactors. And companies that supply the nuclear industry in Canada could expect significant spinoff benefits, were AECL to land a British contract.

"It would obviously be a good thing for the Canadian industry," which is already busy with nuclear refurbishment projects, said Murray Elston, president and chief executive of the Canadian Nuclear Association. At the same time, the expected vote of confidence from the British government will help the nuclear industry over all, he said.

Nuclear critics, however, say the chances of AECL getting the British contract are slim. Britain was not keen on Candu heavy-water technology in the past and wouldn’t likely go for it this time, said Norm Rubin, director of nuclear research at Toronto-based Energy Probe.

The British government has said it wants private utilities to develop any new nuclear plants, and Mr. Rubin said he’s not convinced there is any way new nuclear plants can be built without heavy government involvement or subsidies. Nuclear power just isn’t competitive when costs and financial risks are taken into account, he said.

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Power Unplugged in China

Posted on February 21, 2008 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
FP Comment
February 21, 2008

What is going on in China’s electricity sector?

A month ago, power failures during China’s coldest, snowiest winter in decades left millions without heat or running water. The government responded by ordering ports to stop loading coal for exports, ordered railways and other transport networks to make hauling coal a priority over coming weeks, ordered ocean shippers to divert shipments when needed for domestic requirements, and warned of “severe” consequences for those failing to comply.

The shortages eased during the extended Chinese New Year holidays, but now that the holidays are over, and factories are firing up, power problems are back with a vengeance. Guangzhou, southern China’s export centre, has cut power to all energy-intensive firms while Guangdong province, which ships about a quarter of China’s export goods, cut back industrial users by 30%. Officials have warned that tight power supplies in Guangdong might not ease until late March when flows from Guizhou and other provinces are resumed.

China’s power sector continues to grow at unprecedented rates — it is adding new capacity of about 90 gigawatts annually, enough to power the United Kingdom. Its reliability as a power producer, and as an exporter, must give many pause.

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The pro-carbon tax

Posted on February 20, 2008 by energyprbe

Governments are proposing carbon taxes to discourage people and industries from activities that emit carbon dioxide. This is a feeble use of the tax system in fending off the catastrophe that governments see coming. There are other, more powerful ways in which governments could, and should, use the tax system if they truly want to discourage CO2 emissions.

Big city governments concerned about global warming have a special responsibility to act because urbanization holds the greatest potential to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Residents of big cities typically produce about half the emissions that residents elsewhere produce, but even this figure minimizes the potential of cities to curb greenhouse gases.

Residents of New York, for example, generate just 29% of the per-capita emissions that Americans as a whole produce. London does even better in eschewing emissions, besting New York by 20%. Canada’s major metropolis, Toronto, cannot hold a candle to either city, with per-capita emissions 35% above New York’s and 62% above London’s. Yet even Toronto is a paragon of climate-change virtue compared with national economies, registering 60% less than the Canadian average.

Big cities are so efficient because their residents tend to be employed in the low-impact financial, cultural, and intellectual industries, rather than the energy-guzzling primary industries, and they are less car dependent than rural or suburban folk — they tend to have more transportation choices, including walking. Because big cities allow their residents to live, work and study in compact neighbourhoods, travel is not only minimized, it is often eliminated altogether. If cities were more compact still — if Toronto was as compact as New York or New York was as compact as London, the level of greenhouse-gas emissions would quickly decline by levels otherwise seen as impossible. Toronto’s greenhouse-gas emissions would almost halve if it were as efficient as London.

The biggest stumbling block to achieving such efficiencies, especially in Canada, lies in our cities’ tax policies. The chief offender here is the property tax, the source of most city revenues.

The property tax, long disparaged for its economic inefficiency, is also an environmentally reprehensible tax on density. In most cities, downtown land is prized most highly, leading its owners to use it intensively. The more intensively that land is used, the less that infrastructure is needed for water, power, and other utilities, the more that a society can be efficient.

Instead of welcoming the inherent efficiency with which valuable downtown properties are used, cities punish them by taxing them on the basis of their high property values, rather than the actual costs of providing properties with municipal services. The tax on valued property encourages the use of low-value property further and further away, not just away from downtown but also in suburbs and beyond. Even land remote from transportation corridors, by all rights undeserving of development, then gets a spur in low taxes that encourage development where none would otherwise occur.

The way in which the property tax is levied makes things worse. Apartment buildings, which emit fewer greenhouse gases per square foot of living space than do single-family homes, are generally subjected to a much higher property tax than duplexes or single-family homes. This is an entirely unjustified tax that pushes people into living in less energy efficient lifestyles — apartment dwellers not only tend to use fewer city services tied to their dwellings, such as water delivery or garbage pickups, they also are less likely to drive and use roads.

And worse. Businesses pay especially punitive property taxes, encouraging them to relocate outside the city boundary, and then commute into town to provide services to their city customers. After they leave, their staff and suppliers tend to follow them over time, contributing to the well-known hollowing out effect that cities experience. The hollowing out worsens because, when these taxpayers leave the city, the tax load must fall on the city’s remaining taxpayers, increasing their tax burden and encouraging further departures.

To these traditional carbon-enhancing, city-destroying property taxes comes a new hollowing-out tax: Toronto’s new land-transfer tax, which will hit house sellers with levies in excess of $8,000 for modest houses. This tax will not only convince people to avoid buying in the city, it will also convince many not to move to be closer to their work, in both cases adding to the fuel waste that comes of city taxation.

Our cities’ tax policies need not inflict all these wounds. The property tax and the land transfer tax should both be abolished, and replaced with charges that simply charge city residents for the services that they use, in proportion to their use. Businesses will flock back to the city, as will residents, providing the densities that simultaneously raise the city’s efficiency while lowering its carbon intensity.

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The Carbon Harvest

Posted on February 13, 2008 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
National Post FP Comment
February 13, 2008

Global warming is the biggest threat that farmers face, and not because carbon dioxide threatens their crops — carbon dioxide is actually a boon to crops, and increases yields. Thanks to increased carbon dioxide emissions, in fact, the world’s biosphere is on an upswing, the terrestrial NPP (net primary production) growing by more than 6% in the last two decades of the century.

No, global warming threatens farmers because agriculture is a major producer of greenhouse gases, accounting for about 14% of Canada’s emissions, according to Environment Canada. Agriculture is also one of Canada’s biggest money losers, and biggest sponges for taxpayer subsidies. If governments curb greenhouse gas producing industries on environmental grounds, they could harvest a lot of cash by curbing those deficit-growing farmers.

Farmers countered by promising to combat global warming by growing biofuels such as corn for ethanol, a replacement for gasoline. The promise diverted attention from farmers’ big role as greenhouse gas producers, and it also earned farmers an additional bushel full of subsidies.

Did the farmers overreach? The Nature Conservancy, a blue-chip environmental group, just came out with a study showing that biofuels can release as much as 420 times the carbon dioxide as the fossil fuels they displace. A new Science magazine study agrees that biofuels are a problem, not a solution. These confirm earlier studies by leading environmentalists at Cornell University and Stanford that show much the same thing.

Environmentalists are beginning to see farmers as the enemy. If the environmental lobby ever turns on the farm lobby, farmers will face formidable foes for the first time in the last two centuries of farming on this continent.

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Extreme competition, but not extreme enough

Posted on February 7, 2008 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
National Post FP comment
February 7, 2008

Since Maggie Thatcher broke up the United Kingdom’s s dysfunctional energy monopolies two decades ago, costs plummeted, as did prices for consumers, as a wave of new entrants into the energy business led to a textbook example of the benefits of competition. Today, the typical household has several thousand options in purchasing power that come to it courtesy of six dozen different licensed merchants. Compare that to the choices your local power monopolist provides you.

Then ponder this: The ingrates across the Pond aren’t satisfied with the level of competition that the UK system provides them. When prices drop, as they have on numerous occasions in the largely deregulated UK energy marketplace, consumers are happy. When they rise, as they have recently, consumers cry foul. They do this even though a recent investigation of alleged price-fixing by Ofgem, the industry’s independent regulator, found no evidence of collusion, and even though a commonly recognized contributor to rate hikes are measures taken to combat climate change.

Because of continuing public pressure, a UK House of Commons Select Committee hearing on competition in the energy market will now investigate whether there is enough competition among the big energy suppliers. The committee is unlikely to discover anything to discredit Ofgem’s finding — Ofgem is the gold standard among utility regulators. The most the committee could do, if it finds cause for alarm, is refer the matter to the Competition Commission.

Conspiracy theorists are gladdened by the prospect of hauling industry executives to this parliamentary court. Reasonable people should be saddened to see the world’s most competitive energy marketplace subjected to baseless accusations. Most of all, they should be alarmed to see the independent regulator’s authority undermined, for without a de-politicized and independent regulator to set ground rules fair to all, the energy marketplace would again become dysfunctional.

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Geo-pipe dreams

Posted on January 26, 2008 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
Financial Post
January 26, 2008

With climate change threatening us with extinction, many of the best minds going are working on methods to save us from oblivion. Here they are, and how they propose to save us from ourselves:

James Lovelock, the inventor of the Gaia concept and perhaps the world’s most prominent environmentalist, expounds 200-metre-deep ocean pipes in an attempt to change the course of mankind. In 2006, he announced that “billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.” By late 2007, although his prognosis for Planet Earth was not quite so dire, he and colleague Chris Raply, head of the Science Museum, had published their survival plan in the journal Nature.

“We propose a way to stimulate the Earth’s capacity to cure itself, as an emergency treatment for the pathology of global warming,” they wrote hopefully. “Measurements of the climate system show that the Earth is fast becoming a hotter planet than anything yet experienced by humans.”

Their pipe dream would see enormous volumes of deep-sea life forms pumped up to “fertilize algae in the surface waters and encourage them to bloom,” in the process taking in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. After the surface life forms die, they theorize, the carbon-rich life forms would fall to the ocean floor as “ocean snow.” They also note that their scheme could fail, leading to ocean acidification, harming corals, molluscs and crustaceans. Other scientists note that their scheme could also endanger whales and porpoises.

Vying with James Lovelock as an environmental icon and environmental saviour is Paul Crutzen, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist who predicted the ozone hole. To prevent the Sun’s harmful rays from warming the Earth, Crutzen wants to emulate the effects of Pinatubo, the volcano that in 1991 spewed an estimated 10 million tonnes of sulphur into the stratosphere, lowering global temperatures by an estimated 0.6 degrees Celsius. To outdo Pinatubo, Crutzen proposes blasting one million tonnes of sulphur into the stratosphere, via hundreds of rockets. That much sulphur should suffice to create a cooling blanket, he says, although he grants the possibility of his scheme not working, or even backfiring. The potential consequences of this scheme to fight carbon dioxide pollution with sulphurous pollution, though largely unknown, are thought to include acid rain and, ironically, the loss of ozone. Crutzen is willing to take that risk. “I am prepared to lose some bit of ozone if we can prevent major increases of temperature, say beyond two

degrees or three degrees,” he declares.

An alternative scheme to keep the Sun’s harmful rays from reaching Earth comes from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where physicist Lowell Wood proposes putting vast arrays of mirrors into orbit — 600,000 square miles of them. The mirrors, actually a mesh of aluminum threads a millionth of an inch in diameter, would resemble a window screen of exceedingly fine metal wire, partly blocking sunlight and filtering infra-red radiation. The environmental effects of this scheme are thought to be minimal, the cost is expected to be maximal, the likelihood of success is thought to be small. And the benefit?: a 1% cut in solar radiation.

An alternative ocean scheme to promote the growth of sea life also exists — this one would fertilize the oceans with iron, again stimulating the growth of surface life forms. Much of the ocean is void of iron, scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution note, presenting an opportunity to right this failure in Nature. Trials are already underway, with entrepreneurs seeing opportunities to make some green by going green, albeit with a threat to marine life.

Land-based schemes are also flourishing, among them the creation of synthetic trees that would sequester carbon. “It looks like a goal post with Venetian blinds,” said its inventor, Klaus Lackner, a physicist at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, who explains that his synthetic tree works just like real trees, only better.

“You can be a thousand times better than a living tree,” he says, since one synthetic tree would remove 90,000 tonnes of CO2 in a year, the emissions equivalent of 15,000 cars. Environmentally conscious families could plant a synthetic tree anywhere. A small one could sit like a TV on the lawn, to offset the carbon footprint of the family car, he suggests, although bigger trees would be better. When the tree has become mature, it can be harvested, just like real trees, only it would be delivered to an abandoned mine for deep disposal rather than to some residential subdivision, and receive a government bounty for sustainable carbon sequestration. To the Earth Institute’s delight, entrepreneurs have seized on his idea. Prototypes have already been built, and a nascent 21st-century industry stands at the ready.

These schemes on land, air and water are part of a growing scientific-industrial discipline called geo-engineering, endorsed by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and soon, most of the world’s governments. To save the Earth from climate change, the UN and the geo-engineers are telling us, we may need to change the world as we know it. – Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute, and author of The Deniers (forthcoming).

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The Deniers, Part XLI: Geo-pipe dreams

Posted on January 26, 2008 by energyprbe

Lawrence Solomon
National Post
January 26, 2008

With climate change threatening us with extinction, many of the best minds going are working on methods to save usfrom oblivion. Here they are, and how they propose to save us from ourselves:

An alternative scheme to keep the Sun’s harmful rays from reaching Earth comes from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, where physicist Lowell Wood proposes putting vast arrays of mirrors into orbit – 600,000 square miles of them. The mirrors, actually a mesh of aluminum threads a millionth of an inch in diameter, would resemble a window screen of exceedingly fine metal wire, partly blocking sunlight and filtering infra-red radiation. The environmental effects of this scheme are thought to be minimal, the cost is expected to be maximal, the likelihood of success is thought to be small. And the benefit?: a 1% cut in solar radiation.

An alternative ocean scheme to promote the growth of sea life also exists – this one would fertilize the oceans with iron, again stimulating the growth of surface life forms. Much of the ocean is void of iron, scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution note, presenting an opportunity to right this failure in Nature. Trials are already underway, with entrepreneurs seeing opportunities to make some green by going green, albeit with a threat to marine life.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers.

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The Nuclear Power Baseload Myth

Posted on January 18, 2008 by energyprbe

Submission by Norman Rubin on behalf of Energy Probe before the Ontario Energy Board’s Integrated Power System Plan (IPSP)
Excerpt from Transcript January 18, 2008, EB-2007-0707 IPSP Issues Proceeding, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, Volume 5 Pages 2 – 14
January 18, 2008

MR.RUBIN: Madam Chair, my comments deal with issues
concerning nuclear power, and we offer them to urge this Board to do two
things: To stipulate and construe the
nuclear issues as broadly as possible; and, in particular, to seek mechanisms
to ensure that Ontario ratepayers and taxpayers are protected from the peculiar
risks presented by nuclear power.

In our submission, most people and many documents, including even some of the IPSP
documents, are either confused or misleading on the definition of base load
power, and we believe this has important ramifications for your decisions.

Specifically,there is a notion abroad that base load means 24/7 and, therefore, that base
load stations are and must be unusually reliable stations.If anything, the contrary is closer to the truth.

Nuclear generators, indeed, produce base load power.They are subject to both planned and unplanned or forced outages, whichoccasionally last for years, and they are both technically and financially
resistant to being dispatched for the grid’s convenience.

As a result, their output, like base load power in general, is clearly much less
valuable to the electricity grid and its customers than power from more
reliable and more dispatchable sources, including, for example, coal, natural
gas and peaking hydroelectricity.

A grid can in fact easily operate reliably with 100 percent flexible, reliable
and dispatchable capacity, the kind of capacity we might call peaking
capacity. But it is unlikely to survive for long with 100 percent inflexible, less reliable and non-dispatchable capacity, the capacity we generally call base load capacity.

By the same token, a grid can accommodate a fair share of unreliable or
intermittent base load capacity, provided that it has enough reliable and
dispatchable capacity to fill in when the wind won’t blow or the sun won’t
shine, or the uranium won’t fission or won’t fission safely.

In fact, the only rational reason to build even a single base load station, a less
reliable non-dispatchable generating station, is to save money, to lower the
total cost of the system, by which we mean financial and non-financial costs.

OPG and Bruce Power are currently receiving more per kilowatt-hour for their base
load nuclear power than OPG receives for its more reliable dispatchable and
clearly more valuable coal-fired power.

This is true even after a very significant portion of the costs of building those
nuclear plants has been excluded from electricity rates and is handled by a
separate fee on our bills.

Clearly, the past decisions to build Ontario’s existing nuclear plants, decisions that were all made without the benefit of a single reference to the Ontario Energy Board, did not lower the
total financial costs of our electricity system, despite promises from all
official participants to the contrary.

These decisions raised costs, and continue to raise costs, as only a very few
independent parties predicted at the time, including of course Energy Probe.

Incidentally we expect that the management of nuclear waste will continue to produce further
cost overruns for a very long time in the future.

Two main factors account for almost all of the excess costs of today’s nuclear
power.A great deal came in the form of cost overruns in the difference between low estimated or promised capital costs and the much higher actual as-delivered costs, and much of the rest came and continues to come in disappointing performance.

Reactor and reactor component reliability and durability, the cost of maintenance and
refurbishment, these have all been very significantly worse than their forecast
or promised values. Predictions that have now been revealed as wildly optimistic were clearly responsible for convincing Ontario Hydro and the government to commit to a supposedly cost-lowering, supposedly inflation-proof investment, that actually raised costs by many billions of dollars, and continues to do so.

Even our most recent experiences with the refurbishment of a number of nuclear
plants that were fully constructed and paid for many years ago have led to
another series of broken promises and further cost increases for ratepayers.

In another hearing before this Ontario Energy Board, OPG is currently applying for
another substantial increase to its compensation for nuclear generation and for
a 25 percent off-loading of the financial risk of further broken nuclear
promises.

They say they are just responding to their real world nuclear costs and to the risks
posed by their nuclear capacity.

In addition to the multi-billion dollar rate impacts of all of these broken
promises, they have also presented very serious challenges to the reliability
of Ontario’s grid, challenges which have been bearable, in part, because of
some lucky weather timing, and, in the main, because of Ontario’s large surplus
of coal-fired generating capacity, an insurance policy that we are told will
definitely not be available during the operating lifetime of the next round of
new or refurbished nuclear plants.

And I note, as a sidebar, that Ontario’s unfortunate decision to let most of Ontario’s
coal-fired stations continue to operate using outmoded and highly polluting
technology can also, in our submission, be attributed to false promises of high
nuclear reliability.

In these proceedings, OPA is before this Board promising the sort of nuclear
plants that Ontario has frequently seen on the drawing board but has never once
seen in real life, low cost, high reliability, long lifetime, easy-to-maintain
nuclear plants, plants which we are now assured will actually lower the cost of
power compared to all of the available alternatives.This time we are assured will be different.

Given this consistently painful and embarrassing pattern of false nuclear promises
swallowed whole, given the remarkable similarity of today’s nuclear promises to
those from decades past that have now proven so baseless, and given the fact
that the Ontario Energy Board now has its first chance, ever, to apply this
Board’s independent, transparent, multi-stakeholder, and technically deep
process to this enormously important matter, this proceeding, in our
submission, must provide assurances, ironclad assurances, that if the Ontario
grid is to be committed to the construction of new or refurbished nuclear
capacity, then the real world, as-delivered cost of that nuclear power to
Ontario ratepayers must actually lower the total costs of the system, and the
financial and grid-security risks of it failing to do so, whether from biased
forecasting, misleading bait-and-switch claims, predictable surprises,
technological obsolescence, broken promises, abbreviated lifetimes or
disappointing reliability, or whatever, those risks must be borne in their
entirety by private investors, and not by Ontario ratepayers or taxpayers.

We are long past the point, in our submission, where the enormous risks of broken
nuclear promises can be considered theoretical or even unlikely.

As another sidebar, Madam Chair, because Ontario provides close to a third of Canada’s federal tax revenue, any guarantees from Atomic Energy of Canada Limited which simply shift risks to Canadian taxpayers do not, in our submission, provide an adequate or just solution to this problem.

The failure of this Board to deal with these issues in depth and to deliver those
essential assurances or to compel OPA to do so, in our submission, would risk
dwarfing and subverting the potentially enormous positive impact of all the
remaining decisions made in this proceeding.

We believe it is vital that this Board and this process have the ability to ensure
that essential outcome, and we urge you to include that consideration in your
decisions about issues.Thank you.