WIND WINS, NEW ENERGY LEADS AND “CLEAN’ COAL ISN’T – STANFORD PROF

In spite of all the media hype about the nuclear "renaissance" and “clean” coal, a hard scientific and statistical look at available energy sources leaves no doubt the New Energies are 25-to-1,000 times better, according to a new paper from Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering and director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University.

The best: Wind shows a 99+% reduction in carbon and air pollution emissions, requires less than 3 square kilometers of land (turbine footprint only) to power an entire U.S. vehicle fleet, saves ~ 15,000 lives per year from premature U.S. air-pollution-related vehicle exhaust deaths, and uses virtually no water.

Note: Wind turbines require spacing and would therefore actually use ~0.5% of U.S. land, still 30+ times less than the land needed for growing corn or cellulosic grasses for ethanol (and the land between the turbines could be used for growing and/or grazing).

This is Jacobson’s (scientific, statistical) ranking of electricity sources:
1. Wind power
2. Concentrating solar power plants (CSP)
3. Geothermal power
4. Tidal power
5. Solar photovoltaics (PV)
6. Wave power
7. Hydroelectric power
8. a tie: nuclear power and “clean” coal (coal with carbon capture and sequestration, (CCS).

This Jacobson’s ranking of vehicle fuel options:
1. Wind-BEVs (battery electric vehicles)
2. Wind-HFCVs (hydrogen fuel cell vehicles)
3.CSP-BEVs
4. Geothermal-BEVs
5. Tidal-BEVs
6. Solar PV-BEVs
7. Wave-BEVs
8. Hydroelectric-BEVs
9. a tie: nuclear-BEVs and coal-CCS-BEVs
11. Corn-E85 vehicles
12. Cellulosic-E85 vehicles
(For the car lovers: Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) were included in the calculations only with wind energy, but could be powered by other electricity sources. They require 3 times the energy as BEVs but are more clean and efficient than gas-driven vehicles. The one advantage of HFCVs over BEVs: Faster refueling. HFCVs may, therefore, be better for trips over 250 miles. Ideal: A BEV-HFCV hybrid.)

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Jacobson’s analysis included not only the energy sources’ potential for delivering electricity and powering vehicles, but also their impacts on global climate change, public health, energy security, water supply, space requirements, wildlife and habitat, water pollution, reliability and sustainability.

Jacobson led the research that last year showed conclusively the mythical “problem” of wind’s intermittency is a fable and no real problem at all because properly coordinated wind installations in different locations with different and predictable wind supplies can provide a steady supply of baseline power.

Jacobson: "Obviously, wind alone isn't the solution…It's got to be a package deal, with energy also being produced by other sources such as solar, tidal, wave and geothermal power."

The worst vehicle power: Biofuels. Jacobson is especially concerned about the Detroit automakers, in pursuit of their bailout, promising further investments of – literally – the worst kind.

Jacobson: "That is exactly the wrong place to be spending our money. Biofuels are the most damaging choice we could make in our efforts to move away from using fossil fuels…We should be spending to promote energy technologies that cause significant reductions in carbon emissions and air-pollution mortality, not technologies that have either marginal benefits or no benefits at all".

The worst electricity source: Nuclear power and “clean” coal. And “clean” coal is far from clean.

Jacobson: "Coal with carbon sequestration emits 60-to-110 times more carbon and air pollution than wind energy, and nuclear emits about 25 times more carbon and air pollution than wind energy…"

CCS equipment cuts 85-to-90% of the carbon exhaust from coal plants but has no impact on the emissions from the mining or transport of the coal or on other toxic coal plant air pollutants. AND, CCS requires ~ 25% more (coal plant) energy, thereby upping all the evils of the emissions - as well as devastations such as mountaintop removal mining - by 25%.

Crucially important footnote: Jacobson received no funding from any interest group, company or government agency for his research. His conclusions are, therefore, entirely the result of studying the data.

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Wind, water and sun beat biofuels, nuclear and coal for clean energy, Stanford researcher says
Louis Bergeron, 10 December 2008 (EurekAlert)

WHO
Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering/ director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program, Stanford University

WHAT
Jacobson’s precise statistical calculations show New Energy to be the best way to achieve energy security, emissions reductions and reduced deaths from air pollution. They show that nuclear is too expensive and “clean” coal is not clean.

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WHEN
- Jacobson’s paper is considered the first “comprehensive, quantitative and scientific” analysis and comparison of all the energy sources.
- Jacobson’s paper will be published in the next issue of Energy and Environmental Science and is available online now.
- Both coal and nuclear plants take much longer to plan, permit and construct than do most of the other New Energy sources. This increases emissions by choosing more emissions- intensive plants and by using the older, dirtier sources until the new plants come online.

WHERE
With nuclear energy comes the possibility of nuclear weapons proliferation: If one small nuclear bomb is exploded, the emissions from the resultant burning city would cause twice the deaths as 30 years of today’s vehicle air pollution deaths.

WHY
- Jacobson did his comparisons of energy sources by calculating the impacts as if each were alone used to power all U.S. vehicles and assumed only "new-technology" vehicles were used.
- Vehicles studied: Battery electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and "flex-fuel" vehicles that use the E85 ethanol blend.
- Land between turbines on wind farms would be simultaneously available as farmland or pasture or could be left as open space.
- Ethanol may, according to recent studies, emit more climate change-inducing pollutants than fossil fuels.
- Cellulosic ethanol is worse than corn ethanol because it (1) causes more air pollution, (2) requires more land, and (3) causes more harm to wildlife.
- Corn and cellulosic ethanol will cause 15,000+ air pollution-related U.S. deaths/year.
- If the U.S. goes to nuclear power other nations would demand the option, leading to proliferation.

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QUOTES
- Jacobson: "The energy alternatives that are good are not the ones that people have been talking about the most. And some options that have been proposed are just downright awful…Ethanol-based biofuels will actually cause more harm to human health, wildlife, water supply and land use than current fossil fuels."
- Jacobson: "There is a lot of talk among politicians that we need a massive jobs program to pull the economy out of the current recession…Well, putting people to work building wind turbines, solar plants, geothermal plants, electric vehicles and transmission lines would not only create jobs but would also reduce costs due to health care, crop damage and climate damage from current vehicle and electric power pollution, as well as provide the world with a truly unlimited supply of clean power."
- Jacobson: "Once you have a nuclear energy facility, it's straightforward to start refining uranium in that facility, which is what Iran is doing and Venezuela is planning to do…The potential for terrorists to obtain a nuclear weapon or for states to develop nuclear weapons that could be used in limited regional wars will certainly increase with an increase in the number of nuclear energy facilities worldwide."