NUANCE AND NEW ENERGY LOST ON OLD ENERGY ADVOCATES

The Lessons I’ve Learned From ‘Energy Sprawl’
Rob McDonald, September 17, 2009 (The Nature Consevancy)
and
Energy 'Sprawl' and the Green Economy; We're about to destroy the environment in the name of saving it.
Lamar Alexander, September 18, 2009 (Wall Street Journal)

SUMMARY
Rob McDonald was one of the authors of Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America, a scholarly attempt (1) to identify the way different U.S. energy policies in response to global climate change will determine the types of energies that the nation develops and then (2) to evaluate the amount of land and the impacts on that land’s habitat those differing energies, resulting from those differing policies, will have.

It’s conclusions about land use through 2030:
(1) There will be a huge difference (“three orders of magnitude”) in land use, depending on the policies enacted and the energies thereby chosen.
(2) Temperate deciduous forests and temperate grasslands will be most impacted.
(3) Unless the nation becomes significantly more energy efficient, at least 79,500+ square miles of land will be impacted by the production of energy.
(4) Climate change policies that cut emissions will increase the use of land but will likely generate greater efficiency that will mitigate the impact.
(5) These inevitabilities increase the need for: (a) energy conservation, (b) appropriate siting, (c) sustainable production practices, and (d) mitigation offsets.

After the work was published, McDonald - a vanguard scientist with the Conservation Strategies Division of the Nature Conservancy and a former Smith Conservation Biology Fellow at Harvard University - was chagrined to find the paper being used by the likes of Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) to justify political positions McDonald and his co-authors do not condone, like the increased use of nuclear energy.

McDonald commented that many of the users of the paper fail to appreciate the many nuances that must be considered when evaluating the conclusions reached by scientific papers.

From the energy sprawl paper. (click to enlarge)

COMMENTARY
Here are the lessons Rob McDonald wrote he has learned from co-authoring the energy sprawl paper and seeing how it has been used and abused:

(1) Global climate change, much more than land use and its impostion on habitat, is the biggest threat to wildlife (not to mention other forms of life).

(2) The impacts on land through 2030 will come whether or not there is policy designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) and turn back climate change. Climate change will come if there is no policy to stop it.

(3) The single biggest impact on land will come from the 2007 renewable fuel standard so it is a done deal unless leaders revise the policy.

(4) Worries about land use must not be an excuse to not act against climate change.

(5) Just because the paper found that nuclear power uses less land than other energies to generate electricity does not mean the paper’s authors think nuclear power is a good idea. Scientific findings require nuanced interpretation (and can be twisted by single-minded advocates).

From the energy sprawl paper. (click to enlarge)

(6) Geothermal has almost as small an impact on land and habitat as nuclear energy and therefore both energy sources' cost effectiveness, job creation, lifecycle GhGs and how they affect energy independence should also be considered before declaring one preferable over the other.

(7) Nuclear’s huge water consumption and the potential danger of its waste “for millenia” make it a more questionable choice as an energy source, though those factors weren’t part of the paper on land use.

(8) The use and impact of land by New Energies such as wind installations and solar power plants are mitigated and minimized by siting but nuclear’s use and impact on land, water and future generations is a constant negative.

(9) The most important lesson that McDonald learned from researching and writing the energy sprawl paper is that increasing Energy Efficiency is vital, no matter what. Any concern with energy sprawl necessitates the fight to make the nation more energy efficient.

From the energy sprawl paper. (click to enlarge)

Here is the gist of Senator Alexander’s interpretation of the energy sprawl paper:

(1) He mischaracterizes the Interior Department’s plan to apportion 2% of the federal land it has already allotted to the oil and gas industry for New Energy development as destroying the environment to save the environment.

(2) He mischaracterizes the cap&trade plan already working to cut GhGs in the EU as nothing more than a federal revenue-raising scheme to subsidize New Energy when in fact cap&trade will, at relatively little cost to the average household, significantly cut U.S. GhGs and generate revenues to build emissions-free energy infrastructure and shift the cost burden for it to emitters.

(3) To Senator Alexander’s credit, he accurately summarizes the land use findings of the McDonald, et. al. paper: (a) nuclear ~ 1 square mile per million megawatt-hours of electricity (90,000 homes); (b) geothermal ~ 3 square miles; (c) ethanol and biodiesel ~ 500 square miles; (d) coal ~ 4 square miles; (e) solar power plants ~ 6 square miles; (f) natural gas ~ 6 square miles; (g) oil ~ 18 square miles; (h) wind ~ 30 square miles.

To the Senator’s discredit, he then seizes on these numbers to extol nuclear energy and condemn wind power without concerning himself with the dangers of radioactive nuclear waste or water consumption or the dual land use of wind turbines (as against the singular land poisoning for eons to come by nuclear facilities).

Senator Alexander condemns the use of federal land for solar power plants without mentioning the ransacking of land for uranium mining and the sealing of land that will be required if and when any state ever accepts the terrifying proposition of having a radioactive waste repository built in it. He also fails to mention that a solar power plant goes up in less than 2 years with a relatively accessible amount of capital while a nuclear plant would take 6-to-12 years to build if anybody could afford to finance and insure one.

(4) Senator Alexander is absolutely correct that New Energy “is not a free lunch.” But when he describes it as “an unprecedented assault on the American landscape” he is seriously confused. Old Energy has been an assault on the nation’s land, health and environment that will likely remain unmatched in the march of civilization.

From the energy sprawl paper. (click to enlarge)

Here’s a quote from the energy sprawl paper exemplifying th nuance Senator Alexander misses with his ravings:

“A full discussion of the impacts on biodiversity of energy production is beyond the scope of this paper, but one fundamental distinction is worth making. Some energy production techniques clear essentially all natural habitat within their area of impact. A review of the literature…found this to be true for coal, nuclear, solar, and hydropower, as well as for the growth of energy crops for biofuels or for burning for electricity…Other energy production techniques have a relatively small infrastructure footprint and a larger area impacted by habitat fragmentation and other secondary effects on wildlife. A review of the literature found that production techniques that involve wells like geothermal, natural gas, and petroleum have about 5% of their impact area affected by direct clearing while 95% of their impact area is from fragmenting habitats and species avoidance behavior. Wind turbines have a similar figure of about 3–5% of their impact area affected by direct clearing while 95–97% of their impact area is from fragmenting habitats, species avoidance behavior, and issues of bird and bat mortality.”

Much worse harm to birds comes from tall buildings and house cats. Wanna stop them, too, Senator? (click to enlarge)

Nuclear energy is, yes, by some assessments, emissions-free energy. But it is not New Energy and it is not a wise energy choice. It does reduce land use and the impacts on habitat that land use necessitates. But there is a drastic difference between an impact made by wind on some bird and bat species sometimes on land already being used and impacted by farms and ranches as against the potential impacts on many future generations represented by radioactive spills and nuclear waste without a safe repository.

The energy sprawl paper found that (to be precise) nuclear requires 1.9–2.8 square kilometers/terawatt-hour/year while the production of biodiesel from soy requires 788–1000 square kilometers/terawatt-hour/year. That is McDonald’s “…three orders of magnitude…”

Scratch plant biofuels. Algae are the answer. (click to enlarge)

Here’s what would be a good idea: Don’t grow soy to make biodiesel AND don’t build anymore nuclear power plants until somebody figures out what to do with radioactive nuclear waste. Then add the amount of land it will be necessary to keep open around the sites where nuclear power is generated and radioactive waste is stored, add it to the calculations for how much land is required and impacted by nuclear energy. Add in the amount of land that is parched by nuclear power plants’ enormous requirement for water. And forget nuclear energy as well.

Next, take all the farm and ranch land that wind turbines are built on and subtract it from the amount of land wind power requires and the amount of land it impacts because the farms and ranches have already required and impacted that land. Then continue building wind turbines as fast as possible anywhere they can be benignly sited and without regard to whether there is available water because wind power requires none.

Investment bank Credit Suisse likes investing in Geothermal a lot more than investing in nuclear. (click to enlarge)

Also, build geothermal. A lot of it. Now. It is price-competitive, ready for financing and the payback period makes for a reasonable use of capital.

Solar power plants, will, yes, need to develop dry cooling technology to avoid the worst impacts of water use as part of preparing to generate emissions-free energy without creating toxic waste. Meanwhile, solar photovoltaic (PV) can expand its invaluable function of defraying peak demand in urban settings by using no land (rooftops and backyards) and little water.

One final thought: Impeach Senator Alexander for misrepresenting the truth. President Clinton lied about an affair to protect his family. Who is Senator Alexander protecting with his misrepresentations about nuclear energy and why?

click thru for a complete presentation on water and power plants

QUOTES
- Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), in the Wall Street Journal: “Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar recently announced plans to cover 1,000 square miles of land in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with solar collectors to generate electricity. He's also talking about generating 20% of our electricity from wind…[and] 19,000 new miles of high-voltage transmission lines…Is the federal government showing any concern about this massive intrusion into the natural landscape? Not at all. I fear we are going to destroy the environment in the name of saving the environment…The House of Representatives has passed climate legislation that started out as an attempt to reduce carbon emissions. It has morphed into an engine for raising revenues…”
- McDonald: “Scientists want their research to inspire serious discussion of critical issues. So I’ve been encouraged by all the discussion in the press about the recent…paper I wrote with colleagues….Still, it’s unsettling sometimes to see the rhetorical uses others have found for this research, often far from its original context…The most recent example of this was Senator Lamar Alexander’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal…”

click to enlarge

- McDonald: “…energy sprawl is a challenge that can be overcome through proper management.”
- McDonald: “I’ve learned that I need to keep stressing energy efficiency. Energy efficiency could be the key way to combat energy sprawl. Saving energy saves land by avoiding future energy development that would have otherwise occurred. If implemented on a large scale, this could have a big impact…[M]ore than 1,000 terawatt-hours of electricity could be conserved each year using existing technology, which would result in between 2.4 million and 8.4 million acres of avoided energy development…”
- McDonald: “So I say to everyone writing or blogging about energy sprawl: If you are concerned about energy sprawl, then fight for energy efficiency!”