Transcript Slide 1

Meeting the Energy-Economy-Environment
Challenge
John P. Holdren
Assistant to the President for Science and Technology
and Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy
Executive Office of the President of the United States
Lectio Magistralis
University of Rome “Tor Vergata” • 12 November 2010
Why is energy important?
Because…
• economic well-being is important,
• environment is important,
• politics are important, and…
Energy is closely tied to all of these.
Economically…
• Affordable energy = crucial ingredient of
sustained prosperity & sustainable development.
• Energy ~6-10% of GDP, 10% of world trade, and
a large part of trade deficits in importing countries
• Costly energy → inflation, recession, frustration of
economic aspirations of the poor.
• Investments in energy-supply systems ~$800
billion/yr worldwide; up to15% of gross domestic
investment in developing countries.
Environmentally…
• Energy supply = major contributor to dangerous &
difficult environmental problems from local to global
• Specifically, energy supply is source of
– most indoor and outdoor air pollution
– much of the hydrocarbon and trace-metal pollution of
soil and ground water
– essentially all of the oil added by humans to the seas
– most radioactive waste
– most of the society’s emissions of the greenhouse
gases that are disrupting global climate.
Politically…
• Energy availability & cost influence distribution of industry &
population within & among countries, affecting distribution
of influence and generating tensions from inequities.
• Oil & gas are so important to economies that suppliers can
use cut-offs as a weapon, and importers may threaten or
wage war to gain or maintain access.
• Spread of nuclear-energy technologies spreads access to
nuclear-weapon capabilities
• Energy systems are “force-multiplier” targets for terrorists.
• Internal & international tensions & upheavals can result
from energy-strategy inadequacies that threaten, create, or
perpetuate economic or environmental impoverishment.
The Challenge in Theory
Energy strategy must meet multiple aims
ECONOMIC AIMS
• reliably deliver fuel & electricity for basic human
needs, amenities, jobs, & economic growth
• limit costs of energy to firms & consumers
• limit cost & vulnerability from imported oil
• help provide energy basis for economic growth
in other countries (for markets, stability)
The multiple aims (continued)
ENVIRONMENTAL AIMS
• improve urban and regional air quality
• avoid nuclear-reactor accidents & waste-mgmt
mishaps
• limit impacts of energy development on fragile
ecosystems
• limit greenhouse-gas contribution to climatechange risks
The multiple aims (concluded)
POLITICAL AIMS
• minimize dangers of conflict over oil & gas and
vulnerability to foreign-policy blackmail
• avoid nuclear-weapons spread from nuclear energy
• avoid energy blunders that perpetuate or create
deprivation in other countries
• avoid imposing disproportionate energy burdens on
particular constituencies
• reduce vulnerability of energy systems to terrorist
attack
Why energy strategy is difficult
• The aims are often in tension with each other.
• It’s an initial-value problem, not an equilibrium
problem
– This means hardest part is not describing a system that
does better, but getting from here to there.
– And the “initial values” (and rates of change) now are
unfavorable for desired outcomes, especially in relation
to the problems of oil dependence and global climate
disruption from fossil-fuel use.
• There’s no technological silver bullet.
The Challenge in Practice
Where we’ve been
and where we’re headed
EJ/year
Growth of world population & prosperity over past
World Energy 1850-2000
150 years brought 20-fold increase in energy use
500
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Gas
Oil
Coal
Nuclear
Hydro +
Biomass
1850 1875 1900 1925 1950 1975 2000
Growth rate 1850-1950 was 1.45%/yr,
driven mainly by coal.
Year
From 1950-2000 it was 3.15%/yr, driven mainly by oil & natural gas.
Energy, economy, & CO2 in 2008
population
(millions)
ppp-GDP
(trillion $)
energy
(EJ)
fossil E
(percent)
fossil CO2
(MtC)
World
6692
69.7
545
82%
8390
China
1326
7.9
99
85%
1910
USA
304
14.2
105
86%
1670
Russia
142
2.3
30
91%
440
1140
3.4
29
64%
390
192
2.0
10
58%
100
India
Brazil
Where we’re headed: by 2030, energy +60% over
2005, electricity +75%, continued fossil dominance
Primary energy: recent history
& business-as-usual forecast
WEO 2007
Projected growth of oil use for road
transport in Asia is particularly large
WEO 2007
These oil demands are projected to be
met mainly by imports
WEO 2007
Coal use for electric power is projected to
grow rapidly
Coal-fired capacity, GWe, 2005 & USEIA projection
USA
China
India
World
2005
314
299
79
1214
2010
320
478
96
1451
2020
349
756
140
1849
2030
414
1034
173
2295
World coal-electric capacity goes up almost 1100 GWe by 2030,
and over 800 GWe of the increase is in China and India.
Source: US EIA, International Energy Outlook 2008
What’s problematic
about this future?
The problem is not “running out” of energy
Some mid-range estimates of world energy resources. Units are
terawatt-years (TWy). Current world energy use is ~17 TWy/year.
OIL & GAS, CONVENTIONAL
UNCONVENTIONAL OIL & GAS (excluding clathrates)
COAL
METHANE CLATHRATES
OIL SHALE
URANIUM in conventional reactors
...in breeder reactors
FUSION (if the technology succeeds)
1,000
2,000
5,000
20,000
30,000
2,000
2,000,000
250,000,000,000
RENEWABLE ENERGY (available energy per year)
sunlight on land
energy in the wind
energy stored by photosynthesis (net)
30,000
2,000
120
Nor is the problem running out of money
International Energy Agency, World Energy Outlook 2009
This is only ~1% of projected Gross World Product for the period, and only about 5% of
projected world investment. Could reach 15% of investment in developing countries.
Real problems: tensions among aims
• cost minimization vs.
modernization, increased robustness &
reliability, environmental improvements
• increased domestic fossil-fuel production (for
security & economy) vs.
protection of fragile ecosystems
• increased nuclear-energy production (for
greenhouse-gas abatement) vs.
reducing risks of accidents & terrorism
Real problems: the economic, political, &
security risks of fossil-fuel dependence
• Increasing dependence on imported oil & natural gas
means economic vulnerability, as well as international
tensions and potential for conflict over access & terms.
• Coal burning for electricity and industry and oil burning in
vehicles are main sources of severe urban and regional air
pollution – SOx, NOx, hydrocarbons, soot – with big impacts
on public health, acid precipitation.
• Emissions of CO2 from all fossil-fuel burning are largest
driver of global climate disruption, already associated with
increasing harm to human well-being and rapidly becoming
more severe.
Real problems: Alternatives to conventional
fossil fuels all have liabilities & limitations
• traditional biofuels (fuelwood, charcoal, crop wastes,
dung) create huge indoor air-pollution hazard
• industrial biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel) can take land from
forests & food production, increase food prices
• hydropower and wind are limited by availability of suitable
locations, conflicts over siting
• solar energy is costly and intermittent
• nuclear fission has large requirements for capital & highly
trained personnel, currently lacks agreed solutions for
radioactive waste & links to nuclear weaponry
• nuclear fusion doesn’t work yet
• coal-to-gas and coal-to-liquids to reduce oil & gas imports
doubles CO2 emissions per GJ of delivered fuel
• increasing end-use efficiency needs consumer education!
The two biggest energy challenges
• Reducing urban & regional air pollution and the
dangers of overdependence on oil despite growing
global demand from the transportation system
(which accounts for most oil use in USA &
elsewhere)
• Providing the affordable energy needed to create &
sustain prosperity everywhere without wrecking the
global climate with carbon dioxide emitted by
fossil-fuel burning
The oil challenge: supply & security
• USA in 2008 used 21 million barrels per day of oil,
importing 66% of it.
• Forecasts show US oil use rising to 28 Mb/d by
2030, with all of the increase coming from imports.
• World used 82 Mb/d in 2008, 63% of it traded
internationally.
• Consumption forecasted to rise from 82 Mb/d in
2008 to 120 Mb/d in 2030.
• China’s imports by 2030 expected to pass 12
Mb/d.
• It remains true that most of the world’s known &
suspected oil resources are in the Middle East.
USA is biggest guzzler, but Asia is growing
The Asia-Pacific region accounted for 30% of world oil consumption in 2005
The oil challenge: environment
• Most oil is used in transport vehicles, and these
are the largest sources of NOx and hydrocarbon
air pollution.
• The number of cars in the world is soaring,
producing increased congestion and even more
pollution.
• Combustion of petroleum fuels accounts for
about 40% of CO2 emissions from energy –
same as coal – and this is expected to continue.
Acid precipitation under BAU energy growth
Wet and dry reactive nitrogen deposition from the
atmosphere, early 1990s and projected for 2050
The climate-change challenge
• Global climate is changing rapidly and humans
are responsible for most of the change.
• CO2 emissions are the largest driver & 75-85%
of these come from combustion of fossil fuels
(the rest from deforestation).
• Fossil CO2 emissions are immense (~31 billion
tons/yr in 2008) & difficult to capture & store.
• The world’s 80%-fossil-fuel-dependent energy
system represents a $20+ trillion capital investment that takes 30-40 years to turn over.
• Avoiding biggest risks requires sharply reducing
CO2/energy ratio starting immediately.
The Earth is getting hotter
Green bars show 95%
confidence intervals
Green bars show 95%
confidence intervals
2005 was the hottest year on record;
2005
year
record;14
2007was
tied the
withhottest
1998 for
2ndon
hottest;
2009
2nd;all
2007
tied with
1998
for 3rd;
hottest
occurred
since
1990
15 hottest all occurred since 1990
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
We know why
Top panel shows best
estimates of human
& natural forcings
1880-2005.
Bottom panel shows
that state-of-the-art
climate model, fed
these forcings,
reproduces almost
perfectly the last
125 years of
observed
temperatures.
Source: Hansen et al.,
Science 308, 1431, 2005.
Harm is already occurring: US wildfires
Wildfires in the Western USA have increased 6-fold in the last 30 years.
Similar trends are evident in other fire-prone regions.
Western US area burned
Source: Westerling et al., SCIENCE, 2006
Harm is already occurring: pest outbreaks
Pine bark beetles, with a longer breeding season courtesy of warming,
devastate trees weakened by heat & drought in Colorado
USGCRP 2009
Harm is already occurring: Melting permafrost
Norwegian Polar Institute, 2009
Harm is already occurring: coastal erosion
Harm is already occurring widely
Worldwide we’re seeing, variously, increases in
• floods
• wildfires
• droughts
• heat waves
• pest outbreaks
• coral bleaching events
• power of typhoons & hurricanes
• geographic range of tropical pathogens
All plausibly linked to climate change by theory, models,
and observed “fingerprints”
Bigger impacts are in store under BAU
IPCC Scenarios
EU target ∆T ≤ 2ºC
Last time T was 2ºC
above 1900 level was
130,000 yr BP, with
sea level 4-6 m higher
than today.
Last time T was 3ºC
above 1900 level was
~30 million yr BP, with
sea level 20-30 m
higher than today.
Note: Shaded bands
denote 1 standard
deviation from mean
in ensembles of model
runs
IPCC 2007
What’s expected: Heat waves
Extreme heat waves in Europe, already 2X more frequent because of
global heating, will be “normal” in mid-range scenario by 2050
Black lines are
observed
temps,
smoothed &
unsmoothed;
red, blue, &
green lines are
Hadley Centre
simulations w
natural &
anthropogenic
forcing; yellow
is natural only.
Asterisk and
inset show 2003
heat wave that
killed 35,000.
Stott et al., Nature 432: 610-613 (2004)
What’s expected: declining crop yields
National Academies, Stabilization Targets, 2010
More harm is coming:
acidifying the oceans
About 1/3 of CO2 added to
atmosphere is quickly taken up
by the surface layer of the
oceans (top 80 meters).
This lowers pH as dissolution of
CO2 forms weak carbonic acid
(H2O + CO2  H2CO3).
Increased acidity lowers the
availability of CaCO3 to
organisms that use it for forming
their shells & skeletons,
including corals.
Steffen et al., 2004
What’s expected: Sea level could rise 12 meters by 2100, 3-12 m in the next few
hundred years, up to 70 m eventually.
What would 1-70 m of sealevel rise do to your region?
Courtesy Jeffrey Bielicki, Kennedy School of Government
What should we do?
What to do: Oil
• Improve & promote rail & other public transportation + land-use planning for shorter commutes.
• Strengthen vehicle fuel-economy standards
• Provide manufacturer & consumer incentives to
promote production & increased use of advanced
diesel & hybrid-electric vehicles.
• Accelerate development & deployment of nonpetroleum transportation-fuel alternatives.
• Build international cooperation to promote
alternatives to expanded oil use in all countries.
What to do: Climate change
There are only three options:
• Mitigation, meaning measures to reduce the pace
& magnitude of the changes in global climate being
caused by human activities.
• Adaptation, meaning measures to reduce the
adverse impacts on human well-being resulting
from the changes in climate that do occur.
• Suffering the adverse impacts that are not avoided
by either mitigation or adaptation.
Mitigation & adaptation are both essential
• No feasible amount of mitigation can stop climate
change in its tracks.
• Adaptation efforts are already taking place and
must be expanded.
• But adaptation becomes costlier & less effective
as the magnitude of climate changes grows.
• We need enough mitigation to avoid unmanageable climate change, enough adaptation to
manage the degree of change that’s unavoidable.
Adaptation possibilities include…
• Changing cropping patterns
• Developing heat-, drought-, and salt-resistant
crop varieties
• Strengthening public-health & environmentalengineering defenses against tropical diseases
• Building new water projects for flood control &
drought management
• Building dikes and storm-surge barriers against
sea-level rise
• Avoiding further development on flood plains &
near sea level
Some are “win-win”: They’d make sense in any case.
Mitigation possibilities
CERTAINLY
• Reduce emissions of greenhouse gases & soot
from the energy sector
• Reduce deforestation; increase reforestation &
afforestation
• Modify agricultural practices to reduce emissions
of greenhouse gases & build up soil carbon
CONCEIVABLY
• “Geo-engineering” to create cooling effects
offsetting greenhouse heating (white roofs...)
• “Scrub” greenhouse gases from the atmosphere
technologically
How much mitigation is enough?
• 550 ppmv CO2-e (50% chance of ΔTavg < 3⁰C)
looks unlikely to avoid unmanageable change
• 450 ppmv CO2-e (50% chance of ΔTavg < 2⁰C)
would be more prudent
• Achieving 450 ppmv requires that...
– global emissions level off by ~2020 and
decline thereafter to ~50% below 2000
emissions by 2050.
– emissions in USA & other industrial countries
level off by 2015 and decline thereafter to
~80% below 2000 emissions by 2050.
Mitigation costs & quantities for a 450 ppm track as of 2030
Costs and quantities: the fruit-tree metaphor
Need RD&D to lower
the fruit into reach
Need to remove
barriers to picking
this low-hanging fruit
Need C price to motivate
reaching higher into the tree
Thus, a comprehensive policy would…
• Remove barriers to wider use of mitigation & adaptation options that already make economic sense
• Use market-based mechanisms (preferred) & regulation (2nd-best) to value emissions reductions
• Fund & promote additional RD&D – especially thru
public-private-academic partnerships -- to bring
advanced, climate-friendly energy options into
economic reach; also research on adaptation.
• Pursue additional international agreements –
bilateral, multilateral, & global – on targets and
cooperation for mitigation and adaptation
What can energy RD&D bring?
• Improved batteries & fuel cells
• Cleaner, more fuel-efficient motor vehicles
• More energy-efficient commercial & residential
buildings and industrial processes
• Biofuels that don’t compete with food & forests
• Cheaper photovoltaic cells
• Improved coal technologies to make electricity &
hydrogen with CO2 capture & storage
• Advanced nuclear reactors with increased safety
and proliferation-resistant fuel cycles
The Obama administration’s strategy
• Promote recognition that this isn’t “energy &
climate policy versus the economy” but “energy
& climate policy for the economy”.
– costs of action to address climate will be far smaller
than costs of inaction
– we can reduce costly and risky oil imports and
dangerous air pollution with the same measures we
employ to reduce climate-disrupting emissions
– the surge of innovation we need in clean-energy
technologies and energy efficiency will create new
businesses & new jobs and help drive economic
recovery, growth, and global competitiveness.
The Administration’s strategy (continued)
ACTIONS TO DATE
• $80 billion for clean & efficient energy in ARRA
• creation of ARPA-E ($400M in 2009-10, $300M
proposed for 2011), energy-innovation hubs
• first-ever fuel-economy/CO2 tailpipe standards
• strengthened bilateral partnerships on energy &
climate change w China, India, Brazil, Russia…
• US Global Change Research Program increased to
$2.56 billion for FY2011 (19.4% real increase).
• Inter-agency task force led by OSTP, CEQ, NOAA on
coordination of government’s adaptation activities
The Administration’s strategy (continued)
GOING FORWARD
• Work with Congress to get energy & climate legislation that will
put the USA on the needed emissions trajectory with minimum
economic & social cost and maximum co-benefits.
– After November 2011 elections, this became more difficult.
• Work with other major emitting countries – industrialized &
developing – to build technology cooperation and individual &
joint climate policies consistent with “avoiding the
unmanageable”
• Develop adaptation strategies and capacities domestically and
internationally to “manage the unavoidable”.
For all these efforts, it helps to have a
President with vision!
“Astronomy for Kids on the White House Lawn”, October 7, 2009